THE GREAT BETRAYAL (34 page)

Luke walked back, moving to take Leslie into his arms, but she recoiled. “Don’t—you—dare.”

“Leslie—” Luke was desperate.

The doorbell rang. The intrusive sound jarred them both, and they flinched. Turning, Luke went downstairs to answer it.

It was the Palm Beach County Police Department.

They had come to question Kathryn about the disappearance of Holly Samson.

Chapter 54

After leaving Leslie’s, Dawn had been too keyed up to go home. She’d decided to go for a drive instead, cruising around the inner city, a Sade CD playing to calm her nerves.

What was going to happen now? That had been an unbelievable ordeal with Kate. She drove around, pondering the effect it would have on Leslie…and on Luke.

Dawn wondered if Luke would contact her tonight. She was still baffled by his disheveled appearance when he had come into the kitchen. What the heck was going on?

If he did call, she’d tell him the truth. She was no longer comfortable being his eyes, ears, and mouthpiece for all things Leslie. She was finally building a life of her own. She was getting married. And Brenda was right: Luke and Leslie Cavanaugh occupied too much of her time. What had she been thinking all these years? Their problems were just that—
their
problems.

It was nearly eleven thirty before Dawn finally pulled into the garage of her town home. As she left the car, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she should not have left Luke and Leslie’s. Shouldn’t have left that house. How would her friend cope with Kate’s terrible situation? Somehow, she couldn’t see Leslie shopping her way through this drama. She feared her friend was having a nervous breakdown…one that was years in the making.

So would it be a surprise when the call came the following morning?

It would leave Dawn speechless. Filled with emptiness. Filled with hurt. Filled with sadness. Stunned. She would feel a gamut of haunting emotions. But, oddly enough…

It would be no real surprise.

Chapter 55

They had not yet located Holly Samson. That was all the information the police would provide that evening.

Luke did all of the conversing with the officers. Leslie sat emotionless while her fourteen-year-old daughter gave the appalling details of her…work.

It had been going on for over six months—
right under their noses
. Leslie felt the accusatory looks the policeman gave she and Luke. She sank deeper and deeper within herself.

Once the police had left, Kathryn ran back up to her bedroom, despite Luke’s pleading with her to stay in the living room and talk to them. Tell them what she needed. Tell them why she had gotten herself wrapped up in such an awful thing.

“
Don’t worry,” Luke said quietly to Leslie. “I’ll go talk to her.”

Then Leslie watched as he climbed the stairs. He approached Kate’s door and knocked. “Honey, it’s me,” he said simply. “It’s Daddy.”

After a few beats the door opened. Luke walked in and it closed.

Leslie stood at the bottom of the stairs, staring up at the closed door.

Kate had let him in.

She went out back, into the garden. Funny how she’d never thought of it as
her
garden. It was just
the
garden.

She had always loved it out here. The flowers thrived in the South Floridian climate, rich in color and a suspended state of bloom. She and Dawn loved to come out here. Talk about everything. Talk about nothing.

She stood next to a rosebush, unable to move any farther. It seemed her limbs were paralyzed—paralyzed by what she’d heard her daughter tell the police.

Kathryn Cavanaugh had essentially become predator bait, right in their midst. She’d been posing nude for Lauren Samson’s trashy Web sites. But did she tell the officers the whole truth? Who knew? It was quite possible she’d been engaged in a lot more…The thought made Leslie sway in the moonlight.

Jeffrey
, she thought.
Why did you ever leave me
?
Sending my life down an entirely different path
.
What would’ve happened if you were still here
?
And we’d had our precious baby
…

Grace
.

The thought pierced Leslie’s chest. Grace and Luke. Grace and Luke.

Grace and Luke
.

Our daughter Grace
.
And my husband Luke
.

Covering her face with her hands, she wept. She felt like such an idiot. She’d bared her soul to that little ruthless bitch. She’d told her everything that mattered. She’d been a fool! Grace had hated her all along…hated her for leaving. Why hadn’t she just said so? Why trick Leslie into a false sense of bonding and connecting? Had Leslie deserved it?
Was
this to be her punishment for leaving her baby behind in Memphis and starting over without her?

Yes, of course it was. What else?

But…it was the only way she could’ve survived! After finding Jeff, she couldn’t comprehend life without him. How could she live without
him
?

Standing there, Leslie slowly realized the truth. It settled around her, giving her the answers she needed.

She
hadn’t
really lived without him, had she? She had gone on living, but she had never gone on with her life.
She
had died that day, too.

She had no idea who the girl who left Memphis had been—but she hadn’t been Leslie Phillips. And she’d been in no condition to care for Jeffrey’s child.

“
Leslie?” It was Luke. He’d come out into the garden and was just a few feet behind her. How long had she been standing out here? She could not tell. Time was extraneous to her now.

Leslie turned and stared at him. She was angry that he was disturbing her time with Jeffrey. He’d been doing it for years, damn him. It would have to stop. Angry tears of frustration washed her face. “You slept with my daughter, Luke Cavanaugh.
My
daughter
.
”

“A daughter you just met five years ago.”

Leslie flinched. “That’s supposed to make it okay for you to have an affair with her?”

“No. Of course not…but it doesn’t have to be as bad as you’re making it sound. If I could forgive you for keeping her and her father a corrosive secret all those years—”

She gasped. “
Forgive me
?” Her eyes widened. “You’ve never forgiven me, Luke. Our lives have been pure hell and torture ever since. You grew so distant…You know, I sensed you started having an affair…” Leslie paused. “But I never imagined”—she choked up—“my God, that you’d get involved with Grace…Please tell me when this began? How long have you been fucking Jeff’s daughter, Luke?”

He looked away.

Leslie’s face crumpled. She had sliced even herself with those vile words. “Tell me, damn you.”

“It started two Christmases ago—‘04. The first time…it happened at Christmas.”

Leslie’s eyes closed.
Christmas
.
Jesus
.

“She looked so like
you
, Leslie…And she knew what she was doing,” he added with a snort. “I guess she’s wanted to hurt you from day one—from the
very
beginning.”

“So you’re totally faultless, is that it? She got you on top of her at gunpoint, did she?”

“No. No gun to my head. But she seemed to notice the fissure in our marriage…and she came after it, Leslie. She came after
me
. Looking back on it now, I guess I thought we were both just caught up in an attraction, but…” He shook his head. “Now I realize that wasn’t it at all. She came after me. Deliberately.”

“She didn’t
notice
the problems, Luke.” Her voice was barely above a whisper. “She
knew
. I’ve been confiding in her. She’d become…like a best friend.” Her voice cracked. “My precious daughter. The child I’d run away from. The child I’d left behind. After all of that, I couldn’t believe how close we’d grown, how much she trusted me…how much she seemed to
need
me in her life.” Leslie folded her arms across her chest, weeping. “Oh, God. Jeff, you must be turning over in your grave!” she sobbed.

It was in that moment that they’d lost her.

And Luke would realize it only in hindsight.

Kathryn had lost her mother. And he had lost his wife.

If he’d ever really had her to begin with.

That night she went up into their bedroom and locked the door. In the garden, she had broken down into a mass of heartbreaking sobs, and Luke’s attempts to reach her, to get her to
hear
him, were useless.

Not knowing what to do, he decided it best to give her space. He’d go stay on the Intracoastal until she was—at the very least—able to look him in the eye. After all, Grace was her daughter.

To Luke she might feel like a stranger they’d just met a few years ago, but the hell of it was, she was his wife’s daughter—her flesh and blood. Leslie had a deep and abiding connection with her. She had also felt forgiven by her, as if, by some miracle, her terrible mistake of the past had been magically erased.

Now Leslie had to cope with a harsh, brutal reality: She’d never actually had Grace’s forgiveness after all. Grace had never really understood her choices.

So Grace had wanted to even the score.

Well, surely now the debt was paid in full.

Before leaving, Luke knocked on Kathryn’s door and poked his head in to say good-bye.

His daughter appeared as broken up as her mother was down the hall. God, what had she been through? Kate needed them both more than ever now. She had simply lost her sense of direction and gotten caught up, way in over her head, and now she was hurting. But after talking to her, Luke believed Kate would be all right. Although she was very upset with her mother, he knew that Kathryn craved Leslie’s love just as much as he did.

“Hey, honey,” he said, finding her curled up on her bed in the same position he’d left her some time ago. “I’m stepping out for a little while. Call me on my cell phone if you need me. You gonna be okay? Your mom’s in the bedroom.” He paused. “It’s okay to talk to her, you know, Katie. She’s really worried about you, too, and—”

“Oh, really?”

“Yes, really. And I think it would help her if you’d open up and talk to her about it. She’s feeling awfully hurt that you don’t want to talk to her.”

“I’ll be fine, Dad. But I’m not sure about talking to Mom right now. I’m not sure I’m up for it yet.”

“Just know that we love you, Katie. We
both
do—very much. We’ll talk more tomorrow. You get some rest. Everything’s going to work out. You’ll see.”

“Bye, Dad.”

“Bye, honey.”

Luke closed her bedroom door and laid his head against it.

Kathryn
.

She was the bond that would hold their family together.

The thought was unexpected, and sudden, and it caused a small bubble of hope to fill Luke’s chest as he stood there in the hallway outside his daughter’s door, just a few feet away from Leslie.

If they shared nothing else of intrinsic value, they certainly shared Kathryn. Because of her—and Luke knew how much Leslie truly loved her—he knew their marriage could survive his despicable fling with Grace.

He drove away from the house feeling emotionally drained but, oddly enough, cautiously optimistic. Their marriage was
not
a lost cause. It would survive this.

And Kathryn would be the savior.

Leslie could eventually grow to understand why he’d been drawn to Grace. Why he’d felt so insecure about Leslie’s reasons for marrying him. Hell, he would spend the rest of their lives
making
her understand.

She would realize that what he had needed all along was her…he’d needed his wife to open up to him, let him in. He’d needed her to trust him.
He
should’ve been the one she confided in the most, the one she turned to—the way she’d always turned to Dawn. The way she’d begun to turn to Grace.

Yes. She would understand that he’d
never
do anything this outrageous and idiotic again.