“I beg to differ. Look at me, Shannon. Look real good.”
I did. Long, hard, and extensively.
With a sad smile, I said, “I see a man who used his misery to help someone who couldn’t help herself. Had you not remembered what Gary did, I would have been alone.” I touched his shoulder. “Don’t you see? Our memories shape us, make us—strengthen us. They had no right to steal mine.” I shook my head and scowled. “I’m calling the prosecutor’s office first thing in the morning.”
Trace stared off in brooding silence. Finally, he said, “You sure you don’t want to wait until you have more sessions with Doc?”
“Who knows how long that will take? No. I’m ready to move forward now. I’m sure we have enough to get the case reopened.
“You’ll be implicated,” he said in measured tones. “You ready for that?”
I was so ready it wasn’t even funny. I took out my cell phone. “I just want the truth. Whatever that is.” Typing with my thumbs, I emailed the sheriff’s recording to myself for backup. “Are you still in contact with Gartner?”
“Nope. I call, but he never calls back. Screw him.” He rubbed his eyes. “That reminds me. I need to get over to the flower shop tomorrow mornin’. With all the chaos of the last couple days, I forgot about it.”
“Me too.” I tucked the phone back into my breast pocket and stared into the cemetery of rusted cars Cholly had stored behind the station. “This is going to be a legal quagmire. Uncle Sears will have every lawyer in the firm on his side.”
“Prob’ly, but we’ve got truth on ours.”
I patted my phone. “Yes, we do have that.”
Mrs. Campbell and Uncle Jackson had revealed some explosive information in those recordings, but my confidence waned when I thought about the difficult choices I’d have to make. How my life would change. How nothing would ever be the same.
What the hell had they been thinking? Granted, some of the evidence did point to me, and maybe Trace’s lawyer could have used it to his advantage, but to go this far? To destroy evidence? To rape my mind?
For my godfather’s part, I believed him. He’d done this out of obligation. But my family was a different story. Their actions had more to do with ‘other’ concerns than my supposed welfare. A dark and dirty secret like this would have ruined them for good. Sex. Envy. Matricide?
Child stabs mother in jealous rampage. Film at eleven.
Oh, yes, that would have flushed the family name down the toilet for good.
Trace drew himself up. “What’s your game plan?”
I thought about it, tried to sift through the myriad of emotions clouding my mind. At this point, one thing was clear. “I can’t live at Briar anymore.”
He unhooked his seatbelt. “Where’re you gonna go?”
The Victorian in New Dyer rose in my mind’s eye. “That’s part of the reason I was upset yesterday,” I said. “Some clients were set to close on the house I told you about. But the husband got orders for the Middle East last week. He’s a marine. So I put in a bid. It got them out of the contract and the seller accepted.”
“Sounds like good news. At least for you.”
I drew a sharp breath. Things weren’t what they seemed. “Darien never liked the house. He thought it was a money pit, but he called me last night, and when I told him about the contract, he said he hadn’t realized how much I loved the place. He doesn’t mind living there if it makes me happy.” I swallowed, hard. “He’s coming home. Today.” I shot a wary glance at the dashboard clock. “His plane should be landing any minute.”
Turning to me, Trace drew his leg up on the seat cushion. Storm clouds brewed in his eyes. “What am I supposed to say to that? Congratulations?”
“No, that’s not why I—” I raised a hand, but let it fall flat against the seat. “The wedding announcement appeared in yesterday’s society pages. My aunt has been working overtime planning everything. I’ve signed contracts. Hired a videographer. Caterers. The invitations are being printed.”
“Ever heard of the word ‘cancel’?”
“It’s not that simple. I don’t want to hurt him and…well…it’s…it’s just a very complicated situation.”
He raked his fingers through his hair. “Here we go again with this crap. What the hell’s so complicated?”
A tense silence filled the car. “There’s just…a lot to consider.”
“We’re the only consideration here. Everything else is bullshit.”
I stared off, my gaze wandering as the truth spilled out, a truth I was finally ready to admit. “You don’t understand. I thought—it’s always been in the back of my mind that if I married him, I’d finally be able to breathe. To relax. I planned my life so precisely that any deviation….”
“Scares the hell out of you?”
I hung my head. “Yes.”
“The truth at last. So I’m the monkey wrench in your picture-perfect life.”
“No, it’s-it’s not like that.”
“Yeah, it is.” His nod was sharp. “See, all this time I thought it was a choice between me and Montgomery. But I was wrong. This is about the safe, little fairytale you’ve been trying to—”
“Trying?” I snapped my head back up to search his face. “I’ve been building it my entire life! Brick by brick, and now I’m about to tear it down.”
“Naw, you’re about to live—for the first time ever. You want to be with me. I know this. But I represent everything you’ve been trying to bury.”
I shook my head. “It’s not about you. It-it goes even deeper than that.”
“Oh, I know. Somehow you convinced yourself that you wanted Montgomery, or at least, what you think you’ll have with him. Respect. Privilege. Approval. Community standing—everything Lilith destroyed.” He shook his head. “But I can’t give that to you, darlin’. That’s what’s got you so spun up. It’s why you keep running away from us.”
I blinked several times. “Us? What us? Do you think telling me you care is enough reason to break an engagement?”
“That you’re not in love with him should be reason enough.”
“Fine. But what you’re really asking me to do is to upend my life so we can be together. And that’s all well and good, but I need more from you. You say you want me, and that you care, but what else? Do your feelings go any deeper than that?”
“Are you blind?” He tossed a hand. “I admitted to killing a man—to you, Shannon, despite a ton of reservations. What the fuck else do you want?”
I pushed the hair off my face. “I used to know. Now I’m just—”
“Confused! Were you even there at Miller’s Pond last night? What? Do you think that was just a dry hump for me?” He glared long and hard. “You won’t tell your ‘fiancé’ the truth, yet you expect me to open a vein? To bleed? Hell, you’re the one who needs to do some bleeding.” We stared hotly at each other for several seconds until he wrenched away to shove the door open. “Fuck it. I don’t need this shit. Go get your boyfriend!”
“I already told you, he’s not my boyfriend!”
“Boyfriend. Fiancé. Sugar daddy. Whatever.”
“He’s none of those things.”
Trace jerked back around. “Please enlighten me then. What the hell is he?”
“My past.”
“And what am I?”
I swallowed and stared intently at him with a nakedness I couldn’t hide. “You’re…my everything.”
The words had barely left my mouth before he grabbed my face, crashing our lips together. He kissed me with a voraciousness that set the car ablaze. He was marking me. Possessing me. Staking his claim. Making it clear, that I belonged to him and none other.