She knew it was a boy. That’s all she knew.
A son, who now belonged to someone else.
A husband, dead.
A lover, gone.
Daisy, widowed, childless, alone, and finally in a position to start over. She was free and clear to start her life, yet again.
She had always been a good singer. She could get work in the honky-tonks, singing backup or covers. And that’s just what she did. She lost the baby weight as quickly as possible, sent out some demos and résumés, and landed a job two weeks later. She sang and flirted and had herself a ball, and tried so very hard not to think of the small bundle she’d given away.
Once, when she’d had a great deal to drink and was feeling especially lonely—because while she had a job, and friends, something inside her would never be right again—she tried to call the Edwards house. A recording gave her an immediate three-toned note, then said: “The number you have dialed has been disconnected or is no longer in service. Please check the number and dial again.”
Gone. The man, the boy, the woman. All gone. The hole in her, the emptiness, the sneaking suspicion that she’d done the wrong thing, it all came parading back.
But she was too late. Remorse is a pointless emotion when you can’t do anything to rectify the situation.
The next night, hung over, sad, lonely, she accepted the offer of a handsome man who wanted to buy her a drink. She needed the dog’s hair anyway, and was running low on cash; tips weren’t as plentiful when she wasn’t on her game, and she wasn’t on her game tonight.
The handsome man bought her a drink, then another, and another. Daisy was feeling better, more confident, surer, and he was a specimen, wide shoulders winnowing to a small waist, square jaw, straight teeth. Brown hair slicked back, jeans that filled out in all the right places. His name was Ed, Ed Hardsten, and several drinks later, when he offered to give her a ride, and he wasn’t just talking about his car—wink, wink—she thought, what the hell. What do I have to lose?
Those were words that always came back to haunt Daisy.
The “ride” was an excellent one, and when Hardsten asked to see her again, she agreed. Languorously wrapped in his sheets, she hadn’t felt like this much of a woman since . . . Well, she didn’t like to think of that night, when Dr. Edwards took her up against the wall in the stairwell at the college.
She married Hardsten three months later. They bought a little house with a white picket fence and got to work starting a family. And she told herself how happy she was, day after day after day.
CHAPTER 55
Aubrey
Today
Aubrey came to on the couch, with a worried Chase inches from her face.
It was too much. It was all too much.
“Aubrey, are you okay? Please, listen to me. Please forgive me.”
She held up her hand. “Stop. Just give me some space.”
He handed her a glass of water. She drank it, mind still spinning, half with anger, half with relief. She set the glass down and pulled her legs up onto the couch, making herself into a small ball. She searched his face for any sign he knew what was going on. She saw only a man who had feelings for her, but he wasn’t innocent anymore. She couldn’t trust him. And her heart broke. It all crashed together again, and Aubrey shut her eyes.
Daisy.
Sons.
It all made such a sick, weird kind of sense now. There are no coincidences in life. Chase had been sent to her, a gift, a way out of her own grief. He’d been using her, and now she was being punished, yet again.
But she breathed out a sigh of relief. She wasn’t crazy. She wasn’t seeing things. That’s why he seemed so damn familiar.
“Chase, I need to ask you a serious question, and I need you to tell me the truth. Were you adopted?”
“What?” He whirled away, eyes blazing. “Jesus, Aubrey. You just drop this bomb that your dead husband might be alive, tell me I’m not allowed to love you, and then ask that? What the hell?”
She tamped down the anger, the betrayal, the urge to lash out. Got up and went to him. He didn’t move, was breathing hard. She took his cheeks in her hands, looked deep into his eyes. Mad as she was, she was tempted to kiss him, but didn’t. It was all over between them. She couldn’t have him, and he couldn’t have her. But she needed to know the whole truth, no matter where it took them.
“I know this sounds like it’s coming out of left field. But you have to tell me. Were you adopted?”
He stood there, frozen, staring at her. Then he closed his eyes and sighed a great shuddering breath, took her hands from his face, and sat down hard on the couch.
“No one knows. How did you find out?”
“Educated guess. So you are?”
“Yeah. I found out two years ago, when my mom first got sick. She was diabetic, had been since she was a kid. The disease finally ravaged her kidneys, and she needed a transplant. Of course I was the first in line. But our blood types weren’t a match. I asked what mine was, and the doctor gave me this look. I will never forget it, just this sideways glance, like, ‘He doesn’t know. Don’t ruin his life.’ It didn’t take long to do the math—so I went to my stepdad and asked him about it.
“He wouldn’t tell me who the woman was, but admitted my real father had a one-time-thing affair, and got the girl pregnant. She wasn’t in a position to have a child, so she delivered me in secret and my parents took me home. They got divorced a few years later, and my mom remarried Robert Boden. My real dad left, and Robert Boden and my mother adopted me.”
He eyed her. “Why are you asking me this, Aubrey?”
“Chase,” she said softly, “I think you’re Josh’s brother.”
Chase jumped to his feet and started stalking around the living room. Winston watched him, his head turning in circles.
“That’s insane.”
“It’s not insane,” Aubrey said. “It makes perfect sense. That’s why you look so much like him even though you don’t. Why you have the same mannerisms, the same set to your shoulders, the same walk. It’s why Daisy finally admitted to all of us that she had sons—more than one. Because she recognized you, even though she didn’t know for sure. Do you know your birth father’s name?”
“Edwards. Michael Edwards.”
“Chase, Meghan found a birth certificate with Daisy’s name—your original birth certificate. Michael Edwards is listed as the father.”
Chase’s face was tight.
“I want to see Daisy. I want to ask her myself.”
Aubrey sat back on the couch and watched Chase walk the room. “I don’t know if that’s going to happen, Chase. She may not make it. You may never have the whole truth. That’s life, right?”
He flinched, and Aubrey was surprised to feel a pinch of pain in her chest. You can’t feel anything for him. You’ve been a pawn in his game all along, just like you were in Josh’s.
She steeled herself against him. She couldn’t allow him to hurt her. He was just another man, like all the rest.
Wasn’t he?
Watching him, in clear pain, she was torn between anger at him for betraying her and insatiable curiosity. Chase was Josh’s brother. Somehow, she’d known it all along.
“Why did you lie to me? Why didn’t you just tell me you were doing a story?”
“Because I am an ass, Aubrey. Because I thought the story was more important. Because I didn’t count on . . . you.”
“Me? Or what happens next?”
“What does happen next?”
“I don’t know. You tell me. You need the ending to your story, don’t you? That’s why you’ve been sticking around, to see if Josh shows up for the money tomorrow. What are your plans after that?”
He stopped moving, his face pale. “That is not true.”
Aubrey smiled sadly. “It’s partially t
rue.”
He stopped pacing. “It’s not. I am not playing games with you, Aubrey.”
She chewed on her lip for a minute. She was such a terrible judge of character. Chase had lied to her, to them all. He’d used her to get at the story, and knowing that he was a part of all of this, even tangentially, was simply mind-blowing.
But by damn, he actually seemed to be telling her the truth now. If she couldn’t recognize honesty when it bit her on the ass, she could recognize pain. And Chase was clearly hurting, badly. He stopped in front of her, dropped to his knees.
“Please,” he said. “Please forgive me.”
Aubrey shook her head quickly. “We don’t have time for this. You have all your research, right? You need to see the story through. You need to find out the truth. Here it is. I think he’s alive.” She went to her bag and pulled out the photo.
He glanced at it, then handed it back. “I’ve seen it before.”
“What? How?”
He laughed, short and hard and utterly humorless. “Sent anonymously to me. I was going to show it to you today when I confessed all my sins.”
“It wasn’t sent anonymously. I’m certain Derek Allen sent it. The man Josh was working with. He knows you’re working on the story. He saw you at the hospital.”
“What?”
She explained everything. Chase listened, then shook his head. “I can’t believe it.”
Despite her anger at him, she reached over and smoothed the hair back from his forehead. “But it’s the only thing that makes sense, Chase.”
Chase just shook his head. “Aubrey. I’ve been in this story for months now. I haven’t seen anything that leads me to believe Josh is still out there.”
She knew that. Of course she did. But what if he wasn’t? There had to be a reason Derek Allen was terrorizing her.
“You said Cutter told you Josh was running drugs with Derek Allen?” Chase said. “Well, here’s what I think was going on. I think Josh was being blackmailed. If there’s one thing I learned about him during my investigation, it’s that he would do most anything to make sure you weren’t hurt. Blackmail fits.”
Aubrey nodded. “That’s what Arlo and Tyler think, too.”
He reached for her hand, and she let him take it. “Aubrey. Let me help you. I’m here, telling you the truth. I refuse to betray you. Never again. I love you.”
She flipped a hand, brushing the words from the air before they reached her. She couldn’t hear this, not now.
Chase’s lips tightened. “I see. I fucked up. And now you and I are finished, aren’t we?”
She should say yes. She should. She knew that she couldn’t have a future with Chase. Not after he’d lied to her, used her. And now that she knew he was Josh’s brother? It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair. Yet, she still didn’t know what she wanted.
Despite herself, she leaned over and kissed him, lightly at first, then with a growing hunger. He responded in kind for a few moments, then broke away.
“I can’t do this. I can’t be with you if I don’t know that you’re mine. I know you don’t want to hear it, Aubrey, but I’m not lying. I am in love with you. I felt it the moment we met, in the park. But I won’t share you. With a memory of a man, yes. But not if he’s out there. Not until we figure out what happened to him, once and for all.”
Aubrey hated his words. Hated them and respected them and felt the weight of his resolve. Perhaps she was wrong. Perhaps he was an honorable man. Perhaps not. He’d lied to her. She couldn’t ever trust him, not really. She wanted to kick and scream and smash his face in and, at the same time, wanted him to hold her and tell her it was all going to be okay. It hurt to think of not being with him. And she didn’t know how to reconcile that with his betrayal.
Chase stood. “I’m going to go,” he said. “I need to see Daisy. But I need to tell you something first.”
“What’s that?”
“The police are watching you and Tyler.”
A small frisson of panic wormed into her stomach. “Why?”
“You know why.”
“The money. Those idiots still think he might come back.”
Chase searched her eyes. “Be careful, Aubrey. No matter what happens now, I don’t want you to get hurt.”
She swallowed hard and nodded.
Chase touched her lightly on the shoulder, then glanced around the house like he knew it was the last time he’d see it. He took a breath and started to say something, then shook his head and left through the front door.
Aubrey closed the door behind him and collapsed against it.
She couldn’t do this anymore. She would go mad. The only thing that would give her a chance to think was a run. She took Winston with her. She didn’t feel safe by herself anymore.
CHAPTER 56
Josh
Five Years Ago
Josh’s plan was simple: a straightforward exchange, a clean double cross. He was going to rob Derek Allen and take him down. And if Allen died in the process, all the better. Josh had finally admitted to himself there were only two ways this could go. Either Allen died, or Josh did.
Josh’s next delivery was expected in a week. The order had been huge, so big that Bob in the pharmacy shook his head and said it was impossible. But he always said that, and always delivered. This time, in addition to the pills, Allen wanted prescription pads. Which really put Josh on the spot. Sneaking around the hospital stealing prescription pads was dangerous as hell. But he would do it, because the more ammunition he had, the better.
Allen was going into business with a new cartel, and this score was his buy-in. They were paying him a load of money, and he’d turn over all the goods in exchange for the cash. And Josh would take that money, and the score, right out from under his nose.
Josh knew it was stupid. He knew it was a massive gamble.
But the idea that he’d be free was intoxicating. Kill two birds with one stone—get Allen off his back and get out from under the blackmail. Start his life with Aubrey anew. Finish his schooling and go do some good for a change.
• • •
Josh kept to his schedule, his plan. When Allen called the meeting, he hung up the phone and told Aubrey he was pulling an extra shift at the morgue.
And Aubrey, sweet, loving, kind Aubrey, smiled and fixed him a sack lunch so he’d have some fuel besides coffee to sustain him overnight.
Josh drove the Audi to the river, looking vainly in the mirror for people following him. He didn’t know if he could make yet another week like this, pretending, living a charade, not being honest with anyone, including himself.
Allen was waiting for him. Every time Josh walked into the warehouse, he was reminded of a scene from one of his favorite movies, Ocean’s Twelve. And the fact that a heist film was one of his favorites wasn’t lost on him. Maybe he had a bit of criminal in him after all. After his father’s escapades, Josh was wondering if it was in his blood. Not this reluctant “can’t believe I’m involved in this” feeling, but the idea that perhaps he was a mastermind in his own right, that he was just like the Night Fox.
No, that wasn’t a good comparison. The Night Fox was a dupe. He fell for the long con and lost everything—his reputation most of all.
Though maybe it was a perfect comparison after all. Josh had allowed himself to be duped by Allen from the get-go.
The staging area, as Allen liked to call it, was a card table with a large paper map of Nashville spread on it. Allen held a pointer in his hand. He watched Josh walk to the table. Josh felt like sticking a finger in his collar and loosening it. His throat stuck, and sweat bloomed across his forehead.
He knows. He knows. He knows I’m going to screw him.
Son of a bitch.
He was fucked.
Allen gave a mock bow. “Nice of you to finally show up.”
Josh crossed his arms over his chest and shrugged. Didn’t offer any more. He’d learned the hard way: all Allen needed was a little ammunition. An excuse would do nothing but make the man attack.
Allen stared at him again, long and hard.
“We have an issue.”
Josh just raised an eyebrow. Nonchalant. Uncaring. Inside his guts were twisting and his mind was screaming. He was going to die. He could just feel it.
“Here’s the thing, Hamilton. The buyer wants to meet you, face-to-face. He wants assurances.”
“No way. I’m not meeting with some dealer.”
“Oh, yes, you are. You’re going to assure him you can continue providing the product and prescriptions. I’m going to assure him I can continue bringing in the high-grade blow. And together, we’ll shake his hand, and then you’re going to take a wad of cash off him.”
Josh felt the heat begin to rise. Play it, Josh. “You want me to rob him? No. Absolutely not.”
Allen turned cold. Josh was reminded of a snake, coiled and waiting, impassive, safe only if left unprovoked. “No isn’t part of the equation. You’re going to do this. You’re going to do it right. And we’re going to walk away very, very rich men.”
“I can’t. I have no idea how to pull it off.”
Allen cleared his throat. “Stop being such a pussy. I’ll walk you through every step.”
Josh glared at him. Play along. Be yourself. Be the timid guy he knows and loves.
“No way, no how. I can’t do this. I’ll screw it up. I’m a doctor, for God’s sake, Derek. I’ll blow it.”
“No, you won’t. You’ll be fine. There’s just one catch.”
“Just one? What’s that?”
“I don’t know what night it’s going to go down. My contact is flying in, but for security reasons he won’t tell me when.”
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