Living Lies (24 page)

“You said you believed you were meant to be with her when she was about sixteen. Why did you wait to act on your feelings?”

He chuckled. “She was only sixteen. I’m not a monster.”

Her cheek and mouth still ached from the pummeling he’d given at the side of the road. Not to mention when he’d knocked to the floor just now. Or tackled her in the snow like a football player.

No, you’re not a monster. Now, please continue to explain how you came to murder my sister.

“I thought once she finished university, I would speak to her. I had my own family to think of. Garret and Erin would be married by then and I would no longer need to worry about my daughter, she’d be taken care of.” His voice had turned conversational, as if he enjoyed having someone to tell at last. Someone he could voice his rationalizations to aloud.

“What about Joan, your wife?”

“Joan would understand, once I explained things to her.”

And if she didn’t, the poor woman probably would have found herself buried in someone’s basement too.

“Michelle hadn’t finished school when you started sending the flowers and cards,” Haley said.

“I had to move forward sooner than I’d planned. She and Williams were getting serious, and I’d heard he might propose. That couldn’t happen. She was meant for me.”

His words sent a shiver down her spine. He must have assumed from the minute he told Michelle how he felt they would live happily ever after. He never considered that Michelle would reject him. Her feelings had never been a factor. For Nate, she wasn’t even a real person, just a player in a drama where he was the star. Now Haley filled Michelle’s role.

“When she told you she was pregnant, did you realize she wasn’t meant to be yours after all?”

Nate frowned. Damn, that had sounded entirely too flip. She had to watch her temper.

“I knew about her and Lawson,” Nate said. The vehemence with which he spoke Dean’s name alarmed her. Was Dean already dead? She struggled to push away the image of his cold empty car. If she could get to the gun, she could make Nate tell her what happened to Dean. “I knew he was trash. I told your father not to hire him, but your father wouldn’t listen, and look where it got him. Everyone knew Michelle was going behind Williams’s back and messing with Lawson. She denied it, of course, once she had found herself knocked up. Couldn’t have her golden boy knowing that she was sleeping around.”

“How do you know this?” Haley asked trying to seem curious rather than disgusted. His smile had gone and his voice had turned furious. A dark malignancy glowed in his eyes.

“She told me when I picked her up,” Nate said. “I had been following her for some time, waiting for the right moment for us to talk. I needed to tell her how I felt. When I saw her walking away from the Williams’s place, I knew the time had come.”

Talk about history repeating itself.

“So you stopped,” Haley said, almost to herself. “And of course, she wouldn’t have hesitated accepting a ride from you. You were our father’s friend. She would have been relieved to see you.”

“Haley,” Nate said. “Don’t do this to yourself. Michelle was not the person you thought she was. She told me right there in the truck about the mess she was in. How Williams wouldn’t have her because he knew about her carrying on with Lawson.”

“She would have been afraid, and confiding in you as a friend.”

“Don’t try and turn this around on me,” Nate shouted. “I would have taken her still, loved her, but she wouldn’t have me. Williams and Lawson had both abandoned her, and she wouldn’t have me. A slut like that and she wouldn’t have me.”

“Nothing happened with her and Dean after they broke up,” Haley snapped, anger and fear swirling in her brain and pushing her toward the edge. “It was a rumor spread by Lara Kramer and your own daughter.”

“Is that what he told you?” Nate jumped off the couch. His body, taut and trembling with fury, towered over her. Bright red blotches spread out over his face and his eyes nearly bulged from their sockets. “Is that what he told you, to worm his way into your bed? Well, not to worry, he’ll get his.”

Get, not got. A thin shaft of hope speared her heart. Could Dean still be alive?

“Dean’s innocent. He had nothing to do with Michelle.” She swallowed back the bile rising in her throat. “You should let him go. I didn’t know how you felt before, but I do now. We can be together, but you need to let Dean go. Where is he?”

“We can be together?” His eyes narrowed.

She nodded. “But let Dean go. Is he here in the house? In one of the rooms back there?”

“I love you, Haley.” Then in a single almost graceful move, Nate turned and swept the gun from the table, leveling the barrel at her face. “Why don’t I take you to Dean.”

Haley’s heart ceased to be beat. She closed her eyes tightly and waited to die.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Garret stood frozen in place unable to move, speak or even think. Around him the world continued on. Erin gasped in shock and Paige smiled triumphantly before racing down the stairs with Erin’s keys. Both women seemed unaware that the air had been sucked out of the space around him. That he now stood paralyzed in a lifeless, soundless vacuum, watching them from a void.

The front door slammed shut with a resounding whack and suddenly he was back. Sound, thought and movement rushed over him and through him, like a wave crashing against the shore, so powerful he nearly had to take a step back to steady himself.

“Garret,” Erin said. She wanted something from him. What, he wasn’t sure. He felt drunk. The room spun and only he and Erin remained still.

“You knew,” he said. At least he thought it was him. The voice, dry and hoarse, as if unused for years, sounded unfamiliar.

“Please, Garret.” Erin choked back a sob.

“How could you do it? All these years. You were there. You saw what it did to my family, to my mother and all along you knew.”

“So many times I wanted to tell you,” Erin said. “I love you. It hurt me to see you go through that. I never wanted to lie to you.”

“Then why did you?” The hardness in his voice made her take a step back, a dark thrill raced through him. The haze muddling his mind was lifting, and only black fury remained.

“I couldn’t, he was my father.”

“He murdered my sister,” Garret exploded.

Big glassy tears ran down her cheeks, and he wanted to hit her. “It was an accident. He didn’t mean to kill her.”

“He has Haley now?”

She nodded.

“Accident my ass,” he muttered pushing past his wife. Blindly, she reached for him. Her hands, like claws, grasped the front of his shirt, twisting the material in her tightly gripped fists. Garret looked into her red, swollen eyes and something inside him snapped.

He hated her. This woman he once loved and cherished, with whom he shared children and a home. In an instant, she had killed his love and tore apart all they shared. Everything he depended on, gone in a single moment. Oddly, he hated her for that more than the secret she’d kept all this time.

He raised his hands from his sides slowly. The temptation to wrap them around her neck and squeeze was almost unbearable, but instead, he gripped her wrists and pulled her clutching fingers from him. He turned on his heel and started downstairs.

“Garret,” she sobbed, but wisely didn’t follow.

Once outside, both Paige and his SUV were gone. He would try the van, but he had no idea how far he would get in the weather. He went back inside and called the police from the phone in the kitchen, ignoring their instructions to stay where he was.

Was there still time for Haley? He couldn’t go through losing another sister, and lose his wife at the same time.

Paige gripped the steering wheel until her hands ached. Garret’s truck allowed for more control on the slick road and greater speed, but when she braked, the SUV stopped just like any other car. So she tried to stop as little as possible. Fortunately, the storm was keeping most people at home and off the roads. Particularly the back roads. Only she was crazy enough to be using them on a night like this. Crazy or desperate. Both really.

She should have called the police before she left, but the all-consuming sense that time was ticking and every second counted kept her from making decisions based on common sense. If she hadn’t left her cell phone in her car, this wouldn’t be an issue. She missed her tiny technological wonder the same way she would an appendage had someone come along and lopped it off.

The road north of Hareton was winding and hilly, treacherous even in Garret’s SUV. The falling snow turned her visibility to slightly better than nothing. She had missed Old Base Road twice. A thick layer of snow clung to the green sign, hiding the road’s name.

The truck’s headlights fell on a silver mailbox, poking through a mound of loose snow. Excitement leapt inside her. This could be it. She squinted to read the number. This was it.

She swung the wheel and the SUV fishtailed slightly as she started up the drive. She straightened out with little effort. The trees closed in around the truck, their branches scraping the sides like grasping fingers, scraping her nerves raw.

Within seconds, the woods fell away to a flat open expanse of field covered in a blanket of pristine snow. The outline of something huge loomed in the darkness before her. A large hulking mass, rising out of the road. Then her headlights hit, illuminating faded red paint and the dents caused by years of use. Nate Johnson’s truck teetered on a snow bank.

Paige stopped a few feet from the truck and climbed out. The snow fell in a thick curtain, but the wind had died down some, taking the bite from the air. Deep impressions in the snow led away from the truck into the field.

Cursing, she plowed her way into the deep snow, following the half-buried footprints. They ended abruptly nearly thirty feet from the driveway. Here the snow was smooth and untouched except for a much larger imprint, as big as a body.

Paige lifted her gaze to the darkened field around her. Just ahead, the ground sloped toward a line of trees. A pale light glowed from between their branches. A house. Maybe Haley had gotten away. She considered the body size imprint in the snow and shivered. Maybe not.

Her heart pounded a wild rhythm against her chest. She turned and started toward her car, then stopped mid-stride. She could call the police from the house. This could be her last chance to do so. But the feeling that she needed to hurry, that time was slipping away, kept her moving toward the driveway.

A fresh wave of fear washed over her, cold and numbing. Her pace quickened with every step until she was running. Every second seemed to matter, and she couldn’t ignore the feeling that there were precious few left.

She jumped the snow bank, clearing the hump easily, but slipped on the snowy drive and landed hard on her backside. Her teeth clicked together with her tongue in between.

The warm metallic flavor of her own blood filled her mouth. She spat a red wad into the snow. Fabulous. Ignoring her throbbing tongue, she scrambled to her feet and ran toward the truck. As her hand closed around the cold metal handle, a shot rang out, echoing in the quiet stillness like a thunder crack.

Paige’s knees buckled and she sank down into the snow. Time was up.

How long Nate held the gun pointed at her, Haley didn’t know. She might have stood frozen, her extremities cold and paralyzed, for years. Nate dropped his arm, but before she could take a breath he was next to her, grabbing her arm and yanking her outside. His fingers dug painfully into her flesh.

“You disappointed me,” he muttered. That same blank expression he wore when he knocked her out next to the highway slid over his features.

He was going to kill her. If not by gun, then perhaps something more personal. He’d slit Michelle’s throat, maybe he needed a knife. She swallowed back her rising panic.

With the gun pushed hard against her kidney, he shoved her toward the barn, releasing her only long enough to open the door. She could run now, this might be her last chance.

As if reading her mind, Nate growled, “Don’t move or I’ll kill you right here, and Lawson too.”

Dean was alive, but for how long? How long did either of them have? Was Nate taking her to him? Would he kill them together? There had to be a way to get the gun from him. Maybe charge him, catch him by surprise.

Nate thrust her into the darkened barn, pitch black except for the small pool of light at the door. She stumbled over the uneven floor. A match scraped and sparked from behind her. She turned as Nate ignited a thin propane lamp.

“Move.” Nate shoved her again, sending her stumbling into the side of a stall. The rakes and shovel leaning there clattered to the ground. She caught her balance just before she joined them.

Something moved at the corner of her eye. She turned to see Dean, tied and gagged, struggling to pull himself to his knees.

“Oh God,” she gasped. Blood streaked his ashen face, stemming from the back of his head where his hair was thick and matted. More blood smeared his hands and forearms, from where he’d been fighting the rope binding his wrists.

Instinctively, she took a step toward him, but Nate grabbed her arm and yanked her back. Dean’s eyes filled with fury and fear, he muttered something unintelligible from around the gag. As he struggled against the ropes, a thin stream of blood dripped from his fingers.

“Don’t!” she shouted. He lifted his gaze and met hers. “I’m okay.” Though tears pricked her eyes for the first time since she woke to find herself in Nate’s house. He’d kill them both and no one would see either of them again.

“Let him go,” Haley said, turning to Nate. He ignored her, staring blindly at the man in front of him. “Please let him go. He has nothing do with this. I told you, we can be together.” And still he didn’t respond.

Haley glanced around the barn desperate for a way out. Nate’s lantern only illuminated a small circle around them. The rest of the barn remained in shadow.

Her gaze lit on the shovel she’d fallen into. Maybe she could knock him out with the shovel.

Nate turned on her suddenly and she took an involuntary step back nearly tumbling over the shovel and rakes again.

“Do you love him, Haley?” Nate asked. Haley’s breathing turned rapid and shallow. A trick question. No matter how she answered he would kill Dean. She had to stall for time. If she could just bend and grab the shovel. She needed to distract him.

“Answer me,” he shouted.

“Let him go. I’ll do whatever you want, just let him go.”

“You’re the same as her. You’re nothing like Darren.” Nate said, his voice choked with emotion. “I thought you were good. I loved you.”

“Please let him go,” she whispered.

Without another word, he turned and fired the gun. Dean had pulled himself to his knees, and was edging closer. The bullet caught him in the side and knocked him backward to the floor. His shirt stained red almost instantly.

“No!” The scream, primal and ferocious, ripped from her lips. She bent and gripped the shovel’s wood handle, swinging wide, with all her fear and hate. The flat side of the spade struck his face and his nose exploded in a mass of bloody flesh. He stumbled back, turning a little, and she swung again, catching the side of his head. He fell to the ground, and the gun spun uselessly into the shadows.

He didn’t get up again.

She dropped the shovel from her trembling fingers, the metal spade clanged in the quiet when it hit the ground. Shaking all over, tears filling her eyes, she went to Dean.

He lay where he fell, his breath coming in quick ragged gasps. Blood soaked shirtfront, but he was still alive. How long could she keep him that way?

Gently, she worked the gag free from his mouth. She had no car, no way out of this hellhole. She needed to call 911, but how long until someone finally showed up?

“You’re okay.”

Haley jumped at the sound of Paige’s voice. Her sister rushed over and fell to her knees, throwing her arms around her, squeezing the breath from Haley’s lungs. “I thought—oh my, God, I thought—”

“He’s shot,” Haley said, on a sob. She’d never been so grateful to see anyone in her life. “Nate shot him. We have to get him to a hospital.”

“Oh, Christ.” Paige shrugged out of her coat and handed it to Haley. “Put this over the wound. Hopefully, it will stem some of the bleeding while I get him untied.”

Haley pressed her sister’s jacket over Dean’s stomach while Paige struggled to loosen the stiff ropes from his ankles.

“I’ve got to lift him to get at his hands,” Paige said. Haley nodded. She pressed the coat to Dean with one hand while she helped Paige lift with the other.

“He’s bleeding back here too,” Paige said. “The bullet must have passed through him.”

“Is that good or bad?”

“Am I a doctor?” Paige snapped. “Sorry, I’m freaked.”

Haley nodded. “Can you hold him by yourself?”

“Yeah.”

Haley sat back and pulled off her still damp sweater, leaving her in a thin white T-shirt. She handed the sweater to Paige. “Put this under him.”

“You’ll freeze,” Paige said. Haley shrugged and pressed down once more on the coat while Paige lowered Dean back to the ground. His eyes fluttered open and fixed on Haley.

“You were shot,” she told him. “But you’re going to be all right. Paige is here, and we’re going to get you to a hospital.”

“Nate?” he asked.

Haley glanced over her shoulder at the man lying perfectly still where he had fallen. The side of his head was swollen where she’d hit him, and a round blue-black bruise had formed. Blood trickled from his ear and nose.

With huge eyes, Paige crawled over to him and pressed her finger to his neck, then his wrist. She pulled her hair away from her ear and tilted her head so her ear was inches away from his mangled and bloody nose.

“I think he’s dead.”

Haley’s insides clenched. “Good.”

“Can you stand if we help you?” Paige asked, crawling toward them. “I’ve got Garret’s truck outside.”

Dean nodded and both Paige and Haley helped him to his feet. He leaned heavily on them, each shouldering his weight. As they left the barn, the high-pitched whine of distant sirens rose up from the night, growing steadily louder.

“Garret must have called the police. Hopefully, paramedics too,” Paige said.

Haley nodded, relief crashing into her and leaving her shaking. It was over. After twelve years it was finally over.