Touch & Go (Tessa Leoni, #2)(82)

“I mean, really. You’re out all the time with your new girl. Mom’s doped out of her skull. Of course I decided to have a little fun. Even took a tumble in your bed. Not like you two are using it.”

Justin lunged. I got my arms around his waist, not that it really mattered. He weighed twice as much as me and, even bruised and battered, moved like a freight train. He roared something. Maybe that he would kill him, the mythical boy. And Ashlyn screamed something. Maybe that she hated him, her own father.

He was swatting at her. Trying to get at our child. Our own baby, who just hours before had been pregnant with a baby of her own, and I felt this incredible pressure build behind my eyeballs. A pain beyond any pill’s ability to deaden. A hopelessness beyond any wonder drug’s ability to lift.

Then, I was in the fray. Digging in my heels, shoving back at my husband, heaving, heaving, heaving as I screamed at the top of my lungs:

“You stupid idiot! I didn’t want your money. I didn’t want your house. I didn’t want your precious business. I just wanted you to love me. You stupid, stupid *. Why…couldn’t you…just love me?”

Our legs tangled up. Justin went down hard, hands over his swollen face. I fell to my knees beside him. Pounding his shoulder, sobbing hysterically, while Ashlyn wept next to the bunk beds.

“And it wasn’t just her, was it? There were other women, too. Lots of others. Jesus Christ, you are just like your father. And now I’m just like my mother except popping pills instead of cigarettes, and we were both supposed to be better than this. What happened? God, Justin, what happened to us? How did we become exactly the people we never wanted to be?”

I couldn’t stop hitting him. My rage was a feral beast, finally off its leash. I hated my husband. I hated my life. But mostly, I hated us, the ways we’d both failed, proving ourselves human, when so long ago, we’d been sure we’d rise above all that. Mortals were fallible. We’d been in love.

At the last second, I saw my husband’s shoulders shake. I saw the tears on his cheeks, the defeated bow of his head…

I couldn’t take it anymore. I threw my arms around him. I held him close, promising forgiveness I wasn’t sure I had in my heart to give, but for now, this moment… If he would just be all right. If we could just pretend to be a family…

Ashlyn joined us on the floor, her arms around both of us, damp cheek pressed against my neck. “I’m sorry, Mommy, I’m sorry, Mommy, I’m sorry, sorry, sorry.”

Justin moaned. We cried harder.

“Oh, for the love of God.”

Z stood in the open doorway, staring at us as if arriving at the scene of a car accident.

“You people…” He couldn’t complete the sentence.

And I agreed with him. We defied description. What kind of family behaved like this? What kind of people loved one another, and hurt each other anyway?

“Three P.M. tomorrow. Not soon enough.” Z stopped shaking his head, stabbing a finger at me instead. “You. Off him.” Another finger, pointed at my daughter. “You, too. Stand and present.”

Ashlyn and I climbed shakily to our feet. Z stared at us harder. We threw our shoulders back, assuming the posture of good soldiers. He grunted his approval. Then, his gaze went to Justin, now uncurling on the floor.

“Whatever happened, I’m sure you deserved it. Ladies. With me.”

We started walking forward just as Justin rose unsteadily to his feet.

“Wait.”

Ashlyn continued marching, but I stopped. I couldn’t help myself. I’d loved this man so much of my life. The afternoons at the firing range, our first home, the birth of our daughter, the way I used to wake up and find him watching me so intently.

All those moments when I know I had really, truly seen him. All those moments when I know he must’ve really, truly seen me.

“I didn’t realize,” Justin murmured. “What was going on with Ashlyn, with you… I didn’t realize. And Ashlyn’s right. I should’ve. A good man, an attentive father… I f*cked up, Libby. That’s on me. When we get home, if you want a divorce, I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll even rip up the prenup. House, company, whatever you’d like, I won’t fight you. In fact, you can have it all. It’s the least you deserve and shame on me for not realizing that sooner. But I wish… I would miss our family, Libby. I would miss us.”

I waited for him to say more. But he swallowed instead, choked up.

I thought of all the things I could offer in reply. Forgiveness. Acknowledgment of my own crimes. Or more importantly, that I missed us, too. Had for months, and no pill in the world had been able to fill that void. All the nights I had wandered down to the darkened basement, my hand pressed against that closed bedroom door, willing my husband to feel my presence, to open his door to me.

I said: “How many other women, Justin?”

“You’re the only one I’ve ever loved,” he said.

Which told me enough.

I turned away from my husband and walked toward my captor instead.





Chapter 29


WHILE THE BOSTON COPS AND FBI went to work on strategizing possible ransom scenarios, Tessa and Wyatt decided to follow up with Anita Bennett. In her house, surrounded by pictures of her family, hopefully, including her youngest son, who might or might not be Justin Denbe’s half brother.