Mom Abandoned Me to Save Herself novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: Terms

"I ate it," I said. "Remember?"

He laughed. It was a nice laugh. That was the worst part.

"Clem told me you were at the bottom of a ravine. So I'll assume you lied to me too."

"I was seven. You made me open my mouth."

"And you had nothing in it. Clever girl." His voice didn't change at all. "Whatever you think that paper is, it's mine. I'll give you a week to put it in my hand. After that I stop asking."

"You burned a diner with an old man asleep in it."

"I burned a diner. The old man's luck is his own business."

"Come up the mountain and get it yourself," I said. "You know the road."

I hung up.

My hand was shaking. I put the phone face down on the counter.

Alastair was in the kitchen doorway. I didn't know how long he'd been there.

"That was him," he said.

"That was him."

"What paper?"

I looked at him for a long time.

He'd had a man on my road for a week.

He'd pulled a girl out of the rain and given her his coat.

His father had taken Kesterson money for twenty years.

"Not yet," I said.

His jaw moved. He nodded.

"Fair."

He went to the stove and put the kettle on.

It didn't settle anything for me.

"Twenty years," I said.

He kept his back to me.

"Twenty years of envelopes. Every month. How many trucks went through your pumps with a girl chained up in back?"

"I don't know."

"Guess."

"I don't know, Jessamine." He turned around. "I've been through every fuel log at every stop since I found out. I can count trucks. I can't count what was inside them."

"You can count. You just don't want the number."

"Don't tell me what I want."

"Then tell me what you're doing about it. Besides lending me six men and feeling sorry."

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