Galen's Gemma - Dale Mayer Page 0,54
“We were moving to the US. And we’d have a big house with a swimming pool. I really want the swimming pool.” Her voice turned sad. “I guess there’s no swimming pool now, is there?”
Inside, Gemma wondered what the chances were that she could find a place with a pool just for the little girl because she had no doubt that she would end up being the one who raised her now. “I don’t know about that,” she said. “That’s not today’s issue.”
Becky nodded. “Am I going to jail?”
“No,” she said, “you didn’t do anything wrong.”
“But I didn’t tell the police what she did to Daddy. I lied.”
There was a moment of silence while Gemma looked for the right answer. “And why did you lie?”
“Mommy said to because she would get in trouble. Then she kept telling me that I didn’t see what I saw, that people wouldn’t believe me, and that I’d get into trouble for lying.”
“So she told you one thing, then told you something different, and then something different again?”
Becky hesitated and then whispered, “Yes.”
“She’s good at that, isn’t she?”
“She’s very good at that.”
At that point, she turned off the recorder. “If you can sleep,” she said, “do it. I don’t know how far of a drive we’ll have, but we’ll need our rest.”
“What about you?” she asked.
“I’ll just stay here and keep you safe.”
“You need rest too. When will Galen come?” Becky whispered as she snuggled in closer.
“I trust that Galen’s on his way,” she said. “You should too.”
“Is Zack okay?” she asked.
“You tell me,” she said. “Have you ever heard anything about Zack?”
“Only that Mom said he’s an idiot, and she only wanted him around for as long as he was useful.”
“I forgot how difficult your mother could be. Do you like Zack?”
“I like him,” she said. “He’s nicer than the others.”
“I think Zack’s okay,” Gemma said, deliberately not asking about the others.
“I don’t think Mom was sleeping with him,” she said.
“Not for a long time anyway,” she said. “It was before your daddy.”
“Oh.” She stopped and then whispered, “It’s not right to sleep with men like that, is it?”
She didn’t have a clue how much her little niece understood about sex and the term “sleeping with men.” She shrugged and held her close. “Let’s try not to judge. Your mom is who she is.”
“Is she going to jail?”
Gemma winced at that. “It’s possible, yes.” Because, of course, she should go to jail if she had killed Joe. He had been a good man. He didn’t deserve to have the woman he absolutely adored turn on him.
But then that was Rebecca’s specialty. To make men fall in love with her, then turn that love into something so dark and so nasty that they were twisted up and messed up forever afterward.
She was grateful Zack appeared to have gotten out of the cycle. “We’ll just wait and see.”
“If I don’t have to go to jail with Mom, can I stay with you?”
Gemma took the opportunity to hold her as close as she could and whispered against her hair, “Always.” And, with that, Becky snuggled in deep and relaxed.
*
“We have to find them,” Galen said. Zack was running GPS from the passenger side, while Galen pushed the vehicle as fast as he could, the headlights off to hide them from their prey, so he was driving in the dark on the rough unlit road. Unfortunately they weren’t gaining. “They can’t be too far ahead, but I see no sign of them.”
“Well, they are. We’ve also got Tim to thank for taking care of those bodies too,” he said.
“That Tim guy’s very interesting.”
“As long as he does his job, I don’t care,” Zack said. “He’s been good to Gemma.”
“They don’t want cops on the property.”
“I know. I think they’ll move the bodies into the vehicle and move them somewhere else.”
Galen thought about it and then said, “Send him a text and tell him to take them to Joe’s cabin. That will at least put them in another location, tying them all to Joe’s murder investigation. Or at least to have the local cops open up an investigation into Joe’s murder.”
“Will do.”
Galen hated to think that both Becky and Gemma were now missing. The real kidnappers might keep Becky safe, but Galen was pretty sure Gemma would get tossed into a ditch somewhere. Apparently the sanctity of life didn’t matter to anybody in that group. “I also think that bloody bitch Rebecca got away clean too. Need to track