Page 29

TWENTY-NINE

Liam

As soon as I’m finished talking, I turn to Gabriel. “I think I want to talk to Lisa.”

“You think she’d know something?”

“I don’t know. There’s just… things that I think she kept hidden from me. She also had a better idea of where Abby was at all times, since she watched her like a hawk, so maybe she knows how these people all connect.”

“Yeah, sure,” Gabriel agrees.

“I’ll stay here and keep watching the videos,” Matthew says, looking less than eager about that idea. “I’ll call you if I find anything.”

I’m honestly surprised to see that Lisa is still living in the same house on the far end of town. I haven’t spoken to her since I was, hell… seventeen or eighteen?

“Think she’ll remember much?” Gabriel asks as we drive.

“I have no idea, honestly.”

“I had started to question if Anthony’s brother Jack knows something since we’ve been unable to contact him, but I feel like it would’ve been hard for him to record you and then be in the room with Abby.”

“Fuck if I know,” I say. “Maybe I’m misremembering parts too. I could have looked for Abby for a while. I really don’t even remember. I just remember being annoyed by her.”

“Which means it could have been all of five seconds,” Gabriel teases.

“I love how well you get me.”

I get out of the car and head up to the front door and knock. The door opens and a young woman in her twenties answers. “Can I help you?”

“Is Lisa here?”

“Yeah, give me a second,” she says, eyeing me suspiciously. Clearly, I look like a suspicious man. “Mom! There’s someone at the door.”

I raise an eyebrow at that. Did she finally get a child who wasn’t a murderer or a chronic liar?

Lisa comes around the corner and looks startled. “Liam?”

“You have a minute?” I ask.

“Yes, of course. Please come in. This way… although I guess you know where the living room is, huh?”

“Yep,” I say. “I had a few questions about Abby.”

“Abby? I haven’t talked to her in many years.”

“That’s okay.”

Gabriel sticks out a hand and says, “Hi, I’m Gabriel,” and I realize I didn’t introduce him. Honestly, I just feel like the faster I get through this, the better.

“Oh yeah, this is Detective Gabriel Hyde,” I tell Lisa as she shakes his hand.

“Detective? Is something going on? Wait…” She stares at me for a second. “Are you with the police too?”

“Homicide,” I say, and I don’t miss the surprise that crosses her face.

“He’s a head detective,” Gabriel says. “Phenomenal detective.”

I look over at him, wondering if I’m like a prized bull he’s in the process of trying to show off.

“Smartest man I know. He’s closed more cases than anyone else in our department and saved countless lives,” Gabriel keeps going.

It’s starting to get embarrassing now.

“I pay him to say that,” I tell her. “Just everywhere we go, he’s required to start listing off my good points so he gets a better tip.”

Gabriel looks over at me and raises an eyebrow as I beam at him. “I’m just… saying.”

“I wasn’t a very good mom to you, was I?” Lisa asks me as she gestures for us to sit.

“What? No, you were fine, you had a lot to deal with.”

She shakes her head. “I was too hard on you. I feel like around that time I just lost my faith in everyone. Abby was just… so trying. And Dale was off… fucking around on me. And you…”

“You can shit talk me, I really don’t care,” I say.

“No, you weren’t a bad kid,” she protests. “I was a bad parent. I took on more than I could handle at that moment, and I was far too harsh on all of you.”

“It’s fine.”

“Did you end up with a permanent placement?” she asks.

“No, and I didn’t care to have one,” I respond. “I’m not here about myself.”

“We’re dating,” Gabriel says. “So he has me.”

Lisa looks over and smiles at Gabriel. “That makes me really happy to hear. I’m so glad he has someone. He always acted like he never needed anything or anyone, but I know he needed someone. With my life falling apart, I knew I couldn’t keep fostering. I stopped for years and picked it back up when Dalilah was practically shoved into my hands because of an emergency.”

The young woman in question is watching us from the doorway.

“That’s good you were in a better place then, it sounds like,” Gabriel says. I’m positive he’s just going to run this whole show, but he’s cute, so I’ll let him.

“So… about Abby,” I say.

Lisa watches me closely. “Yeah?”

“What was the final straw?” I ask. “She was convinced it was you finding her in my bed, but you knew I was gay. You never fully stated it, but you tried to show your support whenever something came up that made it pretty clear. You knew we didn’t do anything. So I fully believe there was something else there.”

Lisa’s quiet for a while. “She just… she did questionable things that I thought could put our family in danger.”

“Like?”

“I knew she was using drugs.”

“At that time, it was nothing more than weed. You can’t tell me you’d never had any other foster kids smoke weed. You’d had numerous teenage fosters before the two of us. You found something that you didn’t like.”

“She… made… questionable choices that made me feel like she’d be happier elsewhere. Is something going on with her now?” she asks. “I haven’t heard from her in a very long time.”

“Were there videotapes of me?” I ask. “Is that what you found?”

Lisa stills as her eyes catch mine. “Yes.”

“That’s what I thought. Fuck.”

Gabriel turns ramrod straight as what has been said settles in.

“Do you have any of them?” I ask.

“No, I got rid of them as soon as I found them. Abby was irate when she found out. She threatened me, told me to stay out of her business. I didn’t feel safe, and I didn’t feel like you were safe. I had you relocated in the hope she couldn’t keep track of you because it seemed very unhealthy, whatever was happening with her.”

“Fascinating,” I say.

“It’s not fascinating,” Gabriel hisses. “Fuck.”

“It’s very fascinating,” I reiterate. “Thank you, Lisa. If you think of anything else, let me know.”

Her hand stops me from getting up. “Are you good?”

“Yeah. I have Gabriel, so literally nothing could be better.”

“I’m proud of you. It looks like you really worked hard and did a lot with your life. I’m sorry I couldn’t have been there for it.”

I shrug, uncertain why she’d want to be a part of it. “It’s fine.”

She seems dubious about that, but I’m really not sure what I would have needed her for.

“Maybe you guys could get a coffee sometime or something,” Gabriel the Traitor says. Like… I don’t need more humans in my life. I’ve already filled my quota. I can’t fathom having more to deal with.

Lisa’s face lights up. She seems like a different person than the one I’d met who was being pulled thin from all directions while dealing with two struggling teenagers and a husband who seemed to enjoy younger women that he blew their money on. “I would love that. Can I get your phone number?”

I decide I will simply ignore her request for coffee or hope she forgets as I grudgingly give her my number. Does Gabriel not realize the only person I ever need is him? “Do you have anything of hers left?”

“No, I sent anything of hers with the social worker. I probably should have turned in the tapes instead of destroying them, but I just felt like she was weirdly obsessed with you and that if there was a big deal made of it, it could change everything for her. She had it in her to be a good kid. I hope she’s doing well now.”

“That’s questionable,” I say as I stand up, glad to finally be free.

Lisa looks a bit uncertain after that, but she still tries to go in for a hug. It’s painful and equally dreadful but I still just grin and bear it and do a little pat on her back like that might solve everything. Pleased to finally be done with that nonsense, I hurry out the door.

“You really think it was Abby?” Gabriel asks once we’re back in our car. “You think she’s the one recording people?”

“I think Abby is the person picking them out,” I say. “Is she the one killing them? No. She picks them. They kill them.”

“But… if she’s arrested… she could tell them everything that happened.”

“Who are they going to believe?” I ask.

“But Liam, there’s so much riding on this. She knows where you buried Jonah.”

“She does… but she has no idea where I reburied him.”

“You… excuse me, you dug the body back up and moved it ?” Gabriel asks in disbelief.

“Of course I did. I was going to tell you that and then things just got distracting and I forgot to. I didn’t believe her lying ass for one minute. I took her with me as she requested and made it a place she’d remember, and then once she was tucked in bed, I went back out and moved the body.”

“That is… brilliant.”

I beam at my lovely Gabriel. “Thank you. Now we just have to figure out who is still doing her bidding out here. Could be someone I don’t know at all, but now that I’m seeing through her lies a bit more, I’m questioning where the guy who spiked her drink, if he did, fits in.”

“You don’t think he spiked it? You think Abby was manipulating you, don’t you?”

“I think she was trying to find someone who would dispose of the people she wanted dead. She targeted me and had me kill her father, but she had to have realized that I wasn’t going to bite on other instances. She couldn’t snag my attention like she had the others. I was too fixated on myself and my own desires to ever care about what others needed or wanted, so she picked someone else to be her killer.”

“But what if she says something to get them to look into you?” Gabriel asks.

“If we can prove that she’s involved, they’re not going to believe her lies,” I assure him, but Gabriel appears quite anxious about it.

“She’s going to mention Jonah’s death. And that he was one of the men who attacked your family and the very man who killed your mom.”

“I will tell them I told her about him—that I had speculated it was him, and she must have done something to him. It’ll be okay,” I reassure him as I squeeze his hand. “Let’s go.”

Gabriel doesn’t seem overly certain, but he gives me a nod. “Why would she have called you about Mitch?”

“To cement the fact that she was innocent. She needed me to believe that she only had me to rely on to manipulate me into getting rid of Mitch’s body for her. I can guarantee Sadie wasn’t aware how deeply she was involved. She simply thought Abby had forgiven one of the men involved in killing Sadie’s sister, but she never had any reason to forgive him when she was manipulating him as well.”

Gabriel is clearly still quite unsure.

“You’d let her go?” I ask. “To protect me, you’d let her go?”

He bites his lip as he thinks about the answer to that. “I… I don’t know what I want to do. I just want to keep you safe.”

“I can kill her if that would make you feel better.”

“I don’t want you killing someone you know.”

“Doesn’t bother me any. That’s why I’m so willing to let Donna be your shield for any shootouts that might occur.”

Gabriel starts laughing. “Because Donna ate some of my cake? Death to Donna!”

I grin at him.

“No, for my own sanity, I want to deal with this as police. We’re prepared for what she’s going to say; we just have to keep whoever the final person is from running. It’s fascinating how she was able to draw people into her fucked-up ideas,” Gabriel says.

“She’d test them. She was constantly testing people, scrutinizing them, pushing them to their limits.”

“But why kill Christa? I thought they were close?”

“I don’t know. I feel like I’d have to understand human relationships to tell you, and I sure don’t. I do understand that you are delectable.”

“Wow, you just… solved the whole thing by identifying that I’m ‘delectable,’” Gabriel says with much sexy sarcasm.

“I knew I was good,” I comment as I begin driving toward the hospital. My phone starts ringing and I see that it’s Matthew. “Matthew, just the man I needed.”

Matthew is shocked into silence over that one before finally saying, “You… you need me? For what? I’m positive I’m not going to enjoy it, whatever it is.”

“I need you to figure out every single person Abby has interacted with since she’s been in the hospital. All phone calls that have been made, any inquiries about her, et cetera.”

“So now Abby is involved? I swear you just run all around and throw shit out and pretend the rest of us can keep up with you.”

“Maybe I made a minor mistake thinking she wasn’t a piece of shit.”

“You made a mistake? EVERYONE, stop what you’re doing. Liam made a mistake!”

“Meet me at the hospital so you’re already there when I kick your ass,” I growl. “I’ll even toss you through the doors into the ER.”

“Liam, that’s not how you make friends,” Gabriel says.

“I never chose to make friends!” I remind him, but Gabriel isn’t having it. I’m positive he just hears what he wants to hear.