Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 71226 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 356(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 237(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71226 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 356(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 237(@300wpm)
Sage spoke about her evening, what had led her to that coffee shop, then leaving the coffee shop when Nadine had arrived.
“You speak of Nadine like you didn’t like her,” the prosecutor accused her.
Sage crossed her arms over her chest.
It pushed her breasts up in the dress she was wearing.
Which I’d thought to be completely demure until that moment.
The prosecutor and one of the jury members noticed as well, their eyes zoomed in on her cleavage.
“I didn’t like her,” Sage interrupted my feast of her breasts. “She was an awful teacher. She pushed her ideals on you. She got mad when you didn’t think the same way that she did. She got angry when we said something that contradicted her. Then she graded us so harshly that most of the class had to either drop it or take a failing grade.”
“And you didn’t drop her class?”
“No,” she said. “I’ve been very good about pretending my entire life. What was a summer course, when I spent the majority of my life pretending that I was happy when I wasn’t?”
Her words made my stomach clench.
“And do you think that it was understandable that Nadine Woolsy wouldn’t want a violent man having time with her child?”
“I think that she didn’t know him at all, and that it only made her sound even more disillusioned. I’ve never gotten anything but calm vibes from Gen—Ramsey.”
“What happened after you left the coffee shop?” the prosecutor directed her.
“I headed to where my car was parked. When I got to the parking lot, Mario O’Neal was there and directed me to get in the car.”
The next five minutes we listened to her recount what had happened in those minutes when she’d left the coffee shop and when I’d gotten there.
Even hearing about it, for the fourth time, didn’t dim the rage that ignited in my chest at the thought of anyone hurting her.
Or any woman, for that matter.
“After Mario was tossed to the ground and you got out of the vehicle, then what happened?” the prosecutor pushed.
“Then Ramsey held me until the cops arrived,” she said.
“He didn’t try to hurt Mr. O’Neal?”
“He didn’t try to hurt either one, no,” she confirmed.
“Hmm,” the prosecutor drawled. “Is that right?”
A loud bark snapped me out of my head, and I looked over to see Neo standing in the stream looking at me.
I got up and shook out my legs. “You ready to go back now?”
He didn’t exactly confirm, but he did climb out of the stream.
I started running back toward the house, keeping my gaze on the ground as I moved.
Loose rocks and debris might trip me up, but there were several rattlesnakes out searching for the last rays of heat in the day.
It would be just my luck that I’d step on one.
Eleven
True crime detective, couch division.
—Sage’s secret thoughts
Sage
I watched Gentry run out of the gate, leaving it open. He didn’t run out slowly, either. He ran out of the gate like he had something to escape.
I watched some more as Neo stared at the open gate, then at the man that’d just run out of it, then at the gate some more.
It took him only a few seconds to decide what to do, but eventually he took off behind Gentry, catching up easily.
The doorbell rang again, and I glared at it over my shoulder, pissed that she was ruining this moment for me.
I was so proud of Neo.
He’d gone through so much, and every day he faced new and terrifying things on his road to recovery.
The doorbell rang again.
This impatient bitch.
“I was having a fucking moment!” I grumbled loud enough that the woman probably heard the curse but didn’t know exactly what was said. “Not to mention, this is the fourth time you’ve rang that bell. If he was going to answer, he would have.”
The doorbell rang again, and I understood now why Gentry would rather leave than answer the door.
Not to mention, he did have a gate and a very long driveway.
It would be a deterrent to any other person.
Apparently not to his ‘favorite’ receptionist.
Looking down at myself, I took in what I was wearing.
Cutoff sweats that had seen so many things, a ratty t-shirt that wasn’t any better than the holey sweats, and socks that covered the space from where I’d cut off my sweats down to my feet.
It was not an attractive look.
I looked to the side and spotted a long-sleeved flannel thrown haphazardly over the back of a kitchen chair, partially dragging on the floor.
Snatching it up, I threw it on over my shirt, buttoned it up halfway, then shimmied out of my sweatpants.
Kicking them off to the side of the kitchen, near where I assumed was the laundry room, I walked to the door in my mostly white socks.
The doorbell sounded again just as my hand met the knob, causing me to yank it open and glare. “Can I help you?”