He Let Me Crash on Christmas Eve, So I Took Our Daughter novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: Nate's Last Text

Nate's POV

At three in the morning the hospital parking garage was empty except for my truck and a security cart.

I had been sitting there for four hours with the engine off.

I couldn't go home, because the house was a set of bare floors and one dining table with a ring on it.

I couldn't go to the Pilkingtons', because Kendra's mother had made up a guest room for me and I'd stopped being able to look at it.

I had my forehead on the steering wheel when someone rapped on the window.

My mother stood outside in her coat and slippers, holding two paper cups.

"Open the door," she said. "I'm not climbing in the back."

I unlocked it.

She got in, handed me a cup of vending machine coffee, and held out her other hand.

"Keys."

"Mom, I'm not going anywhere."

"Then you won't miss them."

I gave her the keys.

She dropped them in her purse and zipped it.

"Why are you here?" I asked.

"Because Lorna told me you'd be." She took her glasses off the cord and put them on. "I've got something to show you, and you're going to look at all of it."

She woke her phone and handed it to me.

The first photo was a car I almost didn't know.

The back door on the driver's side was folded into the seat.

A lamppost had left a long gray dent in the frame.

The windshield was a white web, and a stain went across the airbag.

"That's from the tow yard," my mother said. "Lorna took it the morning after."

The second picture was Susannah in the recovery bed.

Her cheek was cut and her forearm was black with bruises.

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