by Lisa Jackson
“You didn’t want my baby, but you sure wanted that rich fucker’s. I tried to forgive you. I tried really hard. But I can’t.”
She gasped as she backed away from him. If she could just ease into the bathroom and lock the door, call the police or Liam or someone. Her phone . . . where the hell was her phone? She searched the room in her peripheral vision, her gaze still centered on the deadly knife.
“You murdered our kid. Couldn’t be with someone as worthless as me. Nona . . . Nona knows I’m worth something, but not you. You never did. I was never good enough for Rory Abernathy.” Anguish and fury twisted his features.
“No, Cal. That’s just not true. I lost the baby. It just happened.” She remembered the cramping, the spotting. “I wanted—”
“Shut up!” he shouted, spittle spraying, the reek of whiskey surrounding him.
Where the hell is the phone?
Sweating, heart trip-hammering, she caught a glimpse of her phone on the edge of the nightstand. Too far. If she leaped for it, he’d be on her, on the bed and . . . he’d kill her. She saw the murderous intent swimming in his eyes.
“I don’t know why you’re here, but you need to leave,” she said, hoping to reason with him as she stepped around the chair that Liam had pulled from the small table. Lord, that seemed like a lifetime ago. She nearly tripped over the coverlet that had pooled on the stained carpet, but she kept moving. Backing away. Ever away. The bathroom was only five feet away now . . .
“You got pregnant and married that son of a bitch.” His voice was low and accusatory, judge and jury all rolled into one low growl.
How did he know this? “No one knew I was pregnant.” Not even Liam.
“I was watching you.” He poked the knife closer toward her.
A chill ran down her spine. Could she make it to the bathroom?
“Saw you go to the drug store.”
“What?”
“Pick up that little kit . . . the same kind you used when you found out about our baby.”
The pregnancy test. “I didn’t kill our baby, Cal,” she pleaded.
“You shut your lying mouth,” he warned.
He was crazy. Wasted. She had to calm him down “What—what about your program? Twelve steps . . . or you said, seven?”
The bathroom was only a few feet away.
If she could launch herself, fling her body through the open door, slam it shut, lock it, and scream bloody murder, maybe she could scare him off, get someone to come or call the cops. But she was still stunned from the door smashing into her face, her nose and mouth throbbing, the taste of blood on her lips. She backed up slowly, one step at a time. “So you came to my wedding on purpose. To what, kill me?”
“Teach you a lesson.”
“And you killed Aaron in the process!” She could feel her fear changing to anger. Good. She wanted to be mad!
“That wasn’t me. I just wanted to talk to you, reason with you, make you admit what you did. I saw the balloons, and I had the mask, and I knew which room you were in. I saw you go in. You . . . you stabbed me!”
Rory edged backwards. Keep him talking. Just keep him talking. “You attacked me, Cal! I just wanted to get away!”
“I had to wrap my hand in my black apron to hide where you stabbed me when the police showed up!” He shook his fist at her, the scar white against his skin. “They weren’t looking for a knife wound, and all of us in the kitchen vouched for each other anyway. No one knew I was even gone for a while. Thought I was serving.”
He was rounding the chair, his black boots on the quilt, his eyes shining with bloodlust, the edges of his teeth visible between his thin lips. “Part of me will always love you,” he whispered, the knife inches from her, the roar in her ears pulsing with fear, “But you need to pay for killing our baby . . .”
Chapter 18
Liam blinked awake. Found himself seated in his darkened truck. For a second he was discombobulated, lost about where he was. He rubbed a kink from his neck. Where was he and what the hell was he doing here? Why was he—?
In a flash, he remembered. He was parked on the far side of Lamplighter’s lot, backed into a space, the nose of his truck facing the building, giving him a view of the front façade of the motel. He glanced at Rory’s second-floor room. There was a sliver of light around the door frame, as if it wasn’t completely shut.
He saw movement behind the curtained window. Rory? Someone else?
Oh, shit.
Liam threw open the Tahoe’s driver’s door. Leaping from the cab, Liam kept his eyes focused on Rory’s windows. Two figures.
Could be anyone, he told himself.
But he had a bad feeling.
Liam raced up the stairs, taking them two at a time. He heard Rory’s tense voice, a man’s answering growl. What the hell?
He pushed open the door just as the man lunged forward, a knife in his hand, swinging at a dazed-looking Rory. Without thinking he hurled himself forward. At the same moment Rory bent over, grabbed a wad of bedding that had puddled on the floor, and yanked.
The assailant’s booted feet slipped. He tried to recover his balance as Liam slammed into him, driving both their bodies to the floor in a tangle of the bedding. “Get out!” Liam yelled at Rory as he struggled to subdue the assailant. But the attacker was a wild man. Though facedown in the coverlet, the assailant, all sinew and muscle beneath his slippery leather outfit, squirmed and slashed, making quick wide arcs behind him, a sharp blade slicing wildly through the air, intent on finding a mark.
Liam grabbed at the deadly arm, but his grip slid and he was forced to dodge and weave, holding the growling, wriggling thug down while trying to avoid being sliced to ribbons.
Somewhere, Liam thought, he heard sirens.
Get here! Get here fast!
The guy must’ve been a wrestler because he moved suddenly, feinting right, throwing Liam’s weight to one side, then gathering himself and arching, moving left, reversing the situation so he, red-faced and angry, was on top. Liam’s grip slipped as he jerked his arm away. “You sick son of a bitch,” the attacker spewed, raising his arm, intent on ramming his knife into Liam’s face.
Liam bucked just as Rory came into view near the door. The room went suddenly dark.
Crash!
The attacker’s body jerked and he yowled as something heavy collided with him. He slumped against Liam, who struggled out from under him and then climbed atop the son of a bitch. He didn’t know what had happened, but he wasn’t taking any chances. The guy was dazed and Liam took advantage of it.
“You bastard!” Rory gritted out, her voice shaking. Footsteps sounded through the open doorway.
“What’s going on?” a woman’s shrill voice demanded. “I called 911 on you!”
Thank, God, Liam thought as the sirens screamed closer.
“You called the cops?” a gravelly voiced man asked in shock.
“Jesus, Warren, yes! Did you hear them?” the woman answered back.
The overhead light snapped on and Liam saw Rory, still holding the lamp she’d used as a weapon, braced against the wall near the windows. Blood crusted her nostrils and her skin was white as chalk. “Cal,” she whispered, staring. “It was Cal. All along. He tried to kill me then . . . at the wedding, and he tried to kill me now.”
“Redmond?”
She was nodding as the footsteps clambered on the porch outside. A second later a police officer stood in the doorway, weapon drawn. “Police!” he ordered. “Get down! Now!” He caught a glimpse of Rory. “You, too.” Another officer appeared behind the first. Her sidearm was in her hand.
Liam lifted his palms. “I’m Liam Bastian and this is my wife—”
“Do it!” the female cop ordered, her anxiety evident in her strangled tone. “Hands over your head. Get on the floor. Now!”
Liam placed his hands over his head and lay on the floor. Rory slithered down the wall, then did the same. He felt his wallet being tugged from the back pocket of his jeans, al
lowed his hands to be cuffed behind his back.
He didn’t care. The police could restrain him all they liked. As long as Rory was safe. It would all be sorted out soon enough anyway. At least the madman, now, finally, was being handcuffed.
Now, maybe the nightmare of the last five years was finally over.
* * *
Bethany was waiting.
And she was the last person Liam expected to find at the Laurelton police station when their story was told and he was finally released. But there she was, sitting ramrod stiff on a bench in a brightly lit, austere area of the department where family members were allowed to wait for their loved ones. Two others were in the room as well, an African American kid of about nineteen, earplugs connected to his cell phone. He barely glanced up as Liam walked out. The other was a worried pregnant woman whose face dropped in disappointment at the sight of Liam. Through the glass partition separating this waiting area from the rest of the department, he saw an officer seated at a desk.
Beth’s mouth dropped open at the sight of him. “For the love of God, Liam! What the ... what’s going on? You were arrested?” She stared at Liam as if he’d sprouted horns from his head.
“I was questioned. But yeah, I took a ride in a cruiser.” Actually he and Rory had been forced into the back of a police vehicle and driven here to be questioned for over two hours about the attack by Cal Redmond. The police had been suspicious and had called Portland PD as he’d given his story. That had alerted the homicide detectives who’d grilled Rory earlier, and Detective Grant had interviewed Liam as well, wondering if there was some kind of link between the Cal Redmond attack, the assault at the wedding, and Teri Mulvaney’s murder. Both he and Susskind seemed to believe Liam was holding out on them. Apparently, the detectives had brushed up against him too often in the last few days for them to think it was coincidental.
But the truth of the matter was, Liam didn’t know.
Finally, he’d been allowed to leave. Rory was with another officer and he knew it was going to take longer for her to be released. Cal had attacked her twice, and Liam had been informed that the police wanted full statements. He would have to come back for her, so he’d called Derek, explained the situation, saying he would need him later for a ride back to the Lamplighter to retrieve his Tahoe.
But here was Beth.
“How’d you know I was here?”
“You were with Rory,” Beth accused in disbelief. She was nearly shivering in some kind of pent-up rage. Devoid of makeup, her hair pulled back and clipped away from her face, she was hurt and upset, arms folded under her chest beneath the too-bright lights of this small area.
“Who told you?”
“Does it matter?”
“Hell, yeah, it matters.”
“The bigger question is why were you and Rory attacked in a motel room? Jesus, Liam, you’ll never get over her, will you?”
So like Beth to go straight there. No concern for him. Not, How are you doing? Not, Is Rory okay? Not even, Who was the assailant and what did he want? Nope. The burning question in Bethany’s mind was: You’ll never get over her, will you? And she was right. He knew that now; he’d known it from the moment he’d seen his runaway bride again.
“Let’s get coffee,” he suggested as he looked through the sidelights to the exterior door and saw a fast food place on the other side of a wide parking strip.
She eyed the all-night diner, glowing bright in the night, a few cars parked nearby. “I think we should just go home.”
He cocked an eyebrow. Home?
“I’ll take you to your place,” she clarified tightly.
“Seriously?”
She nodded. Vigorously.
“I’m coming back for Rory, so you’d better take me to my car.”
She seemed to tighten all over. Lips, corners of the eyes, neck muscles, shoulders. “Of course.”
He said, “But first, coffee. I’ll tell you how I ended up in police custody and you tell me how you knew I was at the Laurelton police station. Deal?” he asked, holding the door for her.
Without answering, she walked stiffly through. As the door swung shut, she muttered, “What’s taking so long with her?”
“They have more questions for her.”
“What does that tell you, Liam? Huh? That she comes back into town and almost immediately all hell breaks loose?”
They were walking across the nearly empty parking lot where Bethany’s white Lexus gleamed pearlescent beneath a security lamp. With Bethany a few steps behind, Liam stepped over the curb to a short path cutting between struggling boxwood plants in the strip of landscaped earth between the two buildings. The path was wide and littered, created by thousands of feet that had made the trek between the all-night diner and the station.
Inside, the restaurant was nearly empty, one tired waitress manning the cash register, a sprinkling of night-owls tucked in worn booths and huddled over coffee or sodas in the middle of the night. Though not lit as harshly as the waiting area of the Laurelton PD, the restaurant was hardly intimate.
Liam slid into a booth near the window with a view of the police station.
“You can’t go on living your life for a woman who comes and goes as she pleases, who’s apt to disappear and reappear on a whim.”
“She’s my wife, Beth. And Charlotte’s my kid.”
“You think.”
“Pretty sure.”
“Until there’s a DNA test.”
“It’s happening. Should get the results soon. Private lab with a rush order, but I know.”
Beth was about to say something else when a thin, fiftyish waitress with bags under her eyes and a weary smile stopped at their table. She was holding a coffeepot and turned over the cups already set on the booth’s battle-worn table. “Breakfast?” she asked, and Bethany gave an almost imperceptible shake of her head, her lips knotted.
“Just coffee. Thanks. And black is fine,” he added, anticipating her request.
“Cream and sugar on the table anyway.” She pointed a long, gnarled finger tipped in red toward the condiments and napkin holder pressed against the far end of the booth near the window. “How about you, honey?” She eyed Bethany, who visibly bristled.
“Nothing. Oh. Maybe sparkling water. With a slice of lemon.”
The waitress, whose name tag read NORA, nodded. “Okay. Let me know if you change your mind about breakfast. The special today is a Belgian waffle with fresh strawberries and a side of bacon.”
“Will do,” Liam promised, and she returned quickly with the water glass, complete with lemon, then made the rounds with her coffeepot, stopping at the next booth where two teenagers, dressed in hoodies and ripped jeans, drinking sodas, were plugged into their cell phones. Liam looked at the time and saw it was after midnight.
He took a swallow of coffee.
“How can you be so damned calm?” Bethany asked once the waitress was out of earshot. “You’ve been up half the night, assaulted by a deranged ex, dragged down to the police station, for God’s sake . . . All I’m saying, Liam, is that Rory is trouble. Real trouble. Her mother is a wacko, her stepfather’s in jail, and her brothers are petty crooks at the very least.”
“Stepbrothers. And Aaron is—”
“Yes, I know he’s gone. Caught in the crossfire at your wedding to her. You got hurt yourself. I know.”
Her words made him want to rub his thigh, but he stopped himself. A habit he needed to break.
“And your father?” Her eyes were ice-cold. “Because of Rory, Geoff is in a wheelchair.”
“What happened at the wedding wasn’t her fault,” he argued, starting to lose his cool. He was tired, angry, and he didn’t need a fight with Bethany. Not now. Well, not ever.
“You don’t know that. My God, Liam. Why do you defend her? She’s dangerous.” Her eyes narrowed and she swirled her straw in her untouched water glass, making the slice of lemon dance and swirl within the tiny cubes.
“I just don’t blame her for
what happened.”
“A few days ago, not even a week, you were going to divorce her.” She raised her eyes, pinned him in her gaze. “Now—?”
“I don’t know.”
She made a sound of disbelief. “Fine. I tried, you know, to be more like her. God, it was so obvious you were in love with her! I really tried. Even colored my hair a more reddish shade of blond. How stupid is that?” She laughed bitterly. “You never even noticed.”
He hadn’t really. Her hair had always been pale, but now, yeah, it was redder.
“What a fool I’ve been.” Sighing, she suddenly realized she was fiddling with the straw and let go of it. Her big eyes were hurt, wounded. “Do you know how hard it is to compete with a ghost? You didn’t know if she was alive or dead and somehow she became this . . . this angel. And look, will you? She actually left you high and dry, bleeding at your own damned wedding ceremony. What does that tell you about her?” She glared at him as if she wanted to kill him. “She hid out for nearly five years in that stupid little rinky-dink town as far north as she could flee, never letting you know where she was, keeping her daughter secret, living under an alias, probably. . . oh, I don’t know . . . making up a story about a pretend ex-husband who was abusive or running from the law or whatever. She’s shady, that’s all I’m saying, a liar and an escape artist. Open your eyes and take a look at who she really is.”
“How do you know so much about her?” he asked slowly, taking in everything she’d said.
“From you. Come on, Liam. She’s all you ever talked about.”
He didn’t think so, and yet Beth was firm, her lips knife-blade thin, her French-tipped nails digging into her palms. “I never had a chance. The ghost of Rory has always been between us, even though she was alive and well and she could have returned to you anytime she wanted, but she just let you twist in the wind while she was hiding in Point Roberts making Frappuccinos for tourists!” She threw a glance at the ceiling, tears standing in her eyes. “God, I’ve been a fool.”
“I haven’t talked about her,” Liam said. He’d been careful about Rory with Beth. Always very careful. “And I didn’t know she was in Point Roberts until just recently.”