How would I ever repay any of them for what they did for me? For Gigi? I wasn’t clear on the details, being unconscious for most of it, but I’d heard Slate shot the gun out of The Scarecrow’s hand. So close to my head, too. He was a sharpshooter in the Army, I found out. Lucky for me he was still so accurate.
I felt much the same as I had while I sat at my house earlier. My image of myself was changing. My image of them was changing, too. They did the right thing. They might have been criminals, capable of any number of shady things, but they weren’t bad people. They weren’t evil, like The Scarecrow and his buyer. They fought for what was right. It was never clearer to me, the difference between them and the really bad people in the world.
Lance came back downstairs. I couldn’t read the look on his face. Relief? Tension? Discomfort? All three? He came to me, holding out his hands.
“What is it?” I asked. I wished he would talk to me. It felt almost like there was a wall between us. Did he hate me for letting Gigi get kidnapped? Did he think I should’ve tried harder to protect her?
“Come with me. There’s something we have to talk over.”
I got up slowly, wincing at the pain in my lower back. I’d be sleeping on my stomach whenever I next slept. Good thing, too, since the back of my head was off-limits until the pain there went down.
He led me to the office, with me limping the whole way. It wasn’t until we stepped inside and the door closed behind us that I realized who Lance had been with all night.
“You.” I nearly growled when I saw Rae sitting on the sofa by the wall. She wouldn’t meet my eyes. “How could you?”
“So you know, then?” Lance murmured.
“I figured it out. How else would he know where she was?” I shook Lance’s hands off and walked to her, pain forgotten. “How can you call yourself a mother?” I asked.
She sat still, looking at the floor.
“Look at me.” I waited until she lifted her head. Her eyes met mine. I let all the hatred I felt for her show in my face. She shrank in front of me.
“Okay. Enough for now. Come on.” Lance led me to a chair beside his desk. He sat next to me with a sigh. “I’ve been talking some things over with Rae,” he said.
“How can you talk to her about anything? She doesn’t deserve the time!”
“Can you please wait a minute? Please. Just listen.”
I glared at him. How could he talk to me that way after what I had been through? But I held my tongue, if only because my throat was raw and my jaw ached.
Rae cleared her throat. “I’ll never forgive myself for what I did. Ever. You don’t need to tell me it was wrong. I panicked when he told me he would kill me.”
“She owed him money,” Lance explained, his voice quiet.
“So you were clean, huh? Just like you always told me?” I scoffed.
She winced. “Yeah, I know. I hate myself for that, too. You don’t have to remind me.”
“I do have to remind you,” I said. Lance reached out to stop me from speaking, but I brushed him off. “You let a man take your daughter. You knew he was going to sell her. Sell. Her.”
“Enough, Jamie. She knows. That’s not why we’re here together.” I looked at him, waiting for an explanation. “We’re talking about custody of Gigi.”
“I want Lance to take her,” Rae said.
I scoffed. “I would hope so.” No way I would let her have Gigi after what she did. I would have paid whatever it took to take her to court and wipe the floor with her.
“Rae’s gonna sign custody over to me. I’m gonna send her to rehab so she can clean up her act.”
I glanced at Rae. “What, you think you can get back into her good graces when you’re sober?”
She shook her head. “No. I need to get outta here. Away from everything. I’m not coming back.” She smiled sadly. “I was never cut out to be a mother. I did my best.” She looked me in the eye again, without me telling her to. “I did my best. You’ve gotta believe that. You don’t know how it is, living with something like I do. It’s hell.”
I didn’t have anything to say in response. “You’re sure you want this?” I asked Lance.
“Of course I do. I want my daughter.” Something inside me glowed with pride. He was the man I hoped he was. He would stand up and do what was right for his little girl. “I want my daughter’s mother to be okay, too. She didn’t do as bad a job as she could have. Believe me, I know.” His eyes went a little unfocused, a little distant.