Chapter 38
Thirty-Eight
Raven
The woman glances toward the kettle, like it’s an involuntary movement. Then at me, guilt in her eyes. Her emotions are plain to read, her arms gripping her daughter tight.
“You’re hurting me,” the girl complains, voice a whine.
“Sorry,” her mother murmurs, not looking away from me. “Shush for me please, darling.”
Don’t hurt her, she mouths at me, eyes begging.
I’m not going to hurt her. I wouldn’t. I couldn’t.
Why haven’t I left?
I get off my stool, staggering as the room spins. It takes a moment to steady myself, a hand on the kitchen island. The woman is watching me like I’m a threat; the child like I’m something she’s trying to figure out. Her innocence, my guilt.
I swallow down bile, my stomach churning. I need to get out of here before I throw up on her pristine floor.
“Sorry that I’ve…” Intruded where I have no right to be. Scared the hell out of you.
I can’t finish that sentence.
The woman glances at the kettle again.
My emotions are in such turmoil it takes me too long to put it together: it’s not the goddamn kettle she keeps looking at, it’s her phone.
Ice runs across my skin.
That twitch of her hand on her phone that I barely caught, so distracted by her emotions at the time. What else did she do?
Has she called someone? Who? The police? My bike’s halfway down the street. What’s their response time in a town this small? How long ago did she dial?
She sees the moment I realize. The consternation in her eyes. She’s farther away than I am, but the kitchen island is between me and the counter.
I get there first.
She’s only taken a step and doesn’t even try to stop me, her arms full of daughter. Holding her like she’s something precious. Holding her like I can never remember my mother holding me.
I pick the phone up. Turn it over.
The call’s connected. One name on the screen: Declan.
“Momma!” the girl cries. “You’re hurting me!”
“Sorry, baby. Please… just be quiet for me. I won’t hurt you.”
Four minutes and thirty-six seconds on the call duration. About when she dropped it face down. Right after I’d said his name.
No, not his name. When I called him her husband. Then said his name.
What else have I said? What did he hear?
“Declan!” she cries out.
“Raven.” His voice comes out of the phone. Calm and steady. “I know you’re there.” How can he be so calm? “My sister and my niece are innocent.”
Shit. Fuck.
I stare at the phone I’m holding.
“I know you can hear me,” he says. “Answer me, please.”
I can’t. My words… I’m still reeling.
His voice comes again. “I’m on my way. Just passed Camarillo down the 101. Fifteen minutes. I only want to talk.”
Fuck. He’s coming here.
I should leave. I can get to my bike before he arrives. But my legs won’t move.
“Don’t do anything until I arrive,” he says, like he’s talking to a skittish wild animal. “Please. I’m asking this one thing of you. Please wait until I get there.”
I haven’t said a word. I clear my throat, but still can’t think of a single goddamn thing to say.
His sister is watching me. I don’t even know her name.
His niece has fallen quiet, small arms clinging to her mother’s neck, fear in her wide, innocent eyes. Reacting instinctively to her mother’s scream.
I am so in the wrong.
A tear slides down my cheek, and I don’t know why. Guilt? Shame? The child’s silent terror that I’ve caused? I wipe it away.
“Raven.” Declan’s voice comes again. “I know you’re angry. You have every right to be. I need to talk to you.” His voice rises. “Sara? I need you to go into your play room and get all your dolls lined up in order, okay? Will you show me after I’ve spoken to my friend?”
“Yes, Uncle Declan,” she says, her innocent voice high, her fear fading just like that. “Are you staying for dinner?”
“I don’t think so, sweetheart. But I will soon. Off you go, now.”
“Go on, baby,” her mother says, setting her daughter down and giving her a firm push.
We watch the child walk away.
“I was never going to hurt her,” I say, the words sticking in my throat. As if I ever could.
I was talking to the mother, but Declan replies.
“I know that,” he says immediately. “Never doubted it. Camilla? Raven’s a friend of mine. You can trust her. Get her a coffee, please? I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
Trust? The irony of that is scalding in my throat.
Declan’s sister looks like she doesn’t believe him for a moment. “Sure,” she says warily. “A coffee. Right.”
“Raven?”
“Still here.” Still feeling unbelievably shit.
“Good. I’ll explain everything.”
That, I very much doubt. “Whatever.”
I kill the call and place the phone back on the counter. Now it’s my hands that are trembling.
I can’t look at his sister; I’m too ashamed.
How has it come to this?
He was never married. He doesn’t have a child. This woman in Thousand Oaks, the one in his apartment. Both my errors. Catastrophically so.
I’m such a goddamn fool.
I stagger back to my stool at the kitchen island, my head sinking into my hands. Camilla takes three steps and hits the button on the kettle.
He was telling the truth. All along.
About this, and about what else?
What proof do I really have that he was ever lying?
Am I wrong? Have I seen lies where there weren’t any?
“I’m sorry,” I mutter.
She doesn’t reply. I don’t blame her for that.
We wait in awkward silence, the sound broken by the kettle hissing, then boiling, then clicking off and fading to quiet. Camilla doesn’t bother to reach for a cup or ask me if I want a goddamn coffee.
I sit waiting, staring at the marble top, my mind racing yet none of my thoughts clear.
The front door opens, and I jump. Was that fifteen minutes already?
Camilla exhales quietly.
Declan strides in, the door closing behind him. He glances at his sister, then walks straight to me. Stopping a few feet away, like he’s suddenly unsure.
“Uh… hi.”
I just stare at him. Black shirt, jeans. Tattoos everywhere. Face more drawn than I remember. Pale blue eyes searching mine.
He clears his throat. “Thank you for… still being here.”
“Whatever.” What the fuck am I supposed to say to this man? The last time I saw him, I was slipping away before he woke up.
The time before that, he tied me up and sexually tortured me for hours. The time before that, he stuck a needle in my arm.
That’s not the basis for any kind of relationship.
Relationship?
Why the hell did my mind go there?
“So… uh…” He rubs the back of his neck. “You found my sister’s house.”
Oh, yeah. There is that.
Might be difficult to explain.
“Did you follow me?” he asks. “When I came here for Camilla’s birthday?”
Shit. Not so difficult to explain. “Yes.” Difficult to admit.
“Why?”
He’s asking me why? Like I’m the bad guy here?
Except I am. I’m totally the bad guy here.
But so is he, damn it. And he doesn’t get to start with that. My anger flares.
“You ask me why? Did you happen to tell Camilla you drugged me? Kidnapped me? Drove me twelve hours across three states and kept me in a goddamn basement?”
Camilla’s sharp intake of breath draws my eyes for a fleeting moment. She’s staring at her brother like she hasn’t seen him before.
“Uh… no.” He glances at her too, then focuses back on me. “We haven’t caught up recently.”
“But you would’ve, right?” I laugh bitterly. “So glad you share that much.”
“Camilla, would you like to go and check on Sara—”
“Camilla, don’t you move,” I snap. “I don’t want to be alone with your lying snake of a brother.”
Camilla stays where she is.
Declan spreads his hands. “Okay, fair. I admit there are… some things… that I haven’t told you.”
“Like your real name?”
He winces. “Yes, like that.”
“Why do you have two names?”
“It’s… uh…”
“What else, Declan?” I cut across him, not wanting to hear more lies, yet still needing to know. “That woman in your apartment? The house in San Fran? Were you even in the fucking Marines?”
“Yes…” he says slowly. He takes a breath. Lets it out. Closes his eyes and then opens them again. “And then I joined the FBI.”
“Pardon?” Of all the things I expected him to say. “What?”
“I’m an undercover agent for the FBI.” He grimaces. “Was, anyway.”
I stare at him, incredulous. “You’re a fucking FBI agent?” I can’t believe this. It has to be a sick joke. Glance at his sister to see if she’s laughing.
She’s not.
Her hand is over her mouth, just like it was when she first opened the door. When I said I was here about Declan.
Fuck.
She didn’t think I was here as the other woman, she thought I was here in an official capacity. It wasn’t guilt, it was shock.
A stranger, on her doorstep, dropping the name of her FBI brother.
The blood draining from her face. The glance at the street outside.
She thought I was here to tell her he’s dead.
He’s not joking, he fucking means it.
Does Kurt know? Shit.
“What do you mean ‘was’?” I ask urgently, slipping off my stool, needing to be on my feet. “Exactly how long ago is ‘was’?”
“Uh… exactly? An hour and twenty minutes?” He grimaces. “I suppose technically I still am. Still need to do the paperwork for it to be… official.”
Holy. Shit.
“You bastard.” Declan’s seen everything. Palm Springs. Rodeo Drive. Meridian Pacific. All the crew. “You utter. Fucking. Bastard!” My voice has risen to a yell.
He raises his hands in placation. “I understand you’re angry.”
“Angry?” I take a pace toward him. He retreats. “Angry doesn’t even begin to describe it.” I can’t even think straight. “When were you going to tell me?” I ask, then answer my own question. “You weren’t, were you? You’re only telling me now because I found this damn house.”
“I was coming to tell you,” he says quietly. “I was driving back from San Fran specifically to—”
“Very fucking convenient,” I say sarcastically. “And just more lies. What are you planning to do? Turn us all in?”
“No, I—”
“You took the fucking diamonds. Kurt’s box.”
“Yes, I—”
“You wanted evidence. That’s why.” And I thought he’d done it for the money. This is so much worse.