Page 9 of Last Seen
As the bittersweet taste fills her mouth, she combs the rest of the papers, feeling a new emotion she’s never experienced before. It is grief, but deeper, harsher. Her mother wasn’t taken from her by chance. She was stolen by the flaxen-haired girl who flits in and out of Halley’s memory like a bright ghost.
How is this even possible?
She has to talk to her dad. Now.
She isn’t supposed to drive when she’s having an episode, but there is nothing that will stop her right now. She shoves all the papers back into the envelope and hurries to the Jeep, her new truth clutched in her hand. She is careless on the drive back to the hospital, squinting against the haloed lights of oncoming cars, running the yellow light at the end of the street in her rush to get confirmation. She blows past the front desk and runs down the hall, skidding to a stop at her dad’s room.
He is asleep; of course he is. He’s been through hell today—a painful fall, an even more painful surgery. She’s being selfish waking him, but there’s no way she isn’t going to. She has to find out the truth. She watches him for a moment, heart pounding wildly, breath catching.
“Dad? Daddy? Wake up.”
He makes an inarticulate noise. She reaches down and shakes his shoulder, and his eyes open, blank as the night sky. The drugs have their hold on him. It takes him a minute to focus.
“Halley? You’re here?”
“I’m here, Dad. I talked to you earlier, remember?”
He closes his eyes and swallows. Seeing how uncomfortable he is dampens her needs for a moment.
“Are you thirsty?” She picks up the Styrofoam pitcher and pours him a glass of water, places the straw in his mouth, and waits for him to suck it down.
“What time is it?” he finally asks. She glances at the clock to the left of his wall-mounted television and winces.
“Almost midnight. Sorry, but I have to talk to you. It’s about Mom.”
“Tomorrow, honey.”
“No, Dad. Now. Wake up.”
He struggles to keep his eyes open, but nods. “What?”
“I found the papers about her murder. Mom’smurder.Whydidn’t you tell me?”
The fear that flashes over his face takes her breath away. He is instantly awake.
“Shit,” he mutters, another rarity. Her dad doesn’t cuss in front of her, ever.
“What is it? Dad, you’re scaring me.”
“Oh, Halley.” He sighs, heavily, looking away, anywhere but at her. “This is not the time.”
Halley tries to keep her voice even. “My mother was murdered by my sister. And you hid this from me. There’s never going to be a good time. Might as well do it when one of us is numb to the pain.”
“It’s a very long story.”
“Give me the highlights. Let’s start with why you lied?”
“To protect you, obviously. Your sister is ... dangerous. Very dangerous.”
“Is she not in jail?”
“Not anymore, no. And she wasn’t in jail, proper, ever, but a juvenile psychiatric facility. The courts found that she was not fully competent to be tried as an adult, and they kept her in the juvie system until she turned eighteen and was released. I moved us here to keep you safe.”
“You moved us to Marchburg to protect me? She didn’t know where we were?”
“No, she didn’t. I changed our names, dropped Handon in favor of your grandmother’s maiden name, James, and have done as much as possible to keep you off her radar.”
This does not jibe with anything she knows. Dangerous sisters. Name changes. Murdered mothers.
