SWNOVELS Truly Madly Deeply: Chapter 72
“The River of Dreams”—Billy Joel
The Murrays lived in a beautiful, white, shingled, oceanside mansion. The type of estate that curved around an eight-car limestone drive, with a fountain centerpiece and two Range Rovers parked up front.
Christmas lights wrapped around the edges of the roof and the pillars on either side of the front door. I braced myself against one of the columns, numbness blooming across my exposed skin. I had walked all five miles here. Strangely enough, I didn’t feel cold or uncomfortable. Fueled by the burning fire of revenge and hate, I’d plowed through.
Golden chandelier lights spilled from the front windows, and the sounds of clinking utensils and laughter rang through the air. Was I really going to crash this family’s holiday dinner? Seemed that way. Even stranger was the fact I didn’t feel an ounce of embarrassment about it.
I pressed the doorbell and stepped back, willing my teeth to stop chattering. I’d spent the entire journey here thinking about what witty one-liner I was going to spew once Allison appeared in front of me.
Karma delivery service. You have a package was the front runner. But when the door swung open and an elderly man with shrewd, beady eyes appeared, all the words jumbled in my throat like clothes in a laundry machine. I blinked about a hundred times a minute, my entire face twitching nervously.
Tic, tic, tic.
“Yes?” Allison’s father peered at me expectantly, clearly unhappy with the unwelcome Christmas surprise. “Are you going to sing or something? Or is this a donation thing? Marsha.” He turned around to bark to the depths of the house. “Do you have any cash on you?”
“I…I… No.” I found my voice somewhere in the bottom of my lungs. “I’m here for Allison.”
“Allison?” He reared his head back, bushy white eyebrows arched. “What business do you have with my daugh—”
“Oh, Daddy, it’s fine.” I heard the clink of heels on porcelain approaching. A few seconds later, Allison materialized like a mirage, a red sheath dress draped over her body, complementing her burgundy hair flawlessly. It was a shoulderless piece, paired with a white pearl choker. She looked beautiful yet, at the same time, ugly beyond repair. “I’ll take it from here.” She kissed his cheek, smiling. “Aw, so protective, what would I do without you?”
It was a dig, and as such, it burrowed straight into my heart, twisting like a sharp knife. She must’ve heard my dad had passed away. Must have known how much I missed him. Accompanying my pain was a dollop of pity. What a miserable creature must she be, to try to get a rise from a recently fatherless woman.
“Calla. You look”—she swiped her eyes over me aloofly—“like pneumonia in human form. You should really take better care of yourself. You’re already…what’s the word?” She tapped her pout theatrically. “Prone to accidents.”
“We need to talk. Privately.” I hated how unsure I sounded, even to my own ears—how I couldn’t see her properly, my eyes twitched so badly.
Allison examined her bloodred manicure with boredom. “No, thank you. If I let you in, you’ll contaminate my entire hou—”
That was it. I hadn’t even been here ten seconds and she was already ripping into me. “No more than Tucker Reid would. And he’s an engaged man. So unless you want tomorrow’s charity event to start with a grand announcement from me about who you’ve been sleeping with recently, I suggest you let me in.”
Her smug expression melted into horror. My hands shaking subsided, and my tics relaxed. I had cracked through her exterior. Broken the first of the many layers she had.
“I’ve no idea what you’re—”
“I have proof,” I cut her off. “And a slippery tongue. As you said, I’m…what’s the term?” I tapped my lips in the same manner she had a moment ago. “Prone to accidents.”
Allison peered over my shoulder before jerking her head. “Take your shoes off at the door.”
I followed her inside, bypassing a gigantic dining table full of food and her relatives. They all stared at me, dumbfounded. Me being me, I decided to greet them with a little bow and a smile. “Merry Christmas!” And then, because I couldn’t possibly contain myself, I gestured to Allison’s back and added, “Ho, ho, ho.”
This one’s for you, Dylan.
“My apologies,” Allison muttered, grabbing my wrist and yanking me toward one of the rooms on the first floor. “Urgent matter. Shouldn’t take more than a minute.”
She shut the door behind us when we reached a guest room. It was probably lovely, but I couldn’t see past my panic and determination. I squared my shoulders. She whipped around to face me, knotting her arms over her chest with a scowl. “What on earth makes you think Tucker and I—”
I held up a hand. “I’ll be the one asking the questions. If you answer honestly, I just might reciprocate. No promises, though.”
Allison’s face morphed into the exact shade as her dress and hair. She dropped her arms, her hands curling into fists. “Who do you think you—”
“I think I’m the woman who can destroy everything you’ve ever worked for and will probably do it no matter the outcome of this conversation. I have the receipts. I have the ammo. I have the witnesses. Drop the attitude, Allison. We’re not in high school anymore.”
The more I spoke, the less I ticked. History was on my side. I strode toward her confidently. Allison stumbled back, bumping into a credenza and knocking down a flower vase. She wagged a finger in my face. “You have no proof about the Tucker thing. Don’t you dare make up stories about me.”
“Sanders confirmed it,” I said matter-of-factly, happily throwing the old captain under the bus. After all, all he’d done was speak the truth when he was confronted about it. “He saw you picking Tucker up from the port.”
Allison paled. “He needed a rid—”
“Did you know Dylan gave birth the day before he touched land?” I slashed into her words.
Allison’s nose twitched, and she faltered. “Well, I mean, what does that have to do with me?”
“Tucker was with you when we tried reaching him. Oh, I almost forgot.” I snapped my fingers. “Row knows too.”
That made her mouth drop in horror. “You told him?”
“Sanders did.” I sighed, then patted her arm. “If it makes you feel any better, you didn’t stand a chance even before he knew.”
Damn, Bestie. Look at those claws, I heard Dylan’s voice cheering in my head.
“This is insane.” She tossed her hands to the ceiling. “Just because I picked Tucker up doesn’t mean anything.”
“Listen to yourself.” I shook my head. “You really think anyone is going to believe you? Tucker has his own truck; he doesn’t need a ride. And he deliberately gave Dylan a different return date so he could have a little time with his mistress.”
My eyes swept over her body. I was sure I looked as disgusted as I felt. “Out of all the men in town, you had to go for the engaged, father-to-be one? And you have the audacity to call me a slut?”
I hated the s-word. Had never used it before. But to hurt Allison, I afforded myself this one-off.
Allison’s entire demeanor changed. She sneered, trying to seize back control. “Tuck and Dylan don’t even like each other!” she growled ferally, tossing her glossy hair over her shoulder. “They never stood a chance. Tuck and I are childhood friends. Our families went on vacations together. We babysat each other’s siblings. She was an elaborate booty call that…that…got out of hand! A plaything—”
“It must be so hard to forever come in second place.” I jutted out my lower lip, feigning sadness. I wasn’t going to stand there and listen to her talking shit about my best friend. “Not with Franco at the time, not Row. Now Tuck made you his sidepiece…” I trailed off, watching her wincing again, getting ready for a blow. “I’m sensing a theme here. Wanna know why?” She didn’t, but I was about to tell her anyway. “You’re always so busy tearing other women down, you never stop and work on becoming a better one yourself. No one in this town is going to forgive you for running around with an engaged man and a new father. You and Tucker will be written off for good. You will no longer be seen as a pillar of the community. But that’s the least of your concerns.”
“What do you mean?” Her eyes narrowed into slits. “What other concerns do I have? And just so you know, I’m going to deny it through my teeth and so will Tuck. Besides, there is no such thing as bad publicity. People will play the did-she-or-didn’t-she guessing game before letting it go and moving on.”
“All right.” I shrugged. “Let’s say you can survive the reputational damage—nice delusion, by the way, really complements your dress—you still have the small problem of having to defend yourself from the criminal charges that will be pressed against you for sending people to stab Row.”
Allison tipped her head back, laughing manically. I hoped she was a better mayor than she was an actress because she wasn’t about to win any Oscars for this performance. “You’re making some grand accusations here, don’t you think, little Calla? Seems like you forgot your place in the world—you’re the girl with the tics and social anxiety who is so scared of her own shadow, she can’t even look people in the eye. No one will believe you.”
“Why wouldn’t they believe me?” I placed a hand on my hip. “After all, it’s not the first time you tried to have someone killed.” I motioned toward myself for emphasis. “Although, I have to say, you do a really bad job of offing people. I’m glad you didn’t choose it as a career path. Your Yelp page would be a disaster.”
Allison rolled her eyes, which glimmered with unshed tears. She shook her head. “Don’t be so dramatic. We were dumb kids. No one tried to kill you. We were just messing around.”
“You let me crawl back to safety with a shattered bone, covered in mud and dirt.”
She stomped. “You survived, didn’t you?”
“No thanks to you. And your little minions are grown women now. If I drag them to trial and make them testify, they’ll sell you out in no time. The statute of limitations hasn’t passed for our case. I checked.”
Every night before I’d gone to bed for the past nine years, to be exact. My true crime love was partially due to the fact I had almost gotten killed myself. I had nearly become a statistic. Something you heard about in podcasts. That had inspired me to look closely into my own case.
Every obsession had an origin. I suppose I owed this to Allison—she’d helped me figure out what I really wanted to do with my life.
Allison’s back was plastered against the door now. I hadn’t even realized I was ambling toward her and she was retreating farther away from me.
“Good luck stitching this case up.” She gasped, a thin layer of sweat covering her face. A knock came from the other side of the door, making her jump in surprise.
“Everything okay in there, ladies?” a female voice—her mother?—inquired in a fake singsong voice.
I arched an eyebrow toward my nemesis, who inhaled a greedy breath. “Yeah, Mom. Fine.”
“Do you need me to—”
“Leave me alone!” Allison barked, looking and sounding like a mean teenager again. “Just go away.”
At least now I knew Allison didn’t discriminate when it came to being a brat. Everybody got the same treatment. She waited until the padding of feet on carpet diminished before picking up where we’d left off. “You were saying?”
“I’m saying you sent people to threaten and stab Row,” I said calmly.
“And how did you reach this conclusion?” She barked out a laugh, folding her arms.
“Glad you asked.” My eyes bore into hers, and I was no longer nervous. I’d found my strength. It had been there all along. Buried deep inside me. “When I went to visit Row at the hospital, I thought about who could do such a thing. Only someone with high stakes. And who is going to suffer the most if he sells the lot? You, as the mayor. All anger would be directed at you. Plus, I knew you had the guts to go the extra mile to make a statement. So far, so circumstantial. But I decided to do a little digging myself.” Specifically, I had asked Taylor to give me access to the restaurant’s security cameras that showed the edge of the car the attackers had disappeared into.
I reached for my coat, pulling out the footage I’d printed out and a paper I had scribbled at home before I came here. “This is the part where I should tell you that, unfortunately, you messed with a true crime junkie. One with a passion for unearthing and solving mysteries. I’m a long-standing member of an amateur crime-solving forum and posted the picture, asking if there were experts who could help me figure out the make of the car. Turned out that it was an Acura RLX, which is widely unpopular in our part of the woods. Only eighty-three Acura RLXs are currently registered in Maine, and out of them, only seven are in our area. Since I could clearly tell the car was dark—navy or black—I found the license plate and the man it belonged to in no time.
“Niall Burks is the husband of your assistant, Lucinda, and the owner of the car. The person who normally drives it is his stepson, who lives all the way down in Massachusetts—which I guess was why you thought he wouldn’t be recognized—but that’s some interesting connection.” I offered her the papers I was holding. She tore them into shreds without looking at them. Staring at her pitifully, I let out a sigh. “That’s okay. I have extras.”
Allison knew she was caught. Her mouth screwed into a grimace; her eyes were five times their normal size. Her sins had finally caught up with her, and not a moment too soon.
“Lucinda and Niall have their own reservations about this deal Row decided to go for. I have nothing to do with it.”
“He already signed the contract.” I smiled, putting the final nail in her coffin. Her body wilted with dread. “And if that’s the case, then I’m going to have Sheriff Menchin go directly to them. Hope they have good legal representation. How lucky are you?” I stepped forward, wiping invisible dust off her shoulder. She flinched. “So many wrongdoings around you, and yet you are totally innocent. I’m sure your track teammates, Tucker, Lucinda, Niall, and Sanders are going to be totally on board with your version of things.”
I made a move to open the door. Her hand came clamping down on my wrist. Desperation clung to her face as she tried to tug me back to her. “No, wait.”
I popped an eyebrow. “Yes?”
“How do I make all of this…go away?” Her nose twitched. “Give me a number.”
A number? She thought I could be bought? “Nine one one.” I laughed.
“Oh, come on.” She rolled her eyes. “Be serious.”
“I am serious. It’s not about money.”
“Everything is about money.”
I turned to walk away again. She slid between me and the door, blocking my way.
“I want you to know,” I said slowly, “that I will not be intimidated again. If you try to hurt me like you did when we were teenagers, I’m going to break every bone in your body in self-defense.”
Having these words come out of my mouth had a healing effect on me. They made me feel powerful and strong, a woman who didn’t need a Prince Charming—who was her own savior.
Allison licked her lips nervously, raising her palms in the air. “I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to talk. How do I make this disappear? Obviously, I’m not going to jail.”
Why was it so obvious? Her rich white woman privilege was through the freaking roof.
“You can’t make this go away.” I shook my head. “This is not an uncomfortable headline. This is about people’s lives. Your entire existence, you’ve been running people over to get your way. Well, I’m not letting you off the hook. Your best shot is to come clean to everyone in town, tell them what you did to Row, and then to back off, face the consequences.”
She looked disgusted, like I had just suggested she bathe in dog vomit on national television. “Why would I fess up if you are not offering me anything in exchange?”
“I am offering you something in exchange,” I said. “If you confess to what you did to Row and me, I will spare you the humiliation of outing you and Tucker in public. You’ll be known as a thug, not a hussy. That’s the best and only offer I will give you.”
“You’re crazy if you think I’ll go for it.”
I shrugged, making my third attempt to reach the door. She sighed, knocking the back of her head repeatedly against the wood. “I could be thrown into prison.”
“You’ll fit in there better than you think.”
“You don’t understand.” She pushed a hand into her hair, raking her fingers through her luscious locks. “You really don’t. I couldn’t…I couldn’t let Row’s deal go forward.”
“The deal wasn’t your fault as a mayor.” Why was I comforting her? She was Satan’s formidable adversary. “Yet you had people put a dead coyote on his property, send him hate mail, slash his tires. He thought the entire town was against him. Did you do all of those things yourself?”
“No!” she said desperately. “I…I… Lucinda’s stepson…”
It hadn’t been Lyle. Or Randy. Or any of Row’s suspects. It had been an out-of-towner. All this time, he had been tormented by a man hired by Allison.
“It’s a good deal,” I continued, trying to wrap my head around what had made her do something so stupid and dangerous. “You’re evil, but you aren’t stupid. Surely, you knew once the dust settled on this thing, people would see there were benefits to the mall and the hotel too.”
“It wasn’t just about the backlash.” She shook her head, her tears falling freely now. “I could’ve handled that. My dad wanted the deal to fall through so that GS Properties would buy his lots.” She sniffled, wiping her nose with the sleeve of her dress. “He’s in a dire financial situation. Some of the investments he made were…not smart, to say the least. I wanted to back Row off from selling so my dad could get a shot at saving his own skin. He’d been in contact with this Blackthorn guy, trying to sway him to buy his lots. Part of the reason he went bankrupt is because he spent so much on my election campaign. He bled money to make it happen.”
I took a jagged breath and closed my eyes. I was definitely not feeling sympathetic toward her. “Row has his own business to take care of.”
Allison waved a hand, growling tiredly. “Row is TV gold. His name precedes him. He’d have made the money back in six months if he passed on the deal. He’s on the fast-track to becoming a billionaire, and nothing can stop him, least of all me.” She couldn’t keep the bitterness from her voice. “That’s why I tried so damn hard with him. He was another option out of the financial mess I put my family in when I ran for mayor. The man wouldn’t budge. Just as well. He’s…not nice.”
“No, he isn’t,” I agreed. “He is something better than nice—he is kind. He won’t tell you what you want to hear. Actually, he’d rarely do that. But he’d always do right by you. And what about Tucker?”
“Tucker isn’t nice either,” she snorted.
Christ with this woman. “I mean, what’s your relationship like?” I asked slowly.
“Tucker and I are in love.” She tossed her hands in the air. “It’s just the timing that messed everything up. He wanted to break things off with Dylan the week she told him she was pregnant. There’s no love lost between those two. I think they’re both equally miserable together.”
I couldn’t argue with that one, especially considering Dylan’s reaction to the news Tucker was cheating on her.
“But you still tried to be with Row.” My eyebrows slammed together.
She looked at me blankly, like she didn’t understand why this was peculiar to me. “What does love have to do with marriage? The two don’t have to coexist.”
“You’ve always been evil,” I said, to myself more than to her. “What you did to me in high school scarred me for life.”
“About that…” She stared at her feet pensively, licking her lips. “Calla, I—”
Another knock on the door snapped us out of our trance. Allison’s father, this time. “Al, need any help?”
Tears clung onto her eyelids as she stared at me. She shook her head silently, as if he could see her. “No,” she croaked, barely audible. “I’m fine, Daddy.”
We both took a breath before she continued. “Franco. He…” She gulped, shaking her head. “We were together when you started hooking up. I…” She closed her eyes, one tear escaping past her lashes. “I…I was pregnant.”
The whole room began spinning, rapidly spiraling downward, toward a black, bottomless abyss. He had been two-timing us?
“That day…in the woods…i-it was the day after I found out. I was rabid. I was so mad. At him. At myself. At you. You were the other woman, the one standing in my way to a happily ever after. In my mind, we stood a shot. Only I guess you didn’t know that.”
“And the baby?” I choked out. I still thought she was a horrible person. It was her choice to take the worst road possible when faced with a problem. But I no longer felt she was carelessly malicious.
She pressed her head against the door, sliding along the wooden surface all the way to the floor. “My father forced me to have an abortion.”
“I…I’m sorry.” And I was. For the girl she had been. And for the woman she’d become as a result of everything that had happened.
“Yeah. So am I. Most days, anyway.”
I bit my lower lip, trying hard not to cry myself. “You could’ve communicated this to me.”
“I really couldn’t, though.” She looked up, trying to control the tears. “I had to take this secret with me to the grave. Before you dug it out, that is. Yeah, I took my anger out on you. Yeah, it was…horrific. But no one knows what it’s like to be me, okay? The expectations. The arm-bending. Being at your entire family’s beck and call. You didn’t have that. You walked around school proud that your dad was the kooky, fanny-packed physics teacher with the reading glasses that were taped together with Scotch Tape.”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” I blinked, surprised. This time it wasn’t a tic—it was pure confusion. “He was the coolest thing a person could be—unapologetically himself.”
She gave me the sad smile of a woman who knew she had lost the battle—and the war. “See? That was why I was jealous of you. Because of silly things like that. And here I was…with all these rules to follow. I needed to be the best. And I just got…tired.” She let her head drop between her hands. “So I decided to be ruthless.”
“Well, you are going to have to be something you haven’t tried so far. Honest. And tomorrow seems like the perfect time.” I stepped around her, nudging her to open the door. “If you won’t tell people, I will. Kul kalb biji yomo.”
“What does it mean?” She glanced up, wiping her nose.
“Every dog shall have his day.”