AllFreeNovel
Share Us
An unspoken reality saturates the air around us. Of course he wonders, especially when she hung herself. Did her guilt come into play there? Not just fear? The burden was too much.
“Jake,” I say, low, pointedly. “Do you want me to tell you who my source is?” It might clear that up for him. I swallow hard and gently press my hand against my stomach.
You’ve got this. You won’t throw up.
He has to steel himself. “Yes,” he says, but it’s weak. He’s not sure he wants to know.
I tell him anyway. “Meaghan Slaughter, the other driver. She came to us with her side of the story, and she told me Rose was in the driver seat that night.”
My words are like a punch to his chest. All he can do is nod.
“Want me to tell you more?”
He thinks about it. Nods again.
I swallow again. “She said the car you were in hit hers. She also said she saw Rose call someone, so she thought she’d called the police. But that wasn’t who showed.” Not until later. A passerby probably called them, Meaghan thinks, because right as the drugs Ruby had given her started to take her under, she remembers blue lights flashing and Ruby cussing.
“My parents and Ruby,” he offers.
“Yes. She saw your Dad pull you from the passenger side, and then Conner from the back, who was obviously…”
He gets my meaning. I don’t have to say the word—dead.
“While your dad was doing that, Ruby assessed Meaghan. Then shot something into her between her fingers with a needle.”
I give him a moment for that one. His eyes snap up and pierce mine.
I give him a consoling look. I’m sorry your family is so evil.
“When you say shot…?”
He needs confirmation on what I’m saying.
I take a deep breath. Press my hand against my stomach a little harder. “Her bloodwork in the hospital came back that she was on opiates.”
“So Ruby, she—”
“That’s what Meaghan is claiming. And she had no prior history up until that point.” At least, not that I could find. “They did it so they could blame the wreck on her. They arrested her a couple weeks later.”
Jake looks like he wants to puke now too, and honestly, it’s a relief. All of it. He didn’t know this entire time what they’d done to this girl. That they’d intentionally ruined her life to save theirs.
Thank God.
“But there’s also something else,” I say softly. Like he might break if I talk any louder.
He might.
But he also doesn’t stop me from continuing. “The police report doesn’t have you on there.”
This time, he doesn’t seem surprised. I guess he’s numb to whatever else I tell him now.
“It’s like you weren’t there at all.”
“I was definitely there,” he confirms. “I even remember the officer getting there and talking to Dad.” The officer who apparently lied on the report. Did they pay him off? Threaten him? “It took him a while to get there…I think. But he let Dad take me home.” He carefully sifts through what details he can remember. “And Meaghan definitely didn’t hit us; we hit her. I know that because I remember seeing our car in her lane when I first came to.”
Something he wasn’t ever allowed to question. Speak about.
I sigh with both condolences and relief. I can add all of this to the article and show how the police report doesn’t match what Jake and Meaghan both say happened.
