Chapter 4 Lori
LORI
Lori sat stunned, staring at the four files spread across the table. Sally had taken the files that went missing from Mitch’s house. Sally had been in the house. Sally had taken them.
“When did you get these?” Lori asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
“I came by early,” Sally admitted, her hands trembling slightly as she touched the edge of one of the files. “I wanted to know if I could help with the barbecue preparations. To see if there was anything I could bring or do.”
She closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose as if fighting off a headache.
When she opened them again and looked at Lori, there was something different in her expression.
This wasn’t the look of a rival. This wasn’t the calculating, possessive woman who’d shown up with lasagna and wine.
This was the look of a woman who had been pushed to the very edge, now weary and scared.
“This must’ve been within the past couple of hours.” Lori calculated the time frame in her head. Although she wasn’t even sure how long they had all been down at the cove. Time had seemed to stand still.
“The front door was wide open,” Sally continued with a nod to confirm the time frame.
“All the cars were in the driveway, so I thought someone was home. I went inside, and when I couldn’t find anyone in the living room or kitchen, I walked through the house.
I found Mitch’s home office door open. I thought he was in there.
I knocked and went in, and that’s when I spotted the file. ”
“On his desk?” Lori guessed, and again Sally nodded in confirmation.
Her voice wobbled, and her eyes filled with unshed tears.
“It was lying open on the desk, and it was a shock to see it,” she said.
“Lori, there’s a lot about me that no one knows.
My brother knows a bit, but...” She cleared her throat and swiped at her eyes with the back of her hand.
“I started getting these calls. It started a few days before you arrived.”
“What kind of calls?” Lori asked, leaning forward.
“At first, it was just nothing,” Sally told her, her eyes darting to the door again as if she expected someone to walk in at any moment.
“No one was saying anything on the other end. Just silence and breathing, so I would hang up. Then the day you arrived, the calls escalated. This time, there was a weird voice. I think it was synthesized, like those voice changers you can use on computers. It told me they knew what I did and that when pointing fingers, I must remember there are three pointing back at me.” She glanced at the file on top, the one marked SL in bold letters.
“Then I started getting messages,” Sally said, her voice dropping even lower.
“Text messages with newspaper clippings attached. And various pictures about… about my past.”
“What about your past?” Lori asked, though she wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer.
“I don’t want to drag you into my mess,” Sally said, her voice trembling.
“Look, I’m sorry I was such a cow to you.
The truth is, Mitch and I would never work, but I.
..” She started fiddling with the file in front of her, straightening the edges over and over.
“I know what he did for a living before he retired. And I thought maybe if I could get close to him again, if I could make him care about me, then...”
“You wanted his protection,” Lori realized, her eyes widening with understanding.
Sally nodded, and her carefully constructed mask completely slipped away.
Lori’s breath caught in her throat at the look of raw fear and exhaustion on Sally’s face.
In that instant, she knew that Tessa had been right.
Tessa, who had given Lori her theory about Sally not killing her husband right before the scream came from the cove, had been absolutely right.
There was a lot more to Sally’s story than what was in those files.
“I wanted so much to tell Mitch everything,” Sally breathed.
“But then you arrived, and I saw the way Mitch looked at you. I knew that any chance I might have had to get him to help me was gone. This was so stupid of me. But I needed to talk to him, only he was wary of me. I know I came on too strong with the lasagna and the wine and showing up unannounced, but I was desperate.”
“You have a problem asking for help,” Lori realized.
She reached across the table and took Sally’s hand.
Sally stiffened for a few seconds, clearly not used to this kind of gentle touch, and then she gripped Lori’s hand like a lifeline.
“Sally, what’s going on? I promise I’ll do my best to help.
But you’re going to have to tell me the truth. ”
“Lori,” Sally’s eyes welled with tears that finally spilled over and ran down her cheeks. “I’m sorry. I’m not used to people being kind to me, especially when I’ve been such a—”
“Cow?” Tessa’s voice made them both jump.
They turned, startled, to see Tessa sitting at a table close to them. She wore an absurdly large sun hat and oversized sunglasses that covered half her face.
“Tessa, what on earth?” Lori hissed, her heart still racing from the shock.
“I followed you,” Tessa said matter-of-factly. She stood up from her table and came over to theirs, pulling up a chair without being invited.
“Where is Misty?” Lori said, glancing around.
“She’s with the vet,” Tessa told her. “You can leave your pets there while you shop. They have this lovely garden out the back where they play, get spoiled, and pampered. Misty loves it. Mom drops her off there every day when she works.”
“Okay…” Lori’s frown deepened. “But why are you here?”
“With everything going on, I couldn’t just sit in the car and wait.
And...” Her eyes widened as she looked at the files spread across the table.
“Are those what I think they are?” She sat down and grabbed the files before either Lori or Sally could respond.
“What the...” Her eyes scanned the labels, and her expression darkened.
Then she held up three Lori had never seen before.
“Where did you get these?” she asked Sally, her voice taking on the sharp, professional tone she used in court.
“I got them from Mitch’s study,” Sally told her.
“All of them?” Tessa asked, her eyes flashing with what looked like anger.
“Yes,” Sally nodded. “The one about me was open on Mitch’s desk. I found the others in a briefcase on the bookshelf.”
Tessa’s eyes narrowed. “Have you looked at these?” She opened one of the files, and Lori’s eyes widened as she saw the initials on the cover: TR. Tessa’s file. Her eyes fell on the next one: LC.
“Is that about...” Lori couldn’t finish the sentence.
“Me?” Tessa nodded grimly. “And that one,” she tapped the LC file, “from what I can see, is about you.” She pushed it aside and picked up the third one.
“And this is about Barstow Securities.” She looked at Sally with an intensity that made even Lori uncomfortable.
“You found all these in Mitch’s home office? ”
Sally nodded. “I’m sorry. When I saw them and realized what they were, I panicked. I just grabbed them and ran.”
“How much of our conversation did you hear?” Lori asked Tessa.
“I came in when you were talking about the phone calls Sally was getting,” Tessa told them.
She was flipping through all the files now, her expression growing darker with each page.
“They have all this information on me. They even have my school transcripts. My grades from third grade, for crying out loud.”
“Why would they need that?” Lori asked, feeling violated.
“Well, we did tell Mitch about what was happening,” Tessa stopped and glanced at Sally. “But I’m not sure why they’d need this level of detail.”
“What is going on?” Sally asked, looking from Lori to Tessa. “Why does Mitch have all these files on us?” Her eyes narrowed as a thought occurred to her.
“I’ll tell you what,” Tessa said, taking control of the conversation. She closed the file she’d been reading and fixed Sally with a steady gaze. “Why don’t you start by telling us why you hired Elias Dane?”
Sally’s eyes widened in shock. “How do you know about that?” She shook her head in confusion. “Why would you know about that?”
“I’m asking the questions,” Tessa said firmly.
“Tessa,” Lori admonished her gently.
“It’s okay, Lori,” Sally said, though her hands were shaking. “If I answer your questions, then I get to ask questions of my own. That’s fair.”
“I don’t think you’re in a position to dictate terms,” Tessa countered.
“I know about your late ex-husband. I know about the school incident. And I’m wondering if you found something in that file that I hadn’t gotten to yet, and that’s the real reason you took them all.
Yours to destroy any evidence, and these three as leverage. ”
“What?” Sally looked at Tessa like she’d lost her mind.
“No!” She shook her head vehemently. “No, that’s not why I took them at all.
I took them because I was afraid that I’d dragged you all into my mess.
That maybe Marcus was the one who had been threatening me.
That maybe he’d shown Mitch all this information because he was working with the Lanes. ”
“Oh!” Lori and Tessa said in unison, understanding dawning.
“You think the phone calls are from the Lanes?” Tessa asked before Lori could.
“I wouldn’t put it past them,” Sally said darkly.
“Why would they do that, though?” Tessa asked, and Lori noticed Sally looking at her suspiciously. “Yes, I know about your late ex-husband.” Her frown deepened. “You were exonerated, and his family paid you out. Why would they come after you? Why now it’s been what… ten years?”
“No,” Sally hissed, her eyes flashing with anger.
“They didn’t pay me out. The Lanes paid me back all the money that I earned with my interior decorating company.
A company that they stole from me when their son gambled and squandered their family fortune away.
They nearly lost Lane Construction and Real Estate.
It was my company, Lane Interior Designs, that saved them. ”
“My word,” Tessa breathed. “You’re Lane Interior Designs? The Lane Interior Designs?”
Sally nodded, some pride creeping into her expression despite the circumstances. “I built that company from the ground up with money my grandmother left me when she passed away.”
“How did the Lanes get control of your company?” Lori asked.
“I was young and in love and stupid,” Sally said bitterly.
“Bradley, my late ex-husband, convinced me that if we merged my interior design company with Lane Construction and Real Estate, it would increase both our client bases. His family had all these connections in Boston, all these wealthy clients who needed interior designers. It made sense at the time. We were married, he was my husband, and my first big love. Why wouldn’t I trust him?
” She looked down at her hands, at the space where the wedding ring she no longer wore used to sit.
“I can understand that,” Tessa said bitterly. “Love can be very blinding and hide a person’s true nature from plain sight.”
“I never saw what was coming,” Sally continued.
“Bradley started staying away more and more. Working late, he said. Business trips. But I knew. I could smell the alcohol on him when he came home. At first, he was just verbally abusive. Telling me I was worthless, that my designs were mediocre, that I was lucky the Lanes had taken pity on me. Then it escalated to physical abuse.”
Lori felt her heart breaking for this woman. “Sally, I’m so sorry.”
“I went to the police,” Sally said. “That was when things got really bad. The Lanes have connections everywhere in Boston. Suddenly, my company was being audited. Permits for projects were being held up. Clients were mysteriously canceling contracts. And Bradley’s abuse got worse. Much worse.”
“How did you get away?” Tessa asked quietly.
“I finally found a company that could help me,” Sally said. “Barstow Security. They were the only ones willing to stand up to the Lanes. They helped me file for divorce. They have amazing attorneys at that firm as well. They helped me get a restraining order. They assigned me a bodyguard.”
“Elias Dane,” Lori said.
Sally nodded. “Elias was with me constantly for months. But Bradley wouldn’t accept the divorce.
He kept begging me not to go through with it.
He promised he’d changed. Promised he’d deal with his parents, get my business back, separate it from their company.
So I tried. I really tried to believe him. ”
“But he hadn’t changed,” Tessa guessed.
“No. We were going to marriage counseling. And he was doing so well. Then one day, he didn’t show up for our marriage counseling session.
The counselor pulled me aside and told me I needed to get out.
To run as far away from the Lanes as I possibly could.
She said Bradley had all the classic signs of a narcissistic abuser.
That he would never change, and if I stayed, my life would be in danger. ”
“Oh, Sally,” Tessa breathed, her eyes wide with compassion.
Sally’s voice dropped to barely a whisper. “Just to let you know, the Lanes reach, the counselor also told me she’d deny every word if I ever said she warned me. She was that afraid of the Lanes.”
“So you left him,” Lori said.
“I got the divorce and kept the restraining order,” Sally confirmed. “Barstow Securities made sure Bradley stayed away from me. Elias was still my bodyguard. And then one night...”
She trailed off, her face going pale.
“What happened?” Tessa prompted gently, her earlier hardness replaced with compassion.
“Elias got called away,” Sally said. “There was an emergency with another client. Barstow sent a replacement bodyguard. Only the replacement never made it. He was killed, and the man who showed up at my door, I thought, was the one Elias had sent. So I went with him.”
Lori’s hand flew to her mouth. “Oh no.” She could see where this was going. “You were kidnapped.”