Price of a Bounty - By S. L. Wallace Page 0,37

At least he’d never touched me.

When I finished, I returned to my room and changed into a pair of pale pink sweatpants and a white t-shirt. Then I climbed the stairs to the first floor and crossed the kitchen to the back porch. That’s where Chrissy found me. I sat on a white wicker chair and gazed at the sunset.

“Edrea and Vanessa are finally asleep. How was your day?”

“Oh, typical,” I responded. “Do you like working here?”

“So far, yes. The girls keep me busy, but they’re fun.” She sounded sincere.

“That’s good.” Lance Beckett must not have gotten to her yet.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I’m just tired,” I said as I rubbed my shoulder. “I think I’m going to turn in early.”

I returned to my room, but I didn’t sleep. Why couldn’t I stop him? Was this job so important that I would do anything to keep it? What if I just left? What would happen to me then? I could stay with Cole again, for a little while. Of course, that wouldn’t be much of an improvement. However, the last time I’d run away and stayed with Cole, when I returned, things had gotten better for a few months.

No. I needed to be honest with myself. It hadn’t really gotten better. Mr. Beckett had merely shifted his attention to the nanny. Then her “situation” had changed, and she’d left. Was I destined to suffer the same fate?

I looked around my room and remembered another bedroom, about the same size, from my childhood. After Scott had left, things hadn’t changed much. Keira and I still went to school and kept house for Aunt Cady. We were together. Keira was more than a sister to me. She was also my best friend.

Then Keira had to go. Neither of us had wanted that. I wasn’t ready to be an only child, and she wasn’t ready to leave. She didn’t even know what she wanted to do with her life, and she hadn’t finished school yet. Her birthday was in November. The streets were already cold, and she was turned out with no money and no prospects. I tried to give her the money Scott had saved up for us, but she refused to take it. For about three weeks, Keira continued to go to school during the day, and at night, she sneaked through my window and slept on the floor. It was all she could think to do.

Finally, I talked to Aunt Cady and pleaded on Keira’s behalf. I tried to convince her to let Keira move back in, just until the end of the school year. That’s when I learned that it’s a really bad idea to share secrets. My window was nailed shut and Aunt Cady made sure that when I went to bed, I stayed there. Keira no longer had a way in.

I remembered the look on her face when she stood outside my window that night. We’d held our hands up to each other. It looked like she said, “I’ll come back.”

She disappeared for about a month. I was worried sick, wondering what had happened to her. Then one day, she did come back. She found me at school, and we talked. She carried herself differently and had a look I’d never seen before, more wary maybe? She also had cuts and bruises and a black eye.

When it was my turn to leave, it hadn’t been quite so bad. By that time, Keira had an income and an apartment of her own. We’d lived together for three and a half years. I was able to finish school, and eventually, I’d been hired at the Beckett estate.

Although I asked many times, Keira refused to tell me how she made a living. She also never told me what had happened to her when she was gone for that month. Those were her first secrets from me, I was sure of it.

When Keira told me she was going out and advised me not to wait up for her, she expected me to believe she was dating. I knew it wasn’t true though. She would return in the morning silent and withdrawn. Sometimes, her clothes had bloodstains on them even when she didn’t have any fresh wounds. By next laundry day, those clothes would be gone.

Over time, I figured out what Keira really did. She was angry at the world. When I finally confronted her with what I’d guessed, she no longer tried to hide it from me. My sister, the Freelancer. I’d once