Trust Me (Last Stand #1)(91)
Author: Brenda Novak

But Danielle wouldn’t be home. She’d be on her way to work. It was Saturday. Jane was supposed to work today, too. If she didn’t go in, she’d lose her job….

“Mommy?”

Jane’s breath caught at the hopeful sound of Kate’s voice. “Yes?”

“I don’t like this place,” she said. “Can we go home?”

Jane didn’t like it, either. But she was more frightened by the fact that their situation could get a lot worse.

“Let—let me see.” Her cell was out of power and she’d left the charger behind, so she lifted the receiver of the motel phone, inhaled deeply and called their house. Maybe Oliver would answer and tell her to come home, that everything would be okay. She wanted to believe that, needed desperately to believe it….

Nervously twisting her fingers in the old-fashioned phone cord, she waited through the first, second and third rings.

The answering machine came on. “This is Jane and Kate. We’re not available at the moment…”

She hadn’t added Oliver to the message yet. Was that evidence of a subconscious rejection? Was she the one causing their problems by being doubtful and skeptical and unaccepting because she’d rather have Noah?

“Oliver?” she said. “If you’re there, pick up. I-I’m sorry. I got confused, I guess. I feel terrible. Please, pick up.”

Nothing. Where was he? She didn’t think he was riding his bike. More likely, he was sleeping after being out all night, searching for them.

The image of him driving frantically all over town made her want to groan aloud. “Oliver?”

Still no answer. Finally, she hung up and turned to her daughter.

“I’m hungry,” Kate said.

Taking in her child’s impish face and long sandy-blond hair the exact color of her father’s, Jane forced a smile. “We’ll get some breakfast on the way home.”

David stood at the door to the house where he’d once lived, staring down at his ex-wife, who looked like hell. Dressed in her old robe, she still hadn’t removed the makeup she’d been wearing last night. Her hair was mussed, her mascara smeared. She hadn’t appealed to him in a long time, but she’d never been more unappealing than now. He was pretty certain that was because of what he suspected.

After Skye had left his place a few minutes earlier, he’d told himself to go to work and do the research before accusing his ex-wife of attempted murder. There was always the chance he wouldn’t find any connection between her and Bishop. Then he’d be able to convince himself it was someone else, someone like Burke.

But the more he thought about the situation and the timing, the more convinced he became that Lynnette had been behind Lorenzo’s visit. He didn’t know how she’d met Bishop and orchestrated the whole thing—but he knew why. And he felt partially responsible.

“Tell me you didn’t do it,” he said, pulling her outside and closing the door so Jeremy wouldn’t overhear.

She laughed uneasily, but she didn’t get angry, as she would’ve done if she was innocent. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

David clenched his jaw. “Yes, you do.”

“Listen, I’m tired. We’ll have to talk later.” She turned to go back inside, but he caught her arm.

“Lynnette, what happened to you?”

“What happened to me?” she asked, her words suddenly venomous. “You happened to me.”

He studied the hard glitter in her eyes, trying to apportion the blame, to assume his share. He’d felt it a moment before. But he wasn’t responsible. Not for this. “I had nothing to do with it,” he told her.

“Without her, you would’ve come back to me,” she said. “Without her, you never would’ve left the second time. We’d still be a family, just like you promised.”

“When we were together, you were as unhappy as I was,” he said. “It’s our fault we couldn’t make our marriage work, not Skye’s.”

“That’s not true,” she argued. “We would’ve been fine without her.”

“So you followed her around taking pictures? You tried to get rid of her?” Even now, the possibility was too fantastic to believe.

But Lynnette didn’t deny it, as he wanted her to. “She should’ve been dead already,” she whispered vehemently. Tears spilled over her lashes, making fresh tracks in her mascara. “If it wasn’t for those scissors, Burke would’ve killed her four years ago.”

Speechless, sickened, David couldn’t move. This was the mother of his child….

Starting to cry in earnest, she reached out to him. But the thought of touching her made David’s skin crawl. She expected him to commiserate with her about the fact that Skye was still alive? “How can you expect me to feel sorry for you?” he asked. “You stalked a woman and then you tried to have her killed!” The woman I love….

Her lips twisted in a snarl. “I didn’t do anything. It was you. I had to follow her. I had to see. You were cheating on me the whole time, weren’t you?”

“You know that’s not true,” he said simply.

The door opened and Jeremy poked his head out. “Daddy?” He glanced up at Lynnette. “Why’s Mommy crying?”

David thought his heart would break as he looked into his son’s worried face. “Because she did something bad, Jeremy. And she knows it’ll mean she has to go away for a while.”

“No!” Lynnette’s eyes flared wide. “You wouldn’t! David, it’s me. I—I didn’t mean to do it. I was…desperate. It was my disease. It makes me crazy sometimes. You know how hard it is to deal with. I can’t face what it’s doing to do to me!”

David considered the pictures Jeremy had seen on her phone. “It was too well planned to blame on your illness, Lynn. Where’d you meet Bishop?”

“He came into the clinic to have his blood drawn. He—he’s the one who talked me into it. I was just telling him about you and what you were doing to me, and he said he could fix it.”

“Don’t tell me he’s the one you—” he adjusted his words for Jeremy’s sake “—visited that night you didn’t come home after your class.”

She flushed red, telling David that was exactly who she’d been with. “You probably didn’t even have to pay him after that,” he said in disgust.