AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Hunter moved closer and took her hand. She squeezed back and he could feel her shaking. “Come, sit down,” he said to her.
She took a few steps to the sofa and sat.
Nicholas stood in front of her. “I have some questions to ask you.”
“Okay,” she said.
“I’ll be recording this conversation.” Nicholas showed her a small recorder that was in his pocket.
She nodded again and he took out a clipboard to get started.
# # #
Vanessa stared at the back of Nicholas’s clipboard, trying not to let her eyes fill with tears. She should have expected this. Really, she was surprised Jeremy hadn’t resorted to this move years ago. But now that it was happening, she felt numb with fear. If these people didn’t believe her, they would take Opal. And there was nothing she could do to stop a government agency. She might lose Opal forever if they believed Jeremy over her.
“First of all, Vanessa, where is Opal?” Nicholas asked.
“She’s away right now. A little vacation with her teacher.”
“With her teacher?” He wrote something down on his clipboard and paused to look up at her. “Which teacher is this?”
“Her name is Mari Snyder. She’s Opal’s third grade teacher.”
“And where are they exactly?”
“At her family’s farm house.”
“The address?”
“I can’t give you that.” She had no choice but to lie and hope it didn’t turn out badly for her. She would not give out that address to anyone. There was far too much risk in it. What if Nicholas reported back to Jeremy or somehow Jeremy got the information?
“You don’t have the address?”
“I can’t give it to you. I’m sorry. You have to understand that my ex-husband was extremely abusive. We’ve been on the run from him. I have to take extreme measures to protect Opal.”
Nicholas scribbled on his clipboard. “Can you describe this abuse?”
“For the eight years I was married to him, he hit me, yelled at me, forced me to do things I didn’t want to do.”
“Such as?”
Vanessa felt her face go hot. Through gritted teeth, she said, “Sexual things.”
“Did you witness him abusing Opal?”
“Yes.”
“In what way?”
“He hit her,” she said. “She talked back to him, and he smacked her very hard across the face. She fell from the force. She had a bruise on her shoulder and cheek.”
“Did you seek any medical attention?”
“Yes, I took her to the hospital.”
Nicholas flipped through some papers. “I have the records here. According to this, at the time, the doctor suspected you were the one to hurt her.”
“I’m aware of that.”
