Page 57 of Charlie
“You just asked me to be careful and now you want me to provoke the sicko?”
“Aye. My da and I will be dropping by to ask him questions about Nathan’s mom.”
“What was her name?”
“Sandra.” Kit found a picture and placed it in front of me. The woman in the photo was a young black woman in a white wedding dress smiling up at her white groom who stood in his formal military uniform.
“This wedding photo was from about a year before Nathan was born.” Kit sounded as sad as I felt.
“It’s such a tragedy.”
“Aye. It is.”
“Do we have a motive for Conor killing her?”
“She was tryin’ to get away from him. Hiding with her son in a primitive room above a bar. Don’t forget that other members who left have restrainin’ orders against him. I’d say that Sandra was scared of him.”
“For good reason.” I sighed and closed my eyes. “How in the world did Charles get messed up in this man’s net?”
Kit sighed too. “That’s the thing with psychopaths, isn’t it? They don’t go around with warnin’ labels, but they should. Conor is a good example of someone clever and cunnin’ with no conscience. He has developed a fine set of skills to hold power over others. It’s like when I was young and I begged my brothers to play Barbie with me. Tommy would come up with the most twisted plots and I’d be so angry with him because I wanted the dolls to fall in love and play family while he wanted them to rob, steal, and get in fights so his Action Man could come and save the day.”
“Kit, I’m not really sure where you’re going with that story.”
“Just that Conor is destroying people’s lives.”
“Like Tommy destroyed your Barbies’ made-up lives?”
“Uh-huh.”
I could tell Kit’s analogy made total sense to her, but I brought her back to what mattered, “Kit, we need to expose Conor to the world.”
She nodded. “I’m on it!”
CHAPTER 14
Reconciliation
Charles
Monday, I went to work in a haze of misery. I stalled while teaching and banged my head against a door because I was too busy looking down at my phone instead of seeing where I was going.
Every minute that I spent away from Liv felt like time wasted. What if she’d already packed up and left Dublin?
The thought left my stomach in a painful knot. I had obsessed about her comment that she had gone through this situation with an ex whose mother didn’t find Liv good enough for her son. How was that even possible? Any man would be lucky to have her as his girlfriend, and I’d meant it when I said I could think for myself.
Not that the two scenarios were close. Conor wasn’t a clingy mother. He was my mentor and friend. Liv might think my issues were cute but he understood them better than she did. He wanted what was best for me, and his warnings had nothing to do with Liv’s not being good enough. It was a matter of his thinking that I wasn’t ready for a relationship with any woman.
Still, if he’d seen how effortless things were between Liv and me, maybe he wouldn’t worry so much.
My fingers kept playing with my phone. My body screamed for me to go after my woman. That’s why, when I got home that afternoon, I texted her.
Charles: Are you there?
When my phone buzzed, I was so eager to pick it up and see if the text was from Liv that I dropped the phone on the floor.
Can you be a bigger idiot?I hurried to see who the sender was. My heart felt like it was pounding right out of my rib cage when the screen said, The cute coffee thief.
“Please don’t write that you’re leaving,” I muttered with bile in my throat from the thought that I’d never see her again.
