Chapter 33

Hobbs, NM, 2008

Vince was asleep in the recliner, so Libby took a chance and turned off the television. Surely twelve straight hours of Fox News was enough for one day. She turned off the living room light and headed to the bedroom. She hadn't been sleeping well since Ridge's trip to Texas, but maybe if she spent some time reading, she'd be able to relax and fall asleep.

As soon as she entered the bedroom, the landline rang. Libby dove across the bed to grab it before it woke Vince. "Hello?"

"Hey, Mom."

"Ridge!" Hearing his voice instantly lifted her mood. It had been several days since his last call.

"Did I wake Dad?"

Libby moved the phone from her ear. "Nope. He's still snoring."

"Well, I tried to call your cell phone."

"Did you? I never turn that on unless I go somewhere. There's no point in having it on when I'm home."

Ridge chuckled. "Yeah, there is, if you'd learn to text."

"You know I don't like texts. So, how are you? How's everything?"

"Okay," Ridge said, but Libby had known his lying voice since he was ten.

"No, it's not," she said. "Spill it."

Libby couldn't believe the story Ridge told her. She assumed Caroline would be happy to see Ridge. She understood if Caroline wanted to kill her or Vince, but her own son? Was she so bent on revenge that she couldn't bear to let him expose the truth?

"You need to come home, son. You wanted Caroline to know you were okay, and you wanted to see Sloan. You accomplished both."

"I'm scared it will come back on you and Dad." There was worry in Ridge's voice. "I shouldn't have gotten out to see Jay. I shouldn't have gone inside to meet his other kids. It was stupid."

"That's not stupid. It's natural you wanted to see them."

"But if they start digging, they may find out everything. Are your passports up to date?"

Libby smiled. "They aren't going to find anything out about us."

"And if they do?"

"Then we'll deal with it. Look, your father and I aren't worried about ourselves. We'd never have encouraged this trip if we were. All that matters is you."

There was a brief silence followed by a muffled sob. "I wish things were different, Mom. I want to have a relationship with my family here."

Libby swallowed. Don't take it personally, she told herself. This is normal.

"Sloan asked me to come over for Thanksgiving. But I can't. Not with Mom around."

"We can get a lawyer." Libby laid back on a pillow. "Caroline tried to kill you. That should be enough to get her committed."

"I can't go to the cops with that. Not unless I want to open a whole can of worms."

"Oh, right, right." Libby rubbed her forehead. "Tell Sloan to take good notes. We can build a case."

"Sloan doesn't want to build a case."

"Why on earth not? After all Caroline has done?"

"She's got this weird guilt thing about Mom. Makes excuses for her. Tonight, when she called Noah, she said Mom had a gun. Later, she claimed she was mistaken, but I saw the gun in the backseat when we were driving home."

"Wow. Did you call her out on that?"

"I didn't. It's pointless to argue with Sloan. Mom will end up killing someone or drown herself in the river."

"Drown herself? Caroline's suicidal?"

"No. Noah said he gets lots of calls about her walking along the rocks, and she fell and hit her head recently. She goes to the creek every day. Stays super late. Sloan's boyfriend has had to stay at the house to make sure she doesn't leave when Sloan is out at the creek with me."

"Goodness. Poor Sloan."

"Yeah. I hate to say this because I know it would be hard on Sloan to lose Mom to prison or the creek, but at least she'd be free. At least we'd both be free."

Unless you're the one she kills, Libby thought. If she knew anything about Caroline Radel, it was that vengeance drove her. She had and would continue to do anything in the name of it. "So, when are you heading back?"

"I'm going to stay one more day. The plan is to spend some time with Noah in the morning and Sloan in the afternoon, as long as Mom goes to the creek." He paused. "Does it bother you that I call her Mom? It's just a habit."

"Why would it bother me? She is your mother."

" You're my mother," Ridge said without hesitation.

Libby hated to admit how badly she needed to hear that. It was hard not to be insecure, hard not to worry about being replaced, but she'd reminded herself one thousand times that this was about Ridge, not her. It had always been about Ridge.

"I'll head back Friday and take the RV to you guys before driving home," Ridge said.

"Dad got the oil changed in your truck. It's filled up and ready for you to take off, but we hope you'll stay a few days."

"You bet I will." He yawned. "It's been a long day. I'm going to let you go. Love you."

"Love you too," she said. "Always, forever . . ."

"And no matter what," he finished for her, reciting what had always been their mother-son mantra.

Libby hung up the phone and went into the bathroom to remove her makeup. She splashed cold water on her face and thought about Caroline. She'd always suspected that her family hadn't seen or heard the last of her.

Libby remembered back to those early days. The decision to keep Ridge, the decision to try to get Sloan too. The memory still made Libby shudder all these years later. How terrible the depths they had to sink to play Caroline's game. Of course, grabbing Sloan like that was not part of the plan, especially in broad daylight. It was supposed to look like she ran away; it was all supposed to be different.

If only Caroline would have let Sloan visit, if only the guy Vince's POS little brother had hired hadn't gone rogue, if only Libby had gone to Mallowater and gotten Sloan herself.

Vince said it was for the best. That if Sloan went missing, Ridge's case would be reopened. That it would jeopardize everything.

Caroline called that night; said she was ready to pick up Ridge. There was no time to try again for Sloan. It's for the best. It would have jeopardized everything. Libby still repeated Vince's assurances all these years later.

Libby wasn't completely surprised when Caroline found them in El Paso. Of course, Vince saw they were being tracked. His paranoia had paid off, and they were gone in the night.

Vince and Libby had spent the ensuing years looking over their shoulders. But no strange car ever parked across their street. Caroline never showed up at their doorstep. Libby figured she'd used all her inheritance to find them the first time and couldn't afford to do it again. Vince worried she might go to the police, but Libby knew better. Caroline would never implicate herself, never let Jay go free.

Still, they'd had to be so careful—homeschooling Ridge for a couple of years, keeping a loaded gun under the mattress and a packed suitcase in the closet with up-to-date passports. She and Vince used to stay up at night, imagining worst-case scenarios, trying to stay one step ahead of Caroline, but turns out, they hadn't needed to.

Caroline gave up. Sacrificed her son to keep Jay in prison. They were relieved, but Libby still worried about Sloan.

That's why she started making drives to payphones in other towns to call Doreen. Doreen Dawson was the only window Libby had into Sloan's life. Vince had been so angry at first. Contacting the wife of a cop couldn't be a good idea when they were supposed to be hiding out, but Libby assured him she was careful not to call from their house and that Doreen and Caroline barely spoke anymore.

Libby took a wet washcloth and scrubbed away at her makeup. She had regrets, but she could still face herself in the mirror. They'd given Ridge a better life. Saved a fledgling bird who had been shoved from his nest. And they'd helped Sloan too. They couldn't give her the kind of life they'd given Ridge, but a free college education was nothing to shake your head at. Libby wondered what Sloan thought of them now. She probably hated them, but in time, she might come around.

But according to Ridge, those were all pipe dreams. Caroline couldn't be left alone. They ran into the same problem when looking for a college to send Sloan to. "She won't go anywhere too far from her mama," Doreen had told Libby. So, LeTourneau it was.

Sloan did eventually break free from Caroline, but now, she was back. It made Libby think of Ridge and the terrible case of mono he caught as a child. The symptoms subsided, but the virus was there to stay. It had found a host forever and could resurface whenever it wanted. Caroline, too, was a virus.

Libby reached into her cold cream and slathered it on her dry and wrinkled skin. When had they all become so old? But wrinkles and gray hair didn't much matter. She and Vince still had their health, and they had each other. They had the money for a good lawyer if they needed it, but she was still optimistic that nothing would come back on them.

"And if it does?" Vince had asked when Ridge took off in their RV, Mallowater bound.

"Then it was still worth it," she'd said. Vince had nodded, putting his arm around her and waving goodbye to their son.

It was worth it because they both understood what it meant to be an actual parent. An actual parent didn't sacrifice their children; they sacrificed for their children. How had Caroline let her son go so easily?

Libby couldn't imagine it. She had always been a worrier by nature; motherhood only amplified it. And there was always something to worry about with children. She'd read you should always close your child's bedroom door because a closed door would likely save their life if there was a fire elsewhere in the house. But if she closed the door, how would she hear if someone climbed into his window and stole him? The past twenty years had been riddled with panic-inducing games of "Would You Rather." Libby assumed they'd go away as Ridge got older, but their phone call tonight proved otherwise. That familiar crippling fear had once again risen up inside the pit of her belly, but so had that same old mama-bear instinct.

Ridge was a grown man; he could take care of himself now. He had done what he needed to do, and it was over. He would be safe in his bed across the hall in a few more days.

Libby turned the bathroom light off and walked back to the living room, hoping Vince would wake up if she made enough noise. She wanted to tell him what had happened with Ridge, wanted to talk it out as they always did. But he didn't budge, even when she turned the light on. So, she covered him with a blanket, turned the light off again, and retreated back into her bedroom. She guessed she was on her own tonight when it came to lying in bed awake and worrying.