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“Walker can’t find a reason her ex would want that property. I’m thinking he was fucking with her.”
“Or it was a distraction to keep her eyes off something else.”
I lean on the beam running down the window. “Walker is looking wide and coming up dry.”
“And yet Kenneth is dead and Abbie and the shelter are at the core of this.”
“We can’t necessarily connect those dots,” I argue. “Kenneth was a bastard with a list of enemies, Jean Claude included. And as for the red wig, Abbie was his ex. She’s an easy target to place blame.”
“I wouldn’t put that or anything above Jean Claude. She was on his radar and that is not a place to be. Ever.”
The door opens and Abbie enters again, shutting it behind her, her face pale. “Jean Claude just tried to call me. He wants to make an offer on the animal shelter.”
Chapter seventy-eight
Abbie
“I’m done with this, Gabe,” I say, leaning against my office door. “I just want to save you and my mom, and then get back to saving cute fluffy animals any way I can.” I look at Reid, who I know needs to know I’m worth hiring. “And winning legal battles against jerks like Jean Claude.”
“Fuck the assholes,” Reid says. “No. That’s my job. Save the animals. It’s a hell of lot more fun and it’s a tax write-off for us.”
I swear in this moment, as silly as it is, I want to tear up. Because I know Gabe hasn’t had time to talk to him about this but he replied just like Gabe. “All the more reason for me to call my mother, give her the heads up, and then take whatever Jean Claude offers. She feels like she has a lead on a new place anyway.”
“Jean Claude wasn’t calling you, Abbie,” Reid says. “He was using you to get to me.”
I blanch. “What? Why? I’m confused.”
“He knows things about Jean Claude,” Gabe says.
“In other words,” Reid explains, “anything he can use to control me, he uses. In this case, the shelter, and my brother’s love life.”
My throat restricts. “Translation. He’s using me to hurt you.”
“Don’t answer that, Reid,” Gabe says tightly, his jaw set hard. “I will. Just not now.”
“Now is fine,” Reid says, walking to the door. “I’ll leave you two to fight. I know that’s how Carrie prefers we do battle. And I’ll leave Jean Claude a message. He won’t immediately take my call. That’s how he operates. It may be tomorrow before he calls back. Come see me when you can, Gabe.” In other words, alone, without me. He doesn’t wait for a reply. He opens the door and leaves, shutting us back inside.
The minute it shuts, Gabe cages me against it, his hands on my waist, legs bracketing my legs. “I’ve asked myself over and over why you turn yourself into the monster in the room. After today, I get it. I know why. Because your prick of an ex turned you into that monster. He made you take the blame for everything. He conditioned you to believe that everything was your fault. So you run, to save everyone from yourself. I’m not him. So yes, you were right. You’re being used. Your ex, my father, Jean Claude—all pieces of shit—use people as weapons. We don’t blame ourselves for their actions. We blame ourselves for our own actions, and blaming ourselves is an action, Abbie.”
I’m stunned into silence. He’s right. Kenneth messed with my head, my self-esteem. My self-worth. I do blame me all the time.
“We won’t let them use us, Abbie, but they did us a favor. We found each other. We found Dexter.”
My heart swells with those words. “I don’t want them to take you, or Dexter, away.”
“You underestimate me if you think anyone is taking me from you or you from me. He inhales and presses his hands to the wall on either side of me, lifting his body from mine. “What I wantyou to remember, Abbie,” he adds, his voice low, rough, “is that I don’t hurt people just to hurt them but when someone tries to hurt me or someone I love, I draw blood. That’s who I am. That’swhatI am.”
“One day you will stop talking in code and hiding who you are.”
“I just told you who I am.”
“Is that what that was?”
“You want more?”
“KM, Gabe. Every time you make a statement like the one you just made, she’s in the room.”
“Kendall was my past, Abbie. She’s nothing. Now, stop blaming yourself. That’s an order.”
