Page 24 of Perfect Liar

The police considered me a suspect in the murders of my own family.

CHAPTER 7

“Aunt Ellie, I’m so hungry.”

Lissie sat on the toilet seat lid and waited for me to finish in the shower. I’d seen her do the same with Isabel hundreds of times.

“I’m just about done, then we’ll have some breakfast. But wait for me, Lissie...I don’t want you to leave the bedroom without me. Tell me how you’re feeling right now.”

“I don’t know. I…I just wanna cry.”

I quickly rinsed out my hair.

“It’s okay to cry, sweet girl. And it’s okay to be sad. You know that, right? You can tell me about anything you’re feeling.”

Just like her mother always had, Lissie avoided talking about the hard stuff.

“Are those guys still here?”

“Yes, they are here. Do you remember their names?”

“I remember Will.”

“Yes, and Ben is the big one with dark hair. John is the younger one who looks like Will.”

“Are they the good guys, like superheroes?”

I slipped into my bathrobe.

“Well, not exactly, but they are here to help us.”

I took hold of her chin, thumbing the little dimple there, and kissed her forehead.

“I know you’re sad…and you’re really scared. Me too. I don’t have any answers right now, but I promise you I’ll figure this out. But for now, I think we’re safer if these men stay with us. I’ll never leave you, Lissie. I love you.”

Those last three words had never left my lips in that order before, not for anyone.

I knew nothing about love or being a mother, and I couldn’t have been more unprepared to be her guardian.

Isabel once told me you only needed to know how to love to be a parent.

“That counts me out,” I had said.

She’d understood me, that I confessed to never loving anyone other than her and our gran. And even that hadn’t been an affectionate kind of love.

But that was my fault. My fault that my heart didn’t know how to love. I never gave it a chance, instead choosing to paint my view of life inside the boundaries of my head rather than to actually live it. Pile on the preoccupied English grandmother who raised me.

Maybe it was also my parents’ fault…for abandoning me.

Or maybe I just didn’t have it in me.

I shut my eyes and shook my head to clear it all away.

“Let’s get you something to eat, Lissie.”

I smiled when she looked up at me with her beautiful eyes.

We hit the kitchen, empty now, and inside of thirty minutes, I had cooked a ham and cheese omelet, and Lissie had devoured it.