Page 23 of Secrets of the Past (Secrets of Mustang Island #3)

N icole rose this morning with grit in her veins and a knot under her breastbone that refused to loosen. She’d known hard mornings, after heartbreak, after betrayal, after the kind of sleepless nights that left salt behind her eyes, but this one carried a different weight.

The conversation with Tripp still vibrated under her skin, a live wire she couldn’t ground. His voice, his conviction, the heat that had once been theirs, old embers flared as unwelcome light on everything she needed to keep in shadow.

Not here. Not now.

She smoothed her jacket, lifted her chin, and stepped into the arena of polished wood and fluorescent truth.

After the judge and jury were seated, she rose.

“Your honor, the prosecution rests.” She made herself sound steady, as if the past hadn’t just brushed the inside of her ribcage with cold fingers.

Judge Price nodded. The bailiff called the room to order. And then Tripp stood.

“Your honor, the defense calls Mrs. Evelyn Reddick.”

A ripple passed through the gallery. Heads turned. Pens poised. Even the jurors shifted forward as a single, attentive organism.

Nicole leaped to her feet. “Objection, Your Honor. Mrs. Reddick was not included on the defense's witness list.”

The defense attorney rose. “Your Honor, new evidence came to light late yesterday, and the prosecution was provided a copy as soon as we received it.”

The judge raised a brow. “Is that true, Miss Reyes?”

Nicole hesitated. “Yes, Your Honor. We did receive the evidence last night, but we haven’t had adequate time to review it.”

The judge considered for a moment, then spoke firmly. “I'll allow the witness, for now. But I’ll be watching closely. If this turns into a fishing expedition, I won’t hesitate to strike the testimony. Proceed.”

Derrick’s mother rose with the unhurried grace of a woman who’d always been obeyed. Cream suit, pearls, hair sculpted to perfection, Evelyn looked like she’d been poured into power and polished until she gleamed. She walked the aisle as if approaching a stage, not a witness box.

She looked like Mrs. America, her crown gleaming as much a weapon as it was armor.

Nicole felt the room’s temperature drop a degree. Everything about Evelyn was beautiful and brittle, like something expensive that could cut you if you touched it wrong.

The oath was administered; Evelyn’s manicured hand rested on the Bible as if it were an accessory rather than a sacrament. She sat, back straight, mouth serene.

Tripp approached with a soft smile and an even softer voice, silk laid over steel. “Mrs. Reddick, you are the defendant’s mother?”

“Yes.” The confidence of generations rode on that single syllable.

“And his father?”

“His father died when he was twelve,” she responded.

He let the quiet bloom, gave the jury time to map Evelyn’s composure onto their own expectations: a mother defending her son, a matriarch anchoring her family. Nicole recognized the move. She’d used it herself. But she also recognized the slight tightness around Evelyn’s mouth.

“How did you feel,” Tripp asked, “when you learned your son’s girlfriend, Bianca Laurent, was pregnant?”

Nicole’s gaze drilled into the woman, desperate for even the faintest crack in her polished armor.

How could she have been so blind? She should have suspected her from the very beginning.

Instead, she’d let the evidence lull her, let her own scars from dealing with women like Evelyn Reddick twist her judgment.

And now the truth mocked her, she’d failed to see what had been staring her in the face all along.

Evelyn blinked once, lashes like tiny fans. “Surprised. Concerned.”

“Concerned for whom?”

“My son. His future. Derrick has ambitions.”

Ambitions. The word had been a blade in Nicole’s life once, wielded in a dim parlor by a different mother with the same smile. He has a future, dear. The memory skittered under her skin like a moth against glass.

How could she have forgotten? That day Mrs. Masterson summoned her to the house, her voice like ice as she delivered the ultimatum: Leave my son alone, or you’ll regret the day you met him.

The threat had seared itself into her bones.

And yet somehow, Nicole had buried it, shoved it so deep, she’d almost convinced herself it hadn’t happened.

How could she have pushed that memory out of her mind?

The check she’d slid across the table, payment to disappear, dressed up as help for her college expenses.

Nicole remembered staring at it, her hands shaking, her pride warring with her rage.

She’d pushed it back across the polished wood, refusing to be bought like some cheap transaction.

The humiliation burned hotter than fire as she stormed out of that ice palace, sick with disgust and betrayal.

“And did you share those concerns with him?” Tripp’s tone stayed gentle.

“Of course. I told him he had worked too hard to be derailed.”

“By Bianca?”

“By circumstance,” Evelyn said, correcting him with a velvet edge.

Nicole’s pen dug into her palm. Circumstance . That was the word women like Evelyn used to measure other people’s worth. You were either born into money and pedigree, or you were one of the faceless masses.

Tripp continued. “Mrs. Reddick, did you ever speak to your son about Bianca’s suitability as a wife?”

Evelyn’s jaw feathered. “I may have suggested she wasn’t compatible with him long-term.”

A hum, low as a hive, moved through the jurors. Tripp’s eyes sharpened.

“And the pregnancy?” he asked. “Did you advise your son how to handle it?”

“I told him options existed,” Evelyn said, pearls winking beneath the lights. “That he didn’t have to let one mistake dictate his entire life.”

That meeting with Mrs. Masterson hadn’t been about polite concern, it had been a warning.

Don’t get pregnant. Don’t you dare try to trap my son.

The accusation had seared through Nicole like acid, her fury rising at the audacity of it.

She and Tripp had made their own vow, a sacred promise not to have children until school was behind them.

And yet his mother, in all her arrogance, had assumed Nicole was nothing more than a schemer lying in wait to snare him just like Evelyn Reddick had assumed about Bianca.

“Options,” Tripp repeated. “Including abortion.”

“Yes.” The word snapped like a twig. “Bianca had her own plans. Law school. A career. She wasn’t prepared to support Derrick’s path. She would have ruined him.”

The air thinned. Nicole’s chest tightened. History repeating itself.

Tripp’s voice lost its velvet. “So to be clear, you told your son that Bianca was unsuitable. That her pregnancy was a mistake. That the child she carried was not worth altering his plans for.”

Evelyn’s composure flickered, then settled. “I told him his future was too important to be tied down by a girl who didn’t belong in our family.”

Nicole swallowed hard. It was always the same song: our family, our kind, our future. A hymn to exclusion, sung in perfect pitch.

Tripp took a breath, changed lanes. “Where were you on the night Ms. Laurent was killed?”

Evelyn smiled. It didn’t reach her eyes. “At home. Reading.”

“Alone?”

“Yes. Derrick was out with friends, not that he still lives at home. But I had no plans.”

Tripp nodded, turning a page in his binder. “Phone records show a call from your number to Ms. Laurent at 9:35 p.m. that night. What was discussed?”

“I urged her to terminate the pregnancy,” Evelyn said, voice cool. “To let Derrick finish his studies. He’s going to be a doctor.” A quick, maternal glance toward her son, softening like sunlight, well-practiced and deadly.

Nicole had seen that look on Mrs. Masterson’s face before.

“And what did Bianca say?”

“She refused. Her family is Catholic. She was not terminating the pregnancy.”

“Did you threaten her?”

Evelyn’s smile sharpened. “I don’t threaten. I reason.”

A murmur spread from the back row. Nicole kept her face still. She understood what Tripp was doing.

Why had she been so blind? Because this wasn’t new, she knew this kind of truth, had lived it, and it had carved scars deep into her.

It was the kind of truth that stole your breath, that left you staring at the ceiling at three a.m., wondering how love could be twisted into something so cruel.

And now, standing here, she felt it all over again—raw, merciless, and burning through her like fire.

Tripp walked a few steps, the rhythm of his soles on hardwood a metronome. “Mrs. Reddick, had you ever been to Ms. Laurent’s home?”

“No.”

“But you had her address.”

“I’m sure it was in a file. Somewhere.”

“Because you invited her to Derrick’s graduation party?”

“Only because he insisted,” Evelyn said, bored now. “Common courtesy.”

“So you had her address,” Tripp repeated, unblinking.

Evelyn’s mouth went flat. “I suppose.”

“Did you drive to her home that night?”

She gave a small, brittle laugh. “No.”

Tripp lifted a single page, the paper whispering like a warning.

“Let me direct your attention to Defense Exhibit A, a trip log from your vehicle’s onboard computer.

It shows your car leaving your residence at 10:03 p.m., stopping in front of Ms. Laurent’s home at 10:27 p.m., and returning to your home at 11:51 p.m.”

“Objection,” Nicole snapped, not because she had a good reason, but rather that she didn’t want Tripp to win, and clearly, he’d found their murderer. “Foundation. Authentication.”

“Overruled, if you can lay it, Mr. Masterson,” Judge Price said.

Tripp nodded. “Your Honor, these records were obtained via subpoena from the dealership’s telematics service. The custodian of records authenticated them yesterday. The State received copies late last night.”

Nicole had. She’d read them twice with growing unease. It all made sense now.

Evelyn’s fingers tightened around the edge of the witness chair. “You had no right?—”