“Sounds like a real charmer,” he scowled.
“Agreed. I jumped at the offer without hesitation, and he vowed to never mention the Dreser name again.”
“What happen to the baby?”
I buried my face in my hands. “Stillborn.”
“I’m sorry.” He crossed the room in two strides and pulled me into his arms again. I fought the overwhelming dread that usually consumed me whenever I thought about my baby. I wanted to stay focused, make sure Cole understood why I did what I did, no matter how stupid.
Cole wiped the sweat from his brow again. “It’s unbearably hot in here. I need a drink.” He released me and I padded to the kitchen, gathering a pitcher of lemonade from the fridge and two glasses from the dishwasher.
“Would you like some lemonade?”
He nodded, asking for a couple aspirin for his headache. A headache my selfishness caused. I filled both glass with ice and the drink. He downed his in two swallows, along with the medicine. Silently, I refilled his glass before sitting on the counter next to the sink.
“The baby wasn’t due for three weeks,” I said softly. “We’d moved to New Mexico to avoid be captured by the police. I’d just learned that Alan was dead. The news threw Daddy into a tailspin and he had to be rushed to the hospital. They discovered he had emphysema and gave him six weeks, tops, to live. I was a wreck. Birdie worried about me. She put me right to bed. I couldn’t eat or sleep. I developed a fever, and my body ached to the bone. Birdie did everything she could to help me. I drank so many different herbal teas, even the thought of drinking another glass made me nauseous.
“I’m guessing all of Birdie’s concoctions stimulated me into labor. In unbelievable agony, I begged her to stop the pain. She made me even more tea then.”
“If you were in labor, why didn’t you go to the hospital?” Cole asked, draining his glass again.
“I didn’t want to have my baby in a hospital. Birdie’s a certified midwife. She delivered me. She took care of my mother and her diabetes. I wanted to deliver at home, with Birdie by my side.”
“So what happened?” He set his glass in the sink.
“I don’t remember most of it. A particularly strong tea she gave me to ease the fever didn’t sit well. I grew dizzy, disorientated. I even had some crazy hallucinations. Birdie kept telling me to push even when I thought I was. I gave one big push, and then passed out. When I woke up two days later, she told me the baby was stillborn. Turns out I had a massive infection which was causing the pain and the fever. Birdie guessed it must have killed the baby, too.”
“That had to be difficult.” Even though he offered me comforting words, his voice carried detachment. His anger over what I’d done to him seemed to have trumped his compassion.
“In my delirium, I imagined hearing the baby cry. I kept reaching for her, only she wasn’t there. Then Daddy came home from the hospital with the news about his emphysema and that he only had six weeks to live. He denied it, of course. So did I. He looked too good. Besides, I knew his determination. He wasn’t about to roll over and die just because some doctor told him he had six weeks left.
“He once again demanded I help with his business. He and Birdie had a huge fight that night and he threw her out. Earlier in the day, I’d taken some money from Daddy’s portable safe, and a necklace of my mother’s and after he fell asleep, I left. I caught the first plane to Mexico City and went straight to my aunt’s house. So weak at that point, she put me right to bed. I stayed there for two weeks before I had the strength to get up again.”
“How long did you stay in Mexico?” he asked, leaning against the counter, his eyes focusing on anything but me.
I explained about my aunt hiding me, and my father’s threat to harm her if I didn’t return with him when he eventually did find me.
“He’d moved into a small dumpy apartment over a gas station by then, claiming we had no money because the cops who killed my brothers embezzled it all.” I reached out to touch Cole, he stepped back. I set my hands on the counter next to me, gripping the edge.
“After spending time with Maggie, and helping her pick out a wedding dress, I suspected Daddy hadn’t been honest with me. When I met Seth, I knew something was wrong. I confronted Daddy over the phone about my suspicions, but he insisted I was wrong and I’d better stick to the plan if I wanted my freedom.” Cole now glared at the floor. “I’m sorry. Please tell me I’m forgiven. Please tell me we still have a chance.”
“I just need some space,” he reiterated, rubbing the back of his neck.
I nodded, wiping the dampness from my forehead.
A pounding on the door jolted me and I jumped down from the counter. “I’ll bet I know who that is,” he said, frowning. “Prepare yourself. Booker’s learned who you are. He’s livid, and that’s putting it mildly. He’s bringing you in for questioning.”
My eyes flew open wide. “You already knew about everything? Why did you let me babble on like this?”
“I wanted to hear it from you. I wanted to know if you’d tell me the truth.” He shrugged. “For what it’s worth, I do believe you.”
More pounding echoed through my apartment. “I’ll answer that on my way out.” Cole stopped and turned back. “I do love you, Lilah.” Tears welled in his eyes as he spoke.
“I love you more,” I replied, my voice a mere whisper.
He said nothing.
Chapter 22
Cole
“I believe her.” Heaven help me, but I did, despite the gut-wrenching pain of deception that swamped me.
“Cole, are you out of your mind?” Seth yelled. “Please tell me you’re drunk.” He rubbed his forehead and paced into the kitchen.
I walked the streets for two hours before going over to Seth’s. I needed to clear my head. I had to think. I believed her, that much I knew, but the pain of being deceived still rode me hard.
“Why are you so sure?” Maggie asked, covering my hand with hers.
“She came clean about everything and more. I didn’t say a thing, just showed up at her apartment and she opened the door, red-faced from crying. I didn’t say anything about what Booker told us, she just purged. It was pure, raw emotion.”
“Cole, I’ve seen it a thousand times over. They always sound convincing.” Seth slammed a silver pot onto the stove. Cooking in the middle of the night. A clear sign of his anger.
“I told you, I didn’t prompt this. She just spilled everything,” I said, trying to remain calm.
“I think I’m siding with Cole on this,” Maggie said through a scrunched face, obviously preparing for Seth’s outrage—which she got.
“You what? Have you forgotten what these creeps did to us? To you?” He pinched his eyes shut and slapped his hands down on the counter.
“Of course I haven’t forgotten, but what Lilah says makes sense. Seth, she’s had plenty of opportunities to kill me. If that’s really her goal, then why hasn’t she?” Maggie walked over next to him and wrapped her arms around his waist.
“How do you know she hasn’t tried? Maybe she’s failed several times. Ever think of that? Remember how inept her brothers were?” He pulled away and moved over to the fridge, grabbing a carton of eggs.
“I wasn’t going to tell you about this, but when we were shopping for my wedding dress, we ran into Hillary as we left the store. You know Hillary, she threw her usual visceral diatribe at me, and Lilah jumped to my defense.”
“That’s your reason for believing her? She defended you,” Seth said, using a fork to violently abuse the eggs he’d cracked into a bowl. “Maybe she was trying to endear herself to you so you’d defend her when the time came.”
“There’s more,” she said. Seth dropped his fork into the eggs and pinched the bridge of his nose. “As we walked across the parking lot,” she continued, “I didn’t see a small sports car come winging around the corner heading directly for me. She pulled me back just in time.” Maggie came and sat down next to me. “If she wanted me dea
d, she could have let the car do the deed, then there’d be one less she’d have to kill, and no one would be the wiser.”
“Maggie—”
“Seth, she told Cole about the account numbers and that she’d memorized Booker’s security code. She’s had those numbers for a while now. Why hasn’t she used them?”
“They were for when her blood thirsty father came to town. Of course she wouldn’t use them yet,” he pointed out.
“Then why did she tell Cole about them? No one knew she had them. No one. She had no reason to come clean about it.” Maggie looked at me. “The more I think about this, the more I see why you believe her.”
“Why’s everyone up so late?” Booker walked into the kitchen, startling me. I hadn’t heard him come in. I dropped my head against the back of the chair. I didn’t want to see him. When I left Lilah’s apartment I didn’t even acknowledge him as I left.
“Hey, Book. Did you interrogate Lilah yet?” Seth asked, adding cheese to the eggs and pouring them into a black skillet.
“Yup. She gave me an outdated file of information on her dad she’d supposedly gotten from her nanny. She didn’t give us much more than what we already had. How convenient,” he said acerbically. “The photos are rather grainy, but they may be useful, except I suspect Dreser gave them to her because he no longer uses those particular disguises, so really, we didn’t get much of anything from Delilah.”
“Lilah. She goes by Lilah,” I said. Booker shrugged.
“You didn’t interview her for long,” Seth said, adding some kind of spices to the bowl.
“We’re not done.” Booker walked over to the stove. “I left her in the interrogation room, kind of like letting the pot simmer a bit. I’ll go back in and try to get the truth out of her. Hopefully she’ll slip up and we’ll get something useful from her when she’s tired.”
“Is that really necessary? It’s almost one in the morning,” I complained, standing and shoving the chair under the table.
“Why do you care?” Booker looked at me, his brow furrowed in confusion. Maggie walked over next to Seth who’d stopped mixing the eggs. We all knew Booker well enough to know what was coming when I answered.
“I believe her.”
Booker’s nostrils flared as he drew in a slow, deep breath. The calm before the storm. “She bats those big brown eyes at you and you take the bait, hook, line, and sinker.” The animosity poured off him. His jaw twitched as he clinched it. His fists rolled into tight balls.
“Book, she was up front with me. I didn’t even have to ask her. I just said hello and she told me everything. She was a pawn. When I got to her apartment, she was already sketching the drawings for you.”
He shook his head. “No offense, Mr. Pure of Heart,” he said, voice low, “but you’d believe the devil if he told you he’d ‘seen the light’ and was changing his ways. Delilah’s a Dreser. Her father’s a smuggler, as were her brothers. The whole lot are evil. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”
“Enough with the idioms, Booker. I’m telling you, she’s not like them,” I insisted. Despite my anger, I knew she was being honest.
“Why? Because she told you she was telling the truth?” he shouted. “Do you remember when we brought Maggie to the ER just over three years ago? Do you remember her bruised and broken body courtesy of Delilah’s nut job brother?” He spun away, shoving his hand through his hair.
“I’ll never forget it, Booker. But Lilah is not Alan, or her father for that matter. She had nothing to do with what happened back then. You’re punishing her for their actions. That’s unfair.”
He wheeled around, closing the space between us in two strides. “You want to talk about unfair? Let’s talk about all the people who are murdered each year at the hands of people like her father. I see the dead bodies, mutilated and beaten to death. Some are innocent, just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Others are so desperately hooked on drugs they’ll do anything to get more, including double-crossing drug lords like her dad.” Booker stepped closer. “You live in your safe little world, Cole. People come in the hospital sick and miserable. You fix them up and send them home on the mend and happy. My job isn’t so pretty. I see what happens when people like the Dresers feed off the desperate. Or worse, they lace goodies with their poison and give it to children, hoping to get them addicted.”
“Book, she’s innocent, and I’m standing by her.”
“Wait, are you telling me you’re still going to date her?” he asked incredulously.
“I’m angry about the lies, but I’m not ready to call it quits just yet either. I need to sort through everything. I need some time.”
Booker’s eyes grew wide. “So while I’m running around trying to protect the people I love—and thought you did as well—you’re taking time out to DTR with Dreser, daughter of a known drug smuggler?” he asked, his jaw tight.
“DTR?” I asked, furious at his intimation that I wasn’t taking the threat seriously, or that I didn’t love Seth and Maggie as much as he did.
“It means define the relationship,” Maggie explained, stepping between us. “Let me say something, Booker. I don’t believe she’s here to hurt us. If she was, she would have done something by now. It doesn’t make sense.”
“Mags makes a good point,” I said. “Lilah could have hurt any one of us at any given time. What’s she waiting for?”
“She’s a Dreser! Need I remind you of how they operate? Should I pull up the files of those dead girls from three and a half years ago? If memory serves me, you saved the life of one after she’d been brutalized by Delilah’s brother,” Booker pointed out needlessly.
“Alan,” Maggie said softly.
“What?” Booker asked.
“It was Alan who had the knife fetish. And if I can move past it, so can you,” she said firmly. “People judged me all the time because of my mother. I was made fun of because of her drinking problem. I hated it. I’m not going to throw Lilah under the bus on speculation. Tomorrow I’m going over to talk with her, listen to her side of things.” She looked at her husband who shook his head.
“You’re not going over there,” Seth stated. He tossed the pan of eggs into the sink, uneaten.
Booker laughed. “Yeah, when pigs fly you’re going over there.” He calmly walked over to the table and sat down.
“You’re not my father, so butt out,” she ordered Booker before turning to Seth. “And I’m your wife, not your property, so I’ll do what I want.” She folded her arms defiantly.
“You can yell at me all you want, Magpie, but you’re not going over there. I’ll handcuff you to the table if I have to.” Booker smiled at her.
“Butt out!” yelled both Seth and Maggie.
“Maggie, please,” Seth begged. “If anything happens to you, I’ll…” He slammed his eyes shut, his shoulders slumped.
She walked over and wrapped her arms around him. “Seth, nothing’s going to happen to me. I don’t believe she’s here to hurt us.” At his stubborn headshake she rubbed his arms. “How about I meet her in a public place; will that make you feel better? I believe her, but I’m not going to be foolish about this either, just in case. There’ll be lots of people around. Besides, you and I both know Booker’s going to have Lilah tailed until her father’s caught.”
“You’ve got that straight,” murmured Booker.
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore tonight.” Seth placed both hands on the sink with a weighted sigh.
“I’m heading back. I can’t believe I’m hearing any of this.” Booker stood and left after setting Seth’s security system.
“Cole, you can stay here in the spare room tonight,” Seth said as Maggie took his hand, leading him to the stairs.
I nodded. As soon as their bedroom door shut, I left and went over to the hospital. I needed to think. I needed to clear my head. Seth cooked to clear his head, and Booker built things. I worked in the ER.
Chapter 23
Lilah
&
nbsp; “Follow me, Delilah,” Booker ordered. It was five in the morning. He and his cohorts had drilled me all night long. Exhausted, I just wanted to go home.
“I go by Lilah,” I said as he led me into his office and shut the door.
He shrugged a shoulder. “‘A rose by any other name.’” A shocked expression must have crossed my face because he asked, “You surprised a guy like me reads Shakespeare?”
“I’m surprised you read.” Probably not the smartest thing to say to a guy who hated my guts, but it sure made me feel better.
The office couldn’t have measured more than ten foot squared. It held a metal desk, two chairs, and a gray filing cabinet on which sat a collection of photos of Seth, Maggie, Booker and Cole from what looked to be a fishing trip. Cole sported an angry red scratch across his cheek in one. Next to the photos sat a glass mason jar with the words “Curse Jar” taped to it.
“You plan on hiring a witch to put a curse on me?” I said, pointing to the jar.
“Wrong kind of curse, though I do like your thinking,” he said dryly. “Maggie gave me that. She knows I’ve been trying not to cuss so much, so she made up the jar. Every time I swear I have to add a quarter to it.”
“It’s full of quarters,” I pointed out.
“It’s been a long day.” Before I could retort, he continued. “Here’s your cell phone.” He dropped the small device into my hands, being careful not to touch me, as if doing so would cause him to burst into flames. I wish. “Thanks for letting us put a tracer on your phone. Saves me the trouble of having to get a judge’s order.”
“If I’d known it would make life easier for you, I wouldn’t have agreed so easily.” I slipped the phone into my pocket.
“Your apartment and car came up clean. No guns?” he pressed.
“I hate guns. Remember?”
“So you prefer carving people up with knives like your brother did?”
Instinct took over. I slapped him across the face. His head twisted sideways with the force. “I am nothing like Alan,” I said, teeth clenched.