Almost Dead (Lizzy Gardner #5)(63)

“I’m in my room. I locked the door. Can you come?”

“I’m less than ten minutes away. You stay where you are—you hear me?”

“I promise. Just hurry.”

Lizzy got off the phone and cursed. She knew Cathy would be pissed, but she didn’t care: she called the police and pretended to be a neighbor reporting a domestic violence case. Then she hung up and made it to the house in ten minutes, just as she’d said.

The moment she stepped out of the car, she could hear screaming. First she shuffled around inside the glove box looking for something sharp. She found a pushpin and stuck it in her pocket. She then went to the back of her car, opened the trunk, and put her gun and holster inside, then locked the car.

Richard knew how to push her buttons. She refused to lose her license because of him.

Her brother-in-law wasn’t the only one who knew how to piss people off, which was exactly what she planned to do.

She looked up, saw Brittany peering out the window. Lizzy waved and her niece waved back. She looked so young, reminding Lizzy of the good old days when she and Brittany spent time in the park, talking and hanging out.

When she got to the door, she didn’t bother knocking. She just walked right in and made sure to leave the door ajar. Chairs had been overturned. A picture had fallen from the living room wall. Her sister was standing in the dining room, holding a kitchen towel to her nose. Richard stood beyond her, glaring wildly at them.

“What the f*ck is she doing here!”

“Your daughter is upstairs, scared out of her wits,” Lizzy told him. “She could hear her father beating on her mother.”

“Get out of here, Lizzy,” Richard said, pointing his finger at the door. “This isn’t any of your business. Your sister is a whore. I caught her texting a man at work.”

“Well, it’s about time.”

“You know this man?”

Lizzy looked outside. No sign of the police yet. “You bet I do,” she lied. “He’s good-looking and charming and everything you’re not.”

He stomped past Cathy to get at Lizzy, chest puffed out, fingers rolled into fists at his sides—doing everything but thumping his chest like the idiotic ape he was. “Get out of my house,” he snarled, “or I swear I’ll plant you on your ass.”

Lizzy held her ground, didn’t budge.

He pushed her.

She stumbled back.

“Leave her alone,” her sister shouted.

“I’m fine, Cathy. Go see Brittany. She’s scared.”

Cathy hesitated before she finally rushed up the stairs.

“Why don’t you pull out your gun?” Richard asked. “Makes you feel like a man, doesn’t it? You want to kill me, don’t you? Hack off my head like you did that other guy. That worked out real well for you, didn’t it? You piss off enough people, they come back to get you. And if they can’t get you, they go for the people you care about most. I bet Jared never saw it coming, did he? Looking all dapper in his—”

Lizzy heard a car pull up outside. No sirens. Perfect. She pulled the pushpin from her pocket, stepped forward, and stabbed him in the leg, then screamed as loudly as she could.

He did what most rage-infested, out-of-control men would do—he punched her in the face right as the door opened.

The cop wrestled him to the ground.

Richard cried out, trying to let the officer know that she’d purposely set out to make him mad, but he made a crucial mistake. His frustration got the best of him and he sort of bitch-slapped the cop in an attempt to get free.

Another he’s-so-dumb joke ran through her head as she watched the officer’s partner step inside and help him pull Richard to his feet and then hold Richard’s arms behind his back so he could cuff him. Figuring they might be more inclined to teach Richard a lesson if she weren’t watching, she went to the kitchen to get some ice and a towel.





CHAPTER 44

Jenny was at work, helping to develop a sleeping pill. The company had been waiting years for approval from the FDA on their new sleeping aid when it was reported by a neuroscientist who had reviewed thousands of pages of data that test subjects had been waking up multiple times during the night with dark thoughts. So it was back to the drawing board. There was no way to make a perfect sleep aid without residual effects, but that wasn’t Jenny’s problem.

There was a tap on the lab window.

She looked up, surprised to see Dwayne standing on the other side of the glass.

Jenny removed her goggles, mask, and gloves and stepped outside the lab. Their date night had worked out wonderfully. They had ended up going to the movie first—an action movie with a wonderfully sappy love story woven in. Afterward, they’d had dinner at Tres Hermanas. She had ordered carne asada and he had ordered chicken mole poblano, and then they’d taken turns feeding each other. It had been silly and romantic and fun.

It would have been a perfect night—except that Dwayne hadn’t bothered to kiss her at the door. He’d escorted her all the way to her front stoop and then said goodbye. Worse than that, he hadn’t bothered calling her on Sunday.

He doesn’t like you. You talk too much. He couldn’t get a word in edgewise. Even if he did, you never listen.

Her fingers rolled into fists at her side. She hadn’t heard the voice in twenty-four hours. Why now?