Finally Charlie took her hand. “Okay. When do you want us to leave?”
“Right now. I’ll go get Lisa ready while you pack. Jackson just left, so I doubt if he’s going to be watching the place. He probably figures I’m too frozen with fear to do anything. Actually, he wouldn’t be too far from the truth.”
“Where do we go?”
“You pick the place. I don’t want to know. That way nobody can get the information out of me. Call when you get there and then we’ll make arrangements to safely communicate after that.”
Charlie shrugged. “I never thought it would come to this.”
She kissed him lightly on the forehead. “We’ll be okay. We just need to be really careful.”
“And what about you? What are you going to do?”
LuAnn took a deep breath. “Whatever it takes to make sure we all survive this.”
“And Riggs?”
She looked squarely at him. “Especially Riggs.”
“I hate this, Mom. I hate it.” Lisa stomped around the room in her pajamas as LuAnn hurriedly packed her daughter’s bags.
“I’m sorry, Lisa, but you’re just going to have to trust me on this.”
“Trust, ha, that’s a funny one coming from you.” Lisa glared at her from across the room.
“I don’t need that kind of talk right now, young lady.”
“And I don’t need this.” Lisa sat down on the bed and stubbornly crossed her arms.
“Uncle Charlie is ready, you need to get a move on.”
“But we’re having a party at school tomorrow. Can’t it at least wait until after that?”
LuAnn slammed the suitcase shut. “No, Lisa, I’m afraid it really can’t.”
“When is this going to stop? When are you going to stop dragging me all over the place?”
LuAnn ran a shaky hand through her hair and sat down next to her daughter, putting an arm around Lisa’s quaking form. She sensed the pain coursing through the small body. Could the truth hurt her daughter any worse than this? LuAnn clenched her fist and pushed it against her right eye as she tried to stop her nerves from pouring right out of her body.
She turned to her daughter. “Lisa?” The little girl refused to look at her mother.
“Lisa, please look at me.”
Finally, Lisa looked at her mother, her small face a blend of anger and disappointment, a combination that was crushing to LuAnn.
LuAnn spoke slowly. The words she was uttering would have been unthinkable an hour ago. But then Jackson had shown up and his appearance had changed a lot of things. “I promise that one day, very soon, I will tell you everything you want to know. In fact, more than you will ever want to know about me, about you, about everything. All right?”
“But why—”
LuAnn put her hand gently across her daughter’s mouth, silencing her. “But I’m telling you right now that when I do it will shock you, it will hurt you and you might never understand or appreciate why I did what I did. You may hate me for it, you may be sorry I’m your mother” — she paused, biting hard into her lip — “but however you feel, I want you to know that I did what I thought was best at the time. I did what I thought was best for you. I was very young and I really didn’t have anyone to help me make my decision.”
She cupped Lisa’s chin with her hand and tilted her daughter’s face up to hers. Lisa’s eyes were now filled with tears. “I know I’m hurting you now. I don’t want you to go away, but I will die before I’d let anything happen to you. So would Uncle Charlie.”
“Mom, you’re scaring me.”
LuAnn gripped Lisa with both hands. “I love you, Lisa. More than I’ve ever loved anything in my whole life.”
“I don’t want anything to happen to you.” Lisa touched her mother’s face. “Mom, will you be okay?”
LuAnn managed a reassuring smile. “A cat always lands on its feet, sweetie. Mommy’ll be just fine.”
Chapter thirty-seven
The next morning LuAnn rose early after a mostly sleepless night. Saying good-bye to her daughter had been the most wrenching thing she had ever done; however, she knew that task would seem easy compared to the day she would tell Lisa the truth about her life, about her mother’s life. LuAnn hoped she would have the opportunity to do that. And yet a huge wave of relief had swept over her when she had watched the lights of the Range Rover disappear down the road the night before.
Now her biggest concern was devising a way to reapproach Riggs without making him even more suspicious. But she didn’t have much time. If she didn’t report back to Jackson with some information soon, then he would turn his attention fully on Riggs. She was not going to let that happen.
She was thinking this through as she drew back her bedroom curtains and peered out onto the rear lawn. Her bedroom was on the third floor and provided an inspiring view of the surrounding countryside. A balcony opened off the bedroom through a pair of French doors. LuAnn wondered if that was how Jackson had gained access to the room last night. Normally she activated the burglar alarm right before she went to bed. She might start doing it earlier, although she had little hope that any security system would pose much of a challenge for the man. He seemed to be able to walk right up and then through walls.
She brewed a pot of coffee in the small kitchenette next to her dressing room. Then she put on a silk robe and, holding a cup of steaming coffee in one hand, she stepped out onto the balcony. A table and two chairs were set up there; however, she chose to perch on the marble railing and look out over her property. The sun was on its way up and the rays of pink and gold formed a backdrop to a sea of equally colorful foliage. The view was almost enough to raise her sagging spirits. What she saw next almost caused her to fall off the balcony.
Matthew Riggs was kneeling in the grass near the spot where she had wanted her studio to be built. From her vantage point LuAnn watched in growing amazement as Riggs unrolled a thick set of blueprints and eyed the lay of the land. LuAnn clambered up on top of the railing and, one hand clinging to the brick wall of the house for support, she stood on tip-toe for a better look. Now she could make out stakes planted in the ground at various points. While she watched, Riggs unraveled some twine and, tying one end to a stake, he started laying out what looked to be the footprint of a building.
She tried calling to him, but her voice couldn’t carry far enough.
LuAnn jumped down from the railing, raced through her bedroom, not even pausing to put on shoes. She took the stairs two at a time and unlocked the back door. Sprinting across the dewy grass in her bare feet, the silk robe clung to her form, showing a good deal of her long legs in the process.
Breathing hard, she reached the spot where Riggs had been and looked around. Her breaths were visible in the early morning chill and she pulled the sheer robe tight around her.
Where the hell had he gone? She hadn’t imagined it. The stakes were there, the string affixed to them. She stared at them as if they would eventually reveal the secret of the man’s whereabouts.
“Morning.”
LuAnn whirled around and stared at him as he emerged from the stand of trees, a large rock in his hand. He set it down ceremoniously in the middle of the staked-out area.
“Your stone chimney,” he proclaimed, grinning.
“What are you doing?” LuAnn asked in an amazed tone.
“You always run around outside in that? You’re going to catch pneumonia.” He stared at her and then discreetly looked away as the emerging sun’s rays cleared the tops of the trees and made the thin robe virtually transparent; she wasn’t wearing anything underneath. “Not to mention what it’s doing to me,” he muttered to himself.