Second Chance (Lake Placid Series Book 1)

by Natalie Ann

  “Yes. We came to see Paul. This is Mallory Denning, Paul’s stepdaughter.”

  The nurse stopped and stared, then recovered. “I wasn’t aware there were any living children.”

  “I haven’t lived here in years, but if you need proof all you have to do is ask Paul. He’ll verify who I am.”

  “I’m afraid that won’t be possible,” the nurse said. “He slipped into a coma last night. This is the start of the end. But like we always tell loved ones, he can hear you, he just can’t respond.”

  Mallory wasn’t sure what she felt hearing that. It might be for the best. She could see him and she could say what she wanted to him, but he wouldn’t be able to answer back for what he’d done. Not that she’d believe anything he’d have to say.

  “We’ll just go pay our respects then,” Nick said, and moved past the nurse and toward her mother’s old bedroom on the first floor. “Are you okay?” Nick whispered to her.

  She’d heard but couldn’t get the words past her throat, so she nodded her head briefly.

  They walked into the room and she looked down at the man that married her mother. The man that was always overly nice to her, and made her extremely uncomfortable.

  He was older, clearly, pale and weak. Almost not resembling the person she loathed. The person who stole the last twelve years of her life away.

  “Do you want a few minutes alone with him?” Nick asked quietly.

  She’d never wanted to be alone with him, ever. But now it didn’t seem to matter. Now she knew she had to do this, and that she could.

  “Yes, if you don’t mind.”

  “I’ll be in the other room. Just call me if you need me.”

  She never lifted her head to look at Nick; she couldn’t tear her eyes away from Paul. Anger, frustration, and sadness were filling her. No sadness for Paul, he was getting what was due to him. Just sadness for her mother’s life and hers.

  “I hope you rot in hell, you sick bastard.”

  There was no response. She didn’t expect one, but she hoped he heard every word of what she said. She hoped it was the last thing he heard before he died and went to the everlasting purgatory she dreamed up in her mind.

  “You stole everything from me. My mother was all I had left. She wanted to stop. She wanted to get better, but you fed her addiction. I saw it and I knew it. It wasn’t just once, it was all the time. Then you used that addiction to take from her what you shouldn’t have. What my father worked so hard to give us. You knew that money was there all along, didn’t you? You had to have. You weren’t even half the man my father was and it killed you to know it. I bet it ate you alive daily to know he was smart enough to make sure scum like you couldn’t take what was his. But you did. You still found a way to take enough.”

  She stopped and wiped the tears from her eyes. Her mother was an addict; she’d made those choices. But when she wanted help, Paul kept feeding her pills. Once Mallory realized what was going on, she was watching for it and she saw more than she wished she had. The large credit card bills, the phone calls from bill collectors. Things that no teen should see. Things that Paul tried to push off as wrong numbers and that her mother, in her deteriorating state of mind, believed.

  The one time Mallory approached her mother about it, she was brushed off and told, “He knows what’s best for me. He’s taking care of me. He’d never let me get sick. And don’t worry about those calls, Paul is taking care of it.”

  It was in that moment that Mallory realized her mother was fully aware of what Paul was doing in terms of her addiction. Her mother probably remained clueless to the money issues though, because Mindy always loved to shop and continued until the day Mallory left.

  Her mother didn’t know what else Paul did. No one did.

  “Did it make you feel like a man?”

  Again, no response. She was shaking now. Not in fear, but in rage. Everything she wanted to say and do back then but couldn’t was just building like a geyser waiting to erupt.

  She was seventeen the first time Paul walked into her bedroom, then sat on her bed. Told her what a lovely beautiful woman she was turning into. Just like her mother. So much like her mother.

  Mallory had felt uncomfortable and uneasy, but didn’t say anything. Just let Paul talk, then asked him to leave, saying she had homework to do. He’d looked at her oddly but complied and she’d put it from her mind.

  Several more times Paul had approached her, invaded her personal space and made similar comments. Deep down Mallory knew it was wrong, knew there was something sick about the way Paul looked at her, but she pushed it off, knowing she would be leaving for college and getting away.

  Only it never happened. She wasn’t allowed to go away. When she asked her mother why, she was told, “I can’t afford it. Paul is supporting us, and he feels you aren’t ready for college. That you should just go to the community college for two years first.”

  Mallory had been so angry. She’d never spoken up to Paul before. She’d never raised her voice and very rarely expressed concerns to anyone or told anyone how uncomfortable Paul made her feel or what he was doing to her mother.

  Hearing that her dream of going away to college was gone had broken the last bit holding her together.

  “How could you do this to me?” she’d asked Paul later that night. “You know I want to go away. You know Mom and I have been looking at colleges. Why now, why change your mind now?”

  “Because your mother spent all your money. I’m not footing the bill for you.” He moved closer to her, too close, and her heart started to race. “Unless of course you want to earn it, Mallory.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  She took a step back, but he followed, then raised his hand and ran his knuckles down her cheek. “So much like your mother. You need to pick up the slack for her. If you want money to go away at some point, then you can…work for it.”

  Somehow without her realizing it, spit from her mouth was rocketing toward his face, landing on his cheek. Paul wasted no time reacting. The crack of his palm across her flesh echoed in the room.

  Shock was the least of the things she’d felt. Repulsion was more like it. How could her mother not see this? Of course, her mother would have to be lucid to see, and she very rarely was. Now it all started to make sense.

  “It’s never going to happen,” she said, her fists clenched.

  “Where are you going to go? What are you going to do, tell your mother? No one is going to believe you. Your mother can be talked into believing anything I say. You’ve got no one, Mallory. No one but me. I’m all you’ll ever have. So it’s your choice. Stay here and work for your future, or try to make it on your own.”

  She felt the tears run down her cheeks now, falling onto the bed that Paul lay in unaware of her.

  “I told you you’d never have me and you didn’t. I just wish I’d been strong enough to stand up for myself back then. To tell someone what was going on in this house. Then again, you would have found a way around it. You always did. You gave me a choice—not much of one—but I did what I had to.”

  Knuckling the tears away, she looked up from his face and around the room. It hadn’t changed much from what she remembered. It still looked the way it had when her mother was alive, and that somehow made it worse for Mallory.

  “You killed my mother, you know you did. What you did to her, all those years of control, it was the last straw. What’s the matter, she wouldn’t give you what you wanted either? And you killed my childhood. There isn’t a place in hell good enough for you.”

  She turned to walk out of the room and saw Nick standing there staring at her, his face flush and his fists clenched.

  Life

  When Mallory hadn’t returned after ten minutes, Nick decided to go check on her. He’d stayed back outside of the door and just watched her. At first he couldn’t believe what she’d said. How she called Paul a sick bastard.

  He never cared for Paul, not really. He shouldn’t have b
een surprised to hear that Paul had fed Mindy’s addiction. Paul always liked to be in control. Nick knew that better than anyone.

  Of course, he just attributed it to Paul being an overbearing stepparent. He never imagined that Paul wanted Mallory for himself.

  “He molested you?” Nick asked, his voice hoarse to keep from shouting.

  “No, he never touched me like you think. Those were my options, Nick. Stay here and deal with that, or leave. I left. I’m sure he never thought I’d do it. After all, I didn’t have the means and he knew that. When he realized I was gone he probably panicked. It’s not like he could come forth and admit what happened to anyone.” She took a deep breath. “I need to leave this room, or I’m going to be sick.”

  “We need to talk about this,” Nick said, not backing down.

  He wanted answers and it seemed he was finally going to get them. Only if he could control himself to listen and not just react, like he wanted to do. Like he wanted to reach over and put his hands around Paul’s throat.

  “Let’s do it at your parents’ house. It’s best that way. I suspect they’re waiting for us.”

  “Please don’t tell me they knew and did nothing.” If he thought yesterday was a day full of shock, it was nothing compared to now.

  “I don’t know exactly what they knew or didn’t. The same with Trixie, since we never really talked about it in detail. But it’s time to find out. And they did do something, Nick. Your mother and Trixie got me out of there.”

  He followed her across the lawn, past the bench where he spoke the words he’d regretted for too many years. Words he never wanted to say but felt like he had no choice.

  Suddenly he stopped and pulled her back to the bench, then sat her down.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, her face pale and her eyes tired, but this was something he knew he had to do.

  “Making it right. Fixing something I shouldn’t have done all those years ago. I want answers, but I’ve got to give you some, too.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “All those years ago when I lied to you about how I was getting close to you for a bet. That I never cared for you. Then I recently said I did it because I wanted you to be able to go away to school and experience life. That was a lie too.”

  “Why are you telling me this now?”

  She looked confused, but he continued on. “Because you need to know the truth. I sat here in this spot and said those things because I had no choice. Paul threatened me. He’d been watching us together. He said if I didn’t back off, he’d bring charges of rape against me.”

  “What?! But we’d done nothing but kiss. And I was going to be eighteen. He couldn’t have any claim at all.”

  “He didn’t know anything about us. I didn’t tell him. I didn’t confirm or deny anything about our relationship. I was too mad to say anything, too shocked. Call it petty, if you want. When I said you were going to be an adult in a week, he didn’t even flinch. Said he could make life difficult for me regardless and would I really want to drag you through that? Or drag my family through it, even if it wasn’t true? Or how about my future career…would I want people always whispering and wondering behind my back that maybe I got off because of my mother?”

  “I can’t believe this. I don’t even know what to say.”

  “You’d been through so much, Mallory. I couldn’t do it to you. I was going back to college and you were starting your life. I just thought it was best to cool things off for a bit. I figured I’d talk to you in a few months again and go from there. When you disappeared, I thought it was my fault.”

  “I told you it wasn’t.” She stood up and pulled him up next to her. “Let’s get off this bench and out of this yard. I need to leave. I can’t be here. I can’t be on this property a second longer.” Her voice was cracking, her breathing was labored, and he hated that he’d just added to her distress.

  He followed her as she rushed through the trees and saw his parents sitting on their deck, their faces set in stone. He knew they’d heard what he and Mallory were talking about.

  “Why the hell didn’t you tell me?” his father roared, looking angrier than Nick had ever thought possible. “Why was I kept in the dark over everything?”

  “I didn’t think anyone would believe me.”

  “Are you kidding me, Nick?!” his mother yelled. “You’ve always been able to come to us about anything. We would have listened and we would have believed you. Don’t you get it? Mindy didn’t know about Mallory’s trust, but Paul did. I knew and couldn’t say anything. With you in the picture, Nick, he worried she’d tell you what was going on in the house. He didn’t want anyone close to her. Nor did he want her to have any relationship that could blossom into a marriage. Then Mindy would no longer have a chance at that money. It was all about control.”

  “How was I supposed to know any of that?” Nick asked.

  “You weren’t. No one was. I managed it from my end the best I could. Mindy and I talked when she spent Mallory’s college money. At one point she was lucid enough to have notarized documents forbidding the firm to release money from her remaining trust without her walking in and signing papers in person. She knew something wasn’t right and was trying to protect what was left, but it was too late at that point. By then all the cash was gone and they were using her annual draws.”

  His father turned and pointed at his wife. “You of all people should have told me what you suspected Paul was doing to Mallory.”

  “I didn’t know for sure. I knew there were money issues, and control problems, but I only suspected the rest. When you said you weren’t leaving for college, my fears were starting to mount.”

  “But you knew enough,” Mallory said. “How did you even know that?”

  “You’d changed, Mallory,” his mother said. “You started coming over more and more when your mother wasn’t around, or wasn’t awake. I was getting concerned. I tried to talk to you about it, but you always changed the subject.”

  “You never talked to me about it,” Mallory argued.

  “Several times I asked how things were going in the house. If you felt safe. I told you that you could come to me with anything.”

  “I didn’t know you knew. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t even understand fully what Paul had always hinted at until shortly before my birthday. He made it clear enough then. How could I tell you something I didn’t completely understand?”

  “Sweetie,” Trixie said. “That’s why we did what we did. It was wrong of us, I know that, but it felt like it was the best thing we could do for you.”

  “Someone should have told me what was going on!” his father shouted.

  “It all happened so fast, John.” His mother turned to Nick then. “None of this was supposed to happen. Mallory wasn’t supposed to stay away so long. Just a year, not even that. But the more time that went by, it seemed like there wasn’t much to do. When Paul said he was searching for her, we knew we had to keep her hidden longer. He was growing anxious at times in his quest to get his hands on the money. I remember the day he found out about the house. He wanted Mindy to sell it, but she refused, not wanting to uproot Mallory. She said it was Andrew’s house and she couldn’t leave it, ever, not even after Mallory disappeared. She said she had to keep it in case you came back.”

  “Was he really searching for me?” Mallory asked.

  “Mindy was devastated. He had to appease her. He was trying everything he could to find you. She was clueless as to what was going on right under her nose. She started to go downhill fast. I believe he was trying anything he could to make her happy.”

  “Why would he care if Mindy was happy? She was just a shell of woman at that point,” Nick said, disgusted.

  “Control, Nick,” Susan said. “If Mallory was close to home, it was more control he had over both of them and more hope that he could get his hands on the money. He’d asked me a few times the net worth and I couldn’t tell him. Not that I would have if I were all
owed to.”

  “Too many things are making sense right now,” John said. “I really wish I wasn’t kept in the dark for so long.”

  “What aren’t you saying?” Mallory asked.

  “Paul had made comments over the years how he’d always loved your mother from afar,” John said. “Remember, your father and Paul worked together. Paul even made comments about how your father had the golden touch with money, but I always brushed it off. I just thought it was friendly rivalry, but obviously not.”

  “I remember him coming to the house for dinner parties and such. I even remember him making comments about my father’s success, now that I think of it. What does that have to do with anything?” Mallory asked.

  “I think he was as obsessed with Mindy as much as he was with your father’s wealth. He saw his opportunity when your father died. He could get the woman he wanted and everything your father worked so hard for in one fell swoop. It didn’t take him long to start coming around to help,” John added, and Nick could see the guilt on his father’s face now that he was putting it all together.

  “I hated him for that,” Mallory said. “But my mother did seem stronger in the beginning when he was around, so I accepted it because it helped her. There was nothing in the beginning to indicate any of what would happen, though.”

  “The pills, her addiction…he fed her to keep her under control,” his mother said. “You were a kid, Mallory. You weren’t meant to see or even understand.”

  “You knew that he was giving her pills?” Mallory said.

  “I confronted your mother. After that, Mindy came to me a few times to get help. Then she’d change her mind. I asked her once why and she told me Paul was helping her to kick it. But when she told me how he was helping her, I realized what he was doing. She didn’t want to hear a bad word about it though. Nothing I could say would make her believe me, that he wasn’t helping her, but feeding her addiction. I could have found a way to get the money for her out of the trust for rehab, if she truly wanted to go, but deep down she never did, Mallory. And I’m sorry for that.”