She Steps Out Of Betrayal's Shadow To Rebuild Her Broken Home novel · Chapter 15 of 24

Chapter 15: Over Her Head

Zachary Maddox woke at six to a deputy knocking on the gatehouse door.

Melinda was asleep on the narrow bed with her hair across his arm.

He eased out from under her and went to the door in his jeans.

The deputy held out a folded paper.

"Notice of a hearing," the deputy said. "Mr. Crane's lawyer is asking the court to bar you from the property and from Mrs. Crane. Monday, nine a.m."

"That's the same hearing."

"It's a different motion, sir."

The deputy walked back to his cruiser without looking at him.

Zachary read the paper standing in the cold.

Under the lawyer's name, it listed an assault he had committed in a hospital lobby eleven weeks ago, and a warrant had been issued for it on Thursday.

Thursday was the day Melinda took the microphone from Leland in front of sixty donors.

Leland had been collecting paper since the moment she woke.

He looked back through the doorway at her, one bare shoulder out of the blanket.

He had promised her. He had sat in the truck a few hours ago and said the word.

But Monday was in two days, and Bianca had a field recorder and a frightened heart, and he had spent eleven weeks watching that man smile.

He put on his boots as quietly as he could.

He left a note under the teakettle that said, Gone to see about the truck. Back by noon.

He had never been a good liar. He told himself it was only half of one.

The state police barracks on Route 9 had a flagpole, a vending machine and a trooper behind a glass window.

Zachary put the thumb drive on the counter.

"I want to report a crime," he said. "A woman was run off the road eleven weeks ago. It's on there."

The trooper looked at the drive, then at him.

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