I skimmed the words. The reporter seemed to have been covering the case from beginning to end. More people were involved than I’d originally thought. More than a dozen arrests and eight convictions. Most of the sentences were in the five to ten-year range. People who had been involved in the drug trafficking ring that Sean was embedded in.

It sounded as if there were more than a few that the prosecutor hadn’t had enough evidence to convict. I couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to those people and to the network of cookers and distributors. They hadn’t just disappeared. Maybe they’d simply gotten better at hiding their movements.

My mind couldn’t help but jump to the possibility that it was one of those people making trouble for Caelyn. But it didn’t make sense. If they really blamed Caelyn and her siblings for their testimony, wouldn’t they have started the harassment sooner?

My gaze caught on a photo in the article. The woman in it looked more than just a little worse for wear. Her face seemed to sag with the weight of her actions. Chrissy O’Connor. Did she have enough hate and bitterness in her to throw a brick through her children’s window?

It was so far from anything I could imagine. I knew people did horrible things. Hell, I’d experienced more than my fair share of it. But I couldn’t wrap my head around a mother being so vicious. Maybe it was because my own had been so caring. My chest burned at the thought. With the question that always haunted me. Why them? My parents and sister weren’t perfect, but they were good, kind, generous people. Why did we lose them when this endless list of cruel and violent criminals went on to live long and happy lives?

I clicked out of the browser. It had been a mistake to go down that rabbit hole. I didn’t need the darkness of the thoughts swirling around in my mind right now. Because I’d been swallowed by that darkness before. And it had taken me years to get out.

I stood, locking the computer screen. I was still itchy, needing something, anything to do. Normally, I’d work on the farmhouse. Letting the physical exertion work out all the tension and anxiety. But now I had a full house of people who would wake if I did that.

I glanced at the clock. It was a little after six. The kids got up around six-thirty. Breakfast. They’d need breakfast. And that would give me something to do with my hands. An activity to beat back the monsters pounding on my door.