Page 94

Dad?

Go to your room.

I made it up all the way to the top, listening to Mom and Dad throwing insults at each other.

Pack your things and get out, Elle.

Fine! She threw a vase, barely missing Dad.

Dad!

Mom stormed up the stairs.

You two will be sooo happy with each other. All alone. Hah! Mom screeched.

She saw me by the top of the stairs.Do you really think now you'll have your daddy all to yourself? You little whore.

Tears ran down my face. This was so ugly. I'd always wanted my dad to find out. But I'd been too scared to say anything because of this exact scene.

Well, you won't have each other!

Mom grabbed me by the hair. This had been her threat all along. Tell, and I'll kill you and your father.

Dad!

Mom was going to throw me down the stairs. I held on to the banister despite the pain in my ribs. Mom kicked and spat and lost her balance when I ducked a slap. Her hand reached out to me. I could have grabbed it. Easily. I could have stopped her fall. But I didn't.

With a scream, she rolled down the stairs. Dad was already halfway up. Mom came down so quickly that he didn't have time to react. Emotionless, I watched him reach for her and miss. I had years to think about it. Think about the moment I could have grabbed her hand. Or how Dad could have stopped her fall. Neither one of us did. I never knew if his failing was as intentional as mine, and I was never brave enough to ask. Just like he never asked why I didn't reach out.

A horrible, horrible cracking sound followed when she landed on the marble tiles.

Elle?

Mom?

Dad went after her and knelt by her side, pulling her up into a sitting position.

He looked up at me.Go to bed, Scarlet, it's okay. She's okay. Mom's okay.

And I believed him. I believed that when he said he was going to take her to the hospital, he was telling the truth. I believed him when he came home and said Mom was fine, but she would spend the night in a hotel.

I don't know why I believed him when he told me the next day that Mom had a terrible accident. That she’d gotten drunk and crashed her car into a tree. But I did, for many, many years. Maybe because it was so much easier than accepting that by not grabbing her hand, I had killed her. So I lived with that lie. Only in my nightmares did I allow myself to consider that Dad had lied to me. For me.

That explains a lot.Now I understand why Lambert would talk to the devil himself—i.e., me—to save his daughter, and then use this little stunt of sequestering the jury. He thinks he still has everything under control, and he’s willing to sacrifice himself to keep it. He thinks he'll get Carlos convicted… and he knows that Carlos will release the coroner's report the moment his conviction is announced. The police will assume Lambert killed his wife. He will tell them she fell down the stairs, and he covered it up. Nobody will question it. Nobody will look at Scarlet. This is his way of keeping his daughter safe. It is a perfect plan, but it has one flaw. He doesn’t know that Scarlet and I are married. In his mind, I still pose a large threat to her.

Still, I can’t help but admire the old man. It takes a lot of courage to do what he's about to do. He knows he won't survive jail any longer than Carlos. All the inmates will have it out for him.

Why the hell didn't he call the police in the first place?

But even as I ask, I know the answer. Because after the hospital report, it would have dragged his family through the mud. The cops would have scrutinized him and his daughter. Elle falling down the stairs… it would have seemed too convenient. With her mother dead and Lambert possibly in jail, Scarlet would have been looking at foster care, and as a judge, Lambert knew all too well what could happen to her there.

So he risked everything to stage an accident. He had the know-how. He would have gotten away with it, too, had the coroner not decided to try and make some money off Carlos. I'll make sure Vito pays a special visit to that piece of shit.

Now there are two options, neither of which I like very much. Either Lambert is going to sacrifice his career and take the blame for his wife's death, or… and I like this even less, he's going to kill Carlos. That would most certainly ensure Scarlet's safety from Carlos and the press. And me.

My question of why Carlos abducted Scarlet when he had the other leverage over Lambert will have to go on the back burner for now. He might have thought two irons in the fire were better than one. It makes sense; Lambert was an emotional mess when he came to me—a broken man. And broken men can become desperate. Or maybe the coroner hadn't given Carlos the information yet. Which also makes sense.

"Call your dad," I tell Scarlet, holding out my phone, "before he does something stupid."