by Brenda Novak
Kalyna had shot Mark.
“That was for…Tati,” she said.
The knife and crowbar fell from Mark’s hands. “You bitch!” Grasping his chest, he sank to the floor.
Luke eyed the weapons, now only a few feet away from him. They were available but he didn’t dare move. Kalyna had the gun trained on him.
“Tell me…you love me,” she wheezed. Her hair was matted with sweat. He could see the effort it took just to stay in a sitting position, just to speak. He didn’t know how she was still breathing. But it didn’t take much to pull a trigger. And she’d proven herself capable.
He stared at her, wondering if he could summon any compassion. But he couldn’t. Not after what she’d done to Ava.
“Luke!” she cried. “Say it!”
“I can’t.” He shook his head. In a world where everything else seemed distorted, he finally understood the one thing that mattered. The decision he hadn’t been able to make earlier that night. He loved Ava. He hadn’t known her long, had no idea if she was even alive, but what they’d had was fresh and new and every bit as powerful as what he’d once felt for Marissa.
The barrel of the gun wobbled but Kalyna managed to compensate. “I just…want to hear it. Is that too…fucking much…to ask?”
Reaching out one hand, he stepped cautiously closer. “Give me the gun, Kalyna. Give it to me, and let me get you some help.”
The shaking grew worse. She’d just killed Mark. She might kill him, too. But Luke couldn’t lie to her. Then he really would be as bad as she thought he was.
“Say it!”
“Give me the gun.” Dropping and rolling, he grabbed it away from her, but she didn’t fire or try to fight him.
She dropped back onto the floor with a gasping laugh. “I’m…pathetic. I couldn’t…shoot you. Even now…you’re the only man I ever really…loved,” she said, and then she was gone.
Luke sat in the waiting room at the hospital, along with Chuck Bixby, Skye Willis, Sheridan Granger and Jonathan Stivers. After making sure both Mark and Kalyna were dead, he’d checked Ava and found a weak but steady pulse. She was so beaten up, he hadn’t known how to help her, but he’d figured stopping the bleeding in her leg was a good place to start. He’d tied a dish towel around her thigh. Then he’d carried her to his car and driven her to the hospital. He couldn’t have tolerated waiting at the houseboat for an ambulance, could never have sat there, watching her slip away. He’d had to jump into action.
And now there was nothing more he could do except pray. She was in with the doctors. He wished someone would come out and tell him what was going on—he hadn’t heard anything for some time—but the minutes dragged on. It was already morning, marching toward ten o’clock.
“She’s going to make it,” her father said.
Luke didn’t reply. He’d used Ava’s phone to notify her father, and her father must’ve called the others, who all worked at The Last Stand. They didn’t say much to Mr. Bixby, but they talked a lot among themselves. And almost every time Luke glanced up, he caught one of them staring at him. The women usually gave him a nervous smile and averted their eyes, but Jonathan didn’t bother with that. He was curious and he let Luke know it.
Dropping his head into his hands, Luke felt his breath seep out. It had been a rough night. In order to stop Dewayne Harter from worrying, he’d felt obliged to call him, but what he’d had to say was hard. Both his adopted daughters were dead. The police had found Tati’s body in Mark’s trunk. Dewayne had lost his entire family in the course of one week. Luke couldn’t imagine what that would be like.
“Do you think someone should call Geoffrey?” Mr. Bixby asked.
Skye and the others all answered at once. “No!”
“Why not?” he pressed.
“She isn’t seeing him anymore,” Skye said.
Chuck jerked a thumb at Luke. “So she’s with him now?”
Skye and Sheridan looked at each other as if they didn’t know what to say, so Luke spoke up. “Yeah, she’s with me.”
Jonathan’s gaze landed on him again. Luke could feel the weight of it. Irritated by the constant attention, he scowled, expecting the same searching stare he’d gotten before, but this time Jonathan merely smiled.
“I told her you were innocent,” he said.
Surprised, Luke let his scowl fade, but a nurse appeared before he could respond. “Ava’s going to be okay,” she announced. “She needed a transfusion and quite a few stitches. And she has a slight concussion, as well as some broken bones—her collarbone, a bone in her hand and a bone in her arm. But she’ll be back on her feet in a few weeks.”
“Can I see her?” Chuck asked.
The nurse hesitated. “Are you Luke?”
His eyebrows shot up. “No, but I’m her father.”
“That’s Luke,” Jonathan said, nodding in his direction.
The nurse sent Luke a warm smile. “She’s been asking for you. Why don’t you come on back?”
Epilogue
A knock at the door roused Ava from a deep sleep. It was nearly nine o’clock on a Sunday morning, but she didn’t have anywhere to be, and she was so comfortable pressed up against Luke’s naked body, she didn’t want to move. Every once in a while, she thought about the violence that had occurred on the houseboat—especially on mornings like this, when the rocking lulled her back to sleep because she didn’t have to go to work. But that terrible night didn’t seem real, not with so many good memories to crowd out that bad one. It was only six weeks ago that the autopsy performed on Kalyna’s body had proved that she wasn’t pregnant. Only one week ago that Jonathan and the Mesa police had found Sarah’s family, to confirm her existence and explain her disappearance.
Hard to believe…The knock came again. “I think we have a visitor,” Luke mumbled.
Ava had been out of the hospital for two months. She had a scar on her leg to show for the knife wound, but there was no trace of her other injuries. Even her cast was gone. “Must be a solicitor.”
“That’d be the first we’ve ever gotten on the boat.”
Exactly. Out here in the middle of nowhere, it almost had to be someone she knew, which meant she had to get up. She started to roll out of bed, but he pulled her back and kissed her temple.
“Want me to answer it?”
“No, I will. I’ll make some coffee while I’m at it.” They planned to look at wedding rings this afternoon, then go to Skye’s for dinner. Luke had asked Ava to marry him a week ago, in San Diego, after she’d met his parents and his sister.
She figured they might as well get moving. She’d been teasing Luke that she was going to choose the biggest diamond she could find, but a simple band would make her just as happy.
“Wake me when you’re in the shower,” he said. “I don’t want to miss that.”
She laughed. She knew she wasn’t the most beautiful woman he’d ever met, but he made her feel as if she was. “You want breakfast with your coffee?”
“If you don’t mind making some eggs.”
The knock came a third time, louder.
“I don’t mind.” She threw on a robe and went to the door. She expected it to be her father. She’d told him not to contact her, but that hadn’t stopped him. He’d been coming over more than ever lately, the frequency of his visits directly proportional to the frequency of his arguments with his wife. Ava supposed she and Luke would be getting married and buying a house just about the time he’d need the houseboat. If Chuck could last that long, it would all work out perfectly.
“Ava?” A female voice came through the new door that replaced the one Luke had broken down. “I know you’re in there.”
Carly.
Tightening the belt to her robe, Ava squared her shoulders. What could her stepmother possibly want? They hadn’t seen each other in months; Ava didn’t care if she ever saw Carly again.
This was probably about another fight. Maybe she was out looking for Chuck…
Ava opened the do
or, prepared to tell Carly that her father wasn’t there. But Carly didn’t ask for him. She handed Ava an envelope.
“We keep getting these,” she said. “Every few weeks. Your father tells me to throw them away. I do throw away the ones that are addressed to him. He’s remarried and she has no business contacting him. But you’re a big girl. I think you should handle your own mail.”
It was a letter from her mother.
As Ava stared down at her name and address, written in Zelinda’s hand, the sense of loss she hadn’t experienced since Luke came into her life reasserted itself. But she refused to let Carly know that passing along this letter had made any kind of impact. “Thank you,” she said politely.
“Are you going to open it this time?” Carly asked.
That was none of her concern. Ava raised her chin. “Maybe.”
Carly glanced off into the distance before focusing on her again. “I realize we’ve never been friends, but—”
Luke came up behind Ava. He was wearing jeans and a T-shirt he must’ve pulled on in a hurry but no shoes. “Who’s this?” he asked.
He knew, or he wouldn’t have jumped out of bed, but Ava made the introduction, anyway. “This is Carly, my father’s wife.”
“And you must be Luke,” Carly said. “I saw the BMW. Nice car.”
The admiration that oozed through her manner bothered Ava, but Luke didn’t seem to notice it. “Thanks. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
She offered him a bright smile. “I’ve heard a lot about you. Chuck thinks you’re great. He says you’re wonderful to Ava. But I had no idea…no idea that…”
Once again her stepmother had spoken without thinking. She’d started to say she’d had no idea he’d be so handsome. It was written all over her face. But she seemed to realize how rude that would sound and was searching for an alternative.
“No idea you’d be here,” she finished lamely.
Carly had just said she’d seen his car, but Ava didn’t point out the contradiction. She didn’t care enough about Carly to embarrass her. Ava no longer felt quite so injured by her father’s choices; she felt sorry for him. His actions had hurt others, but he was definitely getting the worst of it in the end.
“Thanks for stopping by,” Ava said.
Carly’s eyes darted to Luke as if she was interested in continuing the conversation, but Ava shut the door.
“What do think?” Ava asked.
“She’s not nearly as attractive as you are,” he said. Then he motioned to the letter Carly had brought. “What’s that?”
“Nothing important.” Forcing a smile, Ava shoved it in the bookcase and moved toward the kitchen.
Luke seemed to know it wasn’t “nothing,” but he didn’t push the issue. He followed her into the kitchen and started the coffeemaker while she scrambled the eggs.
It wasn’t until Ava got home after picking out her wedding ring and having dinner at Skye’s that she retrieved the letter. Luke had gone to his apartment because he had to be at the base by seven in the morning, so she was alone. Now she could throw it away without seeming hard-hearted.
Or she could read it….
She thought of the events ahead of her—her wedding on December 5, the birth of her first child a year or two after that, the addition of other children. Was it a life she wanted to live without Zelinda? Could she forgive herself, and her mother, enough to rebuild as much of a relationship as they could have, considering the situation?
No. She couldn’t deal with it, even now. Maybe later, she told herself. But that letter beckoned as if her mother was standing in the room with her arms outstretched—and the longing to walk into them, to feel them close around her again, was suddenly too overpowering to refuse.
Her throat tight with unshed tears, Ava slowly opened the envelope. The note was short. She guessed it was basically the same note her mother had been sending for years.
Dear Ava—
I miss you so much. I think about you all the time. I know you need answers. I can’t explain what got into me. I was desperately angry and bitter. It ate at me like a cancer. But that’s no excuse. There is no excuse. I deserve to be where I am, but that doesn’t change the fact that I love you more than life.
I’m sorry.
Mom
Ava stared at those words until they began to blur with her tears. Then she remembered better days—days when her mother would be waiting to pick her up from school or was throwing her a birthday party—and went to the dining room table. Taking out a piece of paper, she began to write a reply.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-3872-9
THE PERFECT LIAR
Copyright © 2009 by Brenda Novak.
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