Page 20 of Rage's Solace
I begin pacing. “We need to get the club involved. Maybe Tex can dust it for prints, and we can get one of our contacts at the PD to run them? I’m gonna try my fucking best to get a security system installed as soon as humanly possible.”
“You alert Siege and start calling security firms. I’ll call Tex to get his ass out here,” Ven says.
We work on our individual tasks. I decide to walk outside and check on Priscilla. I’m still on the phone with Siege when I sit beside her on the porch swing.
Glancing at Priscilla, I ask, “How you holding up?”
“Was it what it looked like?”
I decide to tell her the truth, “Yeah. On my way home, I was thinking it was a toss-up as to who it was meant for, you or me. I think we can safely say it was meant for you, it was a mother rabbit and her baby.”
She begins to tear up. “Why would anyone send me something like that? I don’t understand.”
“It’s a message, or a threat. Since there wasn’t a note, we don’t know what they want. Do you have any ideas on who could have sent this?”
She shakes her head despondently. “No, my family moved to the East Coast several years ago and I’m not in contact with them. My dad works for a construction company as a material handling specialist. I can imagine them being upset that their money stopped. But they wouldn’t be mad at me because Conrad got himself killed.”
“How about Conrad’s family?” I ask her. My gut tells me they had something to do with it.
She pales, “His father never cared for me. Conrad wanted me and his parents made my parents a deal they couldn’t refuse.”
I sigh and ask the question I’d been hoping to avoid. “I got the letter you sent me, saying we weren’t right for each other and that you wanted to finish your education and then marry someone who would give you kind of life your parents had. Did you really see no red flags with Conrad and his family?”
Her head snaps up, hard and fast. Suddenly, her eyes are laser focused on me. “I never sent you a letter and if I did it would have never said that kind of rubbish. I loved you with everything I had in me.”
“Then why did you leave me and marry Conrad?” I ask bluntly.
She looks almost sick to her stomach as she explains, “My parents told me you were dead, that you died in a motorcycle accident.”
“What?” I exclaim.
She bit her lip and looks at me, her eyes filled with tears, “They told me you were dead, and—”
“And you believed them without proof? That doesn’t sound like the Prissy girl I knew.”
“Of course I didn’t believe them! I threw a fit, called them liars and told them I was going to look for you. They told me that they could prove it. They took me to a cemetery and showed me your headstone. It had your name carved right on the front, along with all the information they normally put on headstones. I broke down, didn’t want to leave, they dragged me away and I just kind of emotionally shut down.”
She seems brokenhearted as she continues, “They kept pressuring me to let Conrad console me, but I didn’t want him not after—” she breaks off. “I wanted you, and knowing I’d never see you again tore me apart. I couldn’t stop crying, I wouldn’t eat, wouldn’t sleep. My parents told me that this wasn’t healthy and couldn’t continue and that I had to marry Conrad. I felt trapped and defeated, so I did what they said because it was the only way I could give myself and… it was the only way I could have a life. I didn’t know Conrad’s family was giving them a kickback for getting me to agree. I thought they loved me and wanted what was best for me. Except they were only looking out for themselves.”
I’m shaking my head in disbelief. “I’m sorry you had to go thought all that. Your parents were pieces of shit but creative ones to come up with a solution like that. What cemetery was it? I want to see my fucking grave with my own eyes.”
“It was the one over on Strayer Avenue. I haven’t been back there since that last time, it was too heartbreaking. I don’t understand why they did that, how they could choose moneybefore their own daughter? How could they let me believe you were dead?”
“Because they’re assholes. Why didn’t you tell me this?”
She’s shaking as she looks at the ground and then into my eyes, “I tried, after my accident I was still in shock. Then realizing you were still alive. I tried to talk about the past, but you said we didn’t need to go there. You must have hated me if you thought I sent that note.”
“I’ll not deny I was angry and bitter about it for a long time. I don’t know if I ever got over it, but when you came into my life again, I decided to let the past stay in the past.”
Her eyes are glistening with tears, “And you believed my note. You thought I’d do something as awful as that?”
“When you stopped answering my calls, I went to your house asking to talk to you. They said you didn’t want to see me, that you got into an Ivy League college. It made you realize that we were nothing alike and you needed a better life than what you’d have with trash like me.”
Her hand comes out rest on my chest. She’s tearing up and shaking her head, but I push the rest of the story out. “They said I wasn’t wealthy or educated and you deserved a man who could take good care of you. They made me doubt myself and that you could truly love someone like me.”
“I hate that they did that to you,” she says quietly.
“Deep down inside I was insecure and knew what they were saying was probably right, but I still wanted to hear it from you. So I went back a few days later, demanding to speak to you. Your parents said you’d already gone but had left a letter for me. I canstill remember how my hand shook when I reached out to take that letter from your dad. I rode off to a spot down by the lake to read it in private. It said we weren’t right for each other and although I would always have a place in your heart, you needed to live the life you were meant to live.”