Total pages in book: 158
Estimated words: 149641 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 748(@200wpm)___ 599(@250wpm)___ 499(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 149641 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 748(@200wpm)___ 599(@250wpm)___ 499(@300wpm)
“Ohhh, let me guess. That was Huisman.”
“It was. He encouraged me to follow them. On more than one occasion he discussed the fact that I was never going to play pro baseball, so why didn’t I take some business classes and learn how to run parts of the foundation for him. He and Deanna would be the brilliant doctors, and I would handle the business.”
“You would be the staff,” she corrected.
“I didn’t view it that way at the time, but now I wonder. I wouldn’t give up my place, and I remember Manny staring at me and saying so be it. I didn’t know what he meant at the time. I liked being away from home, being on my own. Deanna and I talked a couple of times a week, and things seemed to be going well. I kept up with Manny, too. He came up to see me and we would have a good time. And then I got the call.”
“Was it during your freshman year?”
He shook his head. “It was the start of junior year.”
“You stayed with her for two years?”
“I did, although we didn’t spend much time together. A couple of weekends here and there, a month during the summers, but the last time she’d avoided going home. She spent the summer at Manny’s. I thought they were hooking up, and honestly, I was okay with it. Her father had passed by that point. Suicide, although now I wonder.”
“So she had some tragedy happen every time you were pulling away? It sounds like a Huisman thing to do. Play on your empathy.” She frowned his way. “You’re surprised I believe you? Babe, I’ve seen what the man can do. It doesn’t surprise me at all. I wonder why he didn’t go after your parents, though.”
“He saved that for later.” Ben didn’t like to think about his parents. “It was after Deanna died and I declared war that he tried to hurt my parents. You should know they blame me. They were forced into hiding, but not before my father told me I wasn’t his son anymore. I don’t know why I told you that. I was talking about Deanna.”
“I’m willing to listen if you want to tell about them,” Maggie offered in a soft tone.
He shook his head. “No. Not now. Where was I?”
“She called you?” Maggie prompted.
He didn’t like to think about the day. “She begged me to come see her. I didn’t want to go but she cried and told me I owed her. So I went, but I was planning on ending things. She told me she’d been seeing Manny but it was all a huge mistake and she was scared of him now. She said she’d always loved me but Manny had manipulated her into a relationship.”
She took a long breath. “I’m so sorry that happened to her.”
“I didn’t know what to believe. I confronted Manny, who told me she was trying to cover up the fact that they’d been having an affair and he’d broken it off. He gave me evidence, and for a moment I was confused. He showed me text messages and pictures of them. I was angry.”
“Of course you were. He was running a psy-op on you. You get that, right?”
“I do now, but at the time it felt like betrayal. I got in my car. Which had been sitting in Manny’s garage for a day. I was leaving, and she got in before I could keep her out and my brakes failed.”
“Manny tried to kill you.” It didn’t seem like a question.
“I think he would have been happy if I’d been injured and he could step in and help. I’ve come to realize it was all to put me in a corner so I couldn’t leave him. But Deanna paid the price. She wasn’t wearing a seatbelt when we went over the side of the road. She died on the operating table. I still wonder if Manny didn’t have something to do with that, too.”
“It was not your fault.”
“I didn’t love her. I know Manny didn’t love her. She got in the middle of this fucked-up rivalry and she died.” He needed to say the words, needed for her to acknowledge the danger even though she’d already had a visceral example of how Manny could treat a woman. Especially a woman connected to Ben.
“I’m not Deanna. I’m trained and I have a team.”
It hadn’t helped. “And yet you almost died. He still got you on that table and experimented on you.”
“That wasn’t your fault either.” She shifted so she could look him in the eyes. “Ben, there’s a lot I need to tell you, but the most important thing is I’m not afraid of Emmanuel Huisman. That doesn’t mean I don’t take the threat seriously, but I’m not going to hide. I’m not going to let him ruin my life. I’m going to catch him. I hope you’ll work with me on that.”