Crossing Lines: A gripping psychological thriller (Behind Closed Doors Book 3) (4 page)

“Excuse me?”

“Your sister would have done anything for you and her children. Even if that meant moving to the other side of the world.”

“Would she?” I almost laugh as I step towards her. She was as far over the line in giving parent-teacher advice as she was beneath her condescension to me. Instead of triggering shame as I suspect is her aim, it makes me find it necessary to remind the teacher for whom I’d once had a lot of respect, that she really doesn’t know anything about me and my family at all.

“In case you’ve missed any of the last ten years, Mrs. Rodriquez, and you’d have had to be living under a rock to have done so, I was raised by a lying, deceitful sonofabitch, who repeatedly abused my sister—emotionally, financially, physically and sexually!”

She gasps.

“He manipulated you, and me, and everyone else around her, then pushed us away, to isolate her from anyone who could see she needed help. And because of that, the Faith we all thought we knew really well—the amazing mother, the perfect wife, the heroic sister, the woman who effortlessly handled everything life threw at her—lied to you!” I watch as she swallows slowly. “She was not perfect. But she had you fooled. She had
me
fooled. She suffered at his hands for twenty-five years, and when she found the strength to get out, he chased after her. He terrorized Faith for years … and then he killed her!”

Maybe I shouldn’t be saying this in front of Lisa, but it was impossible to protect her from what happened to my sister and her father, at the hands of Calvin McKenzie.

“Mrs. Rodriquez, Calvin McKenzie killed my sister, and he was responsible for the crash that killed her husband three weeks later. And then, he abducted my nieces, so Faith could never rest in peace. Don’t tell me how I was raised, or what my sister wanted for her family, when
you
have no clue about anything. You can’t possibly know anything about my sister or what she wanted, and neither can I!”

The room falls silent around me. The homeroom teacher and principal stare, their mouths parted just a little. The realization that I’ve just offloaded my most private thoughts to strangers warms at the base of my neck. My shirt collar feels very tight, and the room lacks the suitable amount of oxygen required to breathe. I can’t bring myself to look at Lisa. I don’t want to see in her expression how much I’ve embarrassed her by losing my cool. But I have to.

“Lisa, I’m sorry, but Seattle is out of the question.” She leaps from her chair, grabbing at her bag on the floor as she moves. Her chair topples over, tripping me up as I attempt to go after her. “Lisa!” She’s halfway down the corridor before I’ve even made it through the door. “Lisa, where are you going?”

Without looking back, she tosses her hair over her shoulder and shouts, “As if you actually give a shit!”

Chapter Three

7
th
October 2012

WHERE THE HELL IS SHE?

I turn away from the clock as it chimes another hour closer to Monday and shake my head. Soon it will be another day since I argued with Lisa at school. I haven’t seen or heard from her since she left me standing in that empty corridor.

I flop hopelessly into the chair by the living-room window and stare out at the street. “Just sit tight,” the police family liaison officer kept saying before I sent her home. I know she was trying to rationalize my feelings of uselessness, but I wish she hadn't. “We’ve got plenty of men on the ground looking for her. We need you here at home in case she calls
.
”

The detective in charge of Faith's case has taken charge of Lisa’s missing person’s case as well. It never occurred to me that Calvin might be involved in Lisa’s disappearance when there is no evidence to suggest it.
She’s mad and it’s not unusual for her to disappear when she’s mad at me.
What was unusual this time, and the reason I called the police, was that I couldn’t find her. None of her friends have seen her since the principal sent for her, halfway through class on Friday.

The family liaison officer has been at the house for most of the weekend, which only makes this situation so much more frightening. The last time we had an officer with us ’round the clock had been the night Calvin had beaten Faith into the coma she never woke up from. I asked her to leave a few hours ago, to give us a little space. Georgia and Caleb are both home, and I don't need the extra hassle of a stranger asking questions about Faith that I can’t answer with them here. There were some things Faith never wanted them to know.

Seven years ago the police hadn't wanted me to go out searching for Caitlyn and Zoe either. They’d wanted me to wait patiently for any news then too. But experience has taught me that waiting doesn’t work. Patience is a waste of the valuable time crucial to bringing Lisa home. And my patience is wearing thin.

What if something has happened to Lisa? What if she can't call? What if that’s why I keep getting her voicemail when I call her cell phone, and it’s not the reason I originally thought, that she's just rejecting my calls because I said ‘no’ to Seattle?

My heart begins to gallop again. I’ve been putting the palpitations down to living off coffee, caffeine tablets, and energy drinks over the last few days, but I know it's not true. I can't live with this level of anxiety much longer. And it’s made a thousand times worse by Georgia and Caleb bickering like children. I’m starting to regret calling them after exhausting every other avenue trying to find Lisa. She wasn’t in Florida with Georgia, or Los Angeles with Caleb, or even at Hawthorne Creek with her Uncle Drew; I’d known that before I’d called any of them.

In the window’s reflection, I see Caleb carrying yet more coffee towards me and my gaze instantly falls to my cell.
11:09
. Jeez!
Where the hell is she?

I leap up, almost knocking Caleb over as I begin to pace. I have to do something with all this nervous energy before I kill someone.

“I don't know why you're being so nice to him, Caleb,” Georgia barks from the doorway. “You know this is his fault. If he'd have just agreed to let Lisa attend the school she wanted, none of this would have happened!”

“That’s why you're not her guardian,” Caleb retorts. “You can't give into a child’s every whim. She'll end up spoiled and bratty, and never grow into a perfectly rounded human being.”

“Dad gave me everything I wanted.”

“Case in point,” he quips.

“Look at me, Caleb!” she snaps again. “I'm one of the most respected post-trauma specialists in the world.”

“You're where you are because you're a McKenzie. You qualified just as Mom's life story hit the box office number one, and everyone thought the sun shone out of your—”

“Enough!” I shout.

They both look at me like I’ve grown a second head. Honestly, I don’t care if they argue anymore, but they insist on doing it as close to me as possible, and I can’t cope with it any longer. “Caleb, give your sister the respect she deserves. She wouldn’t have made it five years as a rising star in her field, especially if she was riding on the back of the family name alone.”

“I don’t need you to stand up for me.” Georgia sneers down her nose, as if I’ve insulted her rather than standing up for her. “I don’t need anything from—”

“All right!” This time my voice booms throughout the living room. “I get it. This is my fault. Everything is my fault. You've made your opinion plainly obvious, at every opportunity in the last seven years. And frankly, your opinion is not going to change the fact that Lisa is missing.” She begins to protest again.

“I said, enough!” My temper explodes. “You're right, Georgia. You're always right. So, just shut the hell up!”

I can’t deal with her. Not now. Not ever. When my oldest niece isn't ignoring me, I have to listen to her whine, complain, shout, or blame me for everything that’s happened. Ever. To top everything off, she's been on my case about something, every five goddamn minutes since she arrived yesterday morning.

Caleb promised he’d talk to her when he arrived. I knew what would happen the moment he did. It would piss her off, and she’d be worse than ever. But Caleb didn’t listen.

“Mom and John should never have left Lisa in your care! They should never have left you in charge of anything!” she shouts in my direction. The spiteful insult stings. “
I
could have looked after Lisa better than
you,
” she continues. “and
I
would have found Cate and Zoe by now too!”

“There’s a reason you could find them, though, isn’t there?” I spin around so fast I go a little dizzy. I shouldn’t tell her what I know, or what the police have revealed to me; that she’s still in contact with her miserable father, and they’re trying to track Calvin through the help she’s providing him. “Because you wouldn't have to look for them, would you?”

Georgia gasps, her dark eyes growing wide like a deer caught in the headlights. “I … I don't know what you're talking about.” Her gaze flickers from me to Caleb. The guilt sparks in her eyes and then fades as she hisses, “I refuse to talk to you, either of you, when you're being unreasonable like this!” She turns her back on us.

When I…? But she…? Oh no, she did not!
Years of professional training disintegrate in nanoseconds. The swell of anger floods my blood stream and steals my ability to breathe. A gush of vile heat pushes my hand high above my head as I roar with angry frustration. I’m ready to launch my cell phone across the room.

“D, don't!” A wall of muscle crashes into me and takes me out like a quarterback. Caleb wrestles the phone from my hand. “What if Lisa calls?”

I stop and think.
What if Lisa calls after I’ve smashed my cell?
Stupid.
I shake my head.
Stupid.
Short of slapping my hand against my forehead, I take a breath. Cooling air fills my lungs and the rage fades. My control slowly returns. My head bobs up and down, informing Caleb everything is back to normal. “Sorry.”

“What’s gotten into you?” Caleb's eyes widen. “Usually, you never let her get to you like this. I mean, tossing your cell through a window? Really?” He lifts a brow in my direction, “C’mon D, you're just not built that way.” He offers me back my cell phone. “You need to get some rest. I’ve never seen you this worked up, D. Not since you hit Dad thirteen years ago. And lord knows, you married a money-hungry dragon, so you've been pushed before!”

A money-hungry dragon? The insult at Izzy’s expense lifts the hair on my neck. “She was still the best damn thing that happened to me,” I reply quickly in her defense.

“You're damn right, she
was
.” He shrugs. “That was, until you had to grow up and she didn't want to. Being saddled with Dad's mess wasn't what she’d signed up for.”

Suddenly, I don’t feel like talking through anything with someone so biased against my wife—ex-wife, I correct myself.

If only I hadn’t—I push the thought away; it’s not the time or place to think about what I did to Izzy. She wouldn’t have left me if I’d given her another choice. But I hadn’t. “I wasn't saddled with anything,” I refute Caleb’s claims. “And that's not why she left me.”

“
She left
being the operative words. Time to move on.” His cell phone rings, and I’m grateful for the interruption. I've never asked for sympathy over the demise of my marriage, but a little understanding wouldn’t go unwelcome. But right now, I can’t feel sorry for myself over Izzy. My world fell apart three days ago when Lisa didn’t come home from school and now my breath stops as I wait for Caleb to look at the caller ID.
Is it her?

“It's Ashleigh.” He half grimaces and half smiles, as though I’m supposed to know whom Ashleigh is. “It’s late,” he says. “She wouldn’t call this late unless it was important. I have to take this.” He walks toward the door and then stops. “Izzy's moved on to someone else, D,” he reminds me. “It's time you did too.”

As he answers the call, Caleb's voice fades into the distance. I turn back to the window. But all I really see are Izzy’s soft, sympathetic, yet still so very serious eyes staring back at me from a memory. I close my eyes and try to shut her out. But her gentle smile tugs at the corner of her lips, though pain and fear creases around her eyes. The memory of her palm still warms my cheek, until she begs, “Darryl, please, don’t do this!”

As always, the sound of crashing glass chases away the memory of her loving touch. This is followed swiftly by flashes of blood draining in the pristine white sink. Her whimpers flood my core like a broken dam. I have to force my eyes open again, gasp for air as my chest squeezes my lungs. I did that. I made her fear me.

“Georgia's right.” My voice almost echoes in the empty room. “I’ve spectacularly failed at everything Faith ever asked of me.” Of course, no one replies. I’m exactly where I wanted to put myself after the night Izzy left. Alone.

A car door slams outside. A familiar voice cheers a thank you, and I spin around. I watch Lisa wave to whoever has brought her home and then she crosses the street. Two strides. That’s all it takes for me to reach the hallway, and swing the door open before Lisa has even made it to the top of the stairs to our front door.

“Where the fucking hell have you been?” I yell at the top of my voice.