Page 70 of Beneath the Scars
When I park in front of the station, Zane stays in the front seat of my truck.
“Am I under arrest?” The resignation in his tone tells me he’s prepared for me to say yes.
I take a deep breath in an attempt to calm my rage. “Not at the moment. But it’s time to start telling the truth.”
Zane slowly nods before getting out of my truck and walking toward the front doors of the station. I follow closely behind, becoming more unsure of where this is going to end up.
Uncle Cooper and Dad are standing in the empty foyer. They both nod before leading us to one of the interview rooms. Zane sits in one of the chairs while the three of us sit on the other side of the table.
Zane leans his elbows on the table and runs his hand through his stick-straight black hair. “What do you want to know?”
Dad and Cooper give each other knowing looks. Zane isn’t going to start spilling his guts, but if they ask the right questions, they’ll get the straight truth out of him.
“How long have you been in Sonoma?” Cooper starts.
“Almost three months now. Since the first time I came to see Addie.”
My eyebrows fly up my forehead. Zane seems to sense my disbelief and begins to clarify. “I did have a security job in Greensboro for a while, and my apartment also got condemned. I didn’t lie about that. I just wasn’t truthful about when it happened.”
“Why were you sleeping in barns?”
Zane shrugs. “More space. My truck doesn’t quite fit a guy mysize. Then I realized the farmers found my hiding spots, so I sucked it up and started making do.”
“Why did you wait so long to tell Addie you lost your job?” Dad asks.
“I didn’t want to impose on her. It was my mess. I needed to figure out a way to make it on my own. Obviously, I failed at that. I’d drained my savings when I called her. I couldn’t afford to eat or shower anymore, so I had to ask for help.”
Zane keeps glancing at me. Something in his eyes has questions swirling in my gut, but I can’t figure out exactly what I want to ask.
“How did you figure out it was me?” he asks.
“You left a fingerprint at one of your camps. Since the security company you worked for had your fingerprints on file, the lab was able to match the print.”
He accepts that answer without much in the way of surprise. “What happens now?”
“Well—” Cooper looks at Dad and then me. “I suppose nothing. Neither of the farmers who found your camps wants to press charges, since you didn’t break or steal anything.”
Dad adds, “As long as you’re telling the whole truth, we’ll let you go—with the warning that lying in our family isn’t tolerated.”
Zane bites his lip as his gaze connects with mine. “You don’t remember me, do you?”
I squint at him. “Should I?”
“I wasn’t really sure if you would. We were little the last time I saw you.”
His words are like a sledgehammer to my memories. My eyes blur with images of a dark-headed little boy, several years younger than me, with a black eye that matched the bruises on my back.
“Zanie?” I croak.
Tears spill over his eyes. “Hi, Mikey.”
I bolt.
My chair flips over, the door bangs open, and I’m running for my life. I don’t even know where I’m going.
Get away. Get away. Get away.
The mantra repeats over and over in my head until my lungs are bursting and I’m falling to my knees behind some trees on the edge of the park. My stomach heaves, my body emptying itself of everything it can. If only it worked on memories of things better left forgotten—events my brain had long buried and didn’t need to resurrect.
