Page 93 of Liar
“I don’t want to know her. She raped you.”
“She was likely under the same kind of duress I was. You understand how Damion is.”
“He gave her money to have me. Her first choice was to abort me. I doubt she’d like to meet me any more than I’m curious about her.”
His eyes soften around the edges. Not in kindness. In grief. “You assume she’s still alive.”
My breath inexplicably hitches. Malcolm had previously told me she died in childbirth, but I assumed it was a lie, just like everything else. “Damion killed her?”
“I can’t be certain, but knowing what I know, it’s easier to kill a woman and hide her body than it is to pay her off and keep her as a liability.”
I gently remove my hands from his. I’m cold. There’s a type of shiver inside me that isn’t going away, regardless of how much Dash has cranked the heat.
“How will we get to Julie?” I ask.
Malcolm reaches through the middle console and into the passenger seat, where Dash has stored folded clothes. “She’ll be waiting at the old cemetery. Dash contacted her.”
I tear my gaze from the rolling foliage we speed past. “Wait, how? I’ve seen her. She’s not—I mean, I always thought it’d be impossible to get through to her.”
“You’re referring to her opioid addiction.” Malcolm finishes buttoning his white work shirt. “One she never asked for. Damion began dosing her soon after my—our separation. After what she was forced to watch, she was in no condition to argue.”
“I would never judge her.”
“She and I have met secretly for years.”
My brows jump.
“You’re not the one Weatherby who’s thought to memorize the founders’ secret tunnels,” he adds wryly. “Before you, she was the sole motivation for me to live. Ending this … putting a stop to Damion’s constant torture, would’ve been so easy to do, but for her. It was Julie who convinced me to meet you.”
I drag my teeth across my lips. So much revelation has come my way this evening, and I’m not sure I can handle more. But Malcolm needs this. I see it in the slope of his shoulders, the lines in his face, and the newfound color in his stare. “When Damion told me about you, I knew it was for his gain. Another way to twist the knife and keep me castrated. She told me that she’d eavesdropped a time or two on his discussions with Thaddeus about you. That you were an honor student, somewhat of a studious loner, but with the intelligence and empathy of a woman not yet comfortable with herself. And … that you were a wonderful daughter.”
At the thought of Barb and Gene Beckett, agony hits dead center in my chest. “They’re wonderful parents.”
“I don’t want you to think I kept you from them for my own selfish gains.”
“Not anymore. After tonight, I have a much easier time understanding your decisions.”
“But not pity. Never pity me.”
I shake my head, unable to verbally tell him that I don’t feel abject horror at the thought of what he went through. “As long as you don’t pity me, either.”
He offers a sad smile. “Deal.”
“Can I see them again?” I can’t stop hope from inflecting my voice.
“I’m taking us somewhere remote. A place I’ve planned for once the FBI had enough and Damion was neutralized.” Malcolm sighs. “We can’t wait for that anymore. The truth is, sweetheart, I don’t know if we’ll ever be safe from him. I do know I will never put you or Julie in that position again. I plan to keep us hidden.”
Malcolm goes silent after that, watching me under cover of darkness. Dash keeps his head forward, politely invisible, but I’m getting the same sense from him as I am from Malcolm.
Are you sure you want to do this?
If I return to the Becketts, I’ll be a sitting duck for Damion. If I stay at the Weatherby mansion, I’ll be a sitting duck for Damion. Damion has a deep desire to torture me in the same way he broke Malcolm.
… except. “Damion never ended up breaking you, did he?”
Malcolm lifts his chin, his jaw a stark line of shadow against the stars through his window. “Not in the way he thought. I kept Julie. I got to know you. Both brought me back to life.”
I spend the next minutes thinking hard. Chewing on the inside of my cheek.