Page 75 of Dead Love

“I am here.”

Finally, she embraced me, but her shoulders shook, and soon, her wails were so loud that I cringed. She pulled back, then looked down at me, to assess the damage. The rings around her eyes were like a drained moat.

“What happened?” she asked. Then she blinked, staring at my shoulders. “What happened to your beautiful hair?”

I absent-mindedly stroked my shoulder-length locks. “It’s a long story.”

She quickly moved on: “Where did you go? Who stole you from me?”

“Yeah, Kora,” Catie asked, an edge to her voice. “Tell us. What happened, exactly?”

Catie grit her teeth, a false smile on her face, judging me, daring me to say what had really happened, warning me to leave Vincent out of it. But a fist banged on the door. The three of us jumped, turning toward the entrance. Sheriff Mike put his key in the door. He beamed at me, then wrapped an arm around my mother’s shoulders. She sunk into his side.

“She’s finally home,” he whispered, a tear in his eye. He pulled me into his arm. “Our baby is finally home.” But those words were so empty. The back of my throat itched. Had he been happy that I was finally gone?

“We took care of Erickson,” Sheriff Mike said, turning to my mother.

“Erickson?” Shea asked. “From the funeral home? What did he do?”

“Now’s your chance,” Catie said.

Shea turned to me. “Chance for what?” she asked. Her face turned between Catie and me, then back to my father. She went to the door, locking it again. “What happened with Erickson?”

“He’s at the station,” my father said. “Being processed, then moved to holding cells.”

“For what?”

“He abducted Kora.” Sheriff Mike lowered his head like he had done on the television to deliver bad news so many times before. “I’m sorry, Shea. I should have known.”

“But he was—he was—” Her whole body trembled. She shook her head frantically.

“It’s okay,” I whispered, holding my mother’s hand. “I’m here. I’m okay.”

Her eyes were glossy with tears. “He didn’t hurt you, did he?”

She gripped my shoulders until her knuckles turned white. The pain intensified at the back of my throat like it was my fault that he hadn’t hurt me. Because at least if he had, I would have something to show for it. But every time he had hurt me, I hadlikedit. Wanted more of it. And that made me a consenting participant, didn’t it?

“No,” I said quietly, averting my eyes. “He never laid a hand on me.” Not like that.

She let go of me and wobbled, catching herself on a display table as she straightened.

“As long as you’re okay now,” she said.

We stayed like that for a while. My mother sobbed silently, holding me, while my father wrapped his arms around the two of us. I used to think their touch was burdensome, especially my mother; she held me like I would disappear. But now it was like I wasn’t there. Like everything we had once been was already gone.

My mother wiped her nose on the back of her sleeve. I turned to her.

“My stuff is there,” I said. “My clothes.”

“You brought clothes with you?” she asked.

It wasn’t like that, but the details wouldn’t make sense. “I want to go get them, if that’s okay,” I said.

Mike widened his stance. “I’ll go and check it out. It’ll give me an opportunity to make sure there’s nothing else that criminal is hiding.”

“I’ll go with you,” I interjected. I made myself say it before I could stop; I had to keep a close eye on my father when it came to Vincent’s house. “I spent so much time there. I know where my stuff is.”

“I’m not letting you go back there,” Shea said.