Not Quite Free

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Not Quite Free Page 18

by Lyla Payne


  I could try to find out more about Gillian online, but if Travis already ran some kind of police report, there’s probably not much point.

  My creamer is in the fridge. There’s a notecard taped to it that says Gracie’s Creamer, because both the cleaning woman and Mr. Freedman were finishing off my bottles before I could get myself a cup or two of coffee. Amelia knows she’s welcome to drink it, too, but of course it’s been weeks since she’s visited the library as anything but a patron. LeighAnn must drink hers black, because this bottle is what’s left over from before Christmas—a spiced latte flavor that tastes all wrong for the season.

  In fact, it tastes like it’s gone a bit off, though not enough to make me stop drinking the first cup of coffee, or the second. I should have tossed it a few days ago when I realized how old it had gotten.

  Back at my desk, I answer a few emails for the library, but when I check my watch, expecting it to be eleven and time for lunch, it’s only ten-fifteen.

  My eyes are heavy. More so than they should be, even after my late night. As if there’s nothing that could force them to stay open, and as lenient as Mr. Freedman has been with me, I really don’t think he would be okay with me setting my head down on the front desk.

  But I have to lie down. It’s suddenly the only thing I can think about, even though I’m on the clock and the only one here.

  Somewhere in the back of my mind, I realize it’s wrong. That something is wrong, that this sort of tired must have come from somewhere. Be due to something. But my mind is too sluggish to process the thought.

  My feet stumble on their way back to the children’s area, where Amelia used to sneak naps toward the end of her pregnancy. The room spins like I’ve slammed a bottle of bourbon since breakfast. My mouth feels as if it’s stuffed full of cotton, my tongue is so swollen that even if someone came along, I wouldn’t be able to ask them for help.

  The stacks go fuzzy on the edges of my vision, then black. I can’t feel my legs, and my hands are numb as I reach out blindly, trying to grab the shelves to stop my fall.

  My fingers catch nothing but air, and even though I’m dimly aware that my face hits the carpet, it doesn’t hurt. Nothing hurts, because I can’t feel a thing. Can’t think.

  Close my eyes, because it’s the only thing left. I do wonder, in my last moment of coherence, if I’m ever going to open them again.

  Chapter Seventeen

  I wake up slowly, my head feeling as if a jackhammer is working at full speed right next to my ear. The lights are too bright. A mask is strapped over my nose and mouth, every breath fogging up the plastic and leaving a bad taste in my mouth. My tongue is still dry—too dry to swallow, which makes me want to cry—and my limbs feel heavy.

  “Grace? Oh my God, she’s awake.” It’s Amelia, leaning over and blocking out the light like the angel that she is. Relief fills my eyes with tears. “Are you okay? Does it hurt?”

  I feel like hell, but I shake my head, or try to, and she throws her arms around me. There’s a sense that the two of us aren’t alone in the room, and when she pulls back, I see shadows that turn into people. Brick, who is not a surprise, and Cade Walters, who is. I tug at the oxygen mask, pulling it down under my chin, and look plaintively at the pitcher of water on the tray beside the bed.

  Amelia scrambles to pour me a cup in one of those foam hospital cups with the straw, then bends the straw toward me and places it between my lips. The water tastes as good as anything ever has in my entire life and I take three gulps before a cramp in my stomach warns me to slow down.

  “What…happened?” I manage to croak. My eyes trail to the windows, where it looks like a midday sun is burning through the winter sky. “Day?”

  “It’s Friday morning.” Tears are spilling down Amelia’s cheeks.

  My eyes bug out. I lost more than an entire day.

  “They’re not sure, not a hundred percent,” Brick says, stepping up to Amelia’s side and squeezing her hand. “It was poison, probably in the coffee creamer in the fridge at the library. Something plant-based, maybe belladonna.”

  “You were having a seizure when I found you,” Cade confesses, his pretty eyes wide. “It was terrifying.”

  “You found me?” It’s easier to talk every time I try, though my throat still feels as if there are thorns lodged in it. “How?”

  “I was coming to…” He slides a glance toward Brick and my cousin, and I catch a nervous flutter in his gaze. “Nail down details for the speaking engagement.”

  “Lucky he did, too.” Brick frowns. “That stuff is dangerous. If they hadn’t gotten you on opioids and oxygen, plus the fluids…”

  He trails off as Amelia presses a hand to her mouth. My cousin turns her wide eyes toward me. “Grace, who could have done this?”

  I shake my head. “I don’t know. But could you guys go get the doctor? I’d really like to hear the details and everything from him and everything. No offense.”

  “Of course. Let’s go.” Amelia tugs Brick toward the door. “We’ll be right back, okay?”

  I nod, trying to give her a reassuring smile that probably has the opposite effect. There’s something about Cade’s nervous explanation, the one that sounded like a complete lie, that makes me desperate to hear the real story. And he obviously doesn’t want to tell it in front of my cousin.

  As soon as the door closes, I make the supreme effort of turning my head back toward Cade. I raise my eyebrows. “You weren’t coming to talk to me about the signing.”

  He licks his lips, still nervous. “No. I was coming to tell you that this strange woman has been wandering around your house, usually after dark or first thing in the morning. She’s older, maybe in her forties or fifties, and she looks homeless or something. Graying hair, no coat. Definitely doesn’t want to be seen.”

  “But you’ve seen her,” I comment, mostly just to buy my poor, abused brain some time to come to grips with this information. It has to be Gillian Harvey.

  I mean, it doesn’t have to be, but I’d bet my one good set of teeth it is. There are pictures of her online; he can tell me for sure after he looks at them.

  Once I have enough strength to get on my phone.

  But why would she lurk around the house? If she wanted to go through my things, or attack me, or something, why not break in?

  Had she decided to follow me to the library instead and then poisoned the oh-so-helpfully-labeled bottle of creamer? Why?

  I suppose I should be grateful to Cade, both for spotting the woman and for waiting to tell me about her when Amelia isn’t around—both times—but the idea of him watching our house so closely all the time still makes me feel weird.

  “Thanks,” I tell him, the word lame even to my own ears. “For telling me and for…you know. Getting me here. And, you know, checking in on me.”

  “You’re welcome.” We sit in awkward silence for another beat or two before he shoots to his feet, grabs his coat, and shrugs it over his shoulder. “I’ll let you talk to the doctor. I’m glad you’re okay.”

  He leaves without another word. I can’t help but wonder if he’s going straight home to spy on our house some more. If so, perhaps I should be more grateful than suspicious. So far, his nosiness has done nothing but give me crucial information on occasion.

  Amelia comes back in a moment later with Brick in tow, and a man in a white coat pushes through the door behind them. He gives me a serious look and launches into a speech about how lucky I am that someone found me in time, and how dangerous belladonna can be in the dosage levels that were found in that bottle.

  I tune him out after the confirmation that A) I can get out of here later tonight and B) the police are waiting to talk to me. Again. I’m sleepy, still, and the no-longer-deniable fact that someone is trying to get rid of me before this trial can even take place overwhelms me to the point of exhaustion.

  The doctor leaves. Amelia takes my hand again, settling in beside the bed.

  “Where’s Jack?”

&nb
sp; “He’s with my mother. Don’t worry.”

  “You should be with him. He has to eat.”

  “You almost died, Grace. Let me worry about you for a while.” She frowns. “What did Cade want? He’s been lurking in and out of here at least three times a day, asking if you’re awake.”

  Cade didn’t want to worry Amelia, but I don’t see how any good can come from her not having all of the information. “He says a woman has been checking out our house. He’s seen her more than once.”

  Her face goes white. “Oh my god.”

  “It’s probably Gillian Harvey, which means she’s after me, not you, but even so…” I flick a glance toward Brick. “Maybe she and Jack could stay with you for a while?”

  He starts to nod, but stops when Amelia shoots him a glare.

  A second later, she turns it on me. “Absolutely not. We’ve got good security, and you need someone to look out for you. Brick can stay with us, if he wants, but I’m not leaving.”

  I’m too tired to argue with her. The thin pillow seems to rise up to meet the back of my head, and when my head makes contact with it, I close my eyes.

  “Tell Will…” I trail off, my forehead wrinkling as the train of thought goes straight out of my head.

  “I’ll tell Will the same thing I’ve been telling him and everyone else for two days,” Amelia grumbles. “That it can wait. You need time to get better.”

  I fall asleep with a slight smile on my face, thinking about poor Will—and probably Travis, too—who’s had to deal with worried Mama Bear Millie. But at least it’s not me this time.

  “So, you don’t think any of this information about Gillian Harvey is relevant?” I hear the exasperation in my own voice, but Brick Drayton, lawyer extraordinaire, seems nonplussed.

  “It’s not irrelevant, Graciela.” He leans back in his chair in our living room, looking about as tired as I feel as Jack slumbers in the crook of his arm.

  And I’m the one who just got out of the hospital after being poisoned.

  “It would be tricky to admit any of the evidence you’ve found, given that it was taken without permission from a house you don’t own, for one. For another, there’s no proof that she’s anything other than an unhinged woman who was interested in locating relatives she’d never met.”

  He’s right, of course. It’s the same thing I told Travis when he jumped to the conclusion that Gillian was likely the one who pushed me into the river, but that fact does nothing to alleviate my frustration. “What about what Cade said about seeing someone wandering around the house?”

  “It’s something,” Brick admits. “We’re going to get cameras up this afternoon and hopefully catch whoever it is next time. But even if this is a small town, Cade Walters is new to it. There’s a chance it could be someone you know, totally innocuous.”

  I give him a sidelong look. I’m about to tell him just how much I doubt that when Amelia putters back into the room.

  She sets the tea and cups down on the table and then turns to Brick with a soft smile. “Do you want me to take him?”

  “No, he’s fine.” The smile he gives her back is completely smitten.

  It warms me the slightest bit to see them so happy together, even if Brick is annoying the crap out of me right now.

  Amelia settles on the couch beside me and pours all three of us cups of tea. She tucks the blanket around me after handing me one of the mugs. I roll my eyes but let her do it. It makes her feel better to think that she can fix everything that’s wrong with food, drink, and coziness. Hell, maybe it makes me feel the slightest bit better, too.

  “Now, what’s the plan as far as Grace’s defense? Do we try to suggest this Gillian Harvey woman as another suspect?”

  “Brick says we don’t have enough proof,” I say, trying to keep a snotty tone out of my voice. The soothing steam from the peppermint tea helps.

  “Oh. Well…” Amelia chews on her lower lip, then brightens a bit. “Couldn’t the fact that Gillian thought someone else was after her work in our favor? Her house was broken into like ours, and she’s nowhere to be found. Isn’t that proof that someone is after the Fourniers?”

  Brick seems to give Millie’s suggestion more consideration than he did about mine. In the end, though, his response is the same. “There’s nothing to say that Graciela isn’t the crazy one trying to take out her family for whatever reason.”

  “But I’m not,” I point out. “And don’t forget, I’ve been the victim of two murder attempts.”

  “Don’t take this the wrong way,” Brick says, a statement that pretty much guarantees I will, “but you could have done all of that to yourself. The only proof you didn’t is that Leo claims to have seen a shadow on the docks the other day, and given how close the two of you have always been, his testimony wouldn’t be considered airtight by any means.” He holds up his hands as I gear up to huff. “Don’t shoot the messenger. I’m a damn good lawyer, partly because I can dismantle arguments before they’re made. If you want to suggest your innocence by pointing to potential suspects who weren’t checked out by the FBI, you’re going to need a connection between Gillian and Frank that goes beyond blood. A smoking gun. A motive. Something.”

  There’s not much to say. He’s not wrong. Brick and his sister are great attorneys, and I trust them to tell me what’s going to work and what’s not. I just want badly—maybe even more than I realized at the outset—to figure out what happened to Frank. Not only because it will help me stay out of jail, but also because he’s my father.

  The realization brings tears to my eyes, which I hastily wipe away before they can make Amelia panic. The way Brick shifts in his seat tells me that he’s noticed, but I give him a quick shake of the head. “So, what’s the plan, then? How do we get me out of this?”

  My time is up. Brick gave me two weeks to investigate on my own, and all I’ve accomplished is nearly getting myself killed. Twice. Well, I have reached out to a few relatives and illegally obtained a few super creepy books and papers, but none of that will matter to a judge. Rightly so, perhaps.

  “We focus on the fact that the evidence is circumstantial. You go through your calendar and try, as best as you can, to fill up the two-week window around Frank’s probable time of death. You and Amelia are rarely apart, and you’re rarely alone here at the house, so that should help.” He pauses. Jack has started stirring, and Brick rocks him gently until he settles back to sleep. “Honestly, their case is thin,” Brick continues in a hushed voice. “We present the facts, and that none of them conclusively point to you, along with the obvious one—you had no reason to kill your father—and hope the jury believes in common sense.”

  “I’m not sure I want to hang my future on the hope that twelve random citizens have good heads on their shoulders. I don’t think the odds are in our favor.”

  “They are in our favor, Graciela. We just have to focus. You need to come in to the office sometime in the next couple of days, once you’re feeling back to normal, and let Birdie and me prep you as far as answering our questions, and the ones on cross-examination. No surprises.”

  I can hear in his voice that he thinks the last part is most important, at least when I’m involved. He’s probably right. I should go in and practice saying the right things, and making my facial expressions behave, besides.

  “Okay. I can come in on Sunday, if you want. I’d hate to miss any more days of work since LeighAnn and Mr. Freedman have been so nice covering for me.” I frown. “Again.”

  Everything has taken a backseat while I recovered from the belladonna—I’ve been super tired, but I plan on getting back to work on Monday. Travis has been in and out since I’ve been home, and we’re going to try to talk to the two other relatives on Skype over the weekend.

  “Why don’t we wait until Monday?” he says. “You should use Sunday to rest. I’ll let Birdie know to clear some time in the evening so you don’t have to take off more work, okay?”

  The kindness in his voice, in his eyes,
makes my throat scratchy again. Brick and I have come a long way since the first time we met on the back lawn at Beau’s house, on his birthday. It’s weird to think that Brick is going to be the Drayton in my life, but it’s not a bad weird. Strange, how life doesn’t work out the way we expect, but there are often blessings to be found in those unexpected twists and turns.

  “Okay.”

  Brick and Amelia are dating or whatever, and my heart tells me to take Jack upstairs and spend a couple of hours watching over him so they can relax together, but the truth is that I’m still scared. I don’t feel safe anywhere but in this house—with them. It’s no way to live, and I have to shake the feeling and get back to my life—otherwise, the asshole who’s trying to kill me will win.

  But that can all happen tomorrow. Tonight, I guess I’m going to be a cock block and keep my butt right here on this couch.

  They’ll forgive me. After all, there’s no way to know how many nights I’ll have left at home.

  It’s a surprise the next day when not only Will and Mel, but Daria, too, drop by the house for a visit. Mel’s belly is huge and there are purple rings around her eyes that suggest she hasn’t been sleeping much better than I have, albeit for different reasons. At least hers will be coming to a close within the next couple of weeks.

  Then again, maybe mine will, too. I wonder if I’ll get better or worse sleep once I’m in prison. On the one hand, there won’t be anyone trying to kill me. On the other…I’ll be in prison.

  It’s probably a toss-up.

  “Hi,” Mel says with a too-bright smile, hugging me tight. “I made lasagna last night and I know how much you love it. And I made a salad, so we don’t have to feel badly about eating all of the meat and carbs. Even though it’s Saturday.”

 

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