then I saw the beige Lexus with Virginia plates parked down the street.
“It’s them,” I said. “They’re here.”
Gibson’s arm shot around my waist, like he was about to pick me up and carry me to his truck. The chatter around me faded, a ripple running through our little group.
And then I saw them.
Judge Kendall stood outside Moonshine, dressed in a crisp button-down shirt. He looked so much older than I remembered. His hair was thinning, and he wore wire-rimmed glasses. When I was young, he’d only worn glasses for reading.
And her. She’d aged as well. The lines around her eyes were deeper. Not smile lines. Imogen Kendall hadn’t smiled enough to earn the pleasant-looking marks of a life well lived. Hers angled downward, both from her eyes and the corners of her mouth.
They were both well-dressed. Impossibly tidy without a wrinkle or a hair out of place. And in the moment that our eyes met—when they saw me for the first time in thirteen years—neither of them smiled. Not in that half-second of recognition. Not until the shock appeared to wear off and they seemed to recall they had an audience.
My mother gasped, clutching her chest. My father stepped close and held her shoulders, as if she needed him to keep her upright.
The world seemed to go silent. Conversations among neighbors on the street ceased. The people who’d started to gather around my parents halted, their eyes darting around, as if they weren’t sure what to do. Even the air felt still, like Bootleg Springs itself held its breath, waiting to see what would happen.
“Oh my god,” my mother said, her dead eyes locked on me. “Callie? Is it true? Is it really my daughter?”
Blinking a few times, I stared at her, momentarily dumbstruck. Nothing about this should have surprised me. Of course they were going to play the part of the heartbroken parents. Maybe they didn’t know how close they were to having their lives upended. Or maybe they were arrogant enough to think they’d walk away from this.
“Imogen, it’s her,” my father said. His voice had considerably less emotion than my mother’s. “She’s come back to us.”
As a unit, they took slow steps toward me. Down off the sidewalk and into the street. Their performance was good, I had to give them that. Bystanders who’d seemed ready to grab them and haul them to the police station—or serve up some Bootleg Justice—watched with wide eyes and open mouths.
I pushed Gibson’s arm off me, disentangling myself from his grasp. I gazed at the two people walking slowly closer. Two people who’d done terrible things to me. So terrible, I’d left my whole life behind and started a new one with a new identity to protect myself from them. And I realized something.
They didn’t have power over me anymore.
“My daughter,” Imogen said, opening her arms. I couldn’t think of her as my mother anymore. She’d given up that privilege a long time ago. “The nightmare is finally over.”
“No,” I said, my voice ringing clear and true. “No, for you, the nightmare is only about to begin.”
They stopped in their tracks and a flash of anger crossed Imogen’s face. A slight tic in her jaw and a twitch of her eye that would have once had me cowering in fear.
Not anymore.
I stepped off the sidewalk. “You did unspeakable things to me. You tortured your own child, trying to break my spirit so I wouldn’t betray your awful secrets. I’m here to tell you something. You failed. You never broke me.”
Her dead eyes narrowed, and her mouth pinched in a thin line.
I turned my gaze to the judge. He wasn’t my father any more than she was my mother. “And you. I know what you’re going to say. When people ask, you’ll claim you never touched me. You never laid a finger on your daughter. And it’s true. You never get your hands dirty. But your hands, and your soul, are mired in filth. You let her do it. You stood by while she hurt me, and you covered it up. Cleaned up her messes.
“I hope that was horrible for you. I hope it took time from your precious career and you’ve secretly harbored searing regret for marrying that monster. I hope it cost you a good chunk of your fortune to hide what she’s done. Not just to me, but to Connie Bodine, too. What did it cost you to cover that up?”