Poison (23 page)

“Wow.”

“You remembered my reputation? Well it was true. And I was the last person in the world who should have had a baby. I was screwed up to say the least. Nothing changed about me until six years ago.”

“When you had Tim.”

“Yes.”

“What made you keep Tim?”

Cassie bristled. “Just because I had an abortion doesn’t mean I take it lightly or think it should be an easy option of birth control. It was different circumstances and different results.”

“I wish John had told me,” Nancy said simply.

“He told me he never told anyone. He didn’t do anything. He quietly hated me and went about his life.”

Nancy smiled sadly. “He’s forgiven you then?”

“No.”

“He loves you.”

“I don’t know. He doesn’t know.”

“But he is dating you?”

“For now. Yes.”

“He’s like that Cassie. He doesn’t say something until he has a hundred percent conviction behind it.”

“You can’t possibly want him to love me.”

“I don’t think his heart is open to my opinions. Besides he already is in love with you. Now I know what his conflict is. Thank you for telling me.”

Cassie regarded Nancy for a long drawn out moment, waiting for some reaction other then telling her thanks. “That’s it?”

“What?”

Cassie stood. “After what I just told you and what you know of my history, that’s all you have to say? I breeze into town, disrupt everyone’s life, and all you have to say to me is ‘thank you’ for telling you?”

Nancy smiled. “Did you leave anything out?”

“What?”

“Well you seem to be very honest about yourself and I wondered if you’d left anything out.”

“Sure. There’s ten years in there I had to screw up. You’re his mother, how could you possibly not be trying to get John to lock me out of this house and stay a hundred miles away from me?”

“Because he loves you.”

Cassie opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. No person had reacted to her like this before; a mixture of caring and humor, and very little shock.

“How can you trust me?”

Nancy smiled. “I’m glad it didn’t work out ten years ago. I wouldn’t want that Cassie Reeves with my son. But this Cassie, I’m willing to give a chance. And besides, I know John; he doesn’t waste his time on people who aren’t worth it.”

Tears welled up in her eyes. This time, not of fear or hurt, but of gratitude like she’d never experienced before. This woman, who should distrust and want Cassie out of her family’s life, was looking past all of Cassie’s mistakes to give her a chance; a really fair, open-armed kind of chance. Cassie had never had mothering, and ached for it just then. Someone to put their arms around her and forgive her all she’d ever done, to tell her all was going to be fine, even if it wasn’t. She hadn’t known it would feel this good to have another woman understand her; accept her, without any explanations or excuses for how she was.

“Thank you,” Cassie said, her voice cloudy with the tears.

Nancy reached out and put her hand over Cassie’s. “It’s kindness. Which I know you’ve not been on the receiving end of a lot. There’s nothing to thank me for. And I gather since you were willing to bear your soul to me just now, and how scared you were of my opinion, that you’re in love with John.”

“Yes.”

“Good. Then you don’t have to be afraid of me or Liam. Liam, well, he’ll never ask you much more than about the weather, so you wouldn’t have been afraid of him anyways, but now at least you don’t have to be afraid of me.”

“I can’t thank you enough,” Cassie said softly.

“You already did. And it seems to me knowing all this cleared the way for a good start between you and me. Not the girl Cassie, but the thirty-three year old Cassie before me now. And if I’m right you’d like to be around for a long time. And I’m beginning to think I wouldn’t mind that.”

Tears fell from Cassie eyes. She wiped at them with the back of her hand.

“Oh my I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

“No, no it’s all right. I’ve just never known a mother like you. I really haven’t.”

“Look in the mirror.”

Cassie’s tears increased. She turned away to hide them.

“Ah honey, you’ll get used to me,” Nancy said softly and came around the table wrapping an arm comfortably around Cassie’s shoulders.

“What did you say to her mom?” John entered the kitchen. He’d obviously just woken up. His hair was spiked and flattened in random sleep patterns. He’d thrown on jeans and a t-shirt.

Cassie quickly wiped at her eyes. “Wonderful things.”

John narrowed his eyes from his mom to Cassie.

Nancy smiled and set her hand on John’s forearm as she passed by him, saying softly, “I like her son. Be gentle with her, she needs a little more kindness than most.”

John looked up at his mother. “I get that mom.”

Nancy nodded then left discreetly. John walked behind Cassie and dropped an arm around her. “Tell me she didn’t make you cry from boredom at listening to her recipes, or worse, stories of us as babies.”

Cassie grimaced and punched him in the arm. “No. I told her the truth, and she accepted it. She accepted me. She’s kind and funny and wonderful. She was motherly to me, when she should be shooing me out of here with a gun.”

“What did you tell her?”

“Everything. I thought she knew.”

“About the abortion?”

“Yes.”

“What did she say?”

“Nothing really. Just listened and told me she’s glad it didn’t work out then because she wouldn’t want you dating that Cassie. But this one, now, gets a chance.”

John let out a breath. His face relaxed. He smiled. “Yeah well, I guess that sums it up for me too.”

Cassie stiffened and looked sharply at his face. “Really? I thought you couldn’t forgive me? I thought—”

“Different Cassie. Different time. Ten years ago. I see that now.”

She turned and met his gaze. The look in his eyes made her knees almost collapse.

“Do you mean it?”

“Yes Cassie, I mean it.”

She fell into his arms. Her hands around his neck held her up. The person who had most hated her, despised her, judged her, had forgiven who she’d been and what she’d done. Maybe…maybe now she could finally forgive herself.

****

What no one had prepared for was the fact that he was smarter than them all. He should have done this first. It was so simple and so brilliant. Literally, he had become the bogey man under the bed. He’d kept an eye on them all as they staked out the hospital.

How funny and easy people were to control. Hurt one, and they all acted as if it was them. They were scared and edgy now, and all because of him.

Only he knew what was next.

He controlled it all.

He entered the house while they were all at the hospital. No one had done a thorough check of it when they all came back from the hospital together. No one had given a thought that the house had been sitting there empty and unprotected. It was so simplistic, so basic; no one had considered he’d be right there waiting for them. Choosing his time, stalking his prey. Waiting for Cassie.

It was all inconvenient and annoying. It took patience and smarts. But he was always able to do what others couldn’t. He was able to focus on his goal and ignore any discomfort reaching that goal caused him.

He heard them come home. He heard muffled conversations and footsteps all evening until night finally quieted them. He used that time to sneak into the kitchen for some water and food no one would miss, stretching his legs. He laughed to himself. They were all tucked away in the house thinking the police outside would keep them safe. When he had come in the house before the police had even gotten there. And now here he stood, right in the kitchen, and he could do whatever he wanted to those inside the house. He was rather enjoying the agony that all this waiting was causing Cassie.

Yes, her time was coming.

He thought at first of using Tim against her. He was surprised by how few feelings he had for his own offspring. Tim was easily forgotten to him.

But Cassie…she was not. She was the reason he’d spent those years in prison. She was the reason he’d lost his job, and his life.

And she had to pay for that. And pay dearly.

And it was about time Cassie faced him for everything she’d ever done to him.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Cassie hadn’t known that life could be morphed from just one day. Her head reeled with all that had happened to her. She now had a name and face for her father. Harry and Estelle had called already checking on her and Tim. Their concern was out of Cassie’s realm of experience, and she was surprised how good it made her feel.

It was a shock to think that her son now had family in his life who cared about his well-being. Something she had never had.

And then there was John. The ease with which he talked to her, kidded her, touched her was new and exciting. Each gesture or word he bestowed toward her, she wrapped up in her head to pull out later and examine and feel again, like little presents she needed to gawk over.

Luke treated her like she imagined a brother would treat a sister. He tried to cheer her up and get her mind off Marcus and her fears about Tim. Nancy kept their interactions light and easy, but Cassie sensed that Nancy felt a tenderness, a motherly protectiveness that no one in Cassie’s life had toward her. And Cassie liked the feeling a lot.

It all scared her too. It seemed too good to be true, and way too good to be happening to her. Things like this, good things and people, rarely lasted in Cassie’s life. She was afraid that if she blinked wrong, the incredible Tyler family would disappear. She was paranoid, she knew, because so few decent people had come into her life.

But they were so easy and comfortable together and with her that she was beginning to wonder if maybe, just maybe this would work out.

She wanted to believe that Marcus would just forget her and leave. With the police involved now she wanted to believe he’d move on and get as far away from her as possible. That’s all she wanted. A chance to live her life quietly, freely, forever.

****

John had finally gone into work for the first time in a week. There was a new layer between him and Harry, one both of them were unsure what to do with.

John had a lot to do, and yet his thoughts kept falling back to Cassie. Between worrying about her, wondering if she was okay, and wondering what she was doing, he wasn’t getting a whole lot accomplished. They had been inseparable for a week, and now he was finding it surprisingly hard to be away from her. She was like a drug he couldn’t get enough of, a little taste and he now needed and craved more. He realized too that there was nothing lethal about Cassie; she was intoxicating, simply because she was Cassie.

She was so endearingly shocked by all that was so normal to him. His family, instead of burdening or annoying her, delighted her. She seemed to like them more than he did. She was so touched by every small gesture or nice word that it made him want to fill her up with them. He wanted to wipe away all the bad thoughts and years that had tormented her for so long.

And now he was dating her. It made him feel more about Tim too. Each time Tim wanted to play or asked questions, he was compelled to answer and play to make up for the years Tim didn’t have that. John began to wonder what would happen if Cassie and he did work out. The possibility of Tim being his seemed to have taken seed in his brain and blossomed to a flower he didn’t want to cut out. He welcomed it in fact. Which intimidated him because it was all so fast and so soon. Could this be the real thing? And did he want it to be?

****

The note was lying on John’s bed, thrown carelessly in the middle of it. Cassie’s heart felt like a stone had been thrown against it. She’d made the bed that morning. There had been nothing there. She was sure of that.

Her hand shook as she reached across the smooth bedspread to grab the sheet of paper. She recognized the handwriting. There was no mistaking that Marcus Leary had been in there, and could be in there now. Cassie frantically searched, she was sure Marcus would step out of the closet or shower stall and kill her right there, here and now, with everyone else downstairs and her alone up in this room.

But no one was there. Just her and the note. The note that said her son was going to die if she didn’t come to his specified meeting spot.

The note dropped to the floor. She fell to her knees before it, grabbing at it with her sweat-slick, shaking hands. Her. Son. Would. Die. Marcus had out and out said her son would die.

He had been inside the house. Today. He could have taken Tim. Cassie could hear Tim downstairs, laughing and talking with Kelly. Her heart skipped. No. No. No. She’d die ten times over before she’d let Marcus near Tim.

All the promises she made were easy to break when she realized how easily Marcus could have gotten to Tim today. She didn’t know how Marcus had come into what was supposed to be a protected house, but he had done it. And with that the chilling realization that there was no escaping Marcus Leary washed over her. There had never been, she supposed, any real hope of escaping her past.

Cassie crumpled the note. Her hands shook. Her stomach was in tight knots. She wanted to call John, his parents, the police. But Tim. There was Tim. And nothing had changed for her there; she’d do anything to keep him safe from Marcus. And that was her resolve. That was her one truth. She stood up slowly, her legs trembling. She took in a deep breath as she headed downstairs.

****

The road to the North Head Lighthouse was as creepy as any setting in a horror movie, especially at four o’clock in March, on a gray day, with a dripping forest hugging the two lane twisting road, and rain showers starting and stopping at will. The road was slick and black from water, her car splashed and skidded through the thick muddy puddles. Her hands were as slick with sweat as the road was wet. She gripped the steering wheel frantically as she drove toward the monster at the end of the road.

She drove through the park; the same one John had shown her and Tim on that brilliant sunny day not so long ago. But now that day seemed like a hazy safe memory, like a kid’s memory of a long ago Christmas. She came to the parking lot, which was empty. She parked and chills coursed through her. Her gut screamed at her to flip the car into reverse and peel out of there, driving hard and fast away, still safe and dry. But she didn’t. She stopped and shut the car off. She hesitated before pulling the key out. She looked around. Where was Marcus’s car? Where was he exactly? Was he going to come over and get in her car? Jump out from behind one of the trees? What the hell was he going to do to her?