Chapter 24
Adeline
It feels as if I’ve spent hours and hours in questioning. Over and over again Detective Ryan asks me the same exact questions. I told him everything I knew right down to the discovery in the basement. He watches me as if he thinks I’m lying. For once in my life I’m not.
The only reason I have some leverage right now is because Gideon paid for my lawyer, and he’s not the cheap court appointed kind. As much as I didn’t want to accept it I didn’t really have much of a choice. At some point they told me my mother confessed to everything, including my innocence. So even though things seem to be looking up, I still feel incredibly broken.
I still feel insecure as I walk out of the police station doors. A million judgmental eyes follow me all the way to the small car parked along the curb. When they told me I could make a phone call the first face that popped up in my mind was Gideon. As much as my heart hurts, I can’t seem to relay the message to my already confused brain.
I can’t seem to get the image of everything out of my head. The way Gideon just left me. The way I yelled for him, finally allowing myself to need someone as much as I needed him in that moment. Watching him walk away and taking every single piece of my heart with him. I guess I didn’t realize how attached I had grown. I guess the saying never put all your eggs in one basket is true. In this case my eggs were my feelings.
Throughout the night Gideon kept coming in to check on me. By the last time he came in I was so consumed with anger all I wanted to do was slap him. The way he spoke so gently made me want to curl up in his lap and cry, while also making me want to scream in his face and rip his eyes out. How could I seriously feel so back and forth on this?
On more than one occasion he whispered how sorry he was. For a moment or two I almost believed him, until I read the shiny silver badge that read Detective Wellfleet right across the front of his chest. It was just a constant reminder of how wrong I was about him.
I know he used me like yesterday’s trash. Unlike me he was taking the voluntary information I was giving him and storing it away for a whole other reason. While I placed and packaged each and every word and memory in the back of my head, he was calculating and manipulating me to give up more. How could I have been so blind?
Not many times did my mind drift away to my mother. Was she at the same station as me? Is she in the cell next door?
My mind raced with all the possibilities. For a while I didn’t know if I was ever going to be able to leave. Part of the deal for being let go was having absolutely no contact with my mother. Luckily for me that’s going to be much easier than I thought. According to Detective Ryan, she’s going to be away for a very long time.
Apparently for the last year and a half my mother has been running one of the biggest lab operations in all of Massachusetts. All of which was done right out of our basement. I spent so much of the past two years in such a haze I never saw what was right in front of me. I grew up with my mother constantly high with a new man every other day. I should have seen the signs. When I think about all of them now I can see everything so clearly. The whole marriage to Todd was also a ruse. Apparently they had been working together for months. What I can’t see so clearly is from where my mother went from drug user to drug lord. It doesn’t make any sense. How can someone jump so far one way?
What Detective Ryan also told me was that even though I’d be leaving here today, I wouldn’t have a home to go back to. The whole property is a crime scene and everything inside of the house has been labeled contaminated. Everything I owned is essentially gone.
One minute I’m lounging on a beautiful beach with a brand new bikini and the next I’m walking out of the state police barracks with nothing left but the clothes on my back.
The sun outside is incredibly bright and does nothing to soothe my pounding headache. The air is warm and stuffy for a mid-summer morning. I stretch my legs and reach my arms out, letting out a ginormous yawn.
“Snow!” I hear his voice but force myself to continue walking. “Adeline, wait!” Gideon grabs my arm as I spin around and slap him as hard as I can. My hand fly’s up to my mouth as I realize what I just did.
“I...I” I stutter trying to come up with an apology my mouth can’t seem to produce.
“I deserved that.” Gideon shocks me as the words fall from his mouth. “I deserve everything you hit me with. I didn’t want any of this to end up like this.” His eyes search mine for something I know I’m incapable of in this moment.
Forgiveness.
Time seems to stand still as I stare into his dark brown eyes. A car horn goes off in the distance, a woman yells, and a baby starts to cry. The world around me seems to keep spinning as mine comes to a standstill.
“Say something.” He pleads. As if his words have slapped me back to reality I finally find my bearings.
“I hate you.” I wrench my arm away from his grasp as his shoulders slump. I leave him standing there like a statue as I make my way to the little red car waiting for me. I force myself not to look back as we pull away.
“Are you ready?” Jaimie looks at me from the driver’s seat.
“As I’ll ever be.” He pats my knee with his big hand. The spark that used to be there whenever he touched me is long gone. Gone are the feelings of something more. I love Jaimie, but after loving Gideon for as shortly as I did I know it’s not the forever kind.
Building by building, street by street, tree by tree I watch my whole world pass me by. I feel a sense of normalcy with Jaimie sitting beside me, and the wind blowing against my face. The further we get, the further my past can stay behind me. I won’t stop until it’s completely gone, until each and every memory fades in the distance.