Chapter 39 Gabriel #2
Holding her hand to her cheek, Amelia looks back at Sydney with mournful brown eyes.
“When you leave at the end of the day, you always put it into the front pocket of your purse. You didn’t have your usual bodyguard or driver that night because the day before, I distracted you and used your iPad to change the schedule.
It wouldn’t have worked if you talked to anybody.
I didn’t think it was a good idea, but Nick said I was being stupid.
He said it wouldn’t look suspicious if anyone noticed, and you’d think it was just a bug in the system.
I’d told him how you hated to inconvenience any of them.
I just thought we were chatting. I didn’t know he was trying to get information about you. ”
She lifts one shoulder. “Nick told me to stick with the plan. So at lunch I took your necklace. You didn’t even notice I did it.
If anyone looked up the location, they’d see the necklace came back into the lab when you did.
Then they’d think you forgot it there. You’d think you lost it at work.
But I was so scared I was crying and shaking.
That was real, Sydney. I didn’t fake cry. ”
“My badge,” Sydney repeats.
Amelia rubs under her eye with the heel of her hand. “After work, I told you I was headed in your direction to see my grandmother, so we shared a ride. You didn’t notice me take it from your purse,” she says in a small voice.
Sydney watches her with the hot gleam of memory in her eyes. “You handed me your phone to watch a video.”
Amelia nods miserably. “Yes.”
Put your anger in the box, Gabriel. “And when my wife went missing the next day?”
She shakes her head. “What could I do? I didn’t know he was going to take her.
We met for brunch. I told Sydney I wanted her to meet my new boyfriend, but when we got to the restaurant we agreed on, Nick said he heard there were health code violations and that we should go somewhere else.
Then Sydney started acting weird. And he needed me to help him take her home.
But he took her to his place. Then he told me I was an accessory.
If I said anything, he’d tell everyone what I did and that it was my idea.
He said he’d kill her before anyone could get to her if I tried. I didn’t know what to do,” she whines.
Amelia turns back to Sydney. “I tried to intervene. Nick wanted to stage some awful murder scene like something out of The Godfather. I did everything I could to save you. I was the one who came up with the idea to use Trahypnofen instead of killing you. I told him what I knew about your marriage. How it shouldn’t be hard to get you on his side.
If he’d just been nicer to you, it could’ve worked.
But he gave you too much, and he hit you too hard.
And it was awful. You couldn’t pass his tests.
You could barely talk, let alone tell him what you blackmailed your husband with.
You wouldn’t do anything we told you to do or answer any of his questions.
If you’d passed Nick’s loyalty test, he would have sent you home, like he did me.
Then he’d have had you sabotaging the whole family from the inside out.
I thought, once you were free, we could figure something out maybe.
But my hands were tied until then. He was cruel to me too. ”
“You poor thing.” Sydney’s voice drips with bile.
“You should be grateful to me. He didn’t kill you because I intervened.
And I kept you filthy, so he didn’t like getting close to you.
All you had to do was tell him one little secret about Gabriel, but you had some kind of breakdown, instead.
I kept you alive as long as I could, but you weren’t giving him anything to work with.
It was hard to keep a prisoner drugged all the time.
You were getting worse, not better. So, he went back to his original plan.
The guilt killed me, Sydney. I cried every day during it and since then.
I’ve tried to make it up to you ever since.
I tried to atone by being the best friend and support I could be because I know what you went through and that it was kind of .
. . not my fault, exactly. I was a victim too.
But I felt so guilty. I was so depressed I had to go on medication for it. ”
“Shut up!” Sydney screams in her face, then wraps the woman’s blonde hair in her fist and shakes her, before shoving her against the white lockers with a metallic thud and clang. “I don’t want to hear how you cried while I was tortured and dying.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t have a choice,” Amelia sobs.
“You had one, and you made it. If you’d told me where she was and what Markov did, I’d have cut you a deal. I’d have done anything to keep her safe, including letting you walk,” I say.
“I didn’t know that. I was under duress,” Amelia wails.
“You let fear choke out your morality. Cowardice is the most insidious evil of them all,” Sydney says.
Rob steps backward, then collapses onto a stool. “I’m sorry, Syd. I believed everything she fed me about you. All of it.”
Dave puts two fingers to his earpiece. “Send them in.”
“Who?” Amelia shrieks.
Sydney grabs the other woman’s hair once more.
This time, she uses it to drag Amelia toward the door, her anger lending her more strength than either of us would have expected her to be capable of.
“The police were waiting downstairs. We just forwarded them the footage of your confession from the security cameras,” Sydney spits.
No doubt, the FBI will take over soon, but for now, Dad and I thought requesting backup from two NYPD officers desperate to redeem themselves was a good idea.
Ben made sure that video feed got to them on a delay.
If Amelia or Rob had said something incriminating to Sydney or me, they’d never have seen it.
I’d been concerned Amelia may pose a physical threat, but she doesn’t go on the offensive. Instead, she balks, stiffening her legs and twisting, screaming when Sydney yanks her harder.
“Tell them it wasn’t my fault. Tell them I’ll be good. I can’t go to prison. You have to help me. I’ll do anything,” Amelia begs.
“You’re going to rot there,” Sydney says.
When NYPD Officers Riley and Price enter, Sydney releases Amelia.
Dad follows directly behind and briefly squeezes Sydney’s shoulder. “Are you okay?”
A screech, then wailing sobs reach us as Officer Price reads Amelia her rights.
“Better than she is,” Sydney says.
Without another word, my wife spins on her heel and marches straight for the door.
Dave and I catch up, but she never lowers her chin or acknowledges our presence. Officer Riley stands in the doorway and calls down the hall to us. “Blackmail, McRae? You forget to tell us something?”
Sydney, Dave, and I all stop and turn to face him.
I lift an eyebrow. “Amelia misunderstood. She overheard us flirting.”
“Since when is blackmail flirting?”
Sydney and I speak at the exact same time. “We’re into role-play.”
Riley stares for a beat. Processes. Then shrugs. “Not the kinkiest shit I’ve heard.”
Sydney, Dave, and I leave the building. For ten minutes, we keep it together, nodding politely to people we pass and keeping our mouths shut until we’ve exited the building and stalked through the parking garage.
When I open the back door to our SUV for Sydney, I prop my forearm on the car frame above her and box her in, my other palm curling around the back of her neck. “You promised me you’d be careful. That was not ‘maintaining a reasonable distance.’”
“It was reasonable because I needed to get close to her,” she says.
“That’s not how it works, wife.”
She blinks. Watches my mouth. Then appears to shake herself out of a trance and grips my jaw. “Stop doing sexy caveman shit when we’re fighting. It’s distracting.”
“I’m not fighting. I’m reminding myself that you’re here and safe.”
Her mouth lands on mine, her kiss hard and sweet. When she draws back at last, I circle her waist and give her a boost into the vehicle.
Color crests her cheekbones in a beautiful flush as she moves into her seat.
“Amelia wasn’t expecting to see me, and she had to go through a metal detector when she arrived in the building.
I knew she wasn’t armed or suspicious of me.
There was nothing she could use as a weapon in arm’s reach for her, and you and Dave could handle anything else. ”
I enter the SUV, close the door, and give Dave a nod to indicate we’re ready. With imminent professionalism, he raises the tinted divider between the front and back seat, then starts the slow drive home through the regular grind of city traffic.
Sydney’s logical justification for her actions doesn’t soothe me. “You didn’t have to hug the woman twice,” I say disgruntled.
She grimaces. “I needed to smell her.”
My eyebrows crawl up my forehead. “You did what, now?”
“Scent is one of my strongest memory triggers. I was distracted at my birthday party, but even then I had a weird feeling about her. Amelia doesn’t wear strong perfume, but the combination of her hair products and lotion with her body chemistry was pretty distinct.
Ergo, I needed to get a closer sniff of her. ”
“You remembered having lunch with her when she took the necklace.”
“I remembered a lot more than that,” she says.
“You’re the one who bought me all those cardigans so I’d always have one for my locker.
But it didn’t make sense. How could I wear the hat and sweater into the lab without wearing them out of it first if they were stored in my locker?
The order was reversed. And then what happened to them afterward?
I came home on Friday night. I was right there on our home security cameras, but I wasn’t wearing the hat or sweater or sneakers. ”
“I was sure it was Rob,” I mutter.
“You wanted it to be him,” she says.
“I did. Yeah,” I admit.
“I wasn’t the one who wrecked the lab. I didn’t betray you. I didn’t tell them anything.” Emotion clogs her voice.
“No you didn’t.”
She turns worried eyes on me. “Did I blackmail you into a fake marriage?”
“Not even close.”
“Then what was she talking about? Because I remember the day we met now. I hated you and knew things about you that . . . I’m—” She chokes on her words. A silent spasm bows her entire body. “—afraid.”
I shake my head, my heart pounding and my mouth dry. “Don’t be. Please.”
I reach for her, then hover, afraid to make contact. “I would step in front of a firing squad to protect you. I’d crawl naked over broken glass to get to you. The one thing I would never do is hurt you.”
“I’m afraid to know what I did to you,” she says.
I drag her onto my lap, folding her against me. “You didn’t blackmail me into marriage. I asked you to marry me.”
“I need to see our prenup.”
I nod, her hair catching in the scruff on my jaw.
“You should know we’ve had this conversation more than once, and you either zoned out in the middle of it or forgot immediately afterward.
I haven’t been lying to you. I left printed copies of that contract in our bedroom.
On the counter in the closet. In the study.
You moved the thing out of the way to brush your teeth last night. “
She blows out a hard breath and wraps her arms tight around my waist. “I didn’t trust myself not to betray you. And I didn’t want to know if you’d hurt me.”
“No one can make you ready to face our past if you’ve blocked it,” I say gently.
“Sometimes,” she says, “‘ready’ is just deciding to do it scared.”
“How about we try something a little different this time?”