Between Now and Heartbreak: The Forever Trilogy Book 2 Page 2

  “Great to see you,” I say cheerily as I speed walk past her, ignoring her open arms and heading for the front door as quickly as I can without actually running.

  “Nice way to show it,” she mutters behind me but she catches up quickly.

  “I’m sorry, I’ll explain,” I say in a hushed tone, not slowing down as we head for the door.

  “Please be home before midnight,” my father’s disembodied voice floats out of the speakers that dot the ceiling in our foyer.

  I nod at the command, smile my most agreeable smile, and hook my arm through Dina’s and pull her through the door.

  “What in the world is that?” Dina whispers, her eyes are wide with surprise as she looks back over her shoulder. I pull the door shut behind us. Even though I know we’re alone now, I still speak in a whisper.

  “Let’s get in the car. I’ll tell you everything.”

  “Ohhhh-kay,” she drawls, a bemused expression on her face, but she unlocks the car and climbs in.

  As soon as the door is closed, I slump in my seat and take a few deep breaths to steady my breathing.

  Her hand closes around mine and I jump. I look down at our joined hands. I can’t remember the last time anyone touched me with anything approaching kindness.

  “Liz, are you okay?”

  The worry in her voice shakes me out of my stupor. I remember the part I’m supposed to be playing. Even with her, Duke and I signed non-disclosure agreements. We’re not allowed to tell anyone the true nature of our relationship. Not even our best friends.

  I turn to her and give her a broad smile.

  She smiles back, but it’s tentative.

  “I’m so sorry about that. I’m just anxious. It’s my first night out in a while,” I pull my hand out of hers and buckle my seatbelt.

  She hesitates for a beat before she starts the car and pulls out of the drive.

  “So, where are we going? You were all mysterious on the phone.” I say when the silence starts to feel uncomfortable.

  “Was that your dad’s voice coming through speakers in the wall?” she asks, clearly not willing to let me off the hook.

  I grimace. “Yes. It’s actually Fiona’s thing. It’s not just speakers, it’s cameras. She can see and hear from every angle between here and the front door.”

  “What the hell? Why?” She glances at me, her eyes wide and befuddled. She’s my closest friend, but even she doesn’t know how dysfunctional my family is. I can’t tell her everything, but I can share what I think will be least shocking.

  “My dad is having an affair with Heather.”

  Dina’s whole body jerks left and she hits the brakes.

  “Heather, cunty Heather who just opened the door? No wonder she looks so pleased with herself.”

  “Yup.” I let out a frustrated breath. It’s my father’s worst infidelity yet. He’s always at least pretended to try to be discrete. This is so blatant. And it’s made Fiona crazy.

  “She thinks the cameras will make them stop. Or take it somewhere outside the house. But, I don’t think they care.”

  Dina shakes her head in dismay and starts to speak again, but is cut off by the phone ringing.

  The loud trill of it blares through the car’s speakers and her husband’s name flashes on the display.

  Her expression sours slightly and she presses the button to decline the call. Before I can ask her what the hell that’s about, she clears her throat.

  “Finish telling me how your dad’s in love with your housekeeper.”

  I have to admire her skills of deflection. I wish mine were as good. Even though I’m dying to probe her about what James told me in the hospital room, I also know what it is to have things on your heart you can’t share. So, I let the awkward moment pass like I didn’t notice.

  “They’re fucking. I don’t think he’s in love with her.”

  “I was being sarcastic. Your Dad isn’t in love with anything but himself and that company.” She giggles and then slaps a hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t talk about him like that.”

  Her contrition is misplaced. I shrug. “It’s not like you’re lying. We all know who he is. He’s never tried hard to hide it.”

  “So, Fiona just…what? Puts up with his cheating?” She asks in a voice that drips with judgment and even though I don’t feel differently, hearing it from her, chafes a little.

  I shrug again, but this time with less ease and try to put a definitive end to this conversation.

  “Di, I stopped trying to understand their dynamic a long time ago. I know it’s fucked up. But it’s also their real lives. They’re in a miserable marriage. My dad is an asshole. But, no matter what he’s done or what he’ll do, he’s my father. It counts for something so, I don’t want to talk shit about him or my stepmother.”

  “I’m sorry, honey.” Her apology comes out swift and sincere and I feel like such a hypocrite for defending my him. But it’s like a reflex, especially after spending months pretending to be a part of his world.

  “It’s okay…I know we joked about it all through high school, but now that he’s all I have, I just feel like I’m dishonoring something I shouldn’t take for granted.”

  “Wow, you’re so wise all of a sudden,” she says when we pull up at the red light. I look over to find her watching me with a look of appreciation on her face.

  “Near death experiences will do that to you.” I mutter and wince at the tug of pain in my chest when I think about James saying that in the hospital.

  She frowns. “What does that mean? I thought you were visiting your grandmother. What happened?”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it literally. It’s just…a lot has happened this year, it feels like I’ve been to hell and back. Everything’s changed. Including me.” I rush to reassure her.

  “I can see that…you have to tell me everything, Liz.” She says and the knowing smile on her face makes stomach clench. I know she’s mainly talking about my new look, but she’ll want to know about things with Duke. That is the very last thing I want to talk about. Ever.

  “I will. Just not all tonight, I’m in a good mood. I’d like to stay that way. I want to hear about you. What’s this research project?”

  “My senior thesis. It’s a case study on Winsome.”

  I snort a surprised laugh. “Winsome? Uh - that’ll be the shortest senior thesis in history. There’s nothing to study here.”

  “Are you kidding? Winsome is a legend in economic development circles.”

  “What in the world for?” I gape in genuine surprise.

  “High unemployment, epidemic level opioid addiction, crime, brain drain. You name it—those things are like a plague in small towns all over the country. Winsome has proven to be the exception.”

  “Wolfe Construction being here helps, I think.”

  “Yeah. It does. But, that’s not all. Other rural towns can boast huge multinational headquarters.”

  “Winsome is not rural.”

  She ignores me. “In those other rural towns, the work force commutes from a suburban area. Outside working hours, they turn into ghost towns. The diner, the general store all close, too. There are no other customers once the work crowd is gone.”

  “So you think that’s it? That they people who work here, live here, too?” I muse.

  “Partially. I think Wolfe being the town is an even bigger reason.”

  “That’s hardly true. I mean, my dad owns the largest business, but it’s not the only one.”

  Dina frowns at me.

  “I know you know this town’s history already. And so you know that none of the other businesses would exist if Wolfe didn’t want them to.”

  Winsome was initially a family compound. At the turn on the twentieth century, the Wolfe brothers were part of the a new generation of German-Americans. Their grandparents settled in Texas during a wave of immigration fifty years before the civil war.

  They were the first generation born on these shores, and after a decade of being shunned for their support of Union’s cause in the Civil War, they decided to shed their German identities and make a new beginning.

  With nothing but grit, their savings, and each other, Wolfe brothers moved east of New Braunfels and bought the land Winsome sits on now. The original parcel was 600,000 acres – nearly the size of the state of Rhode Island. By the time my great-grandfather started Wolfe construction twenty years later, he and his two younger brothers were the only remaining of the original eight brothers that had settled the area.

  They sold off 90% of the land and kept just twenty squares miles for themselves. They all built homes that were miles apart, but that would become the anchors to what would be the borders of Winsome.

  “They scouted the globe for talent that they lured back to Winsome as settlers. All of the other founding families moved here because Wolfe handpicked them. You couldn’t buy a plot of land or get a permit without one of them approving it.”

  “Okay. But it’s not like that anymore,” I ask annoyed that she knows so much more of my family history than I do. Though to be fair, I’ve never taken the time to learn it. This town, this family, none of it has ever really felt like mine.

  “Of course it is. They handpick their residents, lure them with amazing salaries and perks, and then handcuff them non-competes that made finding another job impossible.”

  “Didn’t you know that?” She frowns at the surprise registering on my face.

  “No, I didn’t.”

  My ignorance about the true nature of the people and things I’ve spent my whole life right next is equal parts embarrassing and annoying. No wonder my father didn’t even consider me for a more important role until this arrangement with Duke.

  “Well, I only know because my dad worked there. From the outside looking in, this looks like a small town that’s booming because it’s got such a strong heart.”

  “That’s exactly what it is.” I say with a certainty I don’t feel.

  She nods, her expression grave now, all hints of levity are gone. We stop for a red light and she glances at me for a second before she looks back at the road. I didn’t imagine the conflict I saw there.

  “What?” I demand when she bites her lip in agitation and tightens her grip on the steering wheel so that her knuckles turn white.

  The light turns green, but she doesn’t pulls away. “Your father, along with the Tremaine’s, they treat it like it’s their personal fiefdom.”

  I bristle at that.

  “I know people treat my dad like a king, but they vote for their leadership in elections just like everyone else. I mean, if someone besides the Tremaines actually ran for anything, then maybe we could accuse them of rigging it. But they haven’t been opposed in years.”

  “Nope, and that’s not because no one else wants to run.”

  “What do you mean, Dina?” Her cryptic answers and insinuations are getting under my skin. And I don’t know why.

  “I mean, they’ve gained and used power in ways that are, at best, appalling. And at worst, some of their behavior might be illegal,” she says.

  “Are you talking about my father? He’s just a businessman.”

  She shrugs, but her expression remains just as grave. “These are all just theories, Liz. And he’s not the mastermind of anything that’s happening here, but he’s certainly been the beneficiary. I’ve got a few things I want to check out while I’m here. Including a really strange case a PI friend of mine had me do some research on. At least one kid that was born is unaccounted for.”

  It’s my turn to squint in disbelief. “You watch too much tv,” I laugh, dismissing her.

  “And you don’t watch enough if you think a kid being born here and then disappearing from the public record is something that only happens in fiction,” she shoots back.

  “What in the world are you talking about?” I ask, shocked by the implications of what she’s saying.

  “I found a birth is record. But when the woman who is listed on the birth certificate remarried several years later, she declared on her marriage license application that she didn’t have any children.”

  “Maybe he died. Or she gave him up.”

  “If that child died, no one else knows about. There’s no death certificate. No documents terminating her parental rights. Nothing. But it turns out, it wasn’t an isolated incident. She had another baby that is unaccounted for. Ten years later. After she murdered her husband, burned their house down and disappeared for months.”

  “What?” I shout.

  “I’m right next to you, Liz, you don’t need to scream.” Dina shoots me a sideways glance and rubs her ear for effect.

  I grimace in apology and lower my voice “What do you mean? Here, in Winsome?”

  “Yes. Here.”

  “Did they find her?”

  “Nope, She turned herself in. Seven months after the murder.”

  “What? Why?”

  Dina shrugs. “Who knows. From what I’ve been able to gather, initially the police thought she’d been kidnapped. She was a missing person. No one thought she’d been the one to kill him.”

  I’m horrified to know that all of this happened in Winsome and I had no idea. “What about the baby? Did it die in the fire?”

  “No, she was still pregnant when she did it. But no one knew that. When she was examined after her arrest, they found that she’d given childbirth sometime in the previous three months. She denied having a baby. But her body made it clear she was lying. I don’t understand why they didn’t charge her with anything related to that. But they didn’t. I’m hoping to get more answers.”

  “So she killed her first kid. Got married, killed her husband, had a baby in secret, killed it, too, came back to face the music for her husband’s murder and denied that she’d had a kid?” I recite the facts and shiver. What kind of person does that?

  “Yup. You couldn’t make it up, right?” She shakes her head in disbelief. “Even stranger is that nowhere in the police reports or the records from her hearings is there even a mention of the first child who disappeared. I mean, maybe they didn’t look through the birth records. I’ll admit that getting those records wasn’t easy. But this is a small town, I don’t see how a young girl could be pregnant, give birth and no one remember.”

  That sends chills up my spine, too. “Me neither. What’s the family’s name? Do we know them?”

  “Her maiden name was Martin. Her father moved here from New York to work as an engineer for Wolfe and settled here. They fell on hard times when her dad died, but she went to work for the Tremaine family in some sort of domestic position right after high school. Her name changed to Kendicott after she got married. Her husband worked construction at Wolfe, but he was just a worker bee. They kept to themselves mostly.”

  “Why did she kill him? Did she ever say?” I’m dazed by this story. And by the fact that I’ve never heard it before. This town has a lot of myths and lore, but this isn’t one of them.

  “Not really. There’s a note in the police report, her mentioning that he hit her regularly. I don’t know what happened the day she pulled that trigger. She plead guilty. There wasn’t a trial. At the sentencing, his family spoke, but she never did. Beyond the interview with the police and her official confession and statement, there’s nothing.”

  “Maybe she got tired of that bastard beating her. I don’t know how anyone is expected to live that way.” I think about the months I spent my grandmother’s. Years of that would make me want to kill someone, too.

  Dina lets out a long suffering sigh.

  “I know, girl. I know. Let’s talk about something else. This is depressing. And you still have to tell me all about your great love affair with Duke Tremaine.”

  2

  LIAR, LIAR

  BETH

  Her sudden left turn in the conversation catches me off guard.

  The story I’ve memorized and repeated dozens of time in answer to this question jumble and get stuck in my throat.

  I hate lying to Dina. She’s the only person who hasn’t let me down and the last person who deserves it.

  Her family moved here when her father started working as an Engineer at Wolfe. She was sixteen, from Seattle and full of ideas and dreams.

  And she cursed like a sailor.

  Her family is from Vietnam originally, and the very first time we talked she promised to take me there one day.

  I could tell she meant it.

  I’d never met anyone like her and I loved her immediately.

  That first year of our friendship was spent making grand plans. She was going to be a famous true crime novelist and editor, and I was going to be an artist.

  We’d live in an apartment in Paris, wear beautiful clothes, dance with handsome men in trendy nightclubs, and sleep as late as we wanted.

  The closest I’ve come to living that life has been vicarious glimpses of Dina’s adventures from the pictures and postcards she sends me.

  She’s in her final year at college, and she’s had an internship every summer with a publishing house in New York including one she spent at their European headquarters in Paris. She married Wes, her childhood school sweetheart just last year.

  She’s living my dream life and I should hate her, but I don’t because she’s the real deal. I love her so much.

  Lying to her feels like stealing something from her. And even if I could tell her everything, she wouldn’t understand. I know it.

  So, I add this to my list of sins and force myself to say what I must. “Uh, Duke and I…” I let out what I hope sounds like a happy chuckle and clear my dry throat. “Well, it was quite a surprise for me, too. But, he’s really great and I’m excited to marry him.”

  “Wow.” The surprise in her voice is muted but her expression screams her shock.

  “Why, wow?” I ask, hating myself for pretending not to understand.

  She blinks a few times like she’s got something in her eyes and she purses her lips.

  “It’s just…he must have done a complete 180 for you to be into him. He was kind of an asshole when we were in high school. I mean, we all thought he was hot, but he wasn’t nice.” She grimaces.