Page 91 of Bit's Bliss

My father took a deep breath and hung his head.

“Malcolm?”

He looked up at Decker.

“When you’re ready, we’ll want to take a statement about the chain of events that led up to your kidnapping. That isn’t something we need to do today. In fact, it would be best to wait for the sheriff.”

“He just pulled in,” Trevino said, looking beyond me and out the window.

“In that case, we can do it now,” said my father.

Decker studied him. “If you’re sure.”

“I am. I’d rather get this over with and start working to clean up the mess I’ve made of our lives.”

Trevino’s silence worried me, and since I’d already heard my father’s side of the story, I asked Decker if they needed me for this part.

“Not necessarily,” he responded.

“Can you come with me?” I asked Trevino.

He nodded and stood when I did.

“Mind if we go outside?” I asked.

“That’s fine,” he muttered.

I led him to the same bench where we’d sat when I told him about my mother and I working together on the butterfly garden. “Talk to me,” I said once we were seated.

He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees.

“Please, Trevino.”

He glanced over at me, and I saw his eyes fill with tears. Rather than speak, he shook his head.

“Okay, I will, then.”

He turned his head and looked out at the vineyards.

“Because of you—and my dad—I’m alive. My father protected me from Tiernan, err, Liam, then you did too.”

“I failed you,” he said, barely above a whisper.

“Look at me.”

He sat up straight.

“You saved my life.”

“If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t have been in danger in the first place.”

My eyes bored into his. “I disagree. If you’d been in the courtroom when the bailiff told my uncle and me that the judge wanted to see us in his chambers, you would’ve been abducted too.”

“Is that what happened?”

I told him how, as soon as we were through the door leading out of the courtroom, I realized the man who’d asked us to follow him wasn’t the same one I’d seen afew minutes earlier. And that, by the time my uncle and I realized it, it was too late.

Trevino looked up at the sky. “I’ll never forgive myself?—”