Page 101 of The Banned Books Club
Her father motioned her to the living room, where she could see what was wrong. The picture windows had been shot out. Glass glittered like crushed diamonds all over the furniture and carpet. “When we heard the gunfire in the middle of the night, we were terrified. We didn’t know what was happening. And it wasn’t just a few shots, like with the garbage can. Whoever did this fired again and again—must’ve used more than one gun because he didn’t take time to reload.”
“Whoever did this?”she echoed. They knew who it had to be.
“It was terrifying to be awakened like that,” her mother said from behind her. “And then...when you were gone...we thought...”
Gia looked back to see Ida bury her face in her hands. “You thought I’d been kidnapped or something?”
“Or worse,” her father said. “Come here.” He guided her through the family room slider to the front yard where she could see that someone had spray-painted “Fuck you, Gia!” on the front of the house in bright red paint.
“That son of a bitch!” she muttered. “If I can’t get a restraining order, why aren’t the police at least keeping an eye on our house?”
“I don’t know,” her father said. “I’ve called them. They’re on their way.”
She glanced up at the eaves. “We need to get some cameras up so we can at least document anything in the future.”
“Who would have thought we’d need that in a town like this?” He shook his head. “We’ve lived here all our lives.”
He looked tired, with the lines in his face more pronounced than usual and his hair standing up on one side. “Don’t worry,” she told him. “We’ll get through this.”
“It’s not right,” he murmured. “Your mother’s suffered enough.”
“Maybe we should take her to my place in Coeur d’Alene for a while,” Gia said. “Get away and give her a chance to unwind.”
“She wouldn’t want to die there,” he said.
Heneversaid the D word. Neither did she. Hearing it reminded her of the inevitability of what they were facing and made her that much angrier at Sheldon for creating so much fear and upset in her mother’s last days. If he was mad at Margot, that was one thing. He didn’t have to take it out on them. They’d just become a handy stand-in, a target for his rage. “I’ll order a surveillance system right away.”
“How much will that cost?” he asked wearily.
“Not much. I’ll take care of it.”
They walked back inside to find that Ida had dried her cheeks and composed herself. “Where were you last night?” she asked Gia. “When we looked in your room, your bed was untouched.” She gestured at the clothes Gia was wearing. “And didn’t you go out in that last night?”
Gia was tempted to tell her she’d slept in the chaise by the pool, but with everything that had just happened that wasn’t believable. She would’ve heard the gunfire. And with the way gossip circulated around town, anyway... “I was with Cormac,” she admitted.
Her mother’s jaw dropped. “Mr. Hart’sson?”
She winced at Ida’s reaction. “Yes.”
“You’reseeinghim?” her mother pressed.
Was she seeing him? There was nothing official between them. They were just going day by day with what they felt at the moment. At the same time, she was sleeping with him, so...that was definitely something. “Sort of.”
“What does that mean?” her father asked. “Do you care about him?”
That was a much easier question to answer. Shedidcare about him, or she wouldn’t have been drawn back to his house. But having feelings for him would only make it harder when it came time to leave, so she wasn’t particularly happy about it. “I do.”
Her father gaped at her. “Since when?”
“Since I’ve been home.”
He scratched his neck. “Who would ever have thought Margot would disappear with our grandchildren, and you’d come back to Wakefield and fall in love, especially with Cormac Hart.”
She opened her mouth to say she wasn’tin lovewith Cormac. She’d never been in love before, couldn’t believe it would happen now, of all times. But as she pictured him—his smile, his touch, the way he laughed—she knew she was in far deeper than she felt comfortable with. “We aren’t putting a label on it,” she said.
Her father’s eyebrows went up, but he didn’t say anything else. The police had arrived.
It’d been three weeks since she ran away. That wasn’t very long, and yet Margot had accomplished so much. After Sheldon had called her stupid for years and treated her with disdain, as though she couldn’t get anything right, she was proud of herself. It felt wonderful to have put so many important pieces in place for her future and that of her children. Not only had she driven all the way to California on her own, she’d gotten an apartment in Burbank and enrolled her boys in school, so now she had more time to focus on getting a job. She hadn’t secured one yet, but she had several interviews this week—one with Starbucks, which was in a couple of hours, one as an office manager for a small accounting firm and one at an independent bookstore. They weren’t prestigious positions. She could hear Sheldon in her mind, mocking her for not being able to do better. But she had to start someplace, needed to get a stream of money coming in so she could save as much of her nest egg as possible.
