Free Battered Hearts 3: Crossing the line by Kele Moon Page B

started sobbing onto his shoulder. “We’re gonna go home and do this.”
    When Wyatt walked out of the room, his father reached out and grabbed his wrist, pulling him to his side. Then he draped a big arm around Wyatt’s shoulders and turned to walk back down the hallway with his children.
    Jules’s cries bounced off the walls until they left the building, but there were no apologies. No explanations.
    Death was their companion, looming around the corner like a dark threat they understood more than the rest of them. It took years for Tabitha to figure out that most people get there eventually. They realize that life is fragile, that death is inevitable, but for Jules and Wyatt Conner, it’d been there from the very beginning. There was something so sad and terrible about it. Tabitha realized she’d rather go hungry every night than know by just a look that someone she loved was gone forever, as if expecting it all along.

Part Three
    The Fallen Hero
    Mistakes are always forgivable, if one has the courage to admit them.
    —Bruce Lee

Chapter Seven
    July 1989
    “Excuse me, Mr. Dower, but I was wondering—” Tabitha wrung her hands and glanced nervously at Mr. Dower’s wife Marisa. She didn’t like Tabitha, but she tried to forget that and glanced up at the dark-haired man. “Have you seen Clay?”
    Terrance Dower stopped mopping the front of Maple’s One Stop shop and arched an eyebrow at Tabitha. He lowered his voice so his wife couldn’t hear him. “I try hard not to see Clay when he’s in here, if you catch my drift?”
    Tabitha nodded, knowing what he meant. Clay had developed the habit of shoplifting. Which was the reason Marisa Dower hated her so much. She had inherited the store from her mother, and it was her pride and joy. She sat at the front counter where they sold the lottery tickets, watching the place like a hawk. Even if Tabitha didn’t steal, she was usually with Clay when he did. Mrs. Dower’s anger wasn’t odd. It was Mr. Dower who was the unusual one because he’d caught Clay stealing food plenty of times and just looked away when he did.
    “I can’t find him,” Tabitha said in a hushed whisper, knowing Terrance Dower was her best bet at finding Clay. “I’ve looked everywhere, and I figured if he was hungry, he’d—”
    “Darlin’, you’re mumbling.” Mr. Dower leaned down lower and looked her in the eye. “Now tell me again what’s the problem.”
    “He ran away.” Tabitha’s voice was soft and fearful because she didn’t want Clay to get in trouble. “And I don’t know where he’s at.”
    “I’m sure he’ll turn up,” he said confidently. “He’s probably just off finding trouble like boys do.”
    Clay hadn’t been home in three weeks. When his mother moved out and left him with her boyfriend, Clay packed up and left after the first black eye. Up until two days ago, he’d been keeping in contact with Tabitha, but now she couldn’t find him. He wasn’t finding trouble. He was homeless and hungry, and Tabitha didn’t know how to verbalize all that in a way that wouldn’t have Mr. Dower calling the sheriff.
    She nodded and turned away. “Thank you.”
    “I might have seen him this morning,” Mr. Dower called out as Tabitha walked to the door.
    Tabitha breathed a sigh of relief as she turned around and smiled at him. “Really?”
    “You want Terry to help you look for him? He’s just in the back doing inventory.”
    She shook her head, because Mrs. Dower was sending long, furious glances at her husband that made it clear she didn’t want Terry anywhere but in the stockroom. Tabitha would have declined anyway. Their youngest son, Terry, seemed like a decent kid, but he was already in middle school, and that made her nervous. She was always waiting for older boys to turn mean like Brett and Vaughn.
    Boys could be cruel. She didn’t trust them, even the nice ones like Terry Dower.
    Which was why it was so weird that her only two friends were