Chapter Thirty-Four-Patch

Patch woke the next morning with an empty spot next to him. He felt relieved he hadn't been arrested in the middle of the night because of his mother's death.

He'd been questioned, and he saw it on the officer's faces that they didn't believe him. It'd taken him hours to go to sleep after seeing his mother that way. Patch had seen his mother in many compromising positons over the years, but death was entirely different. The lifeless look on her face would scar him for eternity.

He pulled the covers from his feet and sat up. Delaney's absence didn't seem unusual since she was an early riser, so he got up and walked down the stairs. The smell of food wafted toward him, and his stomach growled.

Delaney stood in his shirt—which, made sense because he wasn't wearing one—and she stood in front of the stove cooking. He noticed a note on the island from her father about leaving for the day with Beth.

He assumed it was because of her reluctance of having them there.

Patch didn't care, and