The Last Invitation (76)

“Stop.”

Talking about this slowly killed her, and she could see it was destroying him, too. Chipping away at what he believed and replacing it with something too sinister to bear. “The forensic pathologist referenced sleeping pills. Baines insisted she’d been self-medicating, but we both know she didn’t take pills before that. She drank to self-medicate, and there was no alcohol in the house. The nurse had gotten rid of it. Only Baines had ever seen her take sleeping pills. You didn’t buy them. Neither did her nurse.”

“I said stop.” Liam swallowed a few times before talking again.

She closed her eyes because that was easier than looking at him. “You asked me to explain. I’m trying.”

“Did you confront Baines with your suspicions? Did you try to stop whatever you thought was going to happen to Natalie?” he asked.

Her shame, all that guilt over her failure to step in, never lessened. It burned as bright today as back then. The what if thoughts that ran in a loop in her head. “I asked him about the man. He lied, insisting it was a guy coming around, asking to do odd jobs around our house for money.”

“But that’s not what you heard.”

“No.” She had nowhere to hide on this. “I knew Baines loved Natalie, so I thought I’d misunderstood. Baines was so clear. Lied to me without blinking, made me think I’d gotten it wrong. But the conversation never left my head. The coincidence was too big, which is exactly what I told Baines when I said I wanted a divorce.”

“That was, what, almost a year later. You knew for six months and stayed there. Married to him and pretending he didn’t kill our helpless sister.”

And that made her a monster, too. She heard the words even though he didn’t say them.

“It took me that long to be brave enough to go.” She knew Liam would never understand that just walking away sounded so much easier than it was. She remembered moving money to accounts in her own name and packing up Kennedy’s things. Planning and waiting for the right time. “I thought he might kill me, too. That I knew too much, overheard the wrong thing. What would have stopped him?”

“Me.” The word sat there for a few quiet seconds. “You didn’t say a thing to me. I was right there. You had to know I would have listened to you and stopped him.”

She hadn’t known who he would believe. She’d picked Baines over him. She’d made her terrible choices. “By the time I put together what I heard, along with his talk about possible expansion of the business despite a lack of funds, the fire happened. That week was a chaotic rush filled with fear and confusion. Me, searching through the house, trying to find any concrete evidence that would prove my theory about what had really happened to Natalie.”

“I was . . .” He rubbed a hand through his hair as even more confusion wormed into his voice. “God, I was a mess. Furious that something as simple and ridiculous as a furnace check could have saved her life. Do you know how guilty I felt?”

“Yes, because so did I. For different reasons.”

“Baines mourned. I would find him sitting in his dark office at night, crying. Hell, he rushed into the building to save her,” Liam insisted.

“Guilt, probably. Remorse. I don’t know.” Gabby heard her cell buzz. A text, and she ignored it. “I worried you’d kill Baines if you knew, and I’d lose you, too, so I stayed quiet.”

“I would have gone to the police.”

She toyed with that, too. But there was nothing to grab on to. “I had pieces of an overheard conversation that he denied and insisted I got wrong. After the fire, I confronted him again, and he said I needed to stop lying or I’d lose Kennedy.” She gulped in a breath, hoping it would calm her, but it didn’t. “Conjecture and theories. His word against mine. There wasn’t any evidence. The police and fire investigator stated there was no foul play. I asked and pushed for a report on the fire then waited for the results. The conclusion came back as a horrible accident.”

Some of the color returned to Liam’s cheeks. “But you knew differently.”

Her phone buzzed again. “I believed, and I still believe, Baines paid someone to kill Natalie. That man in our yard or someone that man knew. I’d never seen him before and not since. Baines denied and tried to use Kennedy against me, but it was too late. I no longer trusted him.”

“You shouldn’t talk about trust.” When his phone buzzed, he looked at it. “It’s Kennedy.”

“What?” Gabby scrambled to grab her cell. The message on the screen made the blood drain from her head.

A reporter called. He knows the truth about Liam being my real dad.





Chapter Sixty-Six

Jessa




After a weekend with Retta and thinking about Retta, Jessa was ready for work on Monday. Today was a big day. Her assistant had marked it off on her calendar for “partner orientation.” Jessa wanted to celebrate, but her mind kept getting dragged back to Retta’s home office.

Jessa had paged through the small notebook she’d stolen several times. It fit in her palm. After repeated tries, she still had no idea what the lines of letters and numbers meant. Some sort of code, clearly, but why?

The bigger problem was the key. Now Jessa had it, when it should be taped to the back of a desk drawer. She had no idea how she was going to return the items without getting caught or when Retta and Earl would notice them missing. The first time had been scary enough. She didn’t welcome a second round of covert stalking.