Free Danville Horror: A Pat Wyatt Novel (The Pat Wyatt Series Book 3) by Laura Del Page B

she was dumped or had a relationship end. However, I realized a long time ago that itwas how Tina dealt with grief. She always found something to distract her, and my guess was that Andrew was her next distraction.
    After the cast was set and they explained what and what not to do, I was good to go. The doctor gave me a script for some pain meds and then told me that I needed to take them as prescribed, and that I was not allowed to drive. But other than that, it was perfectly fine for me to do my matron of honor duties. After they made an appointment for me to come back to get a regular cast, Pops helped me with my coat, and we were out of there three hours after we arrived.
    I leaned my head against the passenger seat of my pops pickup, and he sighed. Something had been bothering him since we’d left the hospital, and he was awfully quiet as we drove. “What’s the matter, Pops?” I asked, looking over at him. He shrugged. “Don’t worry, Pops, you can tell me.”
    He took a deep breath and gave me a quick sideways glance. “I’m so sorry, baby girl. For what I’ve done and for what I now realize that monster must’ve done to you. When I think of how I…” his voice faded.
    I placed my good hand on his arm. “You didn’t know.”
    “No,” he snapped, “I didn’t wanna know.”
    “Pops—”
    “No, Patricia,” he interrupted my trying to sooth him, “I blamed you for everything because I was jealous of the relationship you had with your mother. And I am ashamed of myself.”
    “Jealous of me?” I asked, eyebrow cocked. My father had never said any of this to me before, and it was a little scary.
    He shook his head. “Jealous of your mother.”
    That was surprising. “What? Why?”
    “You had such a special relationship with her,” he went on, laughing a little. “You two were so in sync it was almost as if you could read each other’s minds. And when she died I just got it all twisted. I hated you for not knowing that it was going to happen to her. It was stupid,” he admitted, “and wrong, but I just couldn’t handle it.” He paused, taking a deep breath. I think he felt so bad about being on Samuel’s side that it just all came to a head when he saw what he did to me, and he had to let it out. It was another thing I had in common with my father, a lack of expressing emotions and keeping everything bottled up.
    “Pops, you don’t have to tell me any of this,” I comforted. It was none of my business that my father hated me. That was between him and himself. I mean, it wasn’t like he kept it a secret or anything, but I didn’t need him to confirm what I already knew.
    “Yes,” he insisted, “I do. Because I shouldn’t have felt like that, and I don’t feel like that now. I love you, baby girl, I really do.”
    I could feel the tears forming again, but I blinked them away expertly, unbuckling myself to lay my head on his shoulder like I used to when I was little. “I love you too.”
    He patted my temple, and then kissed the top of my head. “I promise you, Pat, that if that monster ever comes near you again, I’ll kill the son-of-a—”
    In a matter of seconds, something dark darted into the road. My father slammed on the brakes, throwing his arm across me so that I wouldn’t go flying through the windshield. But his breaking was too late; he had already hit the large animal, and it was most certainly lying dead in the street.
    “Stay in the car,” my father warned, and I nodded. He didn’t have to tell me twice.
    I craned my neck trying to see what he had hit. But when Pops looked down at the road, he turned white, looking up at me slowly. He gestured for me to get out of the car, and my heart dropped into my stomach.
    Carefully, I got out of the truck and the sky opened up on cue. As the icy rain pelted me, I made my way to the front of the truck, and when I saw what Pops hit I froze. Lying in front of the bumper, with blood coming from his mouth, was none other than the