Sean hesitated for a second, but accepted Reed’s peace offering and shook his hand. Reed made the same overture to me, which I accepted with a confident smile and he returned with a judicious wink. After, he turned and walked away. Sean and I watched him as he spoke briefly to a few of the uniformed officers milling around before hopping into his unmarked car and driving off.
“You folks ready?” one of the EMTs asked, and we both nodded.
Six long hours later—and after a crush of phone calls from frantic family members—a taxi picked Sean and me up at the hospital in Issaquah and dropped us back off at The Salish Lodge. We’d agreed to return to pick up our belongings, but it was more an effort to avoid arguing about where we’d go from there. I wanted to collect my son from his girlfriend’s house and return to Medina, the only home Ian and I had ever known. But Sean wanted to take me back to his downtown Bellevue condo. He said it was more than big enough for all three of us, and there were no bad memories or ghosts of an unfaithful husband and disloyal best friend lurking around every corner.
It seemed we were at a stalemate, our first as a married couple, and while I respected Sean’s position, I felt it necessary to be a parent before a spouse, something I’d been selfishly remiss of late. So, with heavy hearts and promises to call before going to bed, we left our treasured lodge and took separate cabs back to our respective homes. I had my driver pick Ian up on the way. But although he was relieved to see me and hugged me like he thought he might never again, there was a great sadness lurking within him, and I felt positive I’d made the right choice to come home alone, without Sean.
I missed Sean every moment, but that ache, as bad as it hurt, was a welcome indication I didn’t regret our hasty marriage and still longed to be with him. Knowing I had that to look forward to, I set about healing any damage done to Ian during this sordid affair.
With the media finally gone, Ian and I holed up at home alone, spending hours on end just talking, mostly about his father and Ivy, but also little everyday things, like how he thought he’d done on his first attempt on the SAT, and which colleges he’d decided to apply to. That way, things never got too heavy for too long. Until I brought up my marriage to Sean.
At first, Ian just kept saying, “Whatever makes you happy, Mom.”
It was then I discovered my son had not been completely honest with me about accepting someone near his own age as a stepfather. He’d only said that because he thought that was what I’d wanted to hear. And he was right. At that moment, it was, and I was sad I’d missed the obvious cues he wasn’t truly happy with my decision. Even after nearly eighteen years, I still had a lot to learn about being a mother.
At the very least, I’d raised a son who was willing to try to work things out. Those first three weeks weren’t easy though. But, in the end, he came to terms with how unhappy I’d been with Declan, what this second chance meant to me, and that Sean had no desire to replace his father. Sean proved this himself when we had our first meeting together, just the three of us at the dinner table. To say it felt strained was an understatement. But Sean was persistent and companionable, focusing solely on Ian and finding things they had in common, not difficult for two young adult men. Especially considering their passion for video games and Major League Baseball.
By the end of the fourth week, Ian seemed more relaxed as the two of them compiled virtual baseball teams and went to battle on Ian’s PlayStation, all while bantering back and forth on player statistics and whatnot. They had quieter moments, too, when Ian showed Sean what he’d learned to play on his acoustic guitar, and Sean shared his fondest memories of Trinitee. That proved to be what finally brought them together, as friends at the very least, and as family during the most profound moments.
DNA testing and some investigative digging verified Trinitee was indeed my daughter, Ivy. Afterwards, Sean was careful what he shared about Ian’s sister, and for that, I was eternally grateful. But because Sean was the only one of us who knew anything at all about her, he also helped us understand her pain and how she’d been manipulated into using that. Having mourned her death for so long, finding and losing her in a span of minutes was difficult for me, to say the least, and I’d be haunted by that for the rest of my life. But burying Ivy in the place I’d always grieved for her helped me come to terms with her life, if not her death. I could only pray that would come someday, as well.
As it was, without Sean’s guidance, Ian and I might never have been able to heal following Ivy’s death. With it, however, we grew closer to becoming a family in nearly every way possible. It would take time to fully realize that, of course, but I was sure we would.
In the meantime, we had a lot to learn about each other and the people who’d brought us all together.
“So, did you finish reading it?” Sean asked.
I looked up from my seat on the family room sofa and locked a sorrowful gaze with his solemn one. With a pensive nod, I confirmed I had.
“Yes,” I said, closing the well-worn journal in my lap and placing it on the coffee table. I brushed a stray tear away with a sigh. “I’m glad we have more answers, but…it doesn’t make it any easier to accept.”
Sean lifted my feet and slipped under them, sitting next to me while caressing my skin in comforting strokes. “No, you’re right, it doesn’t, but at least we know I wasn’t crazy.”
“I never thought you were. I knew there had to be a reasonable explanation for those blackouts. She used some powerful drugs on you, both times. It’s no wonder you couldn’t remember.”
I pulled a folded manila envelope from the back of Trinitee Marsh’s journal and slipped out the toxicology reports Detective Reed had also forwarded to us, one for Declan, another for Sean, and a third from Trinitee’s apartment. We both knew about Declan, but the other results were startling.
“Ambien, Rohypnol, Propofol, plus Flumazenil to counteract them,” I read aloud from his bloodwork report.
“That last explains the cotton-mouth,” Sean said. “They said it was likely administered by a lozenge under my tongue.”
“Amazing she knew about those drugs, and the ones she used on Declan.”
“I’m not all that surprised, to be honest. Trin had textbooks on general medicine and pharmacology, and she was smart, Eden, and highly motivated. Factor in their money, and it’s no wonder she and Frankie achieved what they did. I should’ve recognized that something was off. God knows there were clues. I just overlooked them.”
“Come on, Sean, you couldn’t have known you even went to her place that first time. She roofied you. That was the point, so you wouldn’t remember.”
“Yeah, but I should’ve picked up on things. She wasn’t surprised to see me all covered in mud, and she let it slip that she’d already cleaned up once earlier. I should’ve put that together.”
“You were confused from the drugs!” I insisted.
He shrugged it off. “Well, the second time I knew she’d probably done something. I just couldn’t figure out what.”
“Well, who’d ever suspect their best friend of coating their glass with sedatives and muscle relaxants? Be real, Sean. There’s no way you could’ve known what was happening to you and why. And look at this,” I said as I picked the journal back up and fanned through hundreds of handwritten pages. “She’d obviously been planning this for a very long time. I’m just sorry she used you to get to me. I was her target, but you were her pawn.”
Sean took the journal and thumbed through the first few pages. “Yeah, but for how long? There’s nothing in here about Hayley or Robbie. I’m no closer to figuring out what her dying apology meant. I can only imagine she had a hand in it somehow, but why? To make me vulnerable? So I’d trust her and welcome her friendship?” He threw the book down and scraped both hands down his face.
“She had to start grooming you at some point, I guess. I just wonder if there were any others before you, guys who didn’t work out, you know? I’d hate to think she had any other victims.”
I nodded and dropped my gaze in shame, because all this started with Declan and whatever obsession he’d had with me back when I was with Jacob. And so many had been affected by his actions—Ian and Ivy, first and foremost, but also Ivy’s adoptive parents, all the way down to Aurelia. Even some of my students were affected when their parents pulled them out of school after hearing my name and seeing my face splashed across the TV and Internet.
Sean pulled me in for a hug, his hand at the back of my head as he whispered into my ear.
“We can’t change what’s happened, Eden. We can only move forward. And with Ian back on track now, I think it’s time we focused on us, on getting our marriage back on track.”
He was right. While Sean visited every day, he was still living at his condo. We’d put all our energy into Ian, then the investigation. Now we needed to face how everything had affected our relationship and determine if we could muscle through it.
“Let’s go back to the lodge,” Sean suggested. “To where we started. We need to face our demons head-on. We need to come to terms with everything, so we can focus on our future, our forever.”
And so we did. On President’s Day, we returned to our suite overlooking the falls, where the frigid weather turned the mist-covered cliff face white with ice. But while we both once considered it someplace akin to hallowed ground, now it was tarnished by the ugliness of all that had happened here. Whereas Sean prayed he could continue to look at the falls as a place of hope and love and the beginning of our future, I would associate it as where I’d lost Ivy forever—who, before any of this, had occupied a space of reverence and innocence within my heart. It was impossible to accept that she’d lived such a difficult existence, and that I, as her mother, hadn’t somehow sensed that. I had to face that in order to move on and let Sean completely back into my life. Unfortunately, I wasn’t sure I was capable.
“I should have known. I should have felt it. Felt her,” I confessed to Sean as we sat on the edge of the bed and stared out the window at the falls. “I realized early in my marriage that Declan was far from the knight-in-shining-armor he’d wanted me to believe, so why didn’t I ever question his version of events that night I went into labor? If I had, maybe I could’ve hired someone to find Ivy.”
With his finger beneath my chin, Sean tipped my face toward his.
“Eden, you can’t continue to challenge every decision and move you ever made. We both have to accept there’ll always be questions we’ll never have answers to. Every doubt we have about Trin and Declan and our inability to recognize the evil within them, it’ll churn in our minds like refuse swirling a drain. But dwelling on it won’t do either of us any good. We have to move past this.”
I grabbed his hand in mine. “But how do we do that, Sean? When the events that brought us together also destroyed so much? Do we even stand a chance if the foundation our relationship is built on is alloyed with bitterness, rage, and revenge?”
“Yeah, we do. We do stand a chance. Do you remember what Judge Woodall said when he married us? ‘Just as two very different threads woven in opposite directions could form a beautiful tapestry, so could our two lives merge to form a loving and lasting marriage.’ So think of us as that tapestry, Eden. The weft of our relationship is our love, and the warp is all the new memories we’ll weave through it. We’ll craft something beautiful, you and I. I truly believe love can conquer all, Eden. How can you not?”
“Because not only have I been jaded by twenty years of lies and betrayal, now I also have a deep mistrust in myself. How could I have been so gullible? How could I have denied and ignored that natural compass most mothers are blessed with after giving birth, that genetically inbred code to protect my child with my own life?”
“Eden, your presumption that you lack that has clouded your ability to see that you’re wrong. It’s like you don’t think you’re worthy of anything but the type of affection Declan saddled you with.”
“Honestly, Sean, I’d rather be totally deprived altogether than mired in something so unholy.”
Sean shook his head, disappointment hard in his eyes.
“You don’t think you deserve it, Eden. That’s what you’re saying. You’re essentially giving up. But that’s not who you are. You’re a survivor, a beautiful phoenix rising from the ashes. You’re stronger now, smarter, more resilient than ever, and with me at your side, beneath your wings, and you at mine, we’ll soar. We simply have to choose to fly.
“But I can’t, I won’t, do it without you, Eden. I might’ve married you for protection, and vice versa, but if you look back to the beginning, to that first night, you’ll remember the gravity that pulled us together, the desire that stirred us from our fucked-up pasts, and that our love, our real love—uncomplicated, uncompromising, unending—that’s the thread that holds us together. But you have to see that it’s not only possible, Eden, but probable. You have to put aside your pain and embrace hope. Remember those vows I said to you? Well, I meant them. Every word. Now I’m asking you to please take a chance on me and trust that I’ll always protect you—body, heart, and soul.”
Tears streamed down my face at Sean’s proclamation. I reached for him and unbuttoned his shirt. Underneath was the symbol of that promise, and I couldn’t help but spread my palm across it.
Praetorius.
My fingertips brushed along the lines of its wide, flaring nostrils and flowing layers of flame-like scales, prodded the rows of sharp, pointed teeth surrounding its thin, forked tongue, and skimmed its intense, angry eyes set below the curving, spiked horns. Then I rested my entire hand against the bloody human heart held in the beast’s three-toed claw as it strained against Sean’s chest.
I closed my eyes and imagined the great dragon finally bursting free of its cage of flesh and bone and extending its mighty wings wide enough to enshroud me in true shining armor before pulling me back in with it. Though not inside a cage as it might appear, but rather a fortress, where I felt safe and loved and valued for who I really was, not what I brought with me.
And that was where I wanted to be, and where I would remain…forever.
I have a lot of people to thank, first and foremost, my husband Eric, for all his patience, for constantly running to the store, cooking dinner, and vacuuming the house when I’m too swept up my writing to do it myself. To my son, Brandon, for answering every question in my crusade to get the proper character perspective of a young twenty-something man. To Lisa, my writing soulmate and faraway bestie, for continuing to hold my hand through this journey we started together years ago. To “my girls”—MK, Julie, and Karen—for being there every single day to chat, vent, and help keep things real. To all my CPs—Lisa, Dana, MK, and Katie—for calling me on every little thing, so hopefully my readers don’t think I’m an idiot. To Regina Wamba of Mae I Design for a kickass cover. To Tami Norman, at Integrity Formatting, for taking over this time around because I just didn’t have it in me to do it myself. And lastly, to my mom, Pam, for making me the strong, independent, resilient, willful woman I am. I love you, Mom!
Nancy S. Thompson is the double award-winning author of the dark romantic thrillers, The Mistaken (Winner, Best Thriller & Best Audiobook, 2014 eFestival of Words Best of the Independent eBook Awards) and Leverage (2015 Kindle Book Awards semi-finalist for Best/Thriller), as well as Stirred, contemporary erotic suspense. She is a California transplant currently living in Seattle, Washington with her husband, their giant snow dog, Jack, and his kitty, Skye. Besides moonlighting as a freelance editor, Nancy also has her own interior design business within the model home merchandising industry. When she's not writing, editing, reading, or designing, Nancy keeps herself busy by cooking and baking.
The Mistaken (The Mistaken Series Book 1)
~ He doesn't know her, but he'll find her, and when he does, he will make her pay. ~
All Tyler Karr
as wants is to enjoy life with his expectant bride. What he gets instead is a graveside seat at her funeral. With the woman who killed her uncharged and still free, all Ty wants now is revenge.
His brother, Nick, has dangerous connections and suggests a sadistic plan: grab the woman responsible and hand her over to his associates—sex-traffickers in San Francisco's Russian Mafia. They offer Ty more than he dreamed possible. In exchange for the woman, they'll finally let his brother leave the business for good--with his debt wiped clean and his heart still beating.
There's just one problem: Ty kidnaps the wrong woman.
Now he must protect Hannah Maguire from the very enemy he's unleashed, but the Russians are holding Nick as leverage to force Ty to complete their deal. Caught in a no-win situation, Ty must find a way to save himself, his brother, and the woman, but with the Russian Mafia, even two out of three makes for very long odds.
AWARD WINNER! Best Thriller & Best Audiobook - 2014 Best of the Independent eBook Awards
Leverage (The Mistaken Series Book 2)
~ Redemption is no longer an option... ~
Four years ago, Tyler Karras' quest to avenge his wife's death led to all-out war with San Francisco's Russian Mafia. With the Bratva's collapse and its king long dead, all Ty wants now is to put it behind him and enjoy a second chance at life with his new bride, Hannah. But the Bratva's heir has returned, bitter and determined. He wants his kingdom back, and he's more than willing to leverage Ty's new family to get it.
First he targets Conner, Ty's brooding nineteen-year-old stepson, manipulating the boy into a vortex of sex, drugs, alcohol, and gambling. Then he turns his sights on Hannah. At eight months pregnant, she's the ultimate bargaining chip. With all their lives in jeopardy, Ty has little choice but to do as commanded. But Tyler swore he'd never kill again. He buried that monster four years ago and means to keep it that way.
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