Snow Blind - Lori G. Armstrong [99]
If my luck held we could have the whole damn 350
conversation on the phone. My energy started to lag and I knew I’d crash on the couch soon as the last cup of coffee wore off.
Trish insisted on coming to my place. I didn’t bother to pick up because I could give a crap about what she thought of my housekeeping skills; she wasn’t my mother.
I was smoking and cleaning my gun when she
barged in.
“I can’t stay.”
I bit back my response of good.
“I tried to call you for a couple of days. Where’ve you been?”
None of your business. I was punchy and I just needed to crawl in bed. “Out of town. Why? Did something happen?”
“No. Thank goodness. Did you find out anything?”
“Yeah, but I’m not sure you wanna hear it.”
“What?”
“The background check on Melvin Canter.”
She frowned but didn’t argue why I’d taken that tack.
“Why in the hell would you insist on hiring him?”
The question threw her. “He needed money to help care for his mother. Doug needed a hired hand. And it was the Christian thing to do.”
“Doesn’t my father know when he needs help?
Wasn’t he livid when you announced you’d just hired Canter on his behalf out of the blue?”
351
“I resent—”
“—someone trying to tell you the truth?”
“What truth? Showing human kindness and compassion? The man needed a break.”
“Jesus, Trish, the man is a fucking pedophile. How in the world could you ever justify having him around your children?”
Trish’s face turned ashen. “What did you say?”
“You heard me. Melvin Canter is a convicted felon. Sexual assault. Three cases in three different states. He’s done thirteen of the last twenty years in various jails. He is a convicted sex offender.”
She leapt to her feet and stumbled to the bathroom. She didn’t manage to shut the door, so I heard her retching. I didn’t check on her simply because I couldn’t stand to be in the room when she looked at herself in the mirror.
After a while Trish shuffled into the living room. I handed her a glass of water.
“Thanks.”
I waited. Smoked. Watched her.
Finally she said, “How did you find out?”
“Like I said. Background check. But you could’ve known what kind of man he was if you’d only listened to the warnings.”
“What warnings?”
“BD Hoffman for one.”
Guilt put color back in her freckled cheeks. “I thought I was doing the right thing.”
352
“No, you thought what you were doing would
elicit the ‘Trish Collins is a model Christian woman’
comments from the church congregation.”
She winced.
I didn’t care about her discomfort, and I didn’t stop hammering her. “Who would Brittney talk to if Melvin Canter touched her inappropriately?”
That sick realization distorted her face. “I thought she’d talk to me.”
“Not if you’d been reminding her again and again to be extra nice and extra helpful to Daddy’s new hired hand.”
She winced again.
“She’d avoid talking to you if you were piling on the guilt about maintaining a Christian attitude toward Melvin, no matter what. So who else would she talk to? DJ?”
“Maybe.”
“She wouldn’t talk to Dad, would she?”
Trish shook her head.
“A teacher? Her best pal, Shelby?”
“No.” She squinted at me. “What did she mention to you? Because if you’re trying to protect her—”
“At least someone would be.”
She covered her hands with her face and sobbed. I let her cry. Out of spite? Probably. But I’d been Brittney’s age when Dad began hitting me on the sly. I hid it from my mother because I’d been ashamed. What if Collins history repeated itself? I imagined 353
Brittney’s situation would be different because she had a protector in Trish. But Trish was as clueless as my mom had been.
And why didn’t I resent Annika Collins for that?
Because the childish part of me believed if she’d lived she would have stopped it? Yes. We all had our delusions about our past and that one was mine.
“What did Brittney say to you?”
“She said Dad’s hired man creeped her out. It felt like he was watching her all the time. Then she said neither she nor DJ felt comfortable doing chores with him around. But they couldn’t say anything to you.”
Trish dropped her chin to her chest. “Stop.