Chapter 31
“My mother was there? Wait, are you saying that she killed him?”
“No, we don’t think so. There was no weapon, and she had no blood on her. She got there a few minutes before I did, so I doubt there’s any way that she harmed him.”
“That must have been terrifying for her to find, though. Is she all right?”
God, this girl. How could she ask a question like that after everything her mother had done to her?
He was certain the old bitch wouldn’t ask after Lily’s welfare. In fact, she hadn’t. When he’d talked to her, all she’d been concerned about was herself.
“Don’t waste any of your time worrying about your mother. That bitch wouldn’t do the same for you.”
She flinched. Harvey immediately felt bad about his harsh words, not because he didn’t mean them, but because he didn’t want to hurt her.
That was the very last thing he wanted to do.
“I suppose you’re right,” she said. “Where is she now? Did she go home? Were the police called?”
“No, we didn’t call the police,” he said. “We’re leaving it for the moment. We cleaned up any evidence that we were ever there. Your mother is staying with Ronan at the moment while we try to figure out what to do with her.”
“But won’t you get into trouble for that? She’ll tell someone. Is he keeping her there against her will?”
“Yeah, Michaela is there looking after her.”
“What if she has to has a check-in with the police since she’s on bail?”
“This won’t take that long,” he told her. “And we need to get what information we can out of her.”
She nodded. “You’re right. Hopefully, she’ll talk to you. I’m sorry you have to go through that.”
“Dealing with your mother? Not my favorite thing. But there’s little I would do for you.”
She leaned against him. “I don’t deserve you.”
Harvey kissed the top of her head. “It’s entirely the other way around, baby.”
“Did you find anything on the doctor’s computer? Was someone threatening him? I wonder who killed him.”
“Paddy is searching through it all. As soon as he finds anything, he’s going to send a message to the police. They’ll probably raid the clinic and figure out what’s going on.”
“Do you have any clue what actually is going on?” she asked, sitting up so she could look up at him. He clenched his teeth together. It took everything in him to remain calm.
“We don’t have it all, and I’d rather wait to tell you until I know everything that there is to know. Paddy’s going through it all today, and he should have some reports for me soon.”
“I want to be there when he tells you.”
He immediately shook his head. That wasn’t happening. There was no way that she was going to hear about it at the same time he did, because he knew he was going to heavily filter what she learned.
“No, not happening.”
“Yes, it is happening, and I want to see Mother as well.”
“Definitely not happening. End of story.”
Sitting her down on the sofa, he walked into the kitchen. “I’m going to make us breakfast. Is there anything you feel like?”
She stared after him in surprise. The way he’d just spoken to her wasn’t like Harvey at all. There was no smile, no teasing. He was holding himself deeply under control, and he was hard to read.
The way he just said no to her without any real explanation made her wonder if he knew more than he was letting on.
She swallowed heavily and wrapped her arms around her waist. What if whatever he found out made him turn away from her? What if it disgusted him? Oh my God, what had he found?
Her heart started to race and her breathing grew faster. What had Dr. Wallace and her mother done to her, and who killed Dr. Wallace?
Getting up, she tried to move, but the blanket got tangled around her feet, and she started to fall. Before her face could smash against the floor, Harvey caught her, lifting her up into his arms.
“Baby, what are you doing? You nearly fell over. What’s wrong?”
It was getting harder and harder to breathe.
He seemed to realize what she needed and sat her down, pulling the blanket off her.
“It’s all right, baby. Just take a breath for me. One breath. Okay, listen. Place your hand on my chest and breathe with me.” He moved her hand to his chest. “In through the nose, one, two, three, four. Now out, one, two, three, four. Good girl. That’s it. And again.”
Gradually, she started breathing easier.
“I’ve got you, mo bhreáthracht. You’re all right. I have you.”
She shook her head.
He took her hands in his and squeezed them tight. “Just hold on to me. Let’s do that again. In through the nose and out through the mouth. That’s it. Good girl.”
“What did you find out?” she asked. “I know there’s something you’re not telling me, and I can’t stand not knowing anymore.
Did you walk away before because whatever it is horrifies you?
Is that why you didn’t come back up to the bedroom when you got home?
Are you disgusted by me now? Was it something so horrific that you don’t even want to look at me? ”
“Oh my God, no. Baby, no.” He sat next to her, and drew her onto his lap, wrapping his arms around her. “There is nothing I could find out that would disgust me. There is nothing that would make me turn away from you.”
“Then how come you can’t look at me? You can barely touch me.”
“I’m so sorry, mo bhreáthracht. I found out something and I don’t want to tell you. I don’t know how to tell you, and I don’t know the full extent of what is going on yet. I thought I’d wait until I knew it all, and until I could figure out the words.”
“I just need to know,” she said to him. “I just need to know what’s going on.
I deserve to know. This is my life. It was done to me, and I don’t want to be kept in the dark anymore.
Do you know how horrible it is not to know what is going on in your own life?
To have missing patches of memory? It’s horrible, and the truth can’t be worse than living like this. ”
The way he was staring at her told her that the truth might indeed be worse, and that made her pause. What the hell had he found out?
“Breakfast, then a shower,” he said. “And then we’ll talk.”
“Shower first,” she said. She wasn’t sure that she could actually eat any breakfast. Not with the way her stomach was rioting.
And she could really use a shower. She felt gross.
“I just want to make something clear first, though,” he said, grasping hold of her chin. “There’s no time, any time, day or night, that I do not want to touch you, that I do not want to hug you and kiss you and keep you close. Okay?”
Lily nodded. She wanted the same. She hated any sort of distance between them.
After their showers, which they’d had separately, much to her disappointment, she sat at the island while he made them breakfast.
“One day I’m going to have to learn how to cook.”
“I like cooking for you.”
“You do? But don’t you want me to sometimes cook for you?” she said.
He shrugged. “I like doing things for you. It makes me feel good. You don’t wanna take that away from me, do you, baby?”
“Well, if it makes you feel good, I guess I’ll just have to make the sacrifice of letting you cook for me.”
He set a plate of food in front of her and she stared down at the pancakes with bacon and banana on top of them.
They looked delicious, but she just couldn’t bring herself to eat anything. When she glanced over at him, he seemed to be having the same problem. Whatever he had to tell her was putting him off his appetite, and that made her feel even more stressed.
“Please just tell me,” she said. “The truth surely isn’t worse than what I’m imagining.”
He shot her a look. “I’m not sure. It could be.” He sighed. “Paddy found a video on the doctor’s home computer. We don’t know what other videos there are yet, or what the doctor was doing with them.”
“What was on the video?” she asked.
He turned to face her and she spun so she could look at him. He looked pale and stressed. She’d never seen him like this, and it worried her.
A lot.
“It was you, baby. You were on the video, and you looked like you were out of it, like you had no clue what was going on.”
“He videoed me while I was unconscious?” she asked.
“Well, your eyes were open, but you were definitely drugged, probably a high dose of Devil’s Breath or maybe something else. You were just lying there limp, and he was moving you around.”
Moving her around? What did that mean? And why did he look so upset by that? Was the doctor doing something else to her?
“I don’t understand,” she said. “What’s the problem? Why are you so upset by that? What was he doing to me?”
“He seemed to be putting you in different poses while recording you.”
Okay, she definitely didn’t like that. She didn’t like that he’d touched her while she was unconscious. She didn’t like that she couldn’t remember it, and that there was video evidence of it. “What do you think he was doing with the video?”
“That’s what we need to find out, baby. Was he just filming it for his own enjoyment, or was he doing something else with it, something worse?”
Like, what? She didn’t understand. What could he possibly be doing with a video of him moving her around into different poses while she was clearly drugged?
Surely, he wouldn’t want anyone to see that video. They’d see what he’d been up to.
“Was it clearly him in the video?” she asked. “He wasn’t disguising himself? There was no one else there?”
“He had a half mask on. We didn’t see anyone else. I’m guessing there are more videos that need to be looked at. That’s what Paddy’s doing now, going through everything he could find from the clinic and his home computer.”
She still had a feeling that she was missing something here.
“Did Paddy manage to hack into the computer at the clinic?”
“After being at the doctor’s house, we decided to go to the clinic. Ronan’s guys found a hidden area there. One that we think Doctor Wallace entered alone. Although we’ve set up surveillance to see if anyone else enters.”
“What was back there?” she asked.
“We found another woman,” he told her, giving her a worried look. “She was in a room in the hidden area of the clinic, drugged and unconscious.”