I Let Her Ruin Herself Chapter 23
“Adrian Bell, you’re going to answer to me today!”
Shirley sat down on the lobby floor and smacked the polished tiles as she wailed.
“If you won’t take care of these children, I’ll die right here in front of your company!”
From the school district office to our front door, she had always believed that making a big enough scene would get her what she wanted.
The three girls stood nearby.
The oldest was about ten. The youngest clutched her sister’s shirt. All three kept their heads down.
I had security clear out any employees so the girls’ faces wouldn’t be photographed and posted online.
“What answer do you want?” I asked Shirley.
She scrambled up from the floor at once.
“You sent my grandson to prison, and you sent Taylor to prison, too. Now there’s nobody to look after these kids. If you won’t raise them, who will?”
“Derek is serving time for stabbing Mark to death. Taylor is serving time for soliciting a knife attack and extortion.” I set the court records on the reception desk. “Those sentences came from a judge, not from me.”
“I don’t care,” Shirley snapped. “If you hadn’t interfered, Derek would be making good money by now.”
She reached for my coat.
Before she could touch me, Carol suddenly slapped her hard across the face.
The lobby fell silent.
“You still have the nerve to bring up Derek?”
Carol’s hand was shaking, her eyes red.
“He spent all our savings, he beat my daughter, and in the end, he murdered my husband.”
Shirley clutched her cheek and launched into a stream of insults.
“Taylor was the one who wanted Derek. She gave birth to three useless girls in a row, and now she wants to blame us?”
The oldest girl jerked her head up.
Her pale face looked just like Taylor’s at eighteen, but her eyes held nothing but shame and fear.