Crossing Lines: A gripping psychological thriller (Behind Closed Doors Book 3) (31 page)

“He lied to me,” she replies.

“Who? Uncle D? Nu-huh. Uncle Darryl doesn’t lie. He thinks all lies are bad and unnecessary, and if Faith hadn’t lied to him our lives would be completely different."

“But he did lie to me.”

“Then he must have had a very good reason to, because he’s …” Her words drift, then Lisa sighs and says, “He lied to me too. He said he wanted me, would do anything for me, but he doesn’t, and he wouldn’t.”

“So he stole Ashleigh’s car and spent two days on the road to Georgia for what?” There’s silence. “Lisa, did he actually say he didn’t want you?” She doesn't reply. “Darryl’s not very good at communicating when it comes to himself.” I take that as my cue to hit the beach. Maybe I can explain this after all, thanks to Julia.

She looks up as I near the fire pit, but she doesn’t stop what she’s saying to Lisa.

“You didn’t make him do anything he didn’t want to, Lisa. He made a choice. And that choice was to do whatever and go wherever was necessary for you, no matter the cost to him. He doesn’t have to stay here either. There are enough people here far more qualified to protect you than he is. He can go back to New York any time he wants. But he chooses to stay.”

“He's so distant.” Lisa buries her head in her arms and sobs. “I really thought he’d changed when he came to Uncle Drew’s to get me. But he’s working all the time. He never listens to me. And it's not like he understands how I feel. He can't remember his mom and dad, he was like five or something and Faith was his sister, so even that's not the same. And then he was the perfect child for her. He never did anything wrong.”

I watch as Julia shuffles around the fire and reaches for Lisa. “Darryl understands more than you realize. He spent his teens feeling like he was a burden to Faith and Calvin, and the rest of his life trying to make up for it.” She turns her gaze up to me, and I know it’s my cue to join in the conversation.

I swallow, hard. And then continue the remaining steps to the fire pit. I sit on the other side of Lisa from Julia, unable to form words for a moment. “Lisa, I do understand.” I wrap my arms around her as I say, “Faith was the only Mom I ever knew.”

“You don’t want kids.”

“I never meant I didn’t want you. I didn’t explain it very well. I’m sorry.”

She lifts her head up from burying it in her knees.

“I meant to say that I didn’t want to have kids with Izzy. Lisa, I was scared. Kids
are
scary. You’re a handful. That’s true. But my life would be boring without all the excitement you provide, and you’re turning out to be this amazing, spirited young woman, one your dad and Faith would be so proud of.”

Lisa looks up at me.

“Someone
I’m
proud to say ‘that's my kid!’ about.”

She smiles, wraps her arms around my waist, and buries her head into my shoulder.

“One day, Lisa, I’m going to meet someone new. Someone who understands better than Izzy ever did that while you’re not technically my kids, you, and your brother and sisters, are everything to me.” When I look up I meet a beautiful smile and so much warmth in Julia’s silver eyes. “That person is the person I want to make babies with. Lots of them.”

But I know I’ve already met that person. She’s right here, sitting beside us. When she wraps her hand around mine, I feel like I can do anything. I’d take on the entire world—and succeed.

Chapter Twenty-Three

THE SUN HAS DROPPED
low
on the horizon before I ask Lisa if she’s hungry. I tell her that Julia makes the most amazing apple pie, just like my mom’s, or rather just like Faith said Mom used to make it. She lights up like a Christmas tree. She scrambles to her feet and she heads inside. Just after she reaches the ridge, she yells to Rylan and asks if he wants to take a break from stalking her and have some pie.

“She knows?” Julia asks.

“Yeah, I told her.” More for my own peace of mind. If she knows why a thirty-year-old guy was giving her all his attention, she’s less likely to either be freaked out by him, or have a crush on him. But I fear I might already be too late to prevent the latter. Didn’t she say he was cute? Or was it hot? I don’t remember.

“It's not okay that you lied to me, Darryl.”

I turn my attention to Julia. “I know. But I tried to find another way. There wasn’t any. You were so skittish around me at the start, I knew there was no other way for you to feel safe with me other than to go along with Ashleigh's plan.”

“Plan? You had a plan?” Instantly her eyes widen, her voice goes up an octave, and her posture tightens. “So tell me, what was this planning meeting like, Darryl? Did you plan to seduce me? Or just brainwash me into leaving my husband? That was your aim, wasn’t it?”

“No!” I’m too quick to deny it, and I can see it in her eyes: she thinks I’m lying. “Julia, Ashleigh told you the plan was to open your eyes. That’s all. I have not, and will not, promise anyone to ruin a marriage. It doesn’t work like that. You have to realize, and come to terms with the fact that Wayne’s behavior is not acceptable. He may have only hurt you physically once or twice, Julia, but there is a line where his possessive and controlling behavior becomes abuse.” She lifts her chin in defiance, but it only spurs me on. “It’s in the things he says, the way he says them. When he makes you doubt yourself, or chips away at your self-confidence, or blames you for things that are out of your control. He swings on the emotional A to Z, and you can’t predict what he’ll do from one situation to the next. It’s in the way he stops you from having things you want or need, by taking them away and never replacing them, or worse, damaging them or destroying something that’s irreplaceable. If he ever stopped you from having money of your own, or tried to control how and on what you spent it... there is a line. And I believe Wayne has crossed it.”

“I know.”

“The fact that you’re scared of him says to me your marriage is in trouble, and you need help to find balance again. As much as I hate to say this, you would’ve never trusted me without a reason to do so.” She looks puzzled by the accusation. “You needed Ashleigh’s endorsement to trust me, so I could do what I came here to do.”

“And what was that exactly?”

“Help you.”

“Why? It had nothing to do with you.”

“Because,” I look down, and admit the reason I’d been driven to come here against my better judgment, “I couldn’t save Faith.”

Her gaze meets with mine. For a long time she just looks at me, not speaking, just staring, as though she’s trying to consider if that’s the truth, but she must know I’d never lie about something like that. Never. And then she says something that tells me I’ll never earn her forgiveness or trust for lying to her like that. “So, if this was a chance at redemption, to make yourself feel less guilty, over Faith's death, why did you kiss me?”

“You won’t believe me.” Her lips part, and a sound escapes them, but I’m not sure what she says. “Julia, I know I shouldn't have kissed you, but I was faced with either doing the right thing or kissing you.” She glares at me, but I smile. “I'd make the same choice a thousand times over. I just wish I could have told you the truth before Sean interrupted us.”

“It wasn’t a lie? You weren’t trying to seduce me?”

“I tried to push you away, Julia. I told you all the bad things, hoping you’d run away from me. But you weren't repulsed by anything I confessed to you. You see the light in every dark thing I’ve ever done. You understand me like no one has ever understood me. You’re in here,” I tap the side of my head, “and here,” then my chest, “and you always will be, because even though I came here to help you, you ended up helping me, more than you’ll ever know.”

“In the space of a week,” she says quietly, “I gave up on my marriage, because of things I wanted to do with you.”

My heart squeezes all the air from my lungs.

“Do you realize what kind of a wife that makes me? Or a friend? Or even a person? I have spent the last ten years of my life believing I suck at being a decent person, and you came along and you made me think otherwise until I kissed you. You created more problems for me because whatever stopped you, hadn’t stopped me wondering how I could get you to shut up and go on kissing me. And I had to hear the truth by eavesdropping.”

“I’m not a fucking Saint, Julia,” I cry. “The second I laid eyes on you, I knew, just knew, there was something about you. I stopped the kiss because I had to tell you the truth
before
it went further.” I take a breath before continuing, in my therapist guise this time. “But I’m not the problem in your marriage. The problem is that
your husband
is sending you to prison. If he's still around when you get out, he's going to hold the fact he waited for you against you for the rest of your life. And that's before we even start on the issue of why you're going to prison.” I throw my arms up into the air as I stare at her. “You fucking
shot
him, Julia!”

“I didn't mean to!” she shouts back. “He threw me across the room and then started on Mimi, and he wouldn’t stop! He wouldn't. I couldn't make him stop. I didn't know what else to do. I didn’t mean to shoot him. I was shaking so hard, and the gun … it went off in my hand. I didn’t mean to do it.”

“So you're protecting him?” I blink a couple of times. “This was self-defense, and
you're
the one going to jail?” I scrub my face with my hands. As I look up again, I see it slowly descending on her, that she’s just told me what happened. “Do you hear yourself?"

“It’s not—”

“No!” I leap to my feet, “He's letting you take the blame for something he did, so don’t you dare say it’s not what I think. It’s exactly what I think!”

“You don't understand.”

“You're damned right, I don't!” I shout. “If you’d have put a bullet in me, Julia, I'd be doing everything I could to stop you from going to jail. I'd be lying my ass off to get you out of this shit! I'd take the fucking blame, and go to prison myself if that's what it took to save the woman I love. Don't you get it?” I turn to her, and say something I shouldn’t. But I don’t care anymore. I can’t stand by and watch this happen. “He doesn't love you!”

“You don’t get it. I made vows to him, for better or worse, richer or poorer, in sickness and in health. He needs help. But admitting he needs help means jeopardizing everything he's ever worked for, the very core of who he is. How do you expect me to walk away? He needs me right now, more than ever before, and you of all people should understand!”

I actually feel the blood draining from my face. How can she take my biggest fear and throw it back at me like this? “Why should I understand a man like Wayne?”
I thought she understood me. I thought she understood my fears. But she doesn’t get me at all.
“Because the man who raised me was an abuser? Calvin might have been the next best thing I had to a father, and there may be traits I picked up from him, but I am not, and will never be, like Calvin McKenzie!” She’d once said that herself. “You made me realize that. So, no, I don't understand Wayne.”

“You're a psychiatrist, aren't you? Aren't you supposed to understand the things about human behavior we laypersons don’t? Aren't you supposed to help people come to terms with the mental and emotional effects of life? That's who you are, Darryl, and that's why you should understand.”

“He's never going to change,” I tell her. “In the last month, you have not once said anything that suggests he thinks he's doing something wrong, or that he’s trying to change.”

“You don’t know my husband. You’ve never met him. He’s trying, for me and for the baby. He promised he’ll do anything he could to stop the case from going to court.”

“Except tell the truth and face the consequences of his actions like a man, instead of hiding behind you,” I shout. “And I have met him, Julia. At the ADA's office. Do you know what he told me? He’s been sleeping with Ashleigh. He doesn't care about you or the baby, because I let it slip you’re still pregnant, and then I threatened to steal you from him. So where is he, Julia? It's more than seventy-two hours later, and has he even called you? If you were my wife and he’d said that to me, I would’ve been here before he was, and I wouldn’t be leaving without you!”

“You were testing him?”

“No, Julia!” I cry, “I was trying to save you from seeing your miracle grow up from behind bars. But I’ll bet my family’s entire fortune on your husband not having what it takes to stop your case going to court, because I’m pretty fucking certain he hasn’t got the balls to admit the truth!”

“He does,” she cries. “He has to!”

“Why?” I ask. “You're protecting him. And Ashleigh’s probably right. Mimi hasn’t got amnesia. Your husband has silenced her somehow.”

“Now you’re clutching at straws.” She shakes her head. “You're saying I don’t know my husband, the man I’ve been with for ten years, at all.”

“You don’t. You only know the man you want to know. You don’t have to believe me, you just have to open your eyes.” She gasps again, and I now realize there are lines she will let me cross, lines that I’ll let myself cross, but this is not one of them. I’m not Ashleigh. I will not force her to make a choice. Therefore, I’ve done all that I can do. “I don’t even know why I’m saying this, because you’re not ready to accept any of it. And you’re definitely not ready to do what you need to, to make sure this ends the way you think you want it to.”