Page 77 of Healing Hearts
I’m almost afraid to ask, given Judy’s involvement, but I do anyway. “Did you find anything—even one scrap of evidence—that links me to what Dan and Judy were doing?”
Neither of them answers, and it feels a lot like their refusal to close the claim has more to do with preconceived notions about me—the ex-con—than a real need to verify who I was having sex with in the office.
“Now, if you’re not arresting me, I think we’re done here.” I rise, and when they don’t stop me, I walk out the door.
Thomas follows fast on my heels. “Trent!”
But I don’t stop until I’m out the door of the station and it feels like my lungs can take in a full breath again.
“Trent!” he calls again, and I stop near my truck. “Look,” he says, out of breath, “whoever is on the deleted footage—their name won’t go beyond the station.”
“Bullshit,” I say. “The small-town gossip network is sneaky and persistent. Someone will hear something, and it’ll spin out. There are no secrets, so I’m keeping this one close to my chest.” Locked in my fucking heart.
“They won’t close this line of questioning—your shop will stay closed—until they can be sure you’re not involved.”
“Theyaresure,” I say. “They’re prejudiced against me because of what I did last time. And I never lied about it then. I got caught, and I put up my hands and said I did it.”
“The loophole—”
“I’m not dragging her into this mess. Next time you talk to them, tell them they just need to be satisfied with the truthIgave them.”
“Your stubbornness is going to cause your life to be fucked up longer than it needs to be,” Thomas says with a frustrated sigh. “And maybe you’re okay with that, but I’m not.”
In the last two days, my whole life has been turned upside down, and I’m just doing my best to protect the people whomatter to me. I don’t care what happens to me, but I care a lot about what happens to them.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Emily
At breakfast, Amir stares thoughtfully into his cereal. “Trent’s not going to watch me while you’re on your trip?”
“No,” I say. “Grandma has planned some fun things for you two. Trent has a lot going on with work right now.”
“That’s why he moved out…” Amir stirs his cereal, but I can tell he’s still processing the sudden change in his life.
Trent had been here since April, and while I always considered the impact my relationship with Trent would have on Amir, I never expected everything to blow up so spectacularly. Trent is being so stubborn in a way I’d never anticipated.
It also means that I’m back to barely holding my life together. All the threads are clenched so hard in my hands that I’ve been in tears almost every night. Trent has been right about people around town—many of them haven’t been nice. Some of them have treated me as though I’m some poor, wounded thing, and others have treated me as though I should have known better—but in every case, those people are assuming Trent is guilty.
And it makes me so, so angry.
“Someone at camp said Trent was arrested. Is he in jail again?”
Amir’s comment makes my heart stop.
“How was Trent in jail before?” Amir sets down his spoon and focuses on me.
“When Trent was a teenager,” I say, carefully, “he made some bad choices, and the police caught him making those bad choices.”
“This time too?”
“Some people Trent knows made some bad choices, and the police wanted to know whether Trent knew about those bad choices.”
“Did he?”
“No.”
“So Trent’s not in trouble?”
