Page 4 of Highball Rush
“I have at least eight hundred questions right now. But let’s start with the picture in your wallet.”
“I was stupid enough to sneak her out of town to go to a concert. We got our picture taken in a photo booth.” I rubbed the back of my neck. “She disappeared the next day.”
“Well, that’s incredibly inconvenient,” Devlin muttered.
Scarlett was uncharacteristically quiet. She stared at me, her mouth half-open. “I don’t know if anyone has ever rendered me speechless before, but you just did. How did we not know you two were friends?”
“I said we hid it.”
“I know, but nobody hides stuff in this town. Not for thirteen years.”
My back stiffened. “Dad did.”
She started to reply, but stopped. Normally she defended Dad. But what could she say?
“He knew, Scar. Not only did he know, he helped her run away. And he never fucking told anyone.”
“He had to have been protecting her,” she said.
I threw my hands up in the air. “Here it comes.”
“Why else would he keep silent? If her daddy was abusing her, and it sure sounds like he was, she was probably afraid. I bet she begged him to keep quiet. Made him promise or something.”
“You really think he kept his mouth shut for her? He did it to protect himself, Scar. He helped a sixteen-year-old girl run away from home. And her dad’s a judge. Can you imagine the trouble he would have been in? Don’t kid yourself. He wasn’t protectingher.”
“Why can’t you admit that maybe Dad actually did a good thing? Jenny said Dad found Callie hurt on the side of the road. He didn’t have to help her. He could have taken her home, or just called the police and let the sheriff deal with it. But he didn’t.”
I balled my hands into fists, my temper on the verge of snapping. Devlin watched us argue, eying me like he was ready to step in if he thought I was going to cross a line with Scarlett.
“Stop trying to make him into the hero,” I said.
“Oh come on, Gibs, what would you have done?”
“I don’t know,” I barked.
I would have kept her secret if it meant keeping her safe. But I was too mad to admit that to my sister.
She let out a breath. “This is all so crazy. Callie’s alive, and Dad knew, and now you were her secret friend? What else are we going to find out? That she’s been living out in some shack in the woods all these years and you send Henrietta Van Sickle out to her place with supplies once in a while?”
I shook my head, some of my anger dissipating. “I don’t know where she is. I always thought she was dead.”
“Oh, Gibs.”
Before I could stop her, she’d wrapped her arms around me in a hug. I didn’t like hugs, but once in a while, I had to tolerate one from my sister.
“You know what’s gonna happen now, though, don’t you?” she asked, stepping away. “The whole town’s gonna know about you and Callie in a hot minute.”
“No shit,” I grumbled.
“I assume Jayme’s already told you what you can and can’t say,” Devlin said.
“Yeah.” I plopped down on the couch and leaned my head back. “Basically, no comment.”
The muffled sound of a car pulling up outside carried through the walls. I groaned. Great, who else was here?
A few seconds later, someone knocked.
“Gibs?
