Chapter Sixty-One Hanna
Chapter Sixty-One
Hanna
Stella burst inside before I could welcome her. Wild energy pulsed around her as she stormed into the entry and stopped. The
ruffled clothes and mussed hair suggested she’d been dealing with the Isabel issue all day.
I felt sick for Stella. Caretaking someone like Isabel amounted to a full-time job.
“How could you?” Stella’s accusatory tone whipped out like a vicious slap. The flush on her cheeks and fighting stance didn’t
bode well.
She was making it tough to feel for her, but I tried. “I can explain.”
“That you set up my mother? That you colluded with Aubrey to destroy what was left of the Tanner family?” Stella dropped her
bag to the floor. It was as if she’d used up all her energy to sustain her rage and didn’t have anything left.
“Actually, you’re not all that’s left of the Tanner family.” Small point but she needed to accept it.
Her mouth flattened and a strange darkness moved into her eyes. “Is that what this is about, Hanna? You’re trying to protect your precious money haul?”
Admittedly, this conversation wasn’t going great. “Maybe you could calm down a smidge.”
“Fuck you, Hanna.”
Stella was not ready to be placated. Got it.
“I’m the one who named Isabel, not Mom.” Jeremy spoke from the doorway. He leaned against the frame, sliding a bit as she
stood there. “The more time passes, the more I remember.”
“No.” I rushed over to him. Tried to use my smaller body to shore up his. This was not his fight. “You need to be resting.
I can handle this.”
“You’re saying my mother attacked you?” Stella sounded more stunned than pissed.
I appreciated the change and tried to pivot. “Why don’t we—”
Jeremy had other ideas. “No. Not me. She didn’t come near me.”
“Then why did you frame her?”
I wanted to stop this runaway train, but Stella and Jeremy weren’t backing down. The standoff promised Stella would get the
answers she needed to hear but dreaded to her core.
“She was there. I went for a drive to clear my head after the . . . argument with Mom. When I came back to the café your mom
was there. I could see her from the café’s dining room. There’s an opening into the kitchen.” Jeremy waited until I nodded
before continuing. “Your mom walked around really agitated. At first I thought she was talking to someone, but now I’m guessing
she was talking to herself while standing over Daniela.”
That sounded on brand for Isabel. She radiated a sort of frenetic energy.
The rest of the tension left Stella’s body. She stood in the center of the entryway, looking lost. Defeated by an ineffective
defense of a woman who never once bothered to stand up for anyone but herself. “That doesn’t mean she’s the one who attacked
Daniela.”
“I can see . . .” Jeremy’s voice went in and out. He seemed to be searching for memories through a muddled darkness. “Your
mom wasn’t helping Daniela or calling the police.”
“What was she doing?” I had to ask. I’d wanted to ask for hours. When Jeremy talked with the police about what he’d seen and
heard, about the fire and the attack, he did so outside of my presence. He was an adult but I had to fight the urge to break
down the door to get to him.
Jeremy winced. “She was holding a gas can and then . . . Wait . . . I remember . . .”
“I can’t—” Stella started to fall. Her body collapsed into a boneless heap.
“Shit.” I caught her right before she hit the hard floor. Jeremy, still stiff and dizzy, helped me. We half walked, half dragged
Stella into the family room and plopped her into the nearest chair.
She sat by the fire, staring at it.
“Another person. Behind me.” Jeremy sat down hard on the couch.
The pieces were coming back. I could hear the fight in his voice as he struggled to put them together. “What are you seeing?”
“I remember the grip and how easy it was for the person to drag me.” Jeremy shook his head. “I didn’t see who grabbed me,
but I’m not little. I can’t imagine any woman I know being able to subdue me like that.”
“She had help.” I repeated the words Aubrey had said to Isabel.
Stella’s eyes focused. On me this time. “What are you saying?”
“I was going in and out but . . . Yeah, the conversation. I only picked up snippets and those aren’t coming back to me yet,
but they knew each other. Isabel and the person who put me in a choke hold were talking.”
The answer seemed both obvious and impossible. I wasn’t sure what to say but Jeremy shot me an I’m fine look that spared me from trying. Probably his way of telling me to calm down. Yeah, too late on that.
“Everything sounded muffled, but the person behind me, or above me or whatever, asked Isabel if Daniela saw her and then said
something about setting the fire away from Daniela’s body. He sounded surprised there was anyone in the café other than me.”
Jeremy sighed. “But I was too out of it to recognize the voice. I wish I did.”
I still didn’t understand how anyone knew where Jeremy was that night. He should have been at school. He’d come home for me
and we’d fought. The Xavier news had trickled out from household to household after the attorney meeting, but who knew about
the sleeper sofa I kept in my office from the days when Jeremy was little and needed to sleep near me while I got ready for
opening?
One name popped into my head. One person who knew about tranquilizers because his name had been splashed all over the news for helping to get them off the street.
I looked at Stella and asked the question that would start us down a road that wouldn’t allow retreat. “How many men would
Isabel trust?”
“Now what are you suggesting?” Stella asked the question deathly slow, emphasizing each syllable.
This time I wasn’t exactly sure, but I did remember Aubrey’s comment about Lukas being at the house that day years ago. I
never saw Lukas.
I could dance around the question or hit it straight on. With Stella’s shifting moods, I wanted to ignore the topic completely . . .
Then I remembered those needles on the floor of the garage and my temper spiked. “How close are Lukas and your mom?”
Stella stood up. Her emotional exhaustion gone in an instant. She jumped to her feet in full fighting mode. “I’d been warned
about you.”
I refrained from saying same, but I wanted to. Probably a good thing because Jeremy hated when I used that comeback. Insisted it made me sound old.
“Predictable Hanna,” Stella said.
I was trying to give her some leeway. She’d experienced one shock after another, but I had a limit on how much I could tolerate.
Stella had run right up against it. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“The decency thing is an act with you. Turns out you’re exactly the kind of woman Victoria claimed you were. Needy and pathetic.”
Jeremy tried to get up. “Watch it.”
I held my hand out to stop him from saying more. Stella clearly craved her time in the spotlight. She could have it.
“Stay away from my family.” A thumping darkness, thick with menace, swirled around Stella as she headed for the door. “This
is your only warning.”