What Have You Done(86)

Phillips jumped out of his seat, ran around his desk, and threw his office door open to find Keenan sitting at his desk. “Has Liam Dwyer left yet? He was giving his statement.”

Keenan nodded. “Yeah, left about an hour ago.”

Phillips pulled his phone out of his pocket and dialed Liam’s cell. It rolled to voice mail. He tried the Dwyer house, and that too rolled to voice mail. He hung up and dialed the hospital.

“Connect me to Three West.”

There was a pause on the other end.

“Three West. Nurse Connolly.”

“Vanessa Dwyer’s room, please.”

“Mrs. Dwyer was discharged earlier this morning.”

“On whose authority?”

“She checked herself out. ADO.”

“Dammit!” Phillips hung up the phone and ran out of his office. Vanessa killed Guzio. She’d been working with Sean all along, and now Liam was with her.

Another one of his men was in danger.





67

Liam sat at the table across from his wife, easing himself carefully into the seat. His eyes moved from Vanessa to the gun and back again. He knew he should be confused or shocked or overwhelmed by the situation, but seeing her like this somehow made sense.

“So this is the end of our story,” Vanessa said, her voice calm and in control. “The end of everything.”

Silence. It was if the house itself were waiting to see who would make the next move.

“What are you doing?” Liam finally asked.

“Making things right. This is how it has to be. This isn’t how I envisioned it—I’ll give you that. But there’s really no other choice at this point.” Vanessa sighed and let her shoulders sag. “I always knew this family had a past, but I never realized how many of us had secrets. I thought you and I loved one another. Even during the rough spots when my mom was dying and with us trying to get pregnant, I always thought that our foundation was one of real love that we could always build off of. I didn’t need fairy tales and roses. I just needed to know you’d be there for me through the good and the bad.”

“I was.”

Vanessa looked at him for a moment. “Secrets. I found out about you and Kerri almost right away. A couple of my friends at the hospital saw you with her at dinner one night. Holding hands. Sneaking kisses. I can’t tell you how embarrassed and hurt I was. How could you do that to me? How could you turn your back on us like that?” The gun remained aimed at him, her knuckles white around the smooth mahogany grip. “I couldn’t believe how wrong I’d been about who we were. I was confused. I mean, I was supposed to take care of you. I was supposed to be the mother you never had. And I wanted to take care of you. But you cheated on me and ruined it all.”

“It just happened.”

“I followed you. I watched you put your hands around her waist. I watched you touching, kissing. I could see you falling in love with her. I could see it.”

Liam slowly reached out his hand. “Vanessa, give me the gun.”

“All I ever wanted was to be loved, and I thought I had that. I thought we had that. When my mom finally died, I needed you, and you turned your back on me.”

“That’s crap,” Liam snapped. He scanned the room for something to use to defend himself with, but there was nothing. He was completely exposed at the table. “I was with you every step of the way. I tried to be there for you. I would’ve done anything. You pushed me away. You wanted your sorrow all to yourself, and you pushed me away. Into the arms of another woman.”

“No,” Vanessa replied. Her eyes were beginning to fill with tears. “That’s not true. We were meant to be together. We were the only ones who knew what true hurt was. We were the only ones who knew what it was like to lose a parent as a child, and those experiences gave us a bond no one else could share. That’s in us. Always. Then when I needed you, you weren’t there for me. You were with that slut instead. You shut the door to our future and started a new one with Kerri Miller. You left me all alone.”

“Give me the gun. Please.”

Vanessa ignored him. “It took a little time. I had to go through some stages of grief, like they say in the books. Depression, denial, bargaining. But when I landed on anger, it stuck. I couldn’t shake it. No matter what I did, I couldn’t quell the anger that was boiling inside me. It was like a virus that just kept spreading until it consumed me, and all I could think about was taking that anger out on you and everyone around you. I wanted you to suffer. I wanted you to know what real pain felt like, and I had the perfect plan. I would kill your girlfriend, frame you for her murder, and watch you rot in jail for the rest of your life.”

Liam leaned forward in his seat. “My God, Vanessa. What have you done?”

Vanessa shifted in her seat, but the gun remained steady, aimed. “Secrets. The first part of my plan was to seduce Sean, get him to fall in love with me, and show you what it felt like to be cheated on. This took some time, but that was okay. He was a very loyal brother. He loved you, and the thought of him having an affair with me was, initially, too much. But a woman’s touch can be an intoxicating thing. After a while, that touch took precedence over his allegiance to you, and something real started to grow between us. Believe it or not, I actually ended up falling in love with him.” Vanessa laughed. “Can you believe that? I was supposed to seduce him, and he seduced me.”