Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six(86)

Joshua’s half sister? Had he mentioned having a sister?

As she sat puzzling over the pieces, Joshua still standing by the glass door, seemingly paralyzed, that’s when she remembered the other woman. Her voice, cold and officious. On the phone at Mako’s office.

Trina, his assistant, the one who quit suddenly. The one Cricket suspected Mako might be fucking, while he was fucking Cricket and married to Liza.

Okay, that made sense. So this was a revenge thing. Mako had fucked her over in some way. She had come to take her revenge on Mako.

“No, she’s not your sister,” she said, sitting up. “She’s Mako’s assistant. Or she was.”

“Right,” said Joshua, rubbing at his face in distress. “And she’s my sister. Well, my half sister. It’s complicated. Oh, wow, I’ve really fucked up, Cricket. I’m so sorry.”

He moved back over to her quickly and got to his knees before her. She grappled with this new knowledge. Wait. So did that mean—?

“The night we met in that club? It wasn’t a chance encounter? You were—what? Working with her? Looking for a way to get closer to Mako?”

He closed his eyes a minute. “It started as one thing. Her thing. I had to go along with it. But then it all changed, Cricket. Believe that. Please. I didn’t know that I was going to fall—”

“Stop,” she said. “Don’t say it.”

“I’m so sorry,” he said again, taking her hands in his. He looked at her like she’d hoped he would when he was about to propose—earnest, loving.

God, she was so pathetic. She could still taste blood in the back of her throat, realized that their whole relationship was a plot to get to Mako, and still she was thinking about him proposing. Anyway, better to let him think they were okay.

“Look,” she said gently. “Let’s just get the others and get out of here.”

She stood and the world spun. He rose to support her.

“I—I can’t,” he said. “She knows too much about me. I have to help her.”

“What does she know about you? Explain this to me, Joshua. Make me understand you.”

The rain started pouring down again, drumming against the roof and windows, and all she could think was that Mako, Bruce, and Hannah were out there with that woman.

What did Trina want? What was she going to do to all of them?

She felt something solidify inside her. She had to call up her inner Hannah. She couldn’t just stand in here crying, bleeding, talking to Joshua—who was what? A liar? Had come here with some dark motive? Associated with the scary woman who just beat the shit out of her?

“She knows things about me,” Joshua said. “I’ve done wrong and she knows it all. If I don’t help her, I could go to jail. You don’t want that, right, Crick?”

Was he really looking for sympathy from her? Understanding?

She backed away from him and moved toward the kitchen, locking eyes with Joshua.

“Cricket,” he said, lifting his palms again in that passive gesture of surrender. “What are you doing?”

She put the island between them, and moved over toward the oven. The row of knives hung on a magnetic board. They both stood stock-still, a standoff, the kitchen island between them.

How fast could she reach for one of those knives?

How fast could he get to her?

A breath. Another one.

Then, she moved quickly, grabbing the biggest one.

It had a heavy wood handle and a gleaming blade.

He came up behind her and she spun, holding the knife in front of her. Could she use it? Plunge that blade into his beautiful flesh?

Yeah. Yeah she could.

“Back up,” she said, summoning her power voice. “Get away from me.”

“Woah, calm down,” he said, taking a couple of steps back, “I’m not going to hurt you. I can get us out of this. We can walk away tonight.”

“Get the fuck away from me,” she said, voice wobbling. “I loved you. I thought I loved you.”

“Cricket, please.” His voice was low and soothing, but he kept inching toward her. “I love you, too.”

“Oh my god. Shut up.”

The sad thing was, it was exactly what she wanted to hear, what she’d wanted to say. I love you. Not with a knife in her hand, bleeding profusely from the face. She was so dizzy, confused. She was going to be sick, bile mingling with the blood she’d swallowed.

“She said you tried to leave,” said Cricket, the other woman’s words ringing back at her. “You already tried to run, but had to come back because of the tree.”

“I came back for you. You know that.”

She knew that he was lying. If the tree hadn’t come down, he’d be long gone, wouldn’t he?

“Where did you go when you disappeared?” she asked. Then another dark possibility dawned. Liza hadn’t left Mako. Joshua and the other woman had—done something to her. “Where’s Liza?”

He was crying now. “I never wanted to hurt anyone.”

Mako cried, too, when he was caught, when he was backed into a corner. A certain type of man—the user, the manipulator, the sociopath—dissolved into tears as a last resort. Why did she always wind up with that type of man? If she survived this night, she was going to bring it up in therapy. But for now, she had to get tough.