Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 80176 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 401(@200wpm)___ 321(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80176 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 401(@200wpm)___ 321(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
So no, I wouldn’t be putting her in any more danger than I already was.
My plans were already set into place.
And she wasn’t a part of them.
Once I slipped my second boot on, I got up and walked out without another word.
I did stop once I made it out of her drive to call a contractor to come fix her roof, though. It wouldn’t do to have her living in a place that was dangerous. I couldn’t keep her safe from me by staying away and fix her house at the same time.
Time for plan B.
Chapter 16
I love how fresh my bathroom smells when I kill a spider with an entire bottle of Febreeze.
-Meme
Kennedy
The day after Evander walked out, I was literally broken.
I was standing outside of my sister’s hospital room, and I was looking in at my dad at her bedside, along with her three kids, my brother, as well as my brother-in-law.
They were all talking quietly around Trixie’s bedside, and I wondered if I should even bother going in.
They’d obviously been there for a while.
Food was on the table in the corner, and there were three beds made up at the back of the room.
The kids were all sitting on the bed in the corner of the room, all of them huddled onto one cot, staring at an iPad that the eldest boy, DJ, was holding.
DJ was the first one to see me standing there, and the moment he did, his eyes lit up.
“Aunt Kennedy!” He handed off the iPad to his sister, Lucy, who discarded it, too, and started running toward me.
I dropped to my knee in the hallway and opened my arm as two wiggly bodies hit me with all the force that an eight-and-a-half-year-old and a four-year-old could muster.
The last one to hit me was little Jaxon, and he wormed his way in between his brother and sister and put his sticky hands on my neck and offered me a kiss.
“Where have you been?”
That was DJ, and his tone of voice sounded accusatory.
“I was told that visiting hours started at eight. I would’ve been here earlier had I known that I could, bud.”
DJ looked into my eyes to gauge my sincerity.
“The doctors let us in here all night since mommy’s sick.”
My heart clenched.
“Are you okay, buddy?”
He nodded, but I could tell the only thing that was keeping him strong was the fact that his brother and sister were standing with us, rapt attention on his every word.
Not that the four-year-old, Lucy, or the three-year-old, Jaxon, really had any clue what was going on.
Likely, they never would.
One day, Trixie would be here and the next she wouldn’t, and they’d never understand what happened.
“I’m here now, buddy. Have y’all had something to eat?”
My eyes went to Darren, who was practically glaring at me.
“No, they haven’t had anything in a couple of hours.”
I looked at Trixie, who was in the bed lying deathly still. “Do you…do you want me to take them to the cafeteria for a while?”
Darren’s jaw clenched. “Yeah, that would be good.”
I bit my lip and nodded, then turned my head down to stare at Lucy. “Do you want to go to the cafeteria and see what yummy food we can find? I hear they have awesome cookies!”
I had her at the word ‘cookie’ and knew it.
She nodded enthusiastically.
The girl was a cookie monster.
“Cookie!” she agreed. “Jax, do you want a cookie?”
Jax would do anything his brother would do, so I looked at DJ and raised my brows. “You want to go?”
He looked at his mother who was still in the bed, her face bruised, and her hands and arms covered in gauze. “Yeah, that would be okay.”
I stood up from my kneeling position and held out my hand. “Let’s go.”
Jaxon and Lucy grabbed a hand, and DJ followed on the other side of Jack.
“You want to talk about it, buddy?”
DJ shook his head quickly, averting his eyes so that I couldn’t gauge his honesty.
My stomach tightened even more.
“Did you make it to baseball last night?” I asked him, hoping to change the subject.
“Dad asked if I wanted to go…but no. I didn’t. He was angry that I didn’t, said I had an obligation to the team. But I didn’t want to go.”
I clenched my jaw. That’d been why I’d never gotten the call to take him. Go figure. Who would’ve thought to call the person that was waiting for your call and tell them that you no longer needed them?
“Did someone call your teacher to tell her that you wouldn’t be there today?”
He shook his head. “No. Dad already got a call from the school for it, too. They said it would be an unexcused absence.”
I stopped in front of the elevators and pressed the up button, stopping and turning to face him. “How about we call when we get to the cafeteria. I’ll explain to them what’s going on, okay?”