Nightfall (Devil's Night #4) - Penelope Douglas Page 0,184

like shit.

But that bergamot and blue cypress wafted over me as if it were yesterday and he were right next to me.

My chest shook, taking in the bags under his eyes and the smile that was no longer there.

“I’m going to tell everyone you’re in love with him,” Martin said. “You’d say anything to protect him. I’m sure I could find witnesses to corroborate a time or two you both were all over each other. The Cove. The school bus, was it?”

I stared at Will. I knew someone must’ve seen us that night racing through the parking lot.

“Do you have proof of your allegations?” Martin asked. “Witnesses? Photos?”

I curled my fingers into fists as Martin came to my side and looked at him, too.

“He burned down your gazebo, Em.” His tone was steady. Planned. “He’s been fucking everything with a skirt, snorting anything that’ll fit up his nose, and drinking everything that promises him sweet oblivion for the past two years,” he told me.

I clenched my teeth, locking my eyes on Will. Look up. Just let me see your eyes.

“And you still want to be his whore, you fucking sl—”

I growled. “Their lawyers will get them out of this,” I said, cutting him off. “This entire town is on their side, and whoever isn’t, is on their fathers’ side. No one wants to see them pay.”

He chuckled and then sighed. “It’s the ones closest to them they can’t trust the most.”

“What do you mean?”

But he just kept staring through the glass.

What does he know? “Who uploaded the videos?” I demanded.

He just smiled to himself.

Something was going on. More than just some fuck-up of someone getting a hold of that phone.

I looked at Will again. He sat back in his seat, staring at the table, something vacant in his gaze.

He burned down my gazebo.

He hated me. He didn’t want to have to look at me anywhere in this town.

My eyes watered, but before I hardly had a chance to notice, Martin shoved an envelope at me.

I took it. “What is this?”

I opened it up and pulled out the document.

“I can’t handle it anymore,” he said. “She’s yours now. You want to be free, you’re free. Take her.”

What? I skimmed the paperwork—my grandmother’s power of attorney transferred to me, and all I had to do was sign.

This was the one thing he still had to hold over me. The only thing that kept me in his life. Why would he turn her over?

“Then give me my money, too,” I told him.

I couldn’t care for her without it.

But he just smirked. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

I shook my head. Her nursing home was over seven grand a month. Even if I quit school and worked three jobs, I’d never be able to pay that and support myself.

And I didn’t have the money to take him to court. God knows where he could’ve hidden the rest he hadn’t used. It was gone.

Walking over to the table, he picked up another envelope, this one white. He ripped it open and pulled out whatever was inside, tossing it onto the table. Pictures spilled, fanning out, and I recognized the Polaroids instantly.

“Found your stash behind the coffee table books.”

He raised his eyes, meeting mine, and I stood there, squeezing the docs in my hand, because I couldn’t squeeze his neck.

He picked up a photo of me, the one with the bruises on my ribs from when he’d kicked me when I was fifteen. “You know, it does make me feel a little badly,” he said. “Looking at all of this together like this makes it look like you really went through hell.”

I’d thought about taking the pictures with my phone. Indestructible with the cloud and easy to send and receive digitally.

But he checked my phone, so I documented the abuse for a rainy day with an old Polaroid camera for a while. In the beginning when I thought I was smart and I could use it if I had to run for my life.

I’d stopped keeping evidence by the time I was seventeen. By then, I just held on with every thread I could muster.

“I was aggravated at first…when I found these.” He circled the table, picking up another and studying it. “But everything is an opportunity, isn’t it?”

I narrowed my eyes, the papers crinkling in my fist.

“I’m not going to take your advice,” he said, throwing the pic on the table and sliding his hands into his pockets. “They’ll be charged, but the DA