My Loving Family Paid to Destroy Me novel · Chapter 13 of 24

Chapter 13: Bail

I did not sign anything that morning, and I did not go home.

I stood in the jail lobby at six, with my mother's car keys in my fist, and I called my father.

He answered on the second ring.

"Nolan," he said. "Thank God. Trenton found your door open and your mother's car gone. We've been sick with worry."

I made my voice crack.

It was not hard.

"I woke up locked in, Dad."

Silence on the line.

"I heard the bolt. I thought I was back in the cellar. I ran, and I don't know where I'm going, and I ended up at her jail."

"Oh, son."

He sounded so tender that my stomach rolled.

"Trenton only locked it because you wander at night. He was afraid you'd hurt yourself."

"I know that now."

"Come home. We'll forget it."

"I will," I said. "But I can't sign anything with her in a cell. I keep hearing her breathe."

I let the next part come out ragged.

"Get her out on bail for me, Dad. Just until sentencing. I need to look at her free and hate her properly. Then I'll sign whatever you put in front of me."

My father said nothing for three whole seconds.

I counted every one.

"Friday," he said gently. "You sign on Friday."

"Friday."

"Then I'll have the lawyer call the judge."

I hung up and leaned my forehead against the cold wall.

My hands would not stop shaking.

Down the hall, a guard was watching me.

I called the detective next.

He picked up before the first ring finished.

"Nine messages," he said. "You've been avoiding me."

"I have nearly five minutes of my father ordering my death."

I heard him stand up.

"Good God. Bring it in."

"No. Listen first."

I told him all of it in under a minute, and he did not interrupt.

At the end he breathed out slowly.

"Mr. Thayer, a son's recording made in his own father's house is something Howard Thayer's lawyer will bury in a week. He'll say you were drugged and confused. He'll say Rudd was joking."

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