LITMIR.BIZ

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same as she was before she left,” Bonnie Gene said.

      “You stay out of this. It’s none of your business.”

      “Karen … I don’t know how to say this but … I’m sorry. I really am.”

      Karen’s mouth tightened until her lips turned white. She picked up a glass of water from the table and tossed it toward Lily’s head. Water splashed and ran down her hair and face. She wiped her eyes and looked up at Karen.

      “I want you gone, you hear me?” Karen hissed, and then turned her back and marched out of the restaurant.

      Still numb, Lily noticed the entire café had gone silent and everyone was staring at her.

      “Does she really think she can make you leave town?” Bonnie Gene asked. “Seeing you must have really riled her.”

      Dabbing her face with a napkin, Lily didn’t know what to say to that. She felt bad and yet … there wasn’t a thing she could do. People started whispering around them.

      “You ready to go?” Bonnie Gene asked.

      “Yeah. Now would be good.”

      Bonnie Gene put down enough cash to cover their check and stood. Taking the napkin with her, Lily followed her outside, wiping the front of her shirt.

      “Good thing it’s just water,” Bonnie Gene said.

      “Yeah, it could have been a gun.”

      She exchanged a look with Bonnie Gene.

      

      Lily pushed the library door open and dug in her purse for her ringing cell phone. The strap slipped down her arm, causing her to adjust her hands like a juggler. She found the phone.

      “Lily Masterson?” a woman queried.

      “Yes.” She slung her purse strap back over her shoulder. It slipped back down to her elbow, nearly yanking the phone away from her ear.

      Some days nothing ever went right.

      “This is Karla Harrison from Montana State Prison?” the caller said, her inflection rising at the end.

      The mention of the prison stopped Lily’s breath and a tiny shock wave made her stomach turn and her heart jump into faster beats. She stopped walking.

      “Yes?” She remembered the woman. The victims’ officer who’d walked her to the parking lot.

      “Is now a good time to talk?” Karla asked in an overly gentle tone, as if she had to walk on eggshells in order to talk to a poor, helplessly traumatized woman.

      Lily hated being treated like that. She started walking again.

      “Of course.” This was turning out to be a real crapper of a day. She kicked her office door open. It bounced against the stopper and swung back toward her, tapping her arm and knocking her purse off her shoulder again.

      “The parole board has reached a decision in Brandon Gates’s hearing.”

      Now consumed with apprehension, Lily walked to her desk and sat down, letting her purse slip to the floor beside her chair. “Yes?”

      “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but they’ve decided to release him. You’ll be getting a letter in the mail.”

      “You’re releasing him?” How could they?

      “It was the board’s decision.”

      Apprehension morphed into outrage. “What did they base it on?” Prison overpopulation?

      “He went through treatment while he was incarcerated and according to the board, has a valid plan for reentering society.”

      “Plan?” she all but shouted. Valid plan? It was maddening. “What plan? A rapist tells you he’s moving to North Carolina and that’s enough for you to set him free?”

      “The board is very careful when they make decisions like this, Lily. Please try and understand that. They wouldn’t have released him if they didn’t think he’d do his best to stay rehabilitated.”

      “I don’t believe for one minute that he’s rehabilitated.” A hundred images assailed her, all of them from the endless hours she’d spent in that cabin. Tears burned her eyes.

      “I’m sorry, Ms. Masterson. I know this is hard for you. If you’d like I can give you the name of a good counselor near your home town.”

      “I don’t need a counselor,” Lily snapped. “Stop talking to me like that.”

      “I’m sorry, Ms. Masterson, I—”

      “When?” Lily swallowed the lump of hurt in her throat.

      “Excuse me?”

      “When will he be released?”

      “Next week. Friday. It’s all in the letter.”

      Lily never hung up on anyone, but today she did. She ended the call and held the phone in her palm, staring down at it, shaking, lost in a maelstrom of old pain and a deep sense of injustice.

      She wiped a tear that had slipped from her eye.

      There was no punishment that would change what she’d endured, both during her assault and after. The month that followed it had been the worst, with no one to turn to and nowhere to go that felt like home. No wonder she’d tried to obliterate the experience with a one-night stand. It wouldn’t have been her first.

      Having sex with a stranger had been a mistake, an attempt to somehow minimize what had happened to her. Instead, that last wild night—like so many she’d had before her rape—had done the opposite. It had made her feel dirty and cheap and had thrown her into a severe state of depression.

      Hearing a sound, she looked up to see Emily, her assistant, standing in the doorway. She blinked her eyes clear.

      “You okay?” her assistant asked with a worried frown.

      “Yes. Fine.” Lily held up the phone. “Just a personal call.”

      Emily didn’t look convinced. “We got a couple of boxes of books from a donor yesterday.”

      “Good. Let’s get going on sorting them.” She could use the distraction right now. Putting her phone down, she stood and moved around the desk.

      Brandon Gates was going to be released. It didn’t seem real. It was so unfair.

      “They’re all romance novels. I don’t think we have enough room for all of them.”

      Lily forced a smile. “We won’t keep them all. Just the ones in good condition.” She passed Emily and headed out into the main library.

      Karla’s news hung inside her like low, dreary fog. It was what she’d been dreading since the hearing. Her worst fear had come true. Would he really go to North Carolina? Or would he risk going back to prison to come and find her? That would be very stupid, unless he thought he could get away with it. Lily had to smother a shiver with the thought of him finding her. And she hated that, her reaction, what he was still capable of doing to her.

      Did he know she’d lived in Honey Creek back then? She’d never told him that night, but maybe he found out later. Did he know she’d moved back?

      “Are you sure you’re all right?” Emily asked.

      Lily had forgotten her assistant had followed her. “Yeah.” She bent to pick up a few books from the first box and turned to place them on a table in alphabetical order by author name.

      “Who were you just talking to?”

      She sent a look over at Emily, letting her know she was prying too much.

      “Sorry,” Emily said.

      The sound of someone behind them made Lily turn. So did Emily.

      Wes

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