“You don’t need to ask me that.”
I knew I didn’t, but I needed the reassurance. Anything could happen while you were driving, and it wasn’t my own that worried me, it was everybody else’s. I didn’t want to leave Cody vulnerable if something happened, and I wouldn’t trust anyone more with him than my son.
“He’s on the phone to Evie just now, and he knows it’s staying that way until we get to him, but he’s sent me the lady’s details and a photo. I’m going to forward them to you now.” I hit the screen on Evie’s phone, relieved we had the same one. I was shit with them, but I knew how to use my own, so thank fuck for that.
“Can you call her, give her your details, and just keep in touch with her, please? I don’t want to keep distracting my attention from the road.”
“Got them. I’ll make the call as soon as we hang up.”
Thanking him, I went to hit the red icon on the screen, but then he said quietly, “Just as well you were still at her house, Dad.”
He was being genuine, but he was also being a smartass.
Not bothering to reply, I hit the icon my thumb was hovering over and gave the road my complete attention.
I may have sped slightly in some areas, but as we got closer to where Cody was, I couldn’t find it in me to feel bad about doing it.
I’d only just hit the button to turn off the engine when both of us were bailing out of our seats and jogging over to where Cody was waiting for us, with the woman’s arm around his shoulders.
“Are you okay? Are you hurt?” Evie ran her hands over him, checking his arms and then turning his head from side to side.
Usually, the pre-teen would be mortified by his mom doing that, but he’d started crying as soon as he’d seen us and pushed out of her hold to wrap his arms tightly around her.
“Mom…” he sobbed, his body heaving with how forcefully it was coming out of him.
Feeling my eyes start to water, I looked back to the woman and then stopped when I realized who it was.
“Mrs. Cawthorne?”
She looked stunned for a moment, but then she squinted, and it must have sunk in.
“Is that you, Alex Bell? What in the—” She stopped and looked from me to Cody and back again. “He said his mom was coming with her boyfriend, but I didn’t expect it to be you. Excuse my Arabian but, fuck me, I’m relieved you’re involved with helping this poor boy.”
Mrs. Cawthorne was the wife of the man who’d abused the dog. He’d been doing the same thing to her for years, apparently, so after he was arrested, she’d come to our house and thanked me for helping save the poor animal.
She used to give me ten dollars every two weeks toward food for him as well. Sadly, she’d left town before I’d met my wife and had DB.
That’d been over thirty-six years ago, though, so it was a miracle she even recognized me.
“Thank you for keeping him safe, Mrs. Cawthorne. I about had a heart attack when he told me he’d walked all that way from his dad’s house to here.”
“I feel you on that one, boy.” Her calling me ‘boy’ was amusing. “Seems fitting that you helped save mine and my dog’s lives, and now here I am, all these years later, keeping your boy safe. I hate when the weights aren’t stacked evenly, and although this doesn’t make them totally equal, it at least pays back a little of what you did for me back then.”
Evie and Cody had turned to face us, their arms wrapped tightly around each other as they glanced between us.
“There’s no weights to balance out, Mrs. Cawthorne—”
“Carpenter,” she corrected. “I found my happy ever after two days after I left town and that nightmare behind me.”
“Sorry, there are no weights to balance out, Mrs. Carpenter. I helped the dog, but if I’d known you were being hurt as well, I’d have called the police long before they arrested him.”
“Boy, him putting up those posters brought attention from all the people who looked through him. He was arrested about seven weeks after you took the dog because your dad saw the bruises on his hands and waited until he’d gone to work to knock on the door. He took one look at me, said ‘fuck, no’ and called the police in.”
I stilled.
“He never— Dad didn’t—” I shoved my fingers into my hair and hissed out a breath. “He never told me.”
“Your mom held my hand while I gave a statement to the police and showed them the holes in the walls and the damage around the place. When I said I wanted to press charges, your dad stayed behind to change the locks on the doors, while your mom went to wait for you to get off the school bus.”