There are a lot of visitors. More than I thought anyone in jail would receive.
A lot of attorneys. A lot of detectives. A lot of PIs.
Someone here isn’t an innocent party. How are we supposed to narrow it down? I can see now why Shelby had a hard time.
“Maybe a law firm is behind it,” I drawl.
“Well, there are way too many law firms represented here….” Miles pushes a few papers around. “Do you think we’ll find Roslyn?”
“Not if she disappeared a month ago.”
“Really?”
“That’s a long time to not hear from somebody.”
Miles gets quiet. I don’t know why he keeps thinking about her, but it’s obvious to me he’s been worried about the girl since we spoke to Kimmy and Nash in Noimore. Then again, he’s a good guy. Good guys concern themselves with the safety of others.
“Can you check on Jayden, Lacy, and Shannon?” Miles asks, his gaze fixed to the pictures. “They should be heading to bed soon.”
I glance over at the clock. 10:00 p.m. Fuck. That’s later than I thought.
With a strong exhale, I exit our bedroom and wander to the guest room. Jayden sits, alone, on one of the twin beds. He’s watching something on a little tablet, and I leave him be. He’s almost a grown-ass adult—he can make his own decisions.
Lacy and Shannon, on the other hand, are glued at the hip and practically living in that tent outside. I suppose I would too, if I were a preteen girl forced to share a room with Jayden. Hell, I might do it now, as a grown man.
I slide open the back door and catch the girls talking.
“—and then that’s when I scuffed up my knee,” Shannon says.
“I broke my arm once,” Lacy replies. “When I fell off the monkey bars at school.”
“Hey, do you like going to school? Is it fun? I haven’t been in over a year. I miss it.”
“Of course. I have friends, and clubs, and excellent teachers.”
“Must be nice.”
“Why aren’t you in school?” Lacy asks.
I walk up to the tent—my socks making little noise across the cement of the patio—and neither girl stops their conversation. Do they even know I’m here? I doubt it.
Shannon sighs. “My grandmother can’t drive me.”
“You could take the bus.”
“She thinks the other kids will bully me because my parents are in jail.”
The silence that follows stills my voice. A piece of me wants to know how Lacy will respond. She’s so prim and proper—I wouldn’t be surprised to hear her mock the other girl right now.
“If I tell you something, will you keep it a secret?” Lacy murmurs, so quiet I almost miss it.
“Yeah, of course.”
“My father went to jail. More than once.” There’s a pause, but Lacy continues, “Some people made fun of me for it, but not much. If you want, we could pretend to be cousins, and I’ll tell people your parents are fine. They don’t have to know. It’s none of their business anyway.”
“Really? But….” Shannon fixes her breathing and clears her throat. “But you don’t think I’m a bad person?”
“Never. It’s not your fault they went to jail.”
I step away from the tent, confused and uncertain. That’s not where I thought that conversation would go. Instead of revealing my presence, I return to the house and shut the back door. I don’t mind if the girls stay up. It sounds like they should keep talking.
And for the second time in one day, I’m reminded of Miles’s terrible father. I’m surprised Lacy brought it up, especially when she sounded embarrassed by the fact. Perhaps she’s more like Miles than I thought—maybe I give her too much of a hard time. I respect her more for helping Shannon cope.
I enter the bedroom to find Miles poring over the pictures. He’s written out his own list and keeps referring to it as he works. He doesn’t even acknowledge my presence as I amble over to the opposite side of the bed.
“Shannon thinks she’s a bad person because her parents are in jail,” I say aloud, confident the girls outside can’t hear me if I use a normal tone. “That’s an odd thought.”
“Not so odd,” Miles answers in an absentminded manner.
“Why do you say that? She’s not the one sitting behind bars.”
“Maybe it’s genetic.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I mean, the apple never falls far from the tree, right?”
I force out a single laugh. “You don’t think that.”
Miles stops what he’s doing and gives me his full attention. For a moment he says nothing, and I stare into his dark eyes to see a world of emotion I didn’t know I was touching upon.
“You honestly think you’re like your father?” I ask him, trying to hold back the sarcastic laugh. Miles is ten times the man anyone in his family is. How could he possibly doubt? If anyone should be doubting, it should be me—the one with a hard record.
“I don’t know,” Miles mutters, breaking eye contact with me and staring at the floor. “But sometimes I think I’m… I don’t know. I mean, even after everything you told me about Jeremy, I still…. Well, I enjoyed it, but that’s the part that worries me. I felt like I hurt you, at some level, and I liked it. Maybe that’s the piece of me I got from my father, ya know?”
What is he even talking about? Is he referring to the other night, on his birthday? He’s worried that he’s treating me like Jeremy and that playing the top is somehow him enjoying hurting others? What kind of bullshit logic is this?
“You’re nothing like your father,” I state. “Don’t worry about it.”
“I don’t think it’s that easy.”
I wave away the comment. “Well I think it is that easy,” I say, my voice heated. “So if you have to listen to someone, listen to me. I’ve seen a lot
