Chapter 12
The Search
Iread the same page in my book for the third time in the last hour as I sit, curled up on a sofa in the library. It’s my home away from home. Sammy is in her bougie Tempur-Pedic dog bed in front of the fire and little Leo is chasing a fluffy catnip ball around the room.
I let out a frustrated huff before starting from the top of a page.
The book should be a breeze to power through.
I love this author and her books about hot British billionaires.
This one owns a hotel on a northern island, and the female main character is tech support who wrote the entire management program.
But he thinks she’s incompetent and it drives her bananas.
I should be enjoying this book while the fire crackles and I have a quiet day, but I can’t.
I can’t focus on anything other than the sight of the earl strangling Suzanne.
It’s why I’ve had my schedule cleared because they’re all trying to decide if I’ve had some nervous breakdown.
I haven’t. At least, I don’t think I have.
I don’t think anyone would blame me if I did.
But what bothers me the most is that no one seems to believe me when I say that I saw her in a box at the opera and I watched her die.
It’s what I see at night when I close my eyes.
I look up when there’s a knock on the door. Rhys steps in and I feel my heart sink. The one person I expected to believe me was Rhys and he just… didn’t.
“Can we talk?” he asks, scooping up my kitty from the floor. Leo purrs loudly and curls into his arms, happy to be held. If I’d picked him up like that, he’d have bitten me—ask me how I know—while Rhys holds him on his back like a newborn. The traitor.
“Sure.” I don’t say anything else because what is there to say? I’m not going to beg him to believe me. He either does or he doesn’t, and he’s shown that he doesn’t. Case closed.
He lets out a sigh. “I was hoping you’d be more agreeable,” he says like he’s disappointed in me, “but I can see that you’re not going to be.”
“About?” I ask.
“About maybe taking a bit of a respite,” he says.
I feel my Spidey senses tingling. “What kind of a respite?”
“The kind where you go away for a while,” he says gently. “Somewhere relaxing where you won’t be jumping at shadows.”
“I’m not jumping at shadows,” I protest. I am but how dare he say that to my face.
“Darling,” he pleads.
“No. No, no, no,” I shout. “You’re not going to gaslight me into some stay at a mental hospital that you’ll never check me back out of.”
“That’s no’ the case and you know it,” he says quietly.
“No, actually, I don’t,” I tell him. “I still don’t know you and you clearly don’t know me because I told you I saw something, and you’ve blown me off.
We both agree that we’re in a dangerous situation right now, not to mention someone has tried to kill me twice, and what you do is decide that I’m crazy. ”
“I don’t think you’re crazy,” he says, but I just stare at him with my arms folded over my chest. “I don’t. I think you’re fucking exhausted and I think you’re terrified.”
“But I’m not crazy,” I tell him. “And I know what I saw. I’m not going to beg you to believe me.”
“So what are we going to do?” he asks me, petting my freaking cat.
“I don’t know what you’re going to do but I’m not going to let the men with the butterfly nets and funny jackets haul me away to never be seen again,” I reply. “I’m not going to be warehoused and brought out when you need me to smile at the cameras and be a good little dolly when you want me to.”
“Hmm…” he says. “I like the idea of you being my little dolly that I can do anything with that I want.”
“Don’t start,” I warn. “I’m mad at you.”
He sets Leo down and reaches for me, pulling me up into his arms, and holding me tightly. “For how long do you think you’ll be mad at me?”
“How long do you think I should be mad at you for suggesting sending me to an asylum?” I snap.
“No’ an asylum,” he says. “More like a rehabilitation facility where celebrities go for exhaustion.”
“That really means cocaine and heroin,” I tell him.
“And what do you know about that?” he asks.
“I read the tabloids,” I admit. “Or I did in my old life… I wonder how much cash I could slip Leo to buy me the good ones from the market…”
“You’d do better betting on Maeve,” he says. “Leo seems more straight-laced and mission focused. As he should be.”
“I don’t know if the mission is what he’s so focused on,” I mutter to myself.
“What was that, hen?”
“Nothing,” I reply. “I’ll be less mad at you later… but not tonight. Later. When I’m ready.”
“It’s okay to be wrong,” he says gently.
“Yes, it is,” I say, “but not if I’m actually right. How are you going to feel if you being wrong costs me my life?”
“You’re really that serious about this?” he asks, watching me with a new awareness.
“I’m as serious as a heart attack,” I tell him. “I know what I saw and I’m not lying.”
“All right.”
“Now if you don’t need me for anything else,” I say as I pull from his arms and head back to the couch. “I’ll get back to my book and my… rest.”
I sit back down and pick up my novel, keeping my eyes trained on the same damn words I’ve been staring at all afternoon. What I don’t do is watch my husband walk away.