Page 71 of Long Hard Road
“Why?” She stared at him as he glanced at me. “Whatever you tell me, I’m just going to tell him. It will save me time if Nate stays in the room for this conversation.”
“The camera picked up some footage from yesterday. It captured the person who shredded your tires.” He slid his folder in front of Madison. “The first picture you’ll see is a still shot of the perpetrator.”
Madison flipped open the folder. “It was a woman?”
I leaned closer to see the picture for myself and my heart dropped into my stomach. I would’ve recognized that red hair anywhere.
“Who is she?” Madison asked.
“You might want to ask your boyfriend.” His lethal gaze landed on me. “You want to tell her so I don’t have to?”
“Nate?” The way she looked at me with so much trust and sweetness made my chest ache. I knew I was about to ruin her, just like I had feared.
“That’s Fiona Maywood.” It killed me to look into her eyes as I said these next words. “She is also known as Fiona Sullivan.”
23
MADISON
“Are you married?” I lurched back a step until my back hit the counter.
“I was. Briefly. It was annulled.” Nate didn’t break eye contact even after Ellison had flipped to a new picture in the folder.
“This is Fiona Sullivan with her five-year-old daughter and two-year-old son.” He was keeping his eyes on Nate, waiting for a reaction.
I didn’t want to look at that picture and have my heart shattered, but I couldn’t stop myself. The girl was a spitting image of her mother, with red hair and a dusting of freckles across her nose. She had bright green eyes and missing front teeth. The boy had dark hair, a shade that was only a hint lighter than Nate’s.
“Are they…” Yours. I couldn’t finish the sentence.
“It’s a long story, Madison.”
“At least five years long from the looks of it.” I kept my head down so he wouldn’t see the tears filling my eyes.
“Angel…” His hand hovered over my arm, but he stopped short of touching me. Probably because he was afraid that I would jerk away from him.
“Look, I know this is shocking news for you, Madi, but I need you to keep it together until I can get some information from Nate.”
I nodded and picked up my coffee, taking a long sip and enjoying the warmth. “I’m fine,” I said.
I doubted either of them believed me, but Ellison wasn’t one to linger on discussing feelings. “I think I’d like to start with why your ex-wife would shred Madison’s tires.”
“Because she’s crazy. I know that sounds like a thing a guy says about his ex-wife so he doesn’t have to take any blame for a relationship falling apart, but that’s not what I’m doing. Fiona has a lot of issues. Our marriage has been over for two years and she has been reluctant to move on.”
“Did you know that she was in town?” Ellison asked.
“No.” He exhaled hard. “Up until a few weeks ago, I didn’t even know that she knew I’d moved back to Crestwood.”
“What happened a few weeks ago?”
“I got mail from her.”
My head snapped up. “What kind of mail?”
“Just a picture of Cassidy. The little girl.” The spark in Nate’s eyes was gone. He had retreated behind the wall I had so carefully torn down over the last two weeks.
“Why didn’t you tell me about her when I started getting the threats?”
“It never occurred to me that Fiona might have something to do with them. Those threats were focused on you and Fiona’s interest has always been singular. Me.”