Page 82 of Protecting What's Mine

Then the scene was shifting. She wasn’t alone. Linc was on the ground.

“I’ll catch you,” he promised.

She trusted him. She believed him. She was falling.

There was a face on a stark white sheet that was slowly turning red.Hisface. The face of a dead man. The one she’d killed.

Mack woke, gasping desperately for air.

She swung her legs over the side of the bed, clumsily kicking the bedrail with her boot.

She held a hand over her scar. The phantom sensation of pain made her skin feel clammy. It was just after four. And there was no way she was going back to sleep.

Two and a half hours of unpacking every remaining moving box and carefully stacking all the cardboard neatly in the garage that was too small to house her SUV later, Mack picked up her phone and dialed.

Violet answered chipperly. “Nguyen residence, Violet speaking.”

“Hey, Vi. It’s Mack.”

She managed to sound both amused and annoyed at the same time. “Iknowit’s you.”

“I didn’t think your Mom and Dad’s landline had caller ID,” Mack said.

“It doesn’t. But that doesn’t mean I don’t recognize your voice. Jeez, Mack. Sometimes I think you think you’re a stranger.”

The easy, almost sisterly banter soothed Mack’s soul. She settled onto the kitchen chair and propped her foot up on the table. “How’s the school year going so far? Any trouble with that shithead from last year?”

“Oh. My. God. So get this. I show up on the first day of school ready to just lay it out and be serious with her like you told me, right?”

“Right.”

“So I get there, and I’m all ready to be all calm and sh—stuff. Tell her she’s no longer welcome to be disrespectful toward me or anyone else. And one of Lynnetta’s minions walks by and she’s all ‘Did you hear about Lynnetta?’ and I’m like ‘No,’ and she’s like, ‘Lynnetta got caught bullying some loser eighth-grader online over the summer, and her parents were so pissed they shipped her off to some boarding school for mean girls.’”

“No way,” Mack said, knowing the required response.

“That’sexactlywhat I said. So new year, no Lynnetta, and tenth grade is basically the best year of my life,” Violet said.

“That’s amazing.”

“I know, right? Oh, hang on. I need to grab breakfast before school. Want to talk to Mom?”

“Yeah, that would be great,” Mack said.

“Hey, come home sometime before you become an actual stranger, okay?” Violet said. She didn’t wait for a reply. “Moooooom! It’s Mack!”

“Mack!” The joy and surprise in Dottie Nguyen’s voice made Mack feel both guilty and relieved.

“Hey, Dottie.”

“I was just thinking about you. How’s Benevolence? How are you adapting to small-town doctoring? Do people call you ‘doc’?”

Of course Dottie would remember the name of the town Mack had mentioned in passing when she’d told the Nguyen’s she was relocating. The woman’s care and attention to detail were in stark contrast to Mack’s mother’s self-centered existence.

“As a matter of fact, they do call me ‘doc,’” she laughed.

“When can we come visit?” Dottie demanded.

She meant it, too.