Never In Another Life novel · Chapter 11 of 24

Chapter 11: Hands Down

Kira's POV

I watched it twice.

The first time standing, with the bagels still in my hand.

The second time sitting on the edge of the motel bed, with Declan beside me, because my legs had stopped working.

On the screen a small boy in dinosaur pajamas went tumbling down the stairs, and a woman I had trusted for eight years stood at the top and watched.

I was in the video too.

I saw myself run in from the kitchen with a dish towel and check my own son's eyes with my thumbs.

I saw the face of the woman Margo pointed at.

"That's what she said to you," I said. "That's the minute."

"Yes."

I took the laptop off his knee and froze the picture on Margo's face, tipped up toward the lens.

He did not look at the screen.

He looked at me, waiting for the next thing I would take from him.

"Don't talk," I said. "Just sit there while I think."

I put the bag of bagels on the nightstand with great care.

I had wanted this proof for three years.

I had imagined it in a hundred shapes, a confession, a letter, a witness.

I had never imagined it would feel this much like grief.

"She's looking at the camera," I said.

"She knew it was there."

"And she did it anyway."

"She thought nobody could ever get it back. My mother thought so too. They both said it was off."

"Your mother watched it."

Declan's jaw tightened.

"I think so," he said. "I think she deleted it from her phone and told herself it was kinder."

"Kinder to who?"

"To the family."

I laughed.

It was not a good laugh.

"I'm not going to forgive you," I said. "I want that clear. Seeing this does not undo it."

"I'm not asking you to."

Keep reading free with an account. Start Never In Another Life from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.