It was the way things were done.
The way they’d always been done in the world in which she’d grown up.
It just didn’t feel like her world anymore.
And she most definitely didn’t feel safe there.
Chapter 11
Clarke didn’t want to let go of Everleigh. He wanted to hold her. To keep a hand on her back.
He just plain wanted to touch her.
To protect her, but also because he liked the way contact with her made him feel. Too much.
For that last reason, he distanced himself from her as soon as they got into the living room. He stayed close—no one was going to get a chance to hurt her—but he was never going to be a clingy man. Not even if hell froze over and he fell in love and got married someday.
The likelihood of that had never even crossed his mind before. So why in the hell was it doing so standing in the McPhersons’ somewhat dingy, but clean and uncluttered living room? Picturing a Christmas tree in front of the large window and a little girl in flannel pj’s with sassy blond hair, eyes all aglow as she stared at the packages beneath the colorfully lit tree.
Shaking his head, he took inventory of the people at the party. They were pouring in by the threes and fours. All ages. Genders. All seeming to know each other well. Several pretty young women who could have attracted Fritz’s attention.
“Everleigh tells me you’re the one who got her out of prison.” An older man in a flannel shirt and jeans held up by suspenders took a step closer to Clarke, beer in hand, as he spoke.
“I helped find the discrepancy in the evidence,” he said. “But only because I’d already been talking to her and knew what to look for,” he added, wishing he had a
beer to sip as well to ease the tension. There was plenty to go around, stacked up on a portable bar in the corner, but he didn’t drink on the job.
“Yeah, well, I’m glad she had you for a friend,” the man continued. Never told Clarke his name, but this man was already acting as though they were best buds. “Our Everleigh, she’s always been a sweetie, too quiet and kind for her own good around here, I used to think. Way too good a girl for that slick bub she married,” the bald man continued. “Her folks, they went on and on about him and how he moved Everleigh uptown, but I knew he was no good.”
“How’d you know that?” Clarke asked in his role of investigator. He hoped. Waiting for the answer with an interest that seemed to border on personal.
“I saw him over in Ann Arbor once, walking with a beauty ten years younger than him, even after he married Everleigh. But I knew for sure last year when my girl came home and told me he was screwin’ around with the cousin of a friend of hers. The cousin was visiting, went to his health club, and the two of them hit it off. From what I heard, they were a thing for a while after the cousin left to go home to Grand Rapids. He used to travel up to see her.”
“And you didn’t think to let Everleigh know?” The indignant question came out when he should have been asking the woman’s name.
“Wasn’t my business,” he said. “Besides, I didn’t see it myself...and for all I know, she knew what he was up to. Some women turn a blind eye to a husband’s philandering...”
Not happily. Not that Clarke had ever heard. “You got the girl’s name?” he asked. “Just in case someone else mentions her to Everleigh...”
“Nah. Annabelle, I think. But... Wait. Yeah, it was Annabelle Belinski. I remember because I had a friend named Belinski years ago. Used to go up to the UP hunting together.”
UP. The upper peninsula of Michigan. Rugged territory. And highly popular with outdoors people, too. Clarke immediately started talking about a snowmobile trip he and his brothers had taken in the northern country years ago, how they’d almost lost toes to frostbite, crashed into snowbanks and generally had the time of their lives.
Annabelle Belinski. The name would go in the notebook tucked into his coat pocket as soon as he had the ability to put it there without being seen.
* * *
“I swear to God, baby, I never thought you were a murderer. Never believed you could have killed anyone, let alone your own husband. But they were shoving scientific DNA proof under our noses, like I was supposed to explain how it could be there and you not be guilty, and I didn’t know how.” Amie’s hazel eyes, so much like Everleigh’s own, were moist as she held her daughter captive in a corner of the living room, her whispers filled with intensity. “Then that day they came to the house after the kidnapping that was supposed to free you... I said I didn’t recognize your grandmother. I didn’t want them to find that baby until they’d taken another look at your case. I didn’t know how else I could help.”
Everleigh didn’t respond. Wanted to look away but just couldn’t quite get there. Her mother was her mother. She’d birthed her. Raised her. Everleigh couldn’t help what she believed, either, and at the moment, she didn’t know if she believed her mother. It hadn’t just been the words Amie had said back then about DNA evidence convincing her of her daughter’s guilt—but in the actions. In the two months she’d been in jail, her mother hadn’t visited. She’d been in the courtroom for her trial, but she hadn’t been at the prison gate the day she’d been released.
Supposedly she’d been busy with a protest to have Gram, her mother-in-law, released from jail.
And Everleigh never should have lingered near the corner by the piano. She’d been watching people come in. Wondering as each face came through the door if that person could be the one who’d tried to kill her. As though she’d get some vibe when she saw them face-to-face.
She’d gravitated toward the corner to cover her back. Ironically, she was finding a semblance of safety in the spot that had been designated for her time-outs when she got in trouble as a little kid.
“I didn’t stand up for you the day Gram took the baby because they’d been looking at me for kidnapping.” Amie leaned in closer, her whispers grew more strident, and all Everleigh wanted to do was scoot between her mother and the old piano she’d taken lessons on so many years ago and break free into the room where thirty or more people were lingering.