Wherever She Goes(42)

“I wouldn’t ever be—”

“I’ve told her that. You and I don’t have that kind of . . .” Another roll of his shoulders, and he makes a face. “She didn’t mean any harm. I’ve been clear—clearer—that you and I have a very cordial relationship.”

Cordial.

That hurts. Cordial is the relationship you have with a cousin you don’t share anything in common with beyond blood. It’s the ex you don’t share anything in common with beyond a child.

It used to be more.

So much more.

And now it’s just “cordial” and I almost wonder if “hostile” wouldn’t be better, if it wouldn’t be easier.

For me, maybe. But not easier for our daughter, and that’s what counts.

“Okay,” I say. “Thank you for explaining. I thought you didn’t call yourself because you were still upset with me after Thursday night.”

“No, not at all.” He pauses. “About that. You said you could use my help. I want to offer it. If you’re having trouble getting the police to listen . . .”

“They’re listening,” I say. “Well, they aren’t convinced there’s a missing child, but I helped them ID the murdered woman, so they know I’m not a complete nutjob.”

As I say that, I realize that I’m taking this conversation in a direction it shouldn’t go. The one that will have him furrowing his brow and asking how I helped ID a dead woman. Instead, he just nods and says, “Well, that’s good.”

He’s still distracted, obviously. I should drop it here. Don’t go filling in any blanks that can stay blank. Just hope Paul doesn’t look back on this conversation later, when he’s less distracted, and say, “Wait a second . . .”

But as I think that, I realize I can’t drop it. Laila Jackson knows I’m not who I claim to be. She wields that power over me, and I don’t know her well enough to entrust her with that secret.

“Paul . . .”

“Hmm?” He sips his coffee, his gaze distant.

“I . . . I need to talk to you about something,” I say. “Something that came up with the police.”

He puts the mug down. “All right.”

“I . . .” My heart thuds so hard I can barely form words. “Before I met you . . .”

His gaze lifts to mine and the words dry up.

I swallow. “Before I met you . . . things happened, and I . . . I haven’t been entirely”—entirely?—“honest with you about my past and . . .”

“And now you want to be, not because you’ve had an epiphany, but because you’re in trouble.”

His voice is cold. Colder than I’ve ever heard it, and those blue eyes turn just as icy. My insides freeze, and I’m seized by this overwhelming urge to hide, just hide.

“Do not ask me to get you out of this, Aubrey,” he says.

“I-I’d never—”

“Good. I think I’ve done enough. My only advice is not to let the police bully you into a confession. The statute of limitations for theft in California is three years. You are well past that.”

I stare at him. I just stare. Then my mouth opens, and all I can manage is a strangled noise.

His hands tighten on his mug. “Nine months before you left, I received a call from a man named Ruben Dubrand. He tried to extort money from me, threatening to expose you.”

“Ruben extorted money—”

“Tried.” Paul gives me a hard look. “I’m a defense attorney. I know the law. I set him straight, uncovered his own identity and threatened to use that against him if he ever came at my family again.”

I can’t speak. I just can’t even process this. I must still be asleep, caught in a nightmare where Paul tells me he knows what I’ve done. That he’s known for . . .

Nine months before we split.

That would be our last Christmas together. Exactly the time when I started noticing rifts in our marriage. It’d been the holidays, and he’d found excuses to skip parties, given me a perfunctory gift, taken Charlotte to his mother’s alone “because I know you two don’t get along, and you can use a post-holiday break.”

That’s when he decided we should stop trying for a second child.

I always presumed that I first noticed the trouble at Christmas only because holidays are stressful, and so that’s when the schism became obvious. That isn’t true. The schism started there. After Ruben contacted him.

I have spent the last year trying to figure out where our marriage went wrong, how we drifted apart, how I failed him.

Now I know.

“I-I . . .” It’s all I can say, all I can manage.

“You were someone else before you met me. I haven’t dug into your past. I don’t want to know. All Dubrand told me was that you’d committed robberies—break-and-enters—as part of a group. At first, I didn’t believe him. Then he told me about your shoulder. On your last job, the homeowner shot you there, and you didn’t get proper medical attention for it.”

“Yes,” I say, and when the word comes, it’s an exhale of something like relief. “It’s . . . it’s a long story but—”

“I don’t want to hear it.”