Crossing Lines: A gripping psychological thriller (Behind Closed Doors Book 3) (33 page)

“D’ya wanna piece of me too?” Wayne threatens me.

“Now,” Ashleigh says. Unable to believe my ears, I turn my head toward the door. I’m not sure I can believe my eyes, either. She leans against the broken door frame. Blood runs from a cut above her eye and from her nose. But she just folds her arms over her chest and smiles. “I’m going to hurt you!”

He roars as he charges towards her, once again with his fists flying. Ashleigh grabs the flailing hand, wrenches it up and around his back. With swift feet, she takes his leg out from under him and once he’s down to one knee, she stomps on his exposed calf.

He howls like an animal. She traps his throat in the crook of her elbow and squeezes, adding to the pressure with her other arm.

He splutters, grabbing at her forearms with both arms. But she just leans closer and puts her lips near his ear. “Oh, babe,” she taunts as he claws at her arm. His face is turning an alarming shade of red. "I’m going to take such great pleasure in knowing the last voice you’ll ever hear is mine.”

“Ashleigh!” I call. I let Julia go and step toward her. “Ashleigh, stop!”

She just tightens her arm around his throat.

“Ashleigh, let go!”

She doesn’t even look at me as she whispers into his ear, “Goodnight,
sweetheart
.” His arm loses its grip, flopping toward the floor as the rest of his body goes limp. She drops him, then sinks to her knees beside him, nudging him with her fist. When he doesn't wake, she touches the pulse point at his neck and shakes her head. “Well, ain’t that a damn shame? The bastard’s going to wake up, after all.”

A groan comes from over by the broken coffee table, and I look up. I’d almost forgotten Sean had been knocked out cold, too. But his hand rubs his side and the other reaches for his head as he groans again. “What the hell hit me?"

“I’ll hit you if you ever scare me like that again.” Ashleigh crawls away from Wayne’s lifeless body and toward Sean. It seems to me that, despite her feistiness, she hasn’t got the strength to move. “Give me one good reason I shouldn’t kick your ass all over again, Mister-we-have-no-future-if-you-do-this?”

Sean chuckles in response. “Because you love me, and you want to marry me, and have babies with me, and live happily ever after, with me?”

Ashleigh just nods, puts her head on his chest, and closes her eyes.

“Ashleigh?”

She doesn’t respond.

“Ash? Ashleigh!”

Chapter Twenty-Five

6
th
November 2012

I TURN AWAY
from the television set as it continues to announce the list of charges brought against Lieutenant Swift who, following the location of withheld evidence in his hotel room, is also subject of an internal affairs investigation.

With all the excitement just a week ago, Mimi’s change of statement, and the evidence Ashleigh has handed over to the DA’s office, the State has dropped its case against Julia, which is a huge relief. Maybe she'll take Caleb up on his offer of counseling, now that she's decided to spend an indefinite time in New York with her parents.

After touring Ashleigh’s entire estate in a golf buggy, Rylan and I stand over the architect’s drawings of the home. He points out the weak spots and the additional security measures taken at every one. He offers to consult on the security of any property I choose to buy, though he recommends we build.

“I don’t think I’m needed much around here anymore.” He smiles.

“Don’t get your hopes up about retiring when she’s through with you. I have a sixteen-year-old who needs your help, remember?”

“Yes, boss!” He laughs. “Speaking of which, I’ve no idea where she is.” He opens my laptop, taps a few keys.

“Hey, I have—” He bypasses my secure login and enters a different part of the network. “Confidential stuff on there.” I am no longer affronted by the invasion of privacy as he clicks through the necessary directories until the security cameras appear on screen. “What the hell?”

“I can access this on any device attached to the network, including your smartphone.” He smiles at me again. "Pretty neat, huh?”

“I guess.”

But then he curses.

“What?”

“She’s found it already.”

“What?”

“The black spot.”

“At the risk of being a parrot, the what?”

He chuckles and points to Lisa lying on a towel in a pretty obscure part of the beach. Behind her head is a dark circle. “She was getting pretty sick of being locked up here. So I told her if she found the security black spot I’d teach her to scuba dive.” I feel my face blanch. “Don’t look so worried, man, I’m qualified. Are we about done here?” I nod and he salutes as he heads out.

“Hey, Rylan!” I step outside the office, as he turns back. “How good are you at finding people?"

“Depends on who you’re looking for, and why?”

“My sister’s ex-husband.”

He comes back toward me. “I don’t do revenge; look elsewhere if that’s what you're after.”

“I’m not looking for him, I’m looking for my nieces, Caitlyn and Zoe. Wherever he is, they're with him.”

“Oh.” He looks at a picture on the wall before he nods. “Leave it to me.”

I really don't have a choice as he walks away. I turn back to the picture of Ashleigh, with her much younger step-sister Zoey Matthews, and it’s almost like looking at Faith and Zoe. No, my head spins. If Rylan thinks there’s a possibility Zoey is my niece, then it means Caitlyn and Zoe aren’t with Calvin anymore. If so, where the hell are they?

“You need to stop putting everyone else first once in a while.”

I look up and frown at Ashleigh. “I'm not—”

“No?” She cuts me off. “Then why are you letting Julia go to New York, when you obviously want her to stay here?”

“Goddammit, Ashleigh, will you drop it? You’re starting to be as annoying as Georgia!”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

A strangled cry cuts from my throat as I turn away from her. In a couple of hours, she's flying out to Switzerland for three months. This isn’t the kind of last conversation I want. I know she’s far from fine about the whole Wayne situation, no matter what she says. She was in the hospital for five days, and had to delay her departure to shoot her next film by two weeks. So I don’t like the idea of her being so far away. She'll either have a breakdown over there when the realization hits, or she'll bury it. And her track record shows she buries stuff and then pretends it didn’t happen.

“You can't fool me, doctor,” she continues.

God! She's relentless!
I spin the conversation back on her. “Speaking from experience are you, Ash?”

She stops dead. It’s like she’s run into an invisible wall. She pulls her eyes shut tight and takes a deep breath. It’s almost like I've physically wounded her with my words. Then she nods, and when she opens her eyes I look right through them, straight into Ashleigh Jordan's soul. It's filled with years of painful regrets.

“It's so much harder to be on my side. To know it could have been you, if only you had taken the chance, if only you’d fought for what you wanted, if only you hadn’t walked away.” She breaks the intense stare into my eyes to look at the ground. “To let the guilt force you into making someone else a higher priority, because …” Her words drift and I wait for her to finish. But she doesn’t.

Actually, I don’t need her to. I know exactly what she’s going to say:
Because what I want isn't a justifiable reason at all.

Slowly, she shakes her head and I drape my arm over her shoulder and lead her toward the door. Sean is standing by his SUV, waiting. “But it all worked out all right in the end, Ashleigh, and as it turns out, you were right to hold out that future with Sean.”

“Yes,” she smiles at me. “But what about you? Please don’t make the same mistake I did. Ask her to stay.”

“Ashleigh, are you ready?" Julia calls from the sunroom. My stomach kicks and the knot in my stomach twists again. It’s been there since Julia said she was going to New York, and that she’s not sure when or if she'll come back. There’s so much I want to say, words I hope will help her in the tough times ahead.

”Ready when you are,” Ash calls back to her.

I turn my attention back to my patient. I want her commitment before she goes. “Promise me. I know what you’re like. Give me your word. Promise me you’re not going to fly off into the sunset, and pretend this conversation never happened.”

“I promise,” she says as Julia's heels click against the marble floor.

“Okay,” Julia singsongs, and I steel myself for what I’m about to face. She’s cut and recolored her hair and I swear it’ll be the death of me, as I turn and smile. The dark-chocolate pixie cut mixed with her silver-grey eyes packs a punch, and right into my solar plexus. But as she approaches, it’s her pale legs I can’t tear my attention from. I’ve never seen them before; from their lack of color, I'm assuming the sun hasn’t seen them for a while either. She’s changed into a white chiffon tunic dress, printed with yellow roses and … she's so stunning, it actually hurts. “Let's go!”

“That’s what you’re wear—ouch!" I yelp, as a very hard heel crushes my biggest toe.

“Oh,” Ashleigh cries, her hand touching my shoulder. I look up at her as she asks, “Was that your toe?" But her eyes fire a warning at me. “I am so sorry.”

“Subtle, Ash. Real subtle.” I murmur and she nods, mutters something about my advice, and goes to talk to Sean. I watch her walk away. “Julia, I only meant that you look amazing!”

She squints her eyes and I know she doesn’t believe me.

“Honestly, too amazing to waste it on an airplane.” I step forward. “I'm so proud of you, you know!"

“Why?”

“Because you stood up to Wayne. Not me, not Ashleigh. You. And you did that without anyone else there to back you up. You’ve already filed for divorce, put the house up for sale, and you’re moving forward. Moving on even, and starting a new life.”

“It’s only been a week,” she says dismissively. “And I’m only going to my parents. It’s hardly moving mountains.”

“You’ve got to start somewhere,” She nods, but doesn’t reply or seem very happy with those words of encouragement. I step a little closer, noticing the frazzle of fear in her eyes that I might get too close. Instead, I reach up and brush my fingers through the stunning new hair. I ignore everything my heart wants: to kiss her, and to ask her to stay here and build that new life with me. I can’t ask for that. Not yet.

“You'll meet someone new, and want to grow your family, which I know won’t be easy for you. And I know it doesn't seem like it now, but it will be really a good thing when it happens. Caleb will help you get through this if you let him."

“You don’t want to be the hero in my story?”

I gasp. My heart beat kicks up. I know how much courage that must have taken for her to ask, so I give her the truth. “Yes, very much so.”

I want to be that someone else. I want to be the father of her children. I want everything I either didn't want or dragged my feet over for those years with Izzy. I want it all with Julia, even though I’ve only known her for a matter of weeks. But I also know that in this moment it will be wrong of me not to let her go.

“You don't have to go.” I force my eyes shut. Then I say the words I don't want to say. “But you should. You need time, and the opportunity to learn who you are again, who you want to be, what you want to achieve in your life. And I fear if you stay with me, I won't be able to give you that time. I’m not strong enough to be your hero, Julia.”

She places her hand on mine as she turns her cheek into my palm. “Darryl,” she whispers, “I know I shouldn’t trust you, but I do. And I know I shouldn't trust the way you make me feel, or believe that what we might have will be different from what I had with Wayne. I shouldn’t even trust myself. But I do. Because with him, it was all about
his
job,
his
dreams,
his
wife and children.” She steps back, resting her hand on her tummy as she looks down. "It was never about us. Or me. Not really. But with you, it’s all about me, my needs, and the time I need. This feels so right to me.”

“It feels wrong to me,” I admit. “I came here as a psychiatrist, and whether you knew it or not, my purpose was to counsel a patient. I’ve broken so many rules, and if the foundation and the practice, and Ashleigh, didn’t rely on me or my reputation as a psychiatrist, I’d surrender my medical license right now.”

“She’s right, you know. You need to stop putting everyone else before yourself.” She pouts now, and it's adorable.

“I’ll always put your needs before mine.”

She’s someone else’s wife, and I know he didn’t deserve her, but no matter how right kissing her is, and holding her in my arms feels, being in love with her feels wrong. And I do love her. I have felt lost since I was fifteen years old, never felt like I’ve truly belonged. Nothing has ever felt right. Until I met her.

“I get it. You're pushing me away, because you don’t want to hurt me; it’s what you do.”

I smile.
Why does she understand me better than I understand myself?