waited, holding my breath.
“She’s married now, with two little kids of her own.”
I let out a whoosh of air. “Oh, thank heavens.”
He blinked. “What do you mean?”
“Your sister,” I said. “I was sure you were about to tell me that she died thirteen years ago.”
“She’s alive.” His eyes tightened and I swore the scar pulsed. Very softly, he said, “But let me tell you, it was close.”
I leaned forward.
“Lyle Kincade was Calla’s boyfriend for a while. I don’t remember how long exactly because I was away at school. Lyle was twenty-one and too old to be dating a teenager, if you want my opinion. Calla didn’t. She didn’t want to hear anything about her new boyfriend. But it was classic abuse—he drove a wedge between Calla and the family. Started limiting where she could go, how much time she could spend at home, how much time with her friends. Calla was in high school, for crying out loud. She didn’t need that kind of manipulation. Nobody does.” He took a deep breath. “This all sounds like normal stuff, doesn’t it? Like an overprotective family not allowing their daughter to make her own mistakes.” He stared at the ceiling as though searching for the right words. “This was bigger than that. The guy was around her constantly . He kept calling, kept showing up at the house even when he wasn’t expected. We talked Calla into breaking things off with him. That’s when the trouble escalated.”
Jack’s expression said he didn’t want to explain, but I knew that if he didn’t tell me everything now, he never would, so I prompted him. “Escalated?”
“Remember that old movie, Mr. Wrong , where Bill Pullman breaks his finger to prove how much he cares?” He waited for me to nod. “Like that, but when it happens in real life, it isn’t funny.”
I wasn’t sure that Mr. Wrong qualified as funny either.
“Lyle would show up in the middle of the night, on school nights even, and sing to her outside the house, begging her to marry him. Half the time he was drunk. It scared us more when he showed up sober. We eventually got an order of protection . . . which he complied with. For a while.”
I waited.
“But then the gifts started to show up outside Calla’s window. Her room was on the second floor,” Jack said. “This was no small effort. He started with normal date stuff, like stuffed bears and costume jewelry. Calla loved it. Thought it proved how much he cared and was oh-so-eager to take him back. But we managed to talk her out of it.” His eyes tightened again. “Then came the DVDs. Movies that all followed a theme: serial killers stalking teenage girls. He must have run out of cash then, because he started leaving pictures.”
“Pictures?”
“Of Calla, clearly taken when she was unaware. He splattered them with red paint, and drew lines across her neck. He scribbled notes warning her it was time to leave her family and grow up.” Jack’s mouth set in a grim line.
“Didn’t that violate the order of protection?”
“Only if we could provide evidence that it was Kincade who left them. No one ever saw him around our house. We couldn’t press charges until we could prove he was behind it.”
“Fingerprints?”
“Nope. The man was careful. He skirted the law and made our lives a living hell. Finally, my mom and dad decided to do an intervention. They called me home from college and we sat Calla down and talked with her, told her how we felt.” Jack cleared his throat. “Reminded her how much we loved her.”
“She ignored you?”
The corner of Jack’s mouth curled into a smile. “No. She listened. Turned out she was scared out of her mind and relieved by the family’s support. She’d been afraid we might condemn her for making such a bad choice.”
“That’s not the end of the story, is it?”
“Lyle,” Jack said, making eye contact again, “wouldn’t go away. Calla couldn’t go to school on her own without having to worry about him
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