Rachel opened her eyes and waited for her eyes to adjust. The last thing she could remember was drinking wine in the cemetery, and then...and then she and Amelia had gone to get food, and drank some more. Rachel hadn't drank that much since college, but surprisingly she didn't have much of a hangover. She looked around the room and didn't recognize it at all. She rubbed her eyes and rolled over onto her back from her side, staring at the ceiling overhead. That's when she realized she was in a hotel room, but not the hotel room she was sharing with Ricky. And then she remembered, shit, she was supposed to have met with Ricky and Wyatt last night. Rachel groaned and covered her face with her hands when the front door to the hotel room opened and Amelia entered, smiling at her as she closed it with her foot.
Amelia was dressed in jeans and a big jacket, a scarf, the weather getting exceptionally colder. She was carrying a styrofoam holder with multiple cups of coffee in it, along with a bag in her other hand, a plain brown bag with a local deli logo on the front, designating its origins. Amelia set the stuff down on the bed, Rachel sitting up before realizing she was naked and pulling the sheet up around her more as Amelia kicked her shoes off and climbed out of her jacket and scarf and onto the bed.
"You went and got breakfast?" Rachel asked, opening the bag and peeking in.
"Yeah, there's this place Calvin and I used to go," Amelia said, "it's nearby so I figured I'd run down there and get something for us."
Rachel pulled out a breakfast burrito and bit into it, then looked up at Amelia as she handed her her coffee and for a moment their eyes locked, Rachel's hair, messy and tangled, falling in front of her face, causing Amelia to smile and reach out, brushing it back. Rachel's heartbeat quickened at this gesture, and for a brief moment, Rachel felt like her life was normal again. She took another bite, then sipped her coffee and set both on the nightstand before looking at Amelia.
"Um..." Rachel said, "I'm not a good person. I'm not a very stable person, either. So you should really be aware of what it is you're getting involved in because...because I'm exhausting and my life is exhausting and you still have the chance to turn tail and run, and I wouldn't even blame you one bit."
Amelia smiled, then ran her hand down from Rachel's hair and onto her face, before leaning across the bed, over the coffee containers and the bag of breakfast food and kissing her. Rachel melted. Absolutely melted. Somehow, whatever this was she was having with Amelia, was so much more real than whatever it was she had had with Sun Rai.
"I spent my life running from things," Amelia whispered as she rested her forehead on Rachel's, "...I think it's time I stuck around."
And Rachel wanted to sob.
***
Celia was sitting in a bar.
Not the typical kind of place she would frequent, but here she was. Especially not a bar like this. She wasn't against going somewhere for drinks from time to time, but she generally preferred the upscale kind of bars where she could order good food, there was nice music playing, and she felt safe. This...was not that kind of bar. This was a rough bar, with rough looking people in it. Frankly, being here alone, she was a little worried, but she was wearing leather pants and a tank top, trying to fulfill the look of a bad bitch not to be reckoned with and thusfar it appeared to be working. The doors opened and Wyatt entered, causing Celia to sigh relief as he seated himself next to her.
"It's about time," she said as he looked her up and down.
"Why are you dressed like a member of TLC?" he asked, and she glared at him.
"You know, this is the kind of bar where one could stab someone else and nobody would mind," she replied, and he laughed.
"Fair enough," he said, "I come bearing...well, not gifts, but information."
"I don't need information," Celia said, "I need advice. My ex is...he's breathing down my neck, and I don't know what to do. That's why I dressed like this, wanted to come here, cause I knew he would never think to look for me in this kind of establishment."
Wyatt nodded as he ordered a drink from the bartender. Celia sipped hers, then rested it back atop the bar.
"If I don't give him something soon..." she continued, "it isn't gonna be good."
"Well, lucky for you then that I have something you can give him," Wyatt said, sliding the file Ricky had given him across the bar towards her. Celia, skeptical, took it and opened it slowly, beginning to page through it, her eyes widening with each bit of new information that passed by her line of sight. After a few minutes, and Wyatt had finished his drink and ordered another, she finally shut the folder and looked back at him, Wyatt smiling large.
"Where did you even get this?" she asked.
"It's a long story," Wyatt said.
"How did you even know this?" she asked, following up.
"Not my story to tell, actually," he answered, "what matters is we have it, and you can use it to shield yourself, get yourself that immunity, and we take down the chief, we expose the whole thing. Your ex is an FBI agent, Celia, that gives him jurisdiction over any kind of local precinct if we can prove it beyond a reasonable doubt and, frankly, I'd say we can."
"But there's nothing tying us to this," Celia said, tapping her nails on the folder, "that's the issue here."
"There is, actually," Wyatt said, smacking his lips, "me."
Celia stared at him and he smiled weakly, the light dimming from his eyes.
"I'm gonna take the fall."
***
Angie was sitting in her car outside the compound, a pile of snacks from the gas station down the street scattered around her as she sipped on the straw of her enormous drink, Clark sitting in the passenger seat. She glanced over at him and his ears perked up. She reached out and stroked the top of his head, smiling, as he thwapped his tail against the chair.
"Why exactly are we here?" she asked.
"You have paranoia," Clark said, "you didn't want to leave this place, your folks did, but for good reason."
"They had good reasons?"
"It's interesting what the psyche will block out when it needs to protect itself," Clark said, "you never think about your time here? You remember it fondly, speak of Art highly, but you don't remember your time here, in deep detail? How it's strange that there's no little boys living on the compound? How Art has many suitors, most of them younger women, all of legal age, yes, but much younger than he."
Angie furrowed her brow and took another bite of her gas station sandwich.
"What are you insinuating?" she asked.
"We block traumatic events, it's a defense mechanism," Clark said, woofing quietly, looking back out the windshield towards the compound, "you know what a cult does, right? Indoctrinates. Some are better at hiding their agendas than others. We remember the wild ones because they were wild, out there, willing to expose their ludicrous beliefs to the world no matter how morally incorrect they may have been. But we don't remember the ones that went on for decades, quietly just getting away with whatever they wanted behind closed doors. How do you think cults get new members? Recruits? They're not Mormons going door to door. They come from inside. But if there's no little boys in the compound, how are all the younger women having children?"
Angie slowly looked back at the compound, the gravity of Clarks words finally settling in, weighing on her.
"...you mean," she whispered.
"I do," Clark said, "and you remember these things, you just buried them."
"If I buried them how are you unearthing them?" Angie asked.
"Angie I'm just a dog that sounds like Calvin," Clark said, "but what did Calvin want most in the world? To protect children. Revenge for his daughters deaths. He took so much of that stuff from the unit and shredded it, Wyatt told you about that, because he simply couldn't fathom the concept of content like that existing in the world even if nobody was viewing it any longer thanks to Brightons death."
"And my parents?" Angie asked.
"Maybe you should ask them," Clark said, "you're already not on good terms, what could the truth hurt?"
***
"What the hell do you mean you're gonna take the fall?" Celia asked, lowering her voice.
"Pretty straight forward statement, I thought," Wyatt replied, shrugging, "I cop to killing Grudin. You read the file, you know Grudin was friends with this Chief, they have ties, and the Chief investigated Brightons death, which ties him to Brighton, and Brighton ties back to us and Grudin. I take the blame for Grudin's death and that's that, we're in the clear."
"But you didn't-"
"I did, though," Wyatt said, "...I did. I'm the one who pressed the trigger. That day, with Calvin, in the car. We fought over it because I was having second thoughts, but in the end I'm the one who did it, not him. I'm responsible. Sure, I didn't build the bomb, nor did I have the motive, but I killed the man. Celia, this is the only way out of this that leaves everyone else unscathed. It has to be this way. We meet with your ex, I tell him everything, and we move on towards justice."
Celia stared at Wyatt, unsure of how exactly to process this information. He was willing to do this? To just...give himself up? He'd always said he would take the fall if it ever came down to it, but...but somehow, even being as good a man as he clearly was, she always sneakingly suspected that those were just words. Celia looked back at the file on the bartop and chewed on her lip. What about Mona? What about everything he had? She looked back at him and watched as he ate snack mix out of a basket on the bar, looking dead ahead. He was tired. He was running on empty. He'd kept this group together, kept things going, for as long as he had and he was run down.
"My only regret now is Kelly," Wyatt said, shaking his head, "I finally meet a girl I really love, that wants to be with me, and I have to let her go. Maybe she'll wait for me, who knows. Maybe my sentence won't even be that severe, once you take into consideration all the aspects of it, but who knows. Still, to have to hurt her, even on some level, hurts me."
Celia reached out and touched his arm, and he glanced over at her, smiling.
"Wyatt..."
"It's the way it ends, Celia," he said, shrugging, "it always has been. Someone's gotta be the villain. I'm just auditioning for the role. Now let's just drink, okay? Drink to the end of it all."
How could she resist an offer like that?
***
Angie stood in front of her parents front door, then exhaled and entered, holding Clark's leash in her hand, leading him in behind her. As she entered, she saw nobody, but she heard the sound of utensils in the kitchen, and headed in that direction. She walked through the doorway and found her parents, Gloria and Anthony, sitting at the table eating, both of whom stopped and stared at her as she entered.
"Sweetheart, where have you been?" Gloria asked.
Angie stared at them, not answering.
"Kiddo, you okay?" Anthony asked, and Angie looked towards him. Her father was the one who would say it. She knew this. She knew her mother would try to obscure the truth for the sake of her sanity, but her father...her father would tell her; "Angie?" he asked again, snapping his fingers at her.
"Did Art groom young girls?" Angie asked, flatout, no wavering in her voice, "at...at the compound, at the...the cult. Did Art groom young girls to be involved with him romantically?"
Her parents exchanged a look, and then her father sighed and stood up.
"Yes," he said sternly, and Angie felt her insides crumble, "yeah, and he...he wanted you too. And I wasn't about to stand by and let that happen. The thing is, what Art originally preached we believed in. And then we stood by while he got worse, but he was good at making us think it was all for the best. Even once the grooming became obvious...well...we still believed so much in his...I don't know, his belief I guess, that we were willing to turn a blind eye to something nobody should be willing to turn a blind eye to. And then he tried to have you."
Angie felt everything inside her breaking. How could this be true? Was NOBODY sacred?
"I wasn't going to let that happen, so we made the decision to leave," Anthony said, "we did it for you, honey. You were more important to us than that place, than what we believed in."
Angie turned and, tugging on Clark's leash, ran from the house. That was all she had to hear. No wonder Art had been willing to help them. Because he was interested himself in that very sort of thing. After getting into her car and driving away again, Clark in the passenger seat, she didn't know what to do. Should she turn to Wyatt? Should she looked to Ricky? Who should she go to at this point? Or maybe, as Clark had said...it was time for her to do something herself. She would succeed where everyone else had failed, because, unlike the others...
...she was willing to kill for it.
***
Rachel and Amelia were laying in bed, nude, both panting. Rachel was staring at the ceiling, feeling her blood rushing, her heart pounding. She had had more sex in the last 24 hours than she'd had in the entire time she'd been with Sun Rai. She looked over at Amelia, who was eating carmeled popcorn from a bag and glanced back at her, smiling. Rachel blushed and giggled like an idiot.
"What?" Amelia asked, mouth full of corn.
"Just...it's crazy," Rachel said, "the way things go down sometimes. I was...I was done. I was at the brink. I was ready to give in, maybe...maybe kill myself to escape everything in my life, and...and now..."
"Yeah?" Amelia asked.
"Now I know what I'd be missing if I did," Rachel whispered, nuzzling up to Amelia, resting her head on her chest as Amelia stroked her hair; Rachel shut her eyes and exhaled, whispering, "...stay with me okay?"
"I couldn't think of wanting to be anywhere else," Amelia replied.
Meanwhile, Celia had returned home from drinking with Wyatt, only to find the babysitter gone. She was surprised when she entered and found Paul in the living room, their son sitting on the couch, bags packed at their feet. Celia and Paul stared at one another, as Paul sighed and slipped his hands into his coat pockets, then approached her and pulled her gently away from the living room.
"What are you doing here?" she asked.
"God your breath stinks of alcohol," Paul said, waving a hand in front of his face.
"Oh, fuck off, I'm always a professional, I just wanted to have fun one time," Celia said, "but what are you doing here? Why are there bags?"
"I'm taking him," Paul said, "this isn't an environment he should be in. I'm taking him to my hotel, it's a five star hotel, he'll be well taken care of there since I can work from the hotel room. You and I will meet later on to discuss things, especially once I've taken what I've gathered to my superiors, but Celia, this is what's best for him right now."
"No, you can't do this!" Celia shouted, and Paul put a finger to his lips.
"Hush, don't frighten him," he said quietly, before turning and walking back to the living room, gathering the bags and their son and carrying both to the car. Celia followed him, wanting to scream, wanting to break down, but she knew he was right about both what was best and not making a scene. She watched as she loaded the bags in the trunk and their son in the backseat, and stood there, tears flowing down her face, yet not making a single sound. Paul pulled out and drove off, leaving Celia on her doorstep, alone. She looked at the file in her hand, and she sighed.
She had the answer to it all, right here.
Now she just had to be brave enough to take Wyatt's offer. And end all of this once and for all.
Amelia was dressed in jeans and a big jacket, a scarf, the weather getting exceptionally colder. She was carrying a styrofoam holder with multiple cups of coffee in it, along with a bag in her other hand, a plain brown bag with a local deli logo on the front, designating its origins. Amelia set the stuff down on the bed, Rachel sitting up before realizing she was naked and pulling the sheet up around her more as Amelia kicked her shoes off and climbed out of her jacket and scarf and onto the bed.
"You went and got breakfast?" Rachel asked, opening the bag and peeking in.
"Yeah, there's this place Calvin and I used to go," Amelia said, "it's nearby so I figured I'd run down there and get something for us."
Rachel pulled out a breakfast burrito and bit into it, then looked up at Amelia as she handed her her coffee and for a moment their eyes locked, Rachel's hair, messy and tangled, falling in front of her face, causing Amelia to smile and reach out, brushing it back. Rachel's heartbeat quickened at this gesture, and for a brief moment, Rachel felt like her life was normal again. She took another bite, then sipped her coffee and set both on the nightstand before looking at Amelia.
"Um..." Rachel said, "I'm not a good person. I'm not a very stable person, either. So you should really be aware of what it is you're getting involved in because...because I'm exhausting and my life is exhausting and you still have the chance to turn tail and run, and I wouldn't even blame you one bit."
Amelia smiled, then ran her hand down from Rachel's hair and onto her face, before leaning across the bed, over the coffee containers and the bag of breakfast food and kissing her. Rachel melted. Absolutely melted. Somehow, whatever this was she was having with Amelia, was so much more real than whatever it was she had had with Sun Rai.
"I spent my life running from things," Amelia whispered as she rested her forehead on Rachel's, "...I think it's time I stuck around."
And Rachel wanted to sob.
***
Celia was sitting in a bar.
Not the typical kind of place she would frequent, but here she was. Especially not a bar like this. She wasn't against going somewhere for drinks from time to time, but she generally preferred the upscale kind of bars where she could order good food, there was nice music playing, and she felt safe. This...was not that kind of bar. This was a rough bar, with rough looking people in it. Frankly, being here alone, she was a little worried, but she was wearing leather pants and a tank top, trying to fulfill the look of a bad bitch not to be reckoned with and thusfar it appeared to be working. The doors opened and Wyatt entered, causing Celia to sigh relief as he seated himself next to her.
"It's about time," she said as he looked her up and down.
"Why are you dressed like a member of TLC?" he asked, and she glared at him.
"You know, this is the kind of bar where one could stab someone else and nobody would mind," she replied, and he laughed.
"Fair enough," he said, "I come bearing...well, not gifts, but information."
"I don't need information," Celia said, "I need advice. My ex is...he's breathing down my neck, and I don't know what to do. That's why I dressed like this, wanted to come here, cause I knew he would never think to look for me in this kind of establishment."
Wyatt nodded as he ordered a drink from the bartender. Celia sipped hers, then rested it back atop the bar.
"If I don't give him something soon..." she continued, "it isn't gonna be good."
"Well, lucky for you then that I have something you can give him," Wyatt said, sliding the file Ricky had given him across the bar towards her. Celia, skeptical, took it and opened it slowly, beginning to page through it, her eyes widening with each bit of new information that passed by her line of sight. After a few minutes, and Wyatt had finished his drink and ordered another, she finally shut the folder and looked back at him, Wyatt smiling large.
"Where did you even get this?" she asked.
"It's a long story," Wyatt said.
"How did you even know this?" she asked, following up.
"Not my story to tell, actually," he answered, "what matters is we have it, and you can use it to shield yourself, get yourself that immunity, and we take down the chief, we expose the whole thing. Your ex is an FBI agent, Celia, that gives him jurisdiction over any kind of local precinct if we can prove it beyond a reasonable doubt and, frankly, I'd say we can."
"But there's nothing tying us to this," Celia said, tapping her nails on the folder, "that's the issue here."
"There is, actually," Wyatt said, smacking his lips, "me."
Celia stared at him and he smiled weakly, the light dimming from his eyes.
"I'm gonna take the fall."
***
Angie was sitting in her car outside the compound, a pile of snacks from the gas station down the street scattered around her as she sipped on the straw of her enormous drink, Clark sitting in the passenger seat. She glanced over at him and his ears perked up. She reached out and stroked the top of his head, smiling, as he thwapped his tail against the chair.
"Why exactly are we here?" she asked.
"You have paranoia," Clark said, "you didn't want to leave this place, your folks did, but for good reason."
"They had good reasons?"
"It's interesting what the psyche will block out when it needs to protect itself," Clark said, "you never think about your time here? You remember it fondly, speak of Art highly, but you don't remember your time here, in deep detail? How it's strange that there's no little boys living on the compound? How Art has many suitors, most of them younger women, all of legal age, yes, but much younger than he."
Angie furrowed her brow and took another bite of her gas station sandwich.
"What are you insinuating?" she asked.
"We block traumatic events, it's a defense mechanism," Clark said, woofing quietly, looking back out the windshield towards the compound, "you know what a cult does, right? Indoctrinates. Some are better at hiding their agendas than others. We remember the wild ones because they were wild, out there, willing to expose their ludicrous beliefs to the world no matter how morally incorrect they may have been. But we don't remember the ones that went on for decades, quietly just getting away with whatever they wanted behind closed doors. How do you think cults get new members? Recruits? They're not Mormons going door to door. They come from inside. But if there's no little boys in the compound, how are all the younger women having children?"
Angie slowly looked back at the compound, the gravity of Clarks words finally settling in, weighing on her.
"...you mean," she whispered.
"I do," Clark said, "and you remember these things, you just buried them."
"If I buried them how are you unearthing them?" Angie asked.
"Angie I'm just a dog that sounds like Calvin," Clark said, "but what did Calvin want most in the world? To protect children. Revenge for his daughters deaths. He took so much of that stuff from the unit and shredded it, Wyatt told you about that, because he simply couldn't fathom the concept of content like that existing in the world even if nobody was viewing it any longer thanks to Brightons death."
"And my parents?" Angie asked.
"Maybe you should ask them," Clark said, "you're already not on good terms, what could the truth hurt?"
***
"What the hell do you mean you're gonna take the fall?" Celia asked, lowering her voice.
"Pretty straight forward statement, I thought," Wyatt replied, shrugging, "I cop to killing Grudin. You read the file, you know Grudin was friends with this Chief, they have ties, and the Chief investigated Brightons death, which ties him to Brighton, and Brighton ties back to us and Grudin. I take the blame for Grudin's death and that's that, we're in the clear."
"But you didn't-"
"I did, though," Wyatt said, "...I did. I'm the one who pressed the trigger. That day, with Calvin, in the car. We fought over it because I was having second thoughts, but in the end I'm the one who did it, not him. I'm responsible. Sure, I didn't build the bomb, nor did I have the motive, but I killed the man. Celia, this is the only way out of this that leaves everyone else unscathed. It has to be this way. We meet with your ex, I tell him everything, and we move on towards justice."
Celia stared at Wyatt, unsure of how exactly to process this information. He was willing to do this? To just...give himself up? He'd always said he would take the fall if it ever came down to it, but...but somehow, even being as good a man as he clearly was, she always sneakingly suspected that those were just words. Celia looked back at the file on the bartop and chewed on her lip. What about Mona? What about everything he had? She looked back at him and watched as he ate snack mix out of a basket on the bar, looking dead ahead. He was tired. He was running on empty. He'd kept this group together, kept things going, for as long as he had and he was run down.
"My only regret now is Kelly," Wyatt said, shaking his head, "I finally meet a girl I really love, that wants to be with me, and I have to let her go. Maybe she'll wait for me, who knows. Maybe my sentence won't even be that severe, once you take into consideration all the aspects of it, but who knows. Still, to have to hurt her, even on some level, hurts me."
Celia reached out and touched his arm, and he glanced over at her, smiling.
"Wyatt..."
"It's the way it ends, Celia," he said, shrugging, "it always has been. Someone's gotta be the villain. I'm just auditioning for the role. Now let's just drink, okay? Drink to the end of it all."
How could she resist an offer like that?
***
Angie stood in front of her parents front door, then exhaled and entered, holding Clark's leash in her hand, leading him in behind her. As she entered, she saw nobody, but she heard the sound of utensils in the kitchen, and headed in that direction. She walked through the doorway and found her parents, Gloria and Anthony, sitting at the table eating, both of whom stopped and stared at her as she entered.
"Sweetheart, where have you been?" Gloria asked.
Angie stared at them, not answering.
"Kiddo, you okay?" Anthony asked, and Angie looked towards him. Her father was the one who would say it. She knew this. She knew her mother would try to obscure the truth for the sake of her sanity, but her father...her father would tell her; "Angie?" he asked again, snapping his fingers at her.
"Did Art groom young girls?" Angie asked, flatout, no wavering in her voice, "at...at the compound, at the...the cult. Did Art groom young girls to be involved with him romantically?"
Her parents exchanged a look, and then her father sighed and stood up.
"Yes," he said sternly, and Angie felt her insides crumble, "yeah, and he...he wanted you too. And I wasn't about to stand by and let that happen. The thing is, what Art originally preached we believed in. And then we stood by while he got worse, but he was good at making us think it was all for the best. Even once the grooming became obvious...well...we still believed so much in his...I don't know, his belief I guess, that we were willing to turn a blind eye to something nobody should be willing to turn a blind eye to. And then he tried to have you."
Angie felt everything inside her breaking. How could this be true? Was NOBODY sacred?
"I wasn't going to let that happen, so we made the decision to leave," Anthony said, "we did it for you, honey. You were more important to us than that place, than what we believed in."
Angie turned and, tugging on Clark's leash, ran from the house. That was all she had to hear. No wonder Art had been willing to help them. Because he was interested himself in that very sort of thing. After getting into her car and driving away again, Clark in the passenger seat, she didn't know what to do. Should she turn to Wyatt? Should she looked to Ricky? Who should she go to at this point? Or maybe, as Clark had said...it was time for her to do something herself. She would succeed where everyone else had failed, because, unlike the others...
...she was willing to kill for it.
***
Rachel and Amelia were laying in bed, nude, both panting. Rachel was staring at the ceiling, feeling her blood rushing, her heart pounding. She had had more sex in the last 24 hours than she'd had in the entire time she'd been with Sun Rai. She looked over at Amelia, who was eating carmeled popcorn from a bag and glanced back at her, smiling. Rachel blushed and giggled like an idiot.
"What?" Amelia asked, mouth full of corn.
"Just...it's crazy," Rachel said, "the way things go down sometimes. I was...I was done. I was at the brink. I was ready to give in, maybe...maybe kill myself to escape everything in my life, and...and now..."
"Yeah?" Amelia asked.
"Now I know what I'd be missing if I did," Rachel whispered, nuzzling up to Amelia, resting her head on her chest as Amelia stroked her hair; Rachel shut her eyes and exhaled, whispering, "...stay with me okay?"
"I couldn't think of wanting to be anywhere else," Amelia replied.
Meanwhile, Celia had returned home from drinking with Wyatt, only to find the babysitter gone. She was surprised when she entered and found Paul in the living room, their son sitting on the couch, bags packed at their feet. Celia and Paul stared at one another, as Paul sighed and slipped his hands into his coat pockets, then approached her and pulled her gently away from the living room.
"What are you doing here?" she asked.
"God your breath stinks of alcohol," Paul said, waving a hand in front of his face.
"Oh, fuck off, I'm always a professional, I just wanted to have fun one time," Celia said, "but what are you doing here? Why are there bags?"
"I'm taking him," Paul said, "this isn't an environment he should be in. I'm taking him to my hotel, it's a five star hotel, he'll be well taken care of there since I can work from the hotel room. You and I will meet later on to discuss things, especially once I've taken what I've gathered to my superiors, but Celia, this is what's best for him right now."
"No, you can't do this!" Celia shouted, and Paul put a finger to his lips.
"Hush, don't frighten him," he said quietly, before turning and walking back to the living room, gathering the bags and their son and carrying both to the car. Celia followed him, wanting to scream, wanting to break down, but she knew he was right about both what was best and not making a scene. She watched as she loaded the bags in the trunk and their son in the backseat, and stood there, tears flowing down her face, yet not making a single sound. Paul pulled out and drove off, leaving Celia on her doorstep, alone. She looked at the file in her hand, and she sighed.
She had the answer to it all, right here.
Now she just had to be brave enough to take Wyatt's offer. And end all of this once and for all.