Never Lie (54)

“Oh, Adrienne,” he sighs. “Unfortunately, it’s not just about you anymore.”

He fishes his phone out of his pocket. I stare at him while he jabs at the screen. After a second, he holds out his phone to me. I shake my head.

“Take it.” He thrusts the phone into my chest. “You’re going to want to see this. I promise.”

Oh God. What is going on?

My hands are trembling so much that I almost drop the phone. I stare down at the screen, where a video is playing. But this isn’t a video of me in the parking lot. It’s a different video.

It’s an image of the outside of EJ’s house. After a second, a familiar figure comes into view. It’s Luke. He digs into his pocket, pulls out the keys, and unlocks the front door. The video then cuts to the inside of the house. Luke—searching through the rooms, looking for the laptop computer. Using a letter opener to jimmy open the lock on a desk drawer, then pulling out the laptop. Sitting down at the laptop to start the process of breaking into EJ’s computer.

It’s all there on video.

“This wouldn’t be too good for your boyfriend’s career, would it?”

I’m going to be sick. I lean forward and retch, but there’s not enough in my stomach. EJ watches in amusement, then bursts out laughing. “Boy, you’re really not too excited about hooking up with me, are you?”

“Please don’t do this to him,” I gasp.

“It’s your own fault. You’re the one who dragged him into it.” He shakes his head. “This is what I really wanted all along. From the moment I first walked into your office and saw you in that sexy little dress suit, looking so uptight with your hair pinned back. Acting like you knew it all, more than anyone else—more than me, anyway. And I always had a thing for redheads.” He looks pointedly at the phone still in my hand. “But that first video wasn’t enough. I knew you wouldn’t go for it. Not unless I had something bigger. So… thanks for that.”

“Please,” I whisper. “I’ll give you anything else. Pills, money…”

“I’ve got a guy to get me pills now.” He plucks his phone out of my hand. “All I want is you.”

I just shake my head.

“Tell you what.” He shoves his phone back into his pocket. “Why don’t you think about it for a few days? Think about whether avoiding one night of pleasure with me is worth destroying both of your lives.”

“I won’t change my mind,” I whisper.

He tilts his head. “I’m not so sure about that.”

With those words, he turns on his heel and walks out of my home. The door slams shut behind him, and it’s only then that I sink onto the sofa, my entire body trembling.

What am I going to do?





Chapter 40


TRICIA



Present Day




“Don’t move,” Ethan says.

He dashes into the kitchen, and I crane my neck just in time to see him pulling a knife from the knife block. He’s searching for the biggest knife he can find, which turns out to be some sort of carving knife that looks about eight inches long. It glints in the overhead light of the kitchen, and it looks pretty frightening from here. Then again, we don’t know what the intruder is packing. If the intruder has a gun, the knife won’t do us much good.

He told me not to move, but there’s no way I’m sitting here on the couch while my husband possibly is shot to death. I tear my feet out of the bowl of warm water and sprint after him, leaving a trail of puddles behind me.

Ethan reaches the door to the office a second before I do. His eyes bulge at whatever he sees in the room, and his fingers whiten on the handle of the knife. “Freeze,” I hear him say. “Hands up!”

I stare into the office over his shoulder. Even though I expected it on some level, I’m shocked to see a man standing in the middle of the room, his trembling hands raised in the air. He has scraggly dark hair, badly in need of a haircut, and several weeks’ growth of a beard on his face. He’s wearing a pair of worn blue jeans and a sweatshirt with a hole in the sleeve. He sort of looks like a bum, except he’s wearing eyeglasses, which seem oddly out of place.

“Who are you?” Ethan hisses.

“I…” The man’s voice cracks like he hasn’t spoken in a long time. “I…”

“Who are you?”

“I just needed a place to stay for the night,” he says in a gruff voice. “I don’t have a place to live, and I… I didn’t know anyone would be here.”

Ethan and the stranger regard each other with wary expressions on their faces. But I feel better. It’s what I had suspected. A drifter is squatting in the house because he thought it was empty. And he doesn’t seem to be armed or drunk or crazed. And while he’s taller than Ethan, he doesn’t seem particularly muscular or scary—he’s stick-thin, like he hasn’t had a decent meal in years.

But there’s something about his voice. Something strangely familiar.

“I’m sorry.” The man clears some nasty-sounding phlegm from his throat. “It was real cold out so I… Anyway, I’m sorry I busted in here. I… I’ll go.”

For a moment, I feel a surge of sympathy. It can’t be easy to be homeless in the middle of winter. Part of me wants to insist that he stay instead of casting him out into the cold. But another part of me feels like there’s something fishy about his story.