Craving Molly(72)

He left the room and I let my mind wander. Had anyone gotten ahold of Mel? I was surprised that she wasn’t there. If she knew what had happened, there’s no way she would stay away. I shifted on the bed and hissed in discomfort. I was so sore. My head and torso throbbed, even with the painkillers the hospital had given me. I wondered how long until the swelling in my face went down. I couldn’t work looking like I did, but Reb and I needed the money. I barely made enough as it was, working when I could. Nurses made bank usually, but with my schedule and the number of times a week I had to get off work early to take Reb to her occupational and speech therapy appointments, we didn’t have a lot of extra left over. I couldn’t afford to take time off.

“Look what I have,” Will said softly as he came back in the room.

My eyes watered when I caught sight of the bag full of Rebel’s overnight stuff that I’d dropped at my dad’s.

“How did you get that?” I asked as Rebel scrambled to the edge of the bed for her things. My poor baby was exhausted and she wanted her blankie and animals.

“Couldn’t leave anything of yours there,” Will murmured in apology as he set the large bag on the bed and pulled my glasses out of his shirt pocket. “Cops can’t know you were there, baby.”

My eyes widened in horror. I knew they’d found my dad, but it hadn’t occurred to me that they’d just leave him there. He was their friend.

“They just left him?” I asked tearfully, lifting my glasses to my face before realizing that my face was too swollen for them to fit me. My hands began to shake as I started pulling soft items out of the bag. I froze as the tips of my fingers met the cold screen of Rebel’s Kindle. They really had grabbed everything. “He’s just lying there—”#p#分页标题#e#

“Had someone call it in,” Will said soothingly, taking his cut off. “Cops were there hours ago.”

“Are they looking for me?” My stomach churned at the thought.

“Probably will tomorrow, just to let you know that he’s gone,” Will explained, stepping out of his boots.

“I can’t talk to them like this.”

“You can,” he assured me, sitting down next to me on the bed. “You got into a four wheeler accident today, so you stayed the night with your boyfriend so he could help you with Rebel.”

“My boyfriend?”

“Nothin’ else is going to make a damn bit of sense.”

“But wouldn’t I have called my dad if this happened? I left voicemails on my dad’s phone asking him to keep Reb. I—”

“Already taken care of,” Will cut me off. Got a tech guy that’s tits. He got into your dad’s voicemail and erased all of it. Casper found your dad’s phone and it’s toast. They find out you called him? Fits in with the story that you got hurt and you were trying to let him know.”

“I don’t know if that will work,” I murmured, watching Rebel as she pulled a stuffed animal to her chest and hugged it tightly.

“It’ll work, sugar. You just tell them that you were over here for the party and we decided to take a couple of the four wheelers out. You wrecked, I took you to the hospital. Did you call your dad? Yep. He didn’t answer. Did you text him? Same thing—no response.”

“You thought of everything,” I said faintly, staring at Rebel as she made herself a little nest of blankets in the middle of the bed.

“Molly, look at me,” Will ordered. I turned my head to find him watching me intently. “These men aren’t fuckin’ around. They find out you talked and it’s gonna be that much harder to protect you. You gotta do what I ask, sugar. There’s no other option.”

“Why did this happen?” I asked in confusion, my breath catching. “I don’t understand why this happened.”

“Your dad was workin’ to take them down, baby. He knew what the risks were.”

“But why? How did he even know those guys?”

“That’s not somethin’ I can tell you,” he answered, his voice dropping.

I nodded. Did I really want to know more than I already did? No. I didn’t want an even larger bullseye on my back. This wasn’t my life. I was the single mom of a daughter with special needs and I worked as a nurse. I’d been raised by a successful single father because my mom had died of an overdose when I was still a baby. I’d had the same best friend since third grade.

“Where’s Mel?” I asked, standing so I could walk around the foot of the bed and crawl into the spot between Rebel and the wall.