Page 136 of Wasted

“Yeah, I think it’s a van. Do you remember how you got here?”

Did she? She tried to ignore the spikes of pain that seemed to shoot from the back of her skull to her forehead. She didn’t recall going to bed before this dream, actually. She hadn’t said goodnight to Max or?—

She hadn’t been sleeping. She’d been walking through snow to her car, in a hurry, worried. The text.

Her breath caught as she recalled the message. “Sydney. Is she all right?”

“I don’t know. I assume you got a text? I got one, too, from Lawrence Massey.”

The memory returned sluggishly. “I received one from Sydney. She said he would kill her unless I came.”

“And don’t bring the cops? Yeah. I was on hold waiting to tell Willis when I got clocked from behind.”

Victoria reached to touch the back of her head. A large, painful bump swelled on the back of her skull. “I was apparently knocked unconscious, as well.”

“Massey must’ve been waiting for you, then came and ambushed me at my place. He took my phone. Did he take yours, too?”

She peered into the darkness. A pointless exercise. “It was in my purse. I assume he wasn’t courteous enough to bring that along for me.”

“Seems weird, doesn’t it? That Massey would resort to abduction and…whatever he has planned for us?”

“We pushed him too far. We never should have confronted him.” Her words ricocheted back at her.

Dad. He’d been angry with her.

Her foggy brain slogged through the effects of the blow, trying to retrieve the memories.

Her father glared at her from the head of the table.

Treese accused her of hurting Sydney.

Robert, Hank, Spring—they all defended her.

The raised voices ping-ponged against the walls of Victoria’s mind, stinging each time they hit.

Oh, no. They’d all been fighting at Dad’s birthday dinner. Because of her.

“…now we see how right it was to show Massey we know what he did. But what I don’t get is the leap from cowardly abusing teen girls to this.” Cillian’s commentary drifted past her in the darkness like a distant, mismatched echo of the much louder voices of her family in her head.

“No wonder you’ve gotten yourself arrested for murder, your face and name plastered all over the news.” Dad’s accusation rang in her ears. That was it, the real reason he was so angry. Not her involvement with Sydney.

It was that she’d become a criminal. Branded as one for all his friends, acquaintances, and patients to see. His perfect reputation had been destroyed by her.

“I knew that Doherty boy would ruin you. I don’t know who you are anymore. You have dragged the Weston name through the mud.”

More than anger had flashed in Dad’s eyes with those words. Disappointment and?—

“Whoa.” Cillian’s remark drew her gaze toward him.

She could see a clearer outline of his face now and a flicker of some bit of light catching his eyes.

“I didn’t see it before.” Shock lined his tone. “This wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment break of character for Massey.”

She blinked, but it didn’t help her see Cillian better. Not that it mattered. Her mind and aching heart were focused elsewhere. With her family’s?—

“It was him. All along.”

She brushed aside Cillian’s interruption to her thoughts. How could she have risked such consequences to her family, to everything she’d dedicated her life to since Mom passed?