The Perfect Little Lie: A Thrilling Romantic Suspense (The Perfect Revenge Book 2)

by Madyson Grey

  The Perfect Little Lie

  A Thrilling Romantic Suspense

  Madyson Grey

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Book 3 Sneak Peek

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  About the Author

  Also by Madyson Grey

  Copyright © 2018 by Dungeon Media Corp.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

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  Chapter One

  Dr. Stevens immediately bent over the unconscious Lena to take her pulse and do a quick check for apparent injuries. There was a large lump on the back of her head that was bleeding some. She had obviously been hit with something. He glanced around and saw a small pewter statue lying on the floor a few feet away. Probably the weapon.

  He used his cell phone to call for an ambulance and the police. While he waited he took Lena’s vitals. Her breathing was shallow but regular. Her blood pressure was low and her heartbeat steady. He couldn’t feel any broken bones, but he assumed she might have a cracked skull. He tried to gently rouse her, but she was out cold.

  While the doctor was examining Lena, Victoria was searching the house and grounds for her mother. When she could not find her anywhere, she returned to the entryway where Dr. Stevens was waiting with Lena.

  “I can’t find her anywhere,” she told the doctor. “Her car is gone, too, so I’m assuming she took it and went somewhere, although I have no idea where.”

  “She shouldn’t be driving in her condition,” Dr. Stevens said, stating the obvious.

  “No kidding,” Victoria agreed. “I can’t imagine her being alert enough to drive. When I left she was dead to the world.”

  The police arrived just ahead of the ambulance. Victoria opened the gate to let them in. One police officer spoke to Dr. Stevens about Lena’s condition while the other one took Victoria’s statement. She gave them a description of Marian and of Marian’s car, but she didn’t know the license plate number.

  “If you want to wait a moment, I will go look in the file cabinet in my dad’s office to see if I can find the title to the car, then you can get all the information from it,” she told the officer.

  “Sure, I’ll wait,” he said.

  She came back several minutes later bearing the car title. The officer copied down the pertinent information from it, then handed it back to her. She laid it on the hall table to put away later. The EMTs were checking Lena over. Victoria recognized them as the same ones who had just been there that morning. They were able to tell the police officers what they had witnessed in Marian’s behavior that morning, and the type and amount of sedative they gave her.

  The officer called in the description and license plate number of Marian’s car and told the dispatcher to put out an APB (all-points bulletin) on the car and driver. He told Victoria that he would be in touch with her if her mother were found. She and Dr. Stevens both told the police officers that if or when Marian was picked up, that they should take her directly to the hospital Dr. Stevens had just called regarding her admittance. They agreed to do that, but only after they contacted both Victoria and Dr. Stevens.

  The EMTs loaded Lena into the ambulance. Victoria grabbed her purse and got into her dad’s car to follow the ambulance to the hospital. Dr. Stevens rode in the ambulance with Lena. When they arrived at the hospital, he took her right in to an exam room. Victoria was right behind him. Lena had regained consciousness in the ambulance and was able to talk a little. Dr. Stevens immediately ordered x-rays, called the lab to send up a tech to draw blood, and performed a few other checks on her.

  “We’ll have to wait on the x-rays of her skull, but other than that, I think she will be all right,” he told Victoria.

  Because he was a doctor and had come in with the patient, things happened much faster than they usually do in an emergency room. Just as soon as the phlebotomist finished her blood draw, someone from x-ray was there to wheel Lena to the x-ray suite. Dr. Stevens allowed Victoria to walk with them to the x-ray suite and wait in an anteroom while the x-rays were taken. Digital x-rays are available to be examined immediately, so there was no waiting for film to be developed.

  Dr. Stevens showed Victoria the thin line on the skull that indicated a fracture. Since there was a skull fracture, he ordered an MRI because he wanted to see what was going on inside the brain—if there were any bleeding or swelling. The MRI happened in record time also, and the results showed no brain injury.

  At this point, Dr. Stevens made arrangements to check Lena into a hospital room. He wanted to keep her at least over night for observation. Finally, Victoria had a few moments to talk to Lena while they waited for her to be taken to a room for the night.

  “Oh, Lena, I’m so sorry this has happened to you,” Victoria said, taking Lena’s hand in her own and pressing it to her cheek. “Can you tell me what Marian did?”

  “She came downstairs acting crazier than I have ever seen her before,” Lena said haltingly.

  She winced as she spoke and tried to touch her head with her free hand.

  “She was yelling for you, and when I told her you were gone, she demanded that I tell her where you went. I told her I didn’t know, just that you said you were going out.”

  Lena paused for a moment. It was obvious that it hurt her to talk.

  “It’s OK, Lena, you don’t have to talk right now,” Victoria said. “Just rest. You can tell me later.”

  “I’m OK,” Lena said weakly. “She was ranting about finding Rafael herself and getting the company back from him, since you are refusing to do it. She said that she would make Rafael pay. She said that you would pay, too, for siding with Rafael against her. When I tried to calm her down, she picked up that little statue David brought back from Thailand and that’s all I remember.”

  “That must have been when she hit you with the statue,” Victoria said. “I wonder now if Rafael is in danger. But surely she won’t get past his security guards, will she?”

  “Honey, I think she has a gun,” Lena said, her voice barely above a whisper.

  “Oh, no,” Victoria exclaimed. “Maybe I’d better call the police.”

  “Yes,” Lena whispered.

  Victoria was just about to dial 911, when a police officer was ushered into Lena’s room. He was the same one who had been at the house. She quickly told him what Lena had just told her, and he called in the report and had someone go to the Rivera Holdings Building, formerly Thornton Building. Then he took a brief statement from Lena. He could tell that she was not in a good condition to talk extensively, but he got the basics from her. Before he left, he told Victoria that he would let her know whatever he found out.

  It took about thirty minutes before a couple of orderlies came to take Lena to a regular hospital room. Victoria went with her and stayed for a few minutes. But she needed to go, and she could see that Lena needed to rest. A nurse came and gave her some medication
for her pain, which was making her drowsy. Victoria leaned over the bed and kissed Lena on the cheek and told her she would be back to see her in the morning.

  Victoria left the hospital parking lot and headed for her dad’s former office building. She still thought of it as belonging to her dad, even though she knew it was now Rafael’s. It had been her dad’s building all her life, so it was just hard to think of it in any other way. She was sad that it no longer belonged to her dad or his family, but she couldn’t resent Rafael for now being the owner.

  When she neared the building, she could see several police cars parked in front of the building. She pulled around through the alley into the parking lot beside of the building and jumped out of the car. She hurried toward the front door, but was halted by a police officer who told her that she couldn’t go inside. She told him who she was and asked if it was her mother inside that was causing the problem.

  “I can’t say, ma’am,” he told her. “You’ll have to talk with the command officer. That’s him right over there at the curb. I’ll take you to him.”

  The officer walked Victoria over to the command officer and told him who she was.

  “Is that my mother in there?” Victoria repeated her question to this man.

  “All we know at this point is that there is a woman in there who has a gun and has taken Mr. Rivera’s secretary hostage. She seems to be demanding that Mr. Rivera give her the building or she will kill the secretary. At least that’s the reports that I am getting from the officers who are inside.”

  Victoria’s shoulders sagged as the seriousness of the situation hit her. Her mother was insane.

  “You see, sir,” Victoria began, “this building and business was my father’s until just a few weeks ago when he sold it to Rafael Rivera. Then my father committed suicide, apparently. Since his death, my mother has been hounding me to go out with Mr. Rivera in order to find out something about him that she thinks she can use to take the company away from him. But I have looked at the sale transaction documents, and I see nothing that is out of order. Nothing that indicates that Mr. Rivera took the company away from my father illegally.”

  The officer held up his hand for her to stop talking while he listened to someone talking on his radio. He said something back into the radio, got a response, and then turned back to Victoria.

  “The woman is becoming even more hysterical, they say. Since you are her daughter, do you think if you went in there, you could talk her down?” the officer asked.

  “I would in a heartbeat if I could. But she went off on me both last night and this morning to the point I had to call the paramedics to calm her down. They gave her a sedative that knocked her out, so I left to go talk to her doctor about having her admitted to a psych ward for help. When we came back to the house, our housekeeper was unconscious on the floor and my mother was gone. I just came from the hospital and from being with the housekeeper. She said my mother had a gun and was going to go make Rafael Rivera pay.”

  “Have you reported the assault on your housekeeper?” the officer asked.

  “Oh, yes, two officers came to the house and took my statement, and then they came to the hospital and talked to Lena—that’s the housekeeper—after she regained consciousness and got a statement from her also.”

  “Do you know the names of the officers?”

  “The one I talked to the most was Marcado. That’s what his nametag said. Uhmm, Jerry Marcado.”

  “OK, I’ll get with him later and put his report in with the report that is generated from this incident. Thank you, Miss Thornton. You have my deepest sympathies at the unfortunate situation you are in. But I have to tell you that your mother will be arrested. How this stand-off ends is up to her, and will determine the charges brought against her.”

  “I understand, sir, I really do,” Victoria said, close to tears. “I know that she has gone off the deep end and has to be stopped. I just hope she doesn’t do any more harm to anyone else.”

  She stopped talking again while another officer came to speak to the scene commander. She toyed with the idea of telling this officer of her suspicions regarding her father’s death, but wasn’t sure that this was a good time or place. She had already been dismissed once, but now that this officer could see her mother’s insanity, maybe he would listen to her and perhaps order a complete investigation into her father’s death. She wasn’t sure of anything, but the inconsistencies that she had encountered were making her lean far more towards murder than suicide.

  When the officer was free again, she screwed up her courage and told him that as soon as he had time to listen to her full story, she would like to talk to him about the possibility that her father’s death was very suspicious to her. That she didn’t believe he committed suicide. He looked at her with renewed interest and said that as soon as this standoff was resolved that she should come to his office and tell him everything that gave her cause for suspicion.

  Time seemed to drag on while the negotiators inside tried to diffuse the situation peaceably. But Marian Thornton was adamant. Either Rafael Rivera sign over the building and the business to her or the secretary dies first and then Rivera. Every time that anyone tried to move closer to her, she tightened her hold on the terrified secretary and repeated her threats.

  Finally the scene commander gave the order to attempt to shoot her with a tranquilizer dart. That way, if she moved and they hit the secretary, it wouldn’t be a tragic fatality. It took several minutes again to set the stage and get her into the position they wanted for maximum effect and safety.

  “Ma’am,” the negotiator said, “if Mr. Rivera signs over the business to you, will you let his secretary go?”

  Rafael’s eyes widened, but then he caught the knowing look in the eyes of the officer.

  “Well, of course,” Marian said. “Isn’t it what this is all about? I don’t want to hurt anybody. Anybody except Rafael, that is. But if he will sign the papers back over to me, he can go free, too.”

  The officer indicated that Rafael should go ahead with the papers, so he moved toward the file cabinet. Marian jerked around to see what he was doing, pointing the gun at him.

  “Marian, I have to get the paperwork out of the file cabinet,” Rafael said calmly. “If you want me to sign the company over to you, I have to get papers out of the drawer.”

  “All right, but no funny stuff,” she said.

  Just as Rafael distracted her in that manner, one of the officers was able to get a clean shot at her neck with the tranquilizer dart. It only took a few seconds and her eyes glazed over and she began to slump. Two of the officers rushed forward. One grabbed the gun out of her hand and the other lowered her to the floor. The secretary, free of Marian’s grasp, scooted away from her as quickly as she could. Rafael heaved a huge sigh of relief, and gave his secretary a hug. She dissolved in tears and leaned on his shoulder for support. In all her fifty years of life, this was the scariest experience she had ever had.

  One of the officers radioed down to the command chief that the situation was diffused and under control without injury. He relayed that message to Victoria, who also gave a sigh of relief, and released the tears she had been holding back. A couple of EMTs took a gurney in to bring Marian out. A few minutes later, they wheeled her out and towards the ambulance. The command chief allowed Victoria to go over and see her mother before she was loaded into the ambulance.

  “How could you do this, Mother?” she said softly. “How could you jeopardize people’s lives like this? And your own?”

  She looked at the pathetic woman who lay on the gurney, hair askew, mascara smeared, clothes rumpled. She had never seen her mother look so … so un-put together. It was plain to her that her mother had lost her mind. She wondered what would happen to her. She pictured her mother living out her days in a strait jacket locked in a padded room. The saddest part about it was that she had no feelings for her mother at this moment, except a deep sadness at what should have been.

  After Mari
an was loaded into the ambulance, she asked the command chief what would happen to her mother now.

  “She’ll be taken to a psychiatric ward under arrest. She will have a twenty-four-hour guard, and will undergo psychiatric evaluation. Depending on whether she is found to be competent to stand trial or not, will determine what happens next. If she stands trial, she will be charged with assault on your housekeeper, and with armed kidnapping here. If she is deemed unfit to stand trial, she will be confined to a state hospital.”

  “Oh,” was all Victoria could manage to say.

  “Do you still want to come down to the station and talk about your father’s death?” he asked her.

  “Yes, I do,” she said decisively.

  Just then Rafael saw Victoria standing there on the sidewalk talking to the command chief. He hurried over to her. When she saw him, she excused herself from the officer for a moment while she talked with Rafael.

  “Are you all right?” she asked him, her voice full of concern.

  “Yes, I’m all right—now,” he said. “It was touch and go there for a while, I’ll admit. She came in brandishing that pistol, demanding that I sign over the company to her. I tried to reason with her, but just as Karen, my secretary, walked by, your mother grabbed her and threatened to kill her if I didn’t sign the papers. Just what papers I was supposed to sign, I don’t know. But at the end, when the negotiator told your mother that I would sign the papers in order to distract her so they could tranquilize her, I hoped that she would fall for it. Fortunately, it worked.”

  “But you … how are you? How long have you been here?” Rafael asked.

  “I’m all right. I am deeply ashamed of my mother’s actions and I am angry with her for all she has put everyone through today. She knocked Lena out at home before she came here and Lena is in the hospital with a cracked skull.”