Saved From Suicide, Sold Into a Lie novel · Chapter 17 of 24

Chapter 17: Hearing Day

Leanne's POV

Joanna waited until Connor had gone to the car before she said it.

We stood in the hospital car park under a yellow light, two sisters with the same chin.

"You look tired," she said.

"I work nights."

"You work for him." She turned her wrists over, red where the cuffs had been. "Five years, Leanne. Don't you ever want something that's yours?"

I said nothing.

"Dorian will give you the house back," she said. "Your father's house. He can buy it from the family that got it, and put your name on the deed. All you have to do is say Monday that I called you because I was frightened, and that you never told me how bad it was."

"You knew how bad it was."

"Say I didn't."

"I recorded it, Jo."

She flinched.

I had never seen her flinch.

"Then say you misunderstood," she said quickly. "Say you were hysterical. You were. He was on the floor, and you were screaming."

"I was."

"So you see."

"I see that you remember exactly how it sounded."

She stepped closer, and her voice dropped to the gentle one she had used on me when we were small.

"Listen to me, Leanne. He's grateful to you now. It won't last. Men don't marry the nurse. When he's well, he'll thank you and he'll look for somebody who didn't watch him throw up for five years."

It went in under my ribs.

It had been in there for years, and she knew exactly where.

I kept my face still.

"Goodnight, Joanna."

"You'll lose him anyway," she said to my back. "And you'll have lost me too."

I walked into the building without turning around.

On Monday the courtroom smelled of floor wax and old coffee.

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