Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 70516 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70516 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
When he got close, he yelled at her, and she stopped walking and moved toward the side of the SUV.
She got inside, and the SUV slowly disappeared down the road.
“I feel like I’m making a mistake,” I said to the woman who came up to my side.
“Or you’re finally thinking about yourself,” Eddy pointed out. “Your sister made her own decisions. She might not have been adult enough to make the first few that started this off, but she was well past adulthood when she made the one that sent you to prison. Do I feel sorry for her? Yes. But I also feel sorry for you. If she’d tried to keep you out of prison, maybe the two of you could’ve disappeared. Maybe you could’ve watched your daughter grow up. Maybe your sister wouldn’t be fighting for her life right now.”
My stomach clenched.
“She’s right, Dad,” Boston said, leaning into the other side of me as she stared at the snow that was slowly starting to cover the walkways and drive. “And I think your friend will have no problem helping her out. He got you out, didn’t he?”
She had a point.
“Speaking of your friend that gets you out of a mess of trouble,” I heard Apollo say. “Audrey Stanley and her father, Andrews Stanley, were arrested today by Gentry and his county SWAT team. As of right now, they’ve found enough that’ll put her away for sixty years. Plus, if I had to guess, she’ll be more than willing to talk when she finds out that the information she has on her computer is a death sentence in some states.”
“Good.” I turned. “Where are we at with the hit?”
“There’s not one anymore.” Apollo closed his laptop, stood up, and stretched his arms high over his head. “I defunded the account, deleted the hit, and then deleted the information from the phone of the one stupid ass man that was dumb enough to take a hit for two grand. I also sent his info over to Gentry, so he’s going to pick him up next.”
I blew out a breath.
“So I’m thinking we should have pizza,” Boston said into the silence that followed his words. “Maybe watch a movie.”
“What about Wild America?” Eddy suggested.
I whipped my head around to look at her in shock.
“Doesn’t that movie have a bear attack in it?” I asked, trying to remember back to when I’d watched it for the first time.
“A woman that survives one, yes,” Eddy admitted. “But it feels somewhat perfect for the situation.”
“What’s it about?” Boston asked.
“Three brothers going across America making a movie, if I remember correctly,” I recalled.
My daughter, the perfect kid anyone could ever ask for, nodded her head in agreement.
“I’m down.” Denver took a seat. “The rest of you, make a list of the pizza you want. I’ll have Boone pick it up on the way over.”
Nettie nearly choked, having been surprisingly quiet until now.
Denver looked at her. “You and him are going to have to get over this eventually.”
“I’ll rot in the pits of hell first.”
Denver just shook his head. “Jesus Christ.”
Twenty-Three
That feeling of relief when you thought you ran over an animal and it turns out to be a person…
—Eddy to Nettie
Eddy
Weaver’s phone rang in the middle of the night almost a week later, and he groaned. “Hello?”
There was a shift and a tug on the sheet that was covering me, and then he was sitting up, swinging his legs over the bed. “I’ll be there in about thirty minutes. It’s going to take me a bit, because I have to go to the office and get the truck.”
Silence, and then Weaver stood up from the bed, groaning as he did.
We’d only gone to sleep an hour ago.
Boston and Weaver had taken it upon themselves to catch up for lost time and spend every available second together watching TV, eating copious amounts of food, laughing and chattering.
When she wasn’t eating, sleeping, or talking with her father, she was bouncing a ball around in the house.
It didn’t bother me.
It did, however, drive Weaver insane.
“I forgot how annoying it is,” he’d said to me as he came to bed just an hour ago.
“I saw an ad for one of those silent balls that makes no noise when you bounce it,” I’d said. “Maybe we could order one?”
“It’s not the same,” he’d admitted. “The weight’s different. It’d be a cool present, but she’d just go back to that old ball. I can’t believe she even found it. I had Dad ship it to me because it was one of her older ones and she wouldn’t notice it missing. But it’s like she’s laser-focused wherever there’s a soccer ball concerned.”
Now, after just getting into bed, he was getting out of it.
“Sleep,” he urged as he saw me shift under the covers. “I’m going to head out. I probably won’t be long, but it still takes time to get to the office, get the truck, and get back.”