did it, but there was no way to prove it. It would have been easy for him to sneak Becca’s pills and get Owen a drink. The car was dropped hard to do the most damage.”
“It’s difficult to have much sympathy for Owen when he was beating two children who were in his care.”
“I might not have had sympathy if he’d died outright, but he was made to suffer for hours. I’m not certain that can be called justice. Haydon didn’t kill him outright, he wanted Owen to suffer. He chose a way to make it happen and he executed his plan. I had no proof, and who would I ever say anything to? Owen beat us all the time. Haydon defended me. I was scared of all of them and didn’t know what to do.”
Vittorio nodded. He laid her hand, palm down, on his thigh. That felt . . . intimate. The morphine had already kicked in and she could feel herself drifting. She didn’t understand, when she’d been so leery with every other single person in the world, why she felt so connected to Vittorio. He was leagues out of her world.
“Becca told the social worker she couldn’t take care of us any longer. She didn’t suspect Haydon at first, but he sat around staring at her, and once when she lifted her hand to him, he said he hoped nothing happened to her the way it had her son and husband. She began watching us. I think she was afraid at that point, and she wanted to get rid of us. Before they took us out of the home, they finished conducting the investigation and she was arrested and charged with abuse. She was sentenced to two years with time served; unfortunately for me, another very kind foster mother who had been told we were close took us both in.”
“I take it it didn’t end there.”
She shook her head. A wave of weariness swept over her. “I haven’t slept much in the last few years, afraid if I closed my eyes, I’d wake up with Haydon standing over me. He does that often. I know it’s to show me he can get into my apartment no matter how often I change the locks. Once he sent me a picture of Katie Branscomb, asleep in her room. He was in the picture, standing above Katie, a grin on his face. He hadn’t threatened her with words, just let me know in his not-so-subtle way that Katie was in danger if I stopped doing what he wanted. So, I took out more loans, went into debt until I was stretched so thin there was no way to pay it all back. I told him so, and you saw the results.”
Vittorio rubbed his chin with her fingertips. The shadow on his jaw was faint, but she could feel the bristles and for some reason she didn’t understand, that feeling shot straight from her fingertips to her core. She’d never experienced anything like it. He was naturally sensual and didn’t even seem to notice, while she, in her floaty state, was afraid she would blurt out how hot he was. How could she even notice when she was telling him about Haydon and the things she knew he’d done but couldn’t prove?
“Other than seeing the smirk on his face when the detectives were investigating Owen’s accident, was there anything else that tied him to it?”
“This doesn’t tie him to it, but usually he slept in my bedroom, in front of the door. We’d taken to keeping the window open so we both could run if we had to. We knew Owen was going to retaliate because I’d hit him with a chair. It was the first night since that terrible beating that Haydon hadn’t slept there.”
“What happened when you were at the new foster home? Who were they?”
“Her name was Julie Vaughn. Her husband was Kyle. They were really good people. They gave us great rooms. Each of us had a laptop to use, and when Haydon asked for an iPod for music, they got him one. I thought they were awesome. Haydon often complained about them. He didn’t like doing the chores and said they got us to be their slaves. They were light chores and reasonable. Things like picking up our own rooms and doing our laundry. He refused, and I would do his share of the work because I was afraid he was trying to get them to