Mom sank into a plastic chair.
Ray carefully passed Lily to the enormous biker everyone called Moose. Then he lowered himself onto one knee in front of my mother. His joints cracked against the silence.
“I’m not taking her away from you, Linda,” he said. “But I need you to trust me. She can’t stay in this building today.”
“Why not?” I demanded.
The man called Deacon, the one with the gray ponytail, turned from the window.
“Ray. They’re in the parking lot.”
Ray closed his eyes briefly.
When he opened them, he looked straight at me.
“Tyler Haskins. His father. And their lawyer.”
I knew the Haskins family.
Everyone in our town did.
Wade Haskins owned three car dealerships and played golf with half the people who mattered in the county. His only son, Tyler, had grown up with money, expensive trucks, and the kind of confidence that came from believing consequences were for other people.
