second, but she opened them again. “I was badly injured, trying to get away. Jonah Bodine Sr. found and helped me. He obviously didn’t murder me, or hit me with his car. He found a bleeding, terrified girl on the side of the road and he helped me get to safety.
“I went to a little town in upstate New York where a wonderful family took me in. They loved me and cared for me and helped me heal. When I became an adult, I went out and lived my life. I did my best to move on from my past. I wasn’t Callie Kendall anymore. I was Maya Davis.”
“Why didn’t you tell anyone?” someone asked from the back.
“Fear,” she said. “I was afraid for my life if my parents ever found me. It hurt me terribly to leave all the good things in my life behind. All the friends and people I cared about.” Her eyes landed on me. “But I didn’t have a choice. I want you all to know I’m so sorry you hurt for me for so long. And I’m sorry I didn’t tell everyone the truth about who I am when I first came back.”
“What kinda danger are we talkin’?”
“Are you saying the judge hurt you?”
“Why are you here now?”
The questions were coming from every direction. I wanted to turn around and tell them all to shut the fuck up and let her talk.
“Yes, Judge Kendall…” She trailed off again and swallowed hard. “The judge is a dangerous man. And he has a lot to lose if I reappear. He wants me to stay missing. Stay dead. He had a man who works for him bribe a lab tech into faking the forensics report on the remains of that girl in New York to say it was me. And that’s not the worst of it. He has a long history of using coercion, threats, bribery, and even violence to get what he wants and maintain his power.
“When I was a girl, I hid the truth from everyone. No one knew what was happening to me. Now, I’m back to face my past. I’m here to clear Jonah Bodine’s name. And to find a way to bring the real wrongdoers to justice.”
That was met with a round of applause. My family and I glanced around, meeting each other’s eyes. This was the Bootleg who’d raised us.
“What about Gibson?” someone shouted. “Did he know where you were?”
“No. Jonah and Connie kept my secret, even from their children. And they didn’t do it just for my safety. They did it to protect their family, and their town. They understood that it would put a lot of people in danger if the truth got out.”
“Gibs, why did you have her picture?”
“Were you running around with her when she was sixteen?”
“Gibson Bodine, how dare you?”
“Weren’t you twenty-five?”
I ground my teeth together and clenched my fists.
“Gibson Bodine was my friend,” Callie said, her voice suddenly clear and strong. “He was twenty, and I was sixteen, but we were just friends. Gibson was respectful and kind. He gave me his friendship without any strings or expectations. He never acted inappropriately, even though we were alone so much, he certainly could have. I trusted him more than I trusted anyone in the world. I still do. And y’all should be ashamed of yourself for assuming the worst of him. Gibson Bodine is a good man. He’s the best man I know.”
I stared at her, my eyes wide. My throat was thick and it felt like my heart might have gotten stuck in my ribs.
“I’m going on thirty now, and I’m plenty old enough to say I love him. I loved him as a friend when I was young, and I love him as so much more now. I’m the luckiest person in the world to be Gibson Bodine’s girl.”
A ripple went through the audience, some people reacting to Callie’s speech with oohs and ahhs. Others with phrases like, how sweet, and they’re just precious, and bless my soul, this is so much to take in.
I rose from my chair and went up to the front. They didn’t need every detail of her painful past. It hurt her to remember it—even more to speak of it—and she’d told them enough. And I didn’t want them getting sidetracked looking for the juicy details of our current relationship. Right now, we needed to deal with the threat in our town.