Billy
Clay had made the biggest mistake of his life.
He’d attacked my daughter.
Not only had he attacked Celeste, he’d tried to r**e her inside a house where he’d been welcomed as Lilly’s boyfriend.
My daughter had trusted that house to be safe.
And Clay had turned it into a nightmare.
I couldn’t get the image out of my head.
Celeste on that kitchen floor.
His hands around her throat.
Her fighting for every breath.
If Jamie and Josh had been a few minutes later…
I forced the thought away.
I couldn’t go there.
Because if I did, I wasn’t sure what I would do to Clay.
He was sitting in the trunk of Taylor’s blue metallic 2020 Chevrolet Impala as we drove farther and farther from town.
The houses disappeared first.
Then the streetlights.
Then everything that reminded us of civ
