Free Love Gone by Elizabeth Nelson Page A

she finds
out.”
    Neither Liam or Emily answered
her.
    Finally the police pulled in, sirens
wailing; the sound bringing the other neighbors out onto their
front porches to watch the show.
    Liam wondered where they’d all been
when he’d been screaming for help that night. Or moments before,
for that matter. Up until the attack, he’d thought of their
neighbors as his parent’s friends – of course Lisa and Bill were
their closest friends, but he’d assumed that everyone on the cul
de’ sac was friends. After their lack of help, he considered them
nothing more than accomplices in his father’s murder. He said
nothing, but just stared at them standing around watching as the
police arrested the girl who had helped murder his
father.

CHAPTER 12

    Faith threw the last suitcase into the
trunk of the car and turned to hug Lisa tightly. Liam sat in the
front seat and stared straight ahead out the window. He didn’t want
to say goodbye to anyone or anything else. He didn’t care about
Lisa and Bill, even though they’d been like temporary parents to
him over the last week, he didn’t care to even look at the house
where he’d spent the last ten years of his life. None of his
friends from school had gotten so much as a ‘see you later’ from
him. Most of them didn’t even know he was moving, just that his
father had been murdered. Everyone in the tiny town knew
that.
    “Thank you so much Lisa. I don’t know
what to say. You and Bill have been like angels to me and Liam. In
fact, you probably saved our lives. I know Mac would thank you too,
and he probably is.” Faith said, tears springing to her eyes as she
hugged her friend. Would she ever stop crying?
    “Shhh…” Lisa said. “This isn’t one of
those things that needs a ‘thank you.’ Take care of that boy of
yours. And give us a call once in a while. At least when you get to
your mom’s place, okay? I’m going to worry about the two of you
until you do. It’s a long trip to make by yourselves.”
    Faith hugged her even tighter in
answer.
    With one last kiss, hug, and a
farewell, she got into the drivers seat, pulling the door closed
with a satisfying thud behind her. Inside the car, the air was
thick with unanswered questions and unsaid thoughts.
    “Okay,” she said, falsely cheerful as
she put the Element in gear and turned toward her son. “Are you
ready for a road trip?”
    He shrugged the way that only surly
teenagers can shrug and slipped his headphones into his ears, so he
wouldn’t have to talk to her she guessed.
    Wonder if he’s going to listen to
those all the way to Nashville, she wondered, and then discovered
she didn’t care.
    “I don’t blame you, you know,” Faith
told her son. It was almost under her breath, but not really. She
said it to see if he was listening, but also because she felt like
the air in the car was thick with doubt and she wanted to clear the
air if she could.
    “And your father doesn’t blame you
either,” she added.
    At her words she could see Liam’s skin
go a little pale and he shifted uncomfortably. Yep. He could hear
her, she knew.
    Watching his thumb spin through the
music selections on his iPod she kept talking, almost to herself,
but mostly to him.
    “I don’t blame her either, you know.
Emily.”
    His thumb stopped spinning, but he
didn’t look up or say anything to her.
    “She was being abused. She was just as
much of a victim as her father as Mac was. As we were.”
    Still he looked out the window. By all
appearances, not listening to her.
    “The police found cigarette burns and
rope marks all over her body. He’d been torturing her they said.
Physically. Sexually.” She felt uncomfortable even repeating that
last bit of information, and not just because she was talking to
her teenage son. The thought of abuse made her queasy. No child
deserved to suffer. Of course she couldn’t condone what Emily had
done. She could have run away years earlier, or called to turn her
father in years ago,