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“Calliope.”
“I need a minute.” She shrugs out of my grasp and stalks toward her bedroom.
The monster on the couch gives a shrug and a clownish smile. “Take all night. I have nowhere to be.”
The gleeful satisfaction in her voice turns my stomach. I wish she would’ve shown up when Calli wasn’t home. I could’ve planted her in the graveyard with her dead boyfriend and spared Calli from ever knowing.
When Calli emerges a minute later, her expression is impassive. Strength and determination show in her posture. Spine straight, shoulders back and her chin held up. She’s made a decision.
She lays some cash on the coffee table in front of her mother, who leans over and scoops it up instantly. She looks up with a sneer. “Five hundred dollars?”
“That’s all the cash I have on hand, but I’ll get more.”
“Calli…no.” She holds her hand up at my intrusion and looks me in the eye. The coldness there is disturbing, but I let her finish. I’m not sure what her plan is or what we should do, but letting this bitch control us isn’t the answer. Hopefully, she’s stalling for time or has an idea to relay to me later.
She regards her mother with the same distanced demeanor. “You win, but I don’t have the money you think I do. I spent it, vacations…buying this place.” Her mother’s eyes narrow and she starts to speak but Calli cuts her off. “But I have enough to buy you a house and a car. I can send you five thousand dollars a month, every month.”
They stare at each other, neither breaking eye contact for a good minute. The air is stuffed with tension. “Of course you blew most of the money, stupid bitch,” her mother says with a chuckle.
Calli doesn’t blink an eye. “The choice is yours now. You can call the cops, have us arrested, and my money can keep our commissary accounts full. You can go back to scrounging for food and shelter. Or you can have more than enough money to live on and leave us alone. If you ever show up again to bother me or Arlow or anyone I care about, the deal is off.”
After a few tense seconds, Mallory tucks the cash in her pocket. “Don’t use the account number Carl left. You can pay me in cash.”
“Fine, but that’s more than I can withdraw from an ATM. It’ll take a couple of days for me to deal with the bank. In the meantime, I’ll take you to an ATM and pull out five hundred more for now. You can stay in a hotel until we find you a house.”
Mallory gets to her feet. “Let’s go.”
“There’s something I need to know before we leave,” Calli says, and suspicion furrows Mallory’s brow as she waits.
Calli looks her in the eye. “Did you watch him choke me? In the woods that night, if you were there, you must’ve seen what he was doing.”
For the first time, Mallory seems to falter and weighs her words after a long pause. “He wasn’t going to kill you. I wouldn’t have let him kill you.”
I’m not sure what Calli expected to hear. Her stony expression gives nothing away as she nods and picks up her car keys.
“You aren’t leaving here with her,” I exclaim, grabbing Calli’s arm as they start toward the door.
“Ride with us or follow in your truck, but I’m going.” She jerks out of my grasp and opens the front door, stepping outside.Of course I’m going. Once she gives this bitch some money and drops her at a hotel, we’re going to have to figure out what to do because this is not the answer. “Lock the door,” she orders, thrusting the keys at me.
Mallory is a step or two ahead of her as they exit the porch into the yard. My back is turned for a few seconds to lock the door when a shot rings out.
Time stutters and slows. My heart thumps like a bass drum in my ears. It feels like it takes an eternity for me to turn and look for her.
Calliope.
It’s dark, but the motion light has blinked on, illuminating the scene and glinting off the gun still held in a shaking hand. Calliope’s hand.
She looks down at the body of her mother slumped a few feet in front of her, then back at me. Wide blue eyes washed to silver under the bright light find mine as she says, “We’re going to need more bushes.”
CHAPTER 36
ARLOW
Everything happened so fastthat it takes me a second to catch up. Thirty minutes ago, I was teasing her about birdseed. This was all supposed to be behind us. It’s been over four months. My brain finally kicks my ass into gear. I have to take care of this. I need to take care of her.
Calli stands over her mother’s body, staring at it like she may get up again. Judging by the amount of blood pooling around her head, that’s not going to happen. Calli isn’t crying, just frozen. In shock.
Her head jerks in my direction when I wrap my hand around the gun. “Let go. I’ve got it,” I say softly.
