Page 53 of Best Kept Vows (Savannah’s Best #6)

The Nightmare Begins

FAITH

I tie my apron, still walking on air. It’s the best day of my life—because of how it started.

My heart feels full to bursting.

I work for Cain at his restaurant slash diner, Ripley’s Eat It or Not. The name is an ode to Ripley’s Believe It Or Not and fits perfectly with Cain's sense of humor and this small town’s quirky charm.

Six months ago, after Seattle spat me out broken and bruised, I stumbled into Silverton, Oregon, population five thousand, hoping to catch my breath. Instead, I found something more—a safe harbor where I could exhale.

With just two hundred dollars in my pocket, I got off the Greyhound in a town I’d never heard of before.

My legs were stiff, my back sore, and my heart running on empty.

I had a ticket all the way to Los Angeles—figured I could find work in a city, and it was far enough away from Seattle.

I wasn’t supposed to get off here or even stay, but when I missed my bus and decided to get something to eat while I waited for the next bus, I ended up on Main Street.

I was drawn to Ripley’s, thought I could at least get a coffee and maybe a little something to eat. Spend a few dollars from my stash.

My eyes brightened when I saw the for-help sign on the door. I ordered coffee and asked for an application form.

The woman who gave it to me had gentle eyes.

Georgia O’Keeffe, “ not the painter ,” she joked in her gruff voice.

Then there was the man who came to talk to me after I filled out the application form. I’d worked in several restaurants and diners in Seattle. I had not mentioned one place on my application because if they called for references, I didn’t want my ex to find out where I was.

He gave me the job.

Cain Ripley became my boss first.

Then we became friends because of our love for books.

Last night, we made love for the first time.

This morning, he kissed me long and deep before I left his place to change at mine and come into work.

I have a job. An apartment. And a boyfriend who hasn’t ever raised his voice at me. I am certain would never hit me.

I touch the scar above my eyebrow to feel the bump, to remind myself how far I have come.

Faith Baker is not a victim. She’s happy for the first time in her life.

I’m about to take an order from guests who were just seated when I see two deputies pushing through the front doors. One of them is Kyle Brewer, Cain’s sister, Paula’s boyfriend.

I smile and walk to them as there’s no one at the hostess table. “Table for two?”

“Faith Baker?” the older man, the one I don’t know, asks.

“Yes.” I’m confused. Kyle knows who I am.

Kyle nods. “You’re under arrest for theft. Please turn around.”

My heart drops so fast I can’t breathe.

“Sorry—what?” I laugh, except nothing about this feels funny. “Theft? What?”

“Please turn around,” the older one says, his tone bored.

When I don’t because I’m rooted to the floor, Kyle moves in behind me. He cuffs me with enough force to make my heart thud louder than my thoughts. Cold metal close around my wrists. They bite into my skin. I look wildly around, my voice cracking.

“Cain!” I cry out.

He comes out of his office, his arms crossed, anger flashing in his eyes.

Watching me get arrested?

His sister, Paula, stands next to him, venom in her eyes. She smirks at me. She doesn’t like me. But it never bothered me. It happens. Not all people can like you—actually, most people don’t, which is why you have to savor and hold onto those who do.

I look at Cain. I wait for him to say that this is all a stupid mistake, but he doesn’t.

His eyes are flat. There is no joy in them. No kisses. No affection.

My heart cracks open like a fault line.

“Well, finally,” I hear his sister’s friend Melody snicker as she steps into sight, right when they’re reading me Miranda Rights like we’re in an episode of Law & Order .

Cain’s jaw tightens, his eyes glued to me, enraged.

The deputies guide me roughly from the restaurant. I stumble outside into the biting air, gasping, disoriented. I don't protest—I can't. I’m too stunned.

They shove me into the patrol car, just like in the movies, by pushing my head down.

My head stays down.

I’m ashamed. Embarrassed. Confused.

As they shut the door of the patrol car, the metallic click feels like a full stop to my life.

How can this be happening? Why is this happening?

I coil into myself more like when Jamie used to beat me—because that’s what this feels like, an assault.

They take me to the Marion County substation, a squat brick building tucked behind a post office, less than a twenty-minute drive from Silverton. Inside, it smells like bleach, cheap coffee, and desperation. Death. The end of life as I know it.

There’s a flickering light above the front desk that buzzes like it's dying.

The room I’m put into is a narrow box—a metal table, plastic chairs, and a mirror that hides more eyes than I want to think about.

The walls are beige, smudged with fingerprints and years of quiet misery.

I focus on the metal table that reflects the glare of fluorescent lights that murmur overhead like angry insects.

The air is stale, thick with disinfectant and fear. My fear.

They remove the cuffs, but the phantom burn of them lingers on my wrists. I rub them, slowly, over and over, trying to ground myself, to push away the dizziness threatening to take me under. My hands are trembling. I curl them into fists and press them against my jeans, swallowing hard.

“Miss Baker,” Kyle begins coldly, sliding into the chair across from me. “How long have you lived in Silverton?”

When did I become Miss Baker?

I lick my lips because they are parched. I want water. I want a blanket. I want a hug. “Six months,” I say hoarsely.

“And how long have you worked at Ripley’s?”

“Six months,” I whisper. He knows I got the job there on the day I came here. I stayed in a motel for two weeks until I got my first paycheck and then moved into a studio apartment in the shadiest part of town.

“You can’t live here.” Cain looks horrified seeing where I live.

“Oh, it’s fine. Thanks for the ride.” I scramble out of his car and all but run, promising myself that I’ll not let him drive me home ever again.

I don’t have a car, and it’s raining, so he insisted.

I should’ve made an excuse, I admonish myself.

I’m ashamed, embarrassed that my boss now knows how poor I am. I dress as nicely as I can with the few clothes I was able to bring with me. I’m clean, taking a shower every day, even when the hot water is shut off, because those are luxuries I have learned to do without.

I knew what he sees—a crumbling building next to an old auto shop at the edge of Silverton, far away from the cute small-town appeal of Main Street. The walls smell like oil, and the windows don’t close all the way.

He doesn’t know the half of it, I think, how inside it is worse, a mattress on the floor, my clothes stacked in a suitcase because there is no place to put them. The heater rattles like it is coughing up its last breath.

The owner lives in the building and takes advantage of the desperation of the people who live here, people like me who don’t have a choice.

The older deputy asks me how much money I make and where my bank account is.

They ask me questions about what I did in Seattle. I answer carefully, not mentioning my ex. I don’t need anyone to connect me to Jamie Da Silva. I don’t know if he cares that I ran away, but I don’t need him to know where I am.

“You look at another man like that, Faith, and I’ll fuckin’ kill you.”

“You have access to Ripley’s cash register?”

I nod hesitantly. I do. I work there. I’m a waitress.

“You go into Cain’s office?”

I blush. For the past week since we began seeing each other and before we made love last night, the office is where we kissed, made out, and talked.

“Yes.”

The older man nods. “You know the code for the safe there?”

I frown. “There’s a safe there?”

Kyle looks triumphant. “You don’t know?”

I shake my head.

He smirks. “You fuck him in the office and you’re saying you didn’t see the safe?”

My heart stops. How did they know about Cain and me? We only spent one night together. Just one, at his place. After all, I can’t take him to mine.

“I…” I’m at a loss for words. I shake my head.

Then the older man drops a bomb. "We have proof you stole ten thousand dollars from the safe in Cain’s office.”

I’m in shock. I can’t process words.

How many dollars?

A hysterical short laugh bursts out of me. “What?”

“You’ve been seen entering his office last night.”

“What?” I rub my hands on my jeans.

“The code to the safe is written on his planner. You probably saw it when he bent you over his desk,” Kyle grinds out.

I can’t understand anything they’re saying.

It’s cold in the room. It’s November, and the temperature has dropped in Silverton. I’m just in my Ripley’s T-shirt and jeans. I wrap my hands around my arms and rub. I try to soothe the goosebumps.

The cops are dressed and wearing jackets and don’t look cold at all.

They want me uncomfortable, I realize, just like in the movies and TV shows.

“Look, it’s simple deduction. You knew the code. You were seen going into his office. Then the money went missing,” the older deputy explains.

I shake my head. I’m doing that a lot.

“But…I…no.”

“You know, we checked you out.” Kyle leans back, smug. “You stole in Seattle, too, didn’t you?”

Shame courses through me.

I did steal in Seattle. From Jamie.

I stole three hundred dollars. I had no money. He’d made sure of that. I worked, and he kept all of it. I cooked, I cleaned at his place, did the laundry, everything. He made me work for him at his club as a server and kept my pay.

“You need a keeper, Faith.”

I just stare at them as the nightmare of my life—my biggest mistake, one I made when I was just twenty and suffered for it for two years, unfolds again.

“We talked to your boss, Jamie Da Silva.”

“ You fucking whore.” Jamie kicks me in my ribs.

I can’t breathe, I can’t move. I am paralyzed by pain.

“He didn’t tell SPD, he says, but he told us.” The younger man runs his tongue over his teeth.

I’m starting to shake.

Cain, he’ll help me. He’ll see the truth. Cain is not Jamie. He’s nothing like that monster.

“No,” I whisper, as if that will undo everything. “Please—I need to talk to Cain.”

Kyle leans forward, his mouth a hard line. “You think he wants to talk to a thief and slut like you? Cain is the one who had your sorry ass arrested.” His voice is low and threatening. “You’d better start cooperating, or this gets ugly fast.”

I stare at the men in front of me with watery eyes. I feel small, insignificant.

The man who held me just this morning, who kissed me like I was something precious, thinks I’m a thief.

Shock numbs my limbs. My chest is hollow. And somewhere in the pit of that growing emptiness, I know this: the small, fragile happiness I'd dared to grasp has just shattered irrevocably.

There’s a knock on the door. The men look at each other and then at me. They walk out.

I slump, feeling like a cornered animal.

I realize, to my horror, that I feel that way because I am a cornered animal.

Get Regretfully Yours, Cain