Page 153 of Renard's Deliverance

Then again, the bathroom situation was kind of putting her off drinking. She really needed a toilet right now and her options were looking limited.

“I can’t believe he’s done this. Stupid, idiot boy.”

“Yeah, Mrs. G. can I call you that? Too late, I’m gonna. Maybe you could leave off on the name calling, huh? It seems to rile him up.”

Not that it took much to make old Barney angry.

Wow. Who knew that he had such a temper?

Her side was aching where he’d kicked her after she’d asked him if he planned on leaving them to starve to death or if he could get them some fried chicken.

She’d thought it was a legitimate question.

“I don’t understand. I took him in when his parents died. Gave him everything and this is how he repays me.”

The older woman sounded genuinely lost and . . . hurt?

Shit.

“I never go down to the basement. He always liked his privacy. But there was a strange smell and I was worried about what it was. And then I saw it all . . . the pictures of you everywhere. And on his computer screen . . . it was a bedroom, and I just knew it was yours.”

Opal tensed. “What?”

“He must have installed a camera in there. Why would he do that? Why would he be so obsessed withyou?”

There was clear derision in her voice. Which Opal thought was hugely unnecessary. And a bit rude given the circumstances.

But she’d let it slide because she was a good person like that.

“I mean, why wouldn’t he be obsessed with me?” she asked.

All right, maybe she couldn’t quite let it go.

“I’m amazing.”

“You’re . . . you’re . . . crass and loud and you don’t care about propriety, and you wear those tight clothes and all that makeup and your hair . . .”

“Jealous?” Opal snarked.

There was a beat of silence. She turned toward Mrs. G.

“You’re jealous? Of me?”

“I’m not jealous,” she spat out. “It’s just . . . sometimes I do wish I’d been born in a different time when it was normal to live on your own and you didn’t feel you had to get married. When having children or not defined you.”

Ouch.

“You couldn’t have kids?” Opal asked.

“No,” she whispered. “And my husband couldn’t handle that. Took off in the middle of the night and left me to deal with the humiliation. I didn’t live here at that time. I moved here to be close to my younger brother. He died fifteen years ago, five years after my older brother, who was Barney’s father. And now Barney is all I have left. And he’s . . . he’s . . .”

“A fucking psychopath?”

“I wouldn’t use those words,” the older woman huffed. “But, yes.”

“Can’t believe he had a camera in my bedroom. He broke into my house. Was that why the latch on that window was broken? Because of that fuckwit?”

Shut it down, Opal.

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