He Shielded Her, So I Left the Club novel · Chapter 17 of 24

Chapter 17: The Complaint

I told Jared in the hall of the clubhouse, and I watched what it did to his face.

"Where?" he said.

"Her bar, I'd guess. Marlow's Landing."

He was already moving for his bike.

I caught his sleeve.

"Jared, stop. You can't go near her."

"She's got my daughter."

"She also has a story ready for the sheriff, and if you walk into that bar, you're the man who came after her."

He stood very still with his hand on the handlebar.

"I'll go," I said. "She'll open the door to me before she opens it to you."

"Why would she?"

"Because I'm the one she hates, and she'll want to watch me beg."

He looked at me for a long moment.

"Go," he said. "Take my truck. The keys are in it. Call me every ten minutes."

At Dot's house, Delilah's mother sat at the kitchen table with ice against her mouth.

Dot was holding her chin and looking at the cut with a flashlight.

"She'll need a stitch," Dot said. "She won't go."

"I'm not going anywhere till I have my granddaughter," the old woman said around the ice.

"What did Delilah say?"

"She said she's taking Hattie home, and nobody is going to put the child in a Slattery's lap, and she'd see the sheriff first." Her eyes filled. "I tried to take the child's hand, and she pushed me into the stove."

"Your own daughter."

"My own daughter," she said. "I raised her better. I didn't raise her this."

Dot put the flashlight down and slid her phone across the table to me.

"I did it again," she said. "Three nights in my guest room, Delilah talked to her mother with the door open. I left my phone on the dresser charging."

I looked at the red recording bar on the screen.

"Dot."

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