Behind Every Lie(85)

But it no longer had any power over me.

Lightning scrawled across the sky outside the living room window, turning the blood the color of oil. Something else had replaced grief. A curl of white-hot anger sparked in me, scalding my face and arms. It caught fire, turning into a vicious type of fury with a new texture, the consistency warping and changing into something else: hatred.

I wrenched my engagement ring off, my finger so slick with blood it slipped off easily. I threw it at Liam. It glanced off his shoulder, and he flinched.

“You raped me!”

“What? No!”

I knelt and picked up the knife, my fingers wrapping around the blade. The hot steel bit into the flesh of my palm, and yet I liked it, that pain.

My brain felt too light, like it was full of air. Like I would float away at any moment, a balloon coming untethered. My breath came in short bursts, and a strange darkness tinged the edges of my vision. Lightning forked from the sky, illuminating Mom’s body.

I stared at Liam, this man to whom I’d given my heart, my soul, my life. But not anymore. The knife was heavy in my hand. For a second I was afraid of what I might do.

“You raped me.” This time I could only whisper it. Shock slid down my body like ice, making me suddenly numb.

The knife fell from my fingers as I staggered backward, away from him.

Suddenly I was outside, the night sky pressing on my skin.

The burning scent of ozone scorched the fine hairs of my nostrils, mingling with the pungent scent of wet earth. Black and purple clouds roiled in the night sky above. Thunder rumbled ominously. The air crackled with electricity, static lifting the fine hairs along my bare arms. Rain skidded into my scalp, licking at my face.

I was crying so hard I could barely breathe.

All I could do was run.





forty-seven

eva




I BLINKED BACK to the present.

I was lying on my back in the entryway of Mom’s house, Jacob hunched over me, his face crumpled with concern. Raindrops clattered hard against the porch, galloping down the slick surface of the open front door.

“Are you okay? What happened?” he asked.

The memories assaulted me like blows, making me see stars. I didn’t want to remember. It hurt so much.

Jacob grasped my elbows, pulling me to a sitting position.

“I remember the night she died. I didn’t kill her. Sebastian did.”

Memories poured in. A familiar voice calling my name. Liam standing in the doorway. The knife in my palm, blade cutting into the tender skin as wave after wave of fury rolled over me.

I lifted my bare left hand and showed Jacob. “Look. No burns. If I’d been wearing Liam’s ring when I got struck by lightning, the metal would’ve burned my finger. That means the ring was off my finger before I was struck by lightning. Liam—”

And then, as if I’d conjured him out of the shadows, Liam was there, standing wet and dark in the doorway. He was holding something in his hands. A flash of lightning hissed behind him as he slammed it onto Jacob’s head. Jacob crumpled silently, his eyes rolling back as he sank to the floor, unconscious.

I screamed and scrambled backward on my butt.

Liam dropped the cement garden gnome onto the porch and leaned down to me, his face flecked with Jacob’s blood. “Eva, it’s okay. It’s me!”

“What have you done?” Blood expanded out from a widening black halo around Jacob’s head. But his chest was moving. He was alive. “We need to call an ambulance!” I staggered to my feet and tried to run to him. Cold sweat beaded my face.

Liam blocked my way. “No.” His voice was flat, his eyes dark.

He reached for me, but I wrenched away.

“Don’t look at me like that, Eva!” He pulled something out of his back pocket and held it out. It was two passports, one for Dan McIntosh, the other for Sarah McIntosh. They had our pictures. “Look! We can run away together. Wherever you want. Forget any of this ever happened. We’ll start new lives. I won’t let the police arrest you.”

He didn’t know I’d remembered everything. I glanced at Jacob. He still hadn’t moved. I had to figure out a way to get us both out of here.

Alive.

Hail clattered outside, wind howling through the open door. The burning scent of ozone was strong in my nose, the hair on my arms standing straight up. Lightning flashed behind Liam, hot bolts of yellow roaming through the air.

“You were here the night my mom was killed,” I said.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about. Your memories—”

“You let me think I murdered her!”

“Babe, come on—”

“My coat.” My mind was flying, tripping over itself. “You put it in the closet. I wore the coat to Mom’s house, but the paramedics took me straight to the hospital after I was struck by lightning. I couldn’t have gone home and put it in the closet. You did it!”

Liam shook his head sadly. “You’re not well, Eva. The lightning scrambled your mind, and you don’t remember anything. But I’m here to help you. I’ll make this right.”

Events from the past week flashed through my mind. He’d worked so hard to make me doubt myself. To make me think getting struck by lightning was making me paranoid and unreliable.

I felt a sense of vertigo sweep over me. Things I might once have chalked up to my own self-doubt and fear, I exhumed and reevaluated. That fateful meeting over dinner; how he just happened to be there when my tire blew; how he eagerly, persistently encouraged me to move in, forget the past, trust in him.