Chapter 16 - WHY DID YOU HELP?
Julia sat on the edge of the chair.
“Because you needed help.”
Mia looked at the two quarters.
“That’s all?”
“That’s all.”
“No bill first?”
“No.”
“No promise?”
“No.”
Mia glanced at Erin, as if checking whether this could be true.
“Uncle Travis said everything costs something.”
“Some things do,” Julia said. “But a child asking for help should never have to buy kindness.”
Mia closed her fist around the coins.
Then she started crying.
Not the quiet tears she had shed before.
Deep, shaking sobs that bent her forward.
Erin held her.
“I’m sorry,” Erin whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
Mia cried harder.
“I didn’t have more money.”
That sentence broke everyone in the room.
“You didn’t need more,” Erin said. “You never needed any.”
Later that afternoon, Caleb drank six ounces from a bottle and fell asleep against Erin’s chest.
Dr. Reed smiled.
“That is a very good sign.”
“When can we leave?”
“Tomorrow, if tonight stays boring.”
Mia brightened at the word boring.
For her, boring had become a luxury.
Leah arranged temporary housing with Erin’s cousin two counties away while police processed the Bennett house.
No one wanted Travis’s shadow waiting in every room.
That evening, Dana stopped by with an update.
“Travis has been charged with unlawful restraint, forgery-related offenses, child endangerment, and other counts that the prosecutor is still reviewing.”
Erin nodded.
“And my mother?”
“Also under investigation.”
Dana hesitated.
“There’s something else.”
She handed Erin a printed email recovered from Carol’s laptop.
It was dated three months earlier.
Carol had written to Travis:
Erin will never sign while she thinks someone will rescue her.
Mia read only the first word before Erin folded the page.
But Erin had already understood the worst part.
May you like
Her mother had not merely failed to stop Travis.
She had encouraged him.
