Total pages in book: 108
Estimated words: 100853 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100853 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
“And you two never—” Hope asked, raising an eyebrow.
“No!” Harvey said in a shout. “Never. I never thought she would have, until—” He looked to Paige. “Until your father. And then—God, a part of me hated her when I suspected she’d found someone else. But I knew it could never be me. I just wanted her to be happy. All these years, thinking she’d run off with him, that the woman I loved had abandoned her sons, that she wasn’t the person I thought she was. He tarnished my memory of her when it was all I had. And then to learn that she never left you,” he said, his eyes on Griffen and then me, his voice breaking. “She didn’t leave. He took her. He took her from us. Didn’t even give her a proper burial. All these years she’s been here, and he laughed, he fucking laughed. And I killed him for it.” His eyes locked on mine. “I’m sorry, Ford. I’m so sorry.”
I nodded, not sure I knew what to feel. I had my answers. It should have been satisfying to know that Harvey was the one who’d shot Prentice, but the why of it rocked my reality. He’d avenged my mother out of love, but then had let me hang for it. Was I angry, given how much I’d realized about atoning for my other sins? I wasn’t sure I was. I might be weirdly grateful to Harvey for what he’d done.
“You should have kept your mouth shut, Harvey,” Edgar growled. “We got this one out of prison,” he said, tilting his head in my direction. “Everything was fine.”
“Cole Haywood got me out of prison,” I reminded him. “Not you. And he only did it so he’d have an easier shot at killing me.”
Edgar ignored me, focused on Harvey. “Now they’re going to call West, and you’ll go to jail. For what? It’s not going to bring Prentice back. It can’t do anything for Sarah or Paul.”
Harvey just shook his head, his eyes glued on the hole in the garage floor, weeping silently.
I should have been filled with rage. This man had killed my father and, with his silence, had sent me to prison. And yet, watching his grief, feeling my own at the sight of the bodies beneath the concrete, vengeance on Harvey was the last thing on my mind.
I wrapped my arms around Paige, rocking her.
“They weren’t going to leave us,” she said into my shirt.
I tightened my arms, my throat thick with tears I couldn’t shed. My mother hadn’t left us. There’d been no abandonment. She hadn’t run off to Belize with her lover. She’d been murdered by my father.
My eyes lifted to Harvey again, his grief etched into his face, and I understood. Not the part about letting me rot in prison, but shooting Prentice? Yeah, I got that. I could picture it in my head: Prentice’s callous laughter as Harvey’s heart shattered. He’d spent decades following my father’s orders, even when it pinched his conscience, only to find out the woman he’d loved, the woman he’d spent years disappointed in, had her life stolen.
I understood.
“We need to call West,” Griffen said, his eyes locked on Edgar.
“No,” Edgar said. “You’ll destroy your father’s legacy and make a spectacle of your family. You could bring down Sawyer Enterprises.”
“Does it always come down to business, Uncle Edgar?” Hope asked quietly.
Edgar leveled his gaze on Hope, his eyes going soft. “Not always. You know that.”
“Is this what you had on Prentice? Is this how you got him to change his will?” Hope asked quietly.
I wasn’t sure I understood the question, but I saw that Edgar and Griffen did.
“Using the secret brought some good in the world, Hope,” Edgar answered, and Hope nodded, closing her eyes for a long moment as Griffen pulled her close, murmuring something in her ear.
They’d gotten married the day Prentice’s will was read. I knew Griffen had come to town planning to turn right around and leave. Instead, he’d married Hope. Because of something in the will? Something Edgar had strong-armed Prentice into adding?
“That doesn’t make it right, and you know it,” Hope chastised.
“No more cover-ups,” I said, the words rough as I forced them through my tight throat. I cleared it and said it again. “We’re done with that. They deserve a proper burial.”
As I said the words, Paige jerked in my arms, a sob tearing through her. I held her closer, rocking her from side to side.
“We’ll take care of it,” I whispered to her. “We’ll put them together, somewhere we can see them.”
She nodded against my chest. “They didn’t leave us. I’ve been so angry, but they weren’t going to leave. They gave up what they wanted most.” Another sob wrenched her. “And he killed them anyway,” she choked out. “He deserved what Harvey did.”