Page 53 of Chasing Shelter

“Trace?” Ellie asked, concern in her voice.

I couldn’t take my eyes off the man on the opposite side of the lot. The hunch of his broad shoulders. The silver now threaded through his dark hair. The eyes so similar to mine. And the cigarette dangling from his lips.

Jasper took a long drag of the smoke, exhaling and letting his mouth curve into a cocky grin.

“Who is that?” Ellie’s voice dropped low, even though he was too far away to overhear.

“No one,” I muttered, guiding her toward my SUV.

I was a goddamn idiot. Spending time with Ellie when Jasper could see us? Stupid. Worse, reckless. It would only put her in his sights more.

I waited as Ellie climbed into my SUV with Gremlin. As soon as the door shut behind her, I shoved the bags into the back seat and got behind the wheel, but I felt Jasper’s eyes on me the whole time.

As if it wasn’t enough that I’d had to live most of my childhood terrified of what he might do next. What his so-called friends might do. Now, it was like I was back there all over again. I could protect myself, but what about Ellie? My daughter? My stomach roiled, a sick feeling washing through me.

As soon as we were out of sight of the pet store, Ellie spoke. Her voice wasn’t angry or harsh, but it had a coldness to it I’d never heard before. “Don’t lie to me.”

My gaze flicked to her. “What?”

“Tell me it’s none of my business. Tell me to take a long walk off a short pier. Butdon’tlie to me.” Ellie let out a shaky breath, and I could see for the first time that she was far more than angry. “I’ve been lied to all my life by everyone around me. Don’t you lie to me, too.”

14

ELLIE

My hands trembledat my sides. I wasn’t scared. I wasn’t sad. I was finally feeling what I should’ve felt all along. Angry.

At my mom. My dad. Bradley. Even Linc. They’d all lied. Some because they thought they were protecting me. Some because they wanted to manipulate me. But all thought it would work because I was weak.

And I was done with that.

“Ellie,” Trace began.

“Don’t,” I clipped. I hated the softness in his voice, as if he, too, thought I was some wounded animal.

Trace was quiet for a moment before he spoke, saying words I never could’ve predicted. “He’s my birth father. He’s been in jail for twenty-four years, and I’m the one who put him there.”

Everything in me stilled and got so quiet I could feel each beat of my heart, the two-part thump at elevated speeds. “Why?”

“He killed my mom.” There was no emotion in Trace’s voice as he pulled into my driveway, no hint of anything as he stared straightahead, the engine still running. “He didn’t pull a trigger or cut off the air from her lungs, but he killed her just the same.”

My heart rate sped up, each beat like butterfly wings against my ribs. “I’m so sorry.” I let out a breath and then gave him another piece of my truth. “I know what that’s like.” I knew it all too well. Just one more lie I’d lived with for most of my life.

Trace turned, the movement slow, his gaze searching. “You do?”

“I do.”

He searched my eyes for answers or comfort; I wasn’t sure which. But whatever he saw there made him continue to speak. “Jasper was mixed up with drugs. A group of guys that were seriously bad news. He got my mom hooked. I had to watch her fall deeper and deeper into that addiction. One night, he shot her up, cackling as she climbed onto the roof of our cabin, saying she could fly.”

A sick feeling swept through me as dread mounted, but I didn’t look away. I could be in the awfulness with Trace so he wasn’t alone with the truth.

“She jumped,” Trace rasped. “She wasn’t trying to end her life, just didn’t know reality anymore. My dad freaked. Thought he could bury her on our property, and no one would know. Told me if I spoke a word about it, I’d go to jail right along with him.”

An image of little-boy Trace filled my mind. Alone and terrified, grief-stricken. I knew how that was. How it felt like everything and everyone in the world was against you.

“You told someone anyway,” I surmised. Even if Tracehadn’tsaid that he’d sent his father to prison, I would’ve known. Because that was simply who he was. He didn’t stand for things that were wrong, and he’d do whatever he could to make them right.

Trace’s jaw worked back and forth. “Went to school the next day and told my principal. Sheriff’s department called Child Protective Services. Told them all where he’d buried her and what had been going on at home.”

---