Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 69582 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 348(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69582 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 348(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 232(@300wpm)
Constance sighed and stood up, looking reluctantly between her daughter and me before saying, “Fine. I’ll go get everyone a snack.”
She headed for the door with her purse.
“Bye, Coco,” I called out to her. “We’ll be here when you get back.”
Constance narrowed her eyes. “Bye, Thickums.”
“Thickums?”
“You know, because you’re thick?” She batted her eyes. “Pair that with snookums and you get Thickums.”
My right eye twitched. “Go make me a sandwich.”
She flipped me off and left, glancing one last time at Wendy as she did.
Wendy waited until her mom left before saying, “I thought she would never leave. Show me your dead bodies, Thickums!”
“You’re a handful, aren’t you, Wendy?” I asked.
“Aren’t most girls?” She batted her eyes at me.
“Are you sure you’re five and not twenty-five?” I wondered.
She shrugged. “Mommy says that I’m a teenager in a child’s body.”
“You might be,” I said. “We can’t look at any dead bodies. But you can walk around with me if you promise to be really careful.”
When Constance came back twenty minutes later, she had a greasy paper bag in her hands and a scowl on her face.
“What is it?”
She gestured toward the door. “Do you know that man?”
I headed to the door to find a man in leather parked outside The Mercantile. “No. Who is he?”
“I don’t know,” she grumbled. “He practically wouldn’t take no for an answer when he asked me out at The Mercantile. Your friend, Hux, walked me back over here after that man followed me around the entire store.”
I spotted Hux walking back, making sure to say something to the man on the motorcycle as he went.
The man on the motorcycle shrugged and grinned, showing off his fake veneers.
I studied the man’s face as Hux pointed at him then to the road in the universal sign of “get out of here.”
“I have no clue,” I said. “I haven’t seen him around town either.”
She huffed. “He reminds me of someone.”
I look toward her. “Who?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I can’t put my finger on it. But just someone I used to know.”
“Coco!” Wendy called. “Daddy is calling!”
Constance hurried over to the phone I hadn’t realized she left behind and answered it, a huge smile on her face.
“Mackey, hi!”
“Hi!” Mackey replied back.
I walked closer to see the screen and frowned, being sure to stay out of view.
The man that I could see on Constance’s phone looked…bad.
Half his head was sunken in, his face was misshapen, and there was a clear look of “not there” in his eyes.
He smiled and waved, but it was with the help of a woman who was holding the man’s arm and doing the work for him.
This must be the best friend.
“How are you doing, Mackey?” Constance beamed.
I thought I’d seen her smile before, but the smile she had for this man was breathtaking.
The worst part was, I was jealous of a man with the mental capacity of an eleven-year-old.
God help me.
“I’m okay,” he drawled slowly.
It was odd hearing a man’s voice come out sounding boyish.
“Mackey, tell Constance and Wendy what you did today!” an elderly woman who you couldn’t see but hear, encouraged.
“Counted to five!” He sounded excited.
The woman from earlier finally came into view, her smile soft for her son.
God.
I couldn’t even imagine.
“Oh, Mackey!” Wendy clapped. “That’s so good!”
Mackey smiled, and I looked at Constance’s face to see that her smile was soft.
The mother stepped away from Mackey, and her face went intense. “We haven’t been able to find him.”
“Oh.” Constance’s shoulders slumped. “I was hoping that the investigators would be able to keep an eye on him. At least we know he won’t come there.”
What little Apollo had been able to dig up had mentioned that Mackey and his parents lived out of the country. I couldn’t remember where, though.
“We have an armed guard with Mackey at all times.” The woman’s face looked serious. “You need to be careful, Constance. He was always going to come after you.”
My stomach sank.
She didn’t know that he was here.
How could she not?
Constance sighed. “It’s been like six months since we’ve last seen him. He hasn’t been here at all.”
That she’d seen.
“And you’d know, because he wouldn’t be able to leave you alone,” she muttered. “Be careful, though, Constance. He’s unstable.”
With that, Constance ended the FaceTime.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
Wendy, ever helpful, started right in on an explanation.
“Daddy was hurt really bad when his best friend found out that Mommy was pregnant with me. Her best friend was beat up by a bad guy. And that bad guy didn’t go to jail,” Wendy declared.
My brows rose, surprised that a little girl of five, almost six, would know that kind of information.
“Wendy, sit here for a minute and eat your food before it gets cold.”
Wendy did just that as Constance walked over to the tabletop, bringing me with her by the arm.