“I want to go, I know I need to. Will you go with me?”
I made a face and glanced back at the text, like it would give me the answer to whether or not I should go. “Do you think having me there the first time you see them would be best?”
“Probably not,” she said laughing, but there was no real humor behind her tone. “But I’d thought they would have contacted me first. I had thought they would have come to see me. The fact that it’s been the complete opposite is terrifying me for how it will be when I do see them.”
My first reaction was to tell her that I would do anything she asked me to, but I was worried that if she was scared how they would react, then my presence might make it worse even though they wouldn’t have any clue who I was.
One look into Harlow’s eyes and I knew what my answer was then, and would always be. “Of course I’ll go.”
“I’M SORRY . . . what did you just say?” Harlow asked a couple of hours later once we were at the Dohertys’ house. We’d barely gotten our introductions finished before they’d dropped a bomb on us.
Mrs. Doherty just continued on: “And we want to get you help for those things, dear. There’s a place we can have you admitted to today; we know the director there. It’s a great facility, the care is said to be some of the best.”
“I don’t need help. I’m not depressed, and I’m not on drugs!”
“We’ll pay for the treatments and for your stay there,” Mr. Doherty added. “With everything you put our son through, and now that he’s gone, this is very generous of us.”
I scoffed, but bit back the comments running through my head.
The prosecutor pinned a glare on me. “I’m still not sure why you’re here.” Looking back to Harlow, he said, “As for the drugs, we just have to make a call to the hospital to find out what was in your system last week. The depression won’t be hard to prove, and it’s not a bad thing to admit to.”
The Dohertys sighed and gave each other a sad look. “Collin told us everything,” Mrs. Doherty said. “He’s been telling us for nearly a year about your depression with being unable to get pregnant, and for months about your substance abuse because of the depression. We’ve stayed quiet about it because he was worried it would only get worse if you knew that we were aware of what was going on. But now that he’s gone, we feel we have no other option.”
“Wha—no!” Harlow yelled, clearly in shock. “No, none of that is true! I haven’t been getting pregnant, because I refused to have a child with your son!”
“Harlow,” Mrs. Doherty said disapprovingly.
“I had an implant put in so I wouldn’t get pregnant, and so Collin wouldn’t find out about it! Your son was abusive; there is no way I would’ve let a child enter into that house wi—”
“Young lady, hold your tongue! Our son has given you the world,” Mrs. Doherty seethed. “Every single thing you have ever asked for he has given you, and more. To speak of him this way—”
“Asked for?” Harlow asked, cutting her mother-in-law off, and laughed humorlessly. “Asked for? I never wanted any of it, which is why all of it is being donated and I’m not keeping any of it. He forced me to buy things for myself, and if I didn’t I had to pay for it in ways you couldn’t begin to imagine! He threatened my family to keep me with him, and tried to kill my sister the morning of your anniversary party. That night he tried to drown me in our guest bathroom!”
“Drown you?” Mr. Doherty asked loudly. “Collin called us before the party started, panicking because you’d overdosed and were in the hospital. He was so worried that he was going to lose you that night!”
My eyebrows rose, and a shocked laugh ripped from my chest at how ridiculous each thing they said sounded.
“He said he was going to tell you that I was upset over Hadley and drowned myself . . .” Harlow whispered. Then, as if something had just clicked for her, she said, “You would’ve known that wasn’t true if you’d tried to come see me when I was supposedly in the hospital.”
“Collin didn’t want us to miss our party.”
This time Harlow laughed. “Miss your party?” She stood from the poolside chairs we were sitting at and took a few steps away before stomping back. “Miss your party?” she asked louder. “I know you’re both all about image, but I’ve always said that the two of you are good people. I would’ve thought that if you thought your daughter-in-law was in the hospital, supposedly about to die, you would rather come see her than make it to your anniversary party!”
The Dohertys had the decency to look ashamed, at least, but didn’t say anything.
“And how does any of it make sense in your minds? That Collin would be so worried about me, but make sure to keep you away from where I was? That the car chase between Collin and us began early the next morning in Thatch, and ended in Richland where we were on our way to go to the new chief of police—but I was supposedly in the hospital the night before with Collin from a drug overdose? And I know you’ve heard every detail of the chase because it’s been all over the news.”
“Us? Was that your truck?” the prosecutor asked me, and I nodded once. “Were you injured?”
I glanced at Harlow for guidance, but she was still looking at her in-laws with frustration and hurt. “I was shot,” I finally responded, but didn’t expand on the details.
From the way Mr. Doherty’s face fell, I didn’t need to. He was piecing it together on his own. “Collin has said for so long that you were depressed, and you looked it. With the weight loss, it wasn’t hard to believe that everything else was true—it still isn’t. We want to get you help.”
When Harlow spoke again, the anger was gone. “I don’t do drugs, but, honestly, I don’t have to prove that to you. I’m sorry you lost your son—I’m so sorry. But I’m not sorry that I’m finally away from that nightmare. Depressed doesn’t even come close to what I felt. It felt like I was dead, and I remember praying to be taken away from him. I’m sorry if that’s hard to hear,” she said when Mrs. Doherty began crying. “But even though I understand that you loved your son and want to believe he couldn’t do this, you have to understand that I lived it and it hurts that you can’t believe me when the evidence is right in front of you.