Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 69577 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 348(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69577 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 348(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
“Shit, sorry,” he said as he put me down. “I forgot that you were sore from yesterday.”
“S’okay.” I smiled, trying to ease the worry I could see in his face. “Just really sore today.”
And bruised, but he didn’t need to know that.
The entire right side of my body was black and blue from where I’d collided with the front of his truck.
I even had some bruising on my left side from where I’d fallen over and hit the concrete.
Literally, my entire body was one bruise right now.
I may be walking around normally, but I felt it with each step that I took.
I smoothed my features over and said, “I just don’t think I need to go in.”
“You’re coming in.” He left no room for argument with his words, but his hand on my own as he dragged me along the walkway that I’d once played on as a kid forced me to come with him.
I passed the spot where my dad and I used to build snowmen every year.
I purposefully ignored the bushes that I used to hide behind and try to scare my dad as he left for work.
The step that always used to lean slightly to the left, however, had me in a chokehold as he forced me to climb them.
On the other side of that still leaning board would be the name Birdee Lee Calvert carved into it.
I purposefully skipped that step as he forced me to climb.
He pulled a set of keys from his pocket and unlocked the door, pushing it open wide as he held the storm door open for me to enter.
I did, keeping my eyes fastened on the wall in front of me.
This place held my best and worst memories, and Creed had no clue.
“I’ll be right back,” he said as he disappeared around the corner into the master suite. “Make yourself at home.”
I kept my eyes transfixed on the wall in front of me, which only gave me a great view of a set of pictures that’d been hung up. They were the only decorations in the immediate vicinity, so of course they drew my eye.
The photos were of Creed and a female that had to be related to him. They had the same pale-green eyes and hair color. A sister, obviously.
In the first one, it was of him and her laughing at a fair. The one to the right of that one was of the two of them on a school bus, again smiling and laughing.
Honestly, there wasn’t a single one where one of them wasn’t laughing.
It was super cute.
The door to the master suite opened and Creed emerged wearing his usual uniform of jeans and a sweatshirt. He had the same boots on, though.
“Ready?” he asked.
I nodded. “Your sister’s pretty.”
He stiffened but didn’t say anything, but as he hurried me out of the house, I could tell that he was upset over what I’d said.
“I’m sorry if I said something to upset you,” I replied as we hurried toward his truck. “Did she pass away?”
He shook his head. “No. She’s fine. She lives in Alabama.”
That was all he would give me, and it had my mind whirling.
She must mean a whole lot to him to have him hang up photos of the two of them.
And if she wasn’t dead, why would he act like she was when I asked?
My thoughts whirled, and it only took me a couple of seconds to make some connections.
A few weeks ago, when we’d found the material about Romeo and his past on my mother’s computer, we’d been shocked to find out that he was not only a convict, but an escaped convict who’d covered up his own escape and ‘death.’
The thought that maybe Creed had the same kind of past as Romeo consumed my thoughts as he drove away from the house that’d once been a home to me.
Why else would he be here ‘doing weekly check-ins with Romeo and Apollo’ if he wasn’t a part of something more? Who the heck even did weekly check-ins, anyway?
And what was up with his sister?
What little he’d shared, him and his sister had been close once upon a time.
I’d asked a follow-up question of ‘is she was dead,’ and he’d blanched before saying, “No, she’s fine. She lives in Alabama.”
Which had, inevitably, been the final nail in the coffin.
Putting two and two together, I’d come up with four. Four being he’d been a part of the same prison break—or something very similar to it—that Romeo had been.
“I meant to come by earlier to tell you about what your stepdad was doing,” he said.
I stiffened.
“The county sheriff gave him a warning not to be sleeping in that neighborhood again,” he said. “He seemed to understand and heed it, because he left almost immediately after he was warned. If you see him out there again, let me know, and I’ll have my buddy take care of it.”