Deceptions: A Cainsville Novel (38 page)

A
fter Patrick finished with Tristan, “Jon Childs” turned himself in and confessed, and Patrick promised that Tristan would give the police evidence they needed to be certain he murdered James.

The next day, I went to the jail to confront Pamela.

Pamela now. Not my mother. Maybe never again my mother.

I didn’t know how to process what Tristan said she’d done. I wanted to say it wasn’t true. He was fae—he couldn’t be trusted. But I knew it was true. In my gut, I knew.

Gabriel drove me to the jail, but I left him outside. This I had to do alone.

I don’t remember walking into that room. Don’t remember sitting. I do remember Pamela coming out, that moment when a two-year-old girl in my soul screamed,
How could you?
and I had to squeeze my eyes shut, clench my fists, banish that girl, and remember I was not Eden Larsen. I was Olivia Taylor-Jones. My mother was Lena Taylor. My ex-fiancé was James Morgan, deceased. My boss—and, yes, friend—was Gabriel Walsh, framed for a murder he did not commit. Framed by the woman sitting in front of me.

“I know everything,” I said as she sat.

She sighed. That was her reaction. A sigh, and a shake of her head, as if I were a child coming to her with some vicious rumor. “I don’t know what you mean, Olivia, but whatever it is—”

“It was you. Not Todd. Pamela Larsen. Not my dad.”

And that, perhaps, was the second-worst thing I could have said to her, the way I phrased that, and she flinched, and then I added the worst, a lie I needed to tell: “Dad confessed . . . after I told him how you tried to blame him.”

Pamela reeled then, and all I could think was,
Good
.
I’m glad I hurt you, for all the ways you hurt them: my father, James, Gabriel. And me. Yes, for all the ways you’ve hurt me.

“You think you did it for me,” I said. “But you know what wasn’t about me? James.”

“Wh-what?”

I lowered my voice so the guard across the room wouldn’t hear. “You conspired with Tristan to kill James and frame Gabriel.”

It took her a moment to say, “I don’t know what you mean,” and that moment’s hesitation answered any remaining question I had.

“Gabriel was your best shot at freedom,” I said, struggling against the rage that swirled through me. “He would have gotten you out.
We
would have—Gabriel and I, together. You screwed yourself over. You get that, don’t you?”

She shook her head, and I understood then. I understood that it didn’t matter. That her hatred of fae was pathological, and it wasn’t so much because Gabriel was part fae—so was she—but that his role, as Gwynn, was to bring me to the Tylwyth Teg, and she could not allow that. As for freeing her, she didn’t believe that would happen, not really. After all, she was guilty. I suspected she’d only rehired him to keep him close enough to watch and to have some control over him, as leverage to separate him from me, which had failed. Step two, then, was more permanent.

“Why James?” I said, forcing as much calm into my voice as I could muster. “What did he do?”

“He was obsessed with you. I saw that when he came to speak to me. I didn’t mean for that
spriggan
to kill him. I only wanted him hurt enough to scare him off.”

“And then frame Gabriel for the assault.”

“Yes. Assault, not murder.”

“Then Tristan did kill James. You were horrified. You confessed to me what happened, told me he planned to frame Gabriel and you couldn’t let that happen because it went too far, much too far. Oh, wait. No. That’s not how it happened.”

“I . . .”

“I don’t know if you planned for James to die or not, but you knew it was a possibility, and when he did, you continued as planned. One innocent man died and another was due to spend his life in prison for the crime.”

“Gabriel is not an innocent man, Olivia. Far from it. The sooner you realize that, the better off you will be.” She leaned in. “He wouldn’t have gone to prison anyway. He’s too good a lawyer for that.”

“James is still dead.”

“Yes, and that is a tragedy, but I had nothing—”

“James is still dead!” I spat, leaning across the table, Pamela falling back, the guard across the room shooting forward. I moved back and the guard stopped.

“James was innocent,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper now, the pain too great. “And he is dead, and as far as I am concerned, you are responsible for that, as much as if you’d put your hands around his neck yourself.”

I stood and I turned away, and as I did, she got to her feet. “Olivia, no. Please. I can explain.”

I walked to the door. “Olivia,” she called. “Please.”

I opened the door, and as it closed behind me, I heard her shout, “Eden!” and I kept walking.

—

I was now permitted to see Todd. The prison officials explained it had been an “administrative miscommunication,” which I interpreted to mean there’d been some magic at work, likely Tristan’s.

On my way into the waiting room, I’d grabbed a tissue, but if I did cry, it wasn’t going to do me much good, because by the time that door opened, it was shredded on my lap, my fingers still pulling apart every scrap big enough to shred.

Todd walked over, that tentative
I’m not sure of my welcome
smile playing on his lips. When I smiled, he returned it and slid into his seat.

“Hey, there,” he said.

“Hey.”

He glanced at Gabriel, standing over by the wall. “Tell him to grab a chair.”

“He’d rather stand.”

“Loom, you mean.”

I smiled again. “Exactly. More intimidating.” I took a deep breath. “I know the truth. I know who did it, and I know why, and I know it wasn’t you.” I met his gaze. “It was Pamela. All Pamela.”

Todd jerked back. “What? No. Whoever told you that—”

“She did. I figured it out, and she admitted it.”

“Then she’s lying.”

“She’s not, though I’ll admit she’s very good at it. You, on the other hand? You need to work on your technique, Dad.”

He’d opened his mouth to protest. Then, realizing what I’d called him, he froze. His mouth worked and then stopped as his eyes glistened and he shook his head. “Shit.”

“Yep,” I said.

“Whatever she said, I’m sure she exaggerated to protect me.”

“She blamed you.”

“She—?”

“She told me you were the one who did it. That she was the guilt-stricken conscientious objector who went to prison to protect you and support your actions.”

He stared, and I almost wished I could pull the words back. He didn’t deserve that. But he hadn’t deserved any of it, and that was why I had to plow on, however much it hurt him.

“She . . . she must have had a reason. A plan.” He gave a twisted smile. “Your mother always has a plan.”

“I know,” I said. “And sometimes, as much as she thinks she’s protecting the ones she loves, she hurts them. Hurts them so much.”

“She doesn’t mean it.”

“Maybe, but we need to stop making excuses for her. It’s time for you to tell the truth.”

“What?” He blinked hard. “No. We have an appeal. Gabriel will—”

“No, Gabriel won’t. Not for her. Even if he did, freedom is far from a guarantee. I want a guarantee. For
you
.”

“Your mother . . .”

“There’s more.” I told him what she’d done: ordering James’s death and framing Gabriel.

When I finished, he seemed to have aged ten years, his face sagging, his eyes dark with pain.

“I know that in some twisted way she was trying to protect me,” I said. “But she killed someone I loved and tried to destroy someone else I care about very much. There is no justifying that.”

He dipped his head in a slow nod.

“I know you feel you owe her, for what she did for me, but I think you’ve repaid that. You’ve repaid it and repaid it, and even if you still love her, you don’t owe her a thing.” I crumpled the remains of the tissue in my hand. “And I want you back. I really want you back.”

He tore his gaze from mine. “I will tell the truth,” he said. “But first, I need to let Gabriel work his magic, try to free me without turning on her.”

“What? No. Gabriel’s good, but I want guarantees, Dad. I need a guarantee.”

“Even my telling the truth doesn’t guarantee anything, sweetheart. If the appeal fails, I’ll do it. But you need to give me this chance, Liv. Whatever she’s done, I need to try it this way first.”

G
abriel never told me why he’d taken so long to answer my calls for help. He had come, eventually, and I guess to him that was enough. Which told me what I needed to know. That he was there for me, in his way and on his time. I needed to come to terms with that.

I was there for him, no matter what. He did not need to reciprocate. Those were our choices, and I wasn’t going to change mine because it didn’t match his. He
had
come for me. He’d come in the middle of the night, with a wrinkled and misbuttoned shirt and the wrong shoes. The commitment was there, even if it didn’t match my own.

I did bring it up once, in the few days that followed. We were at lunch, and I said, “About that night, on the beach, with Tristan,” and Gabriel tensed fast. I said, “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Gwynn sooner,” and he relaxed, brushing it off with, “That’s fine.”

“No, it’s not,” I said. “But I wasn’t sure how to broach it. Ricky found out by accident, and then we discussed it, and he agreed with me that you might not take it well.”

“Which I did not.”

“We weren’t going to hide it forever. Just until we figured out how to handle it. We agreed that if there was a chance you’d find out, though, we’d tell you. With Tristan, I tried to get you out of there to explain. It didn’t work. So I apologize.”

He stuck his fork into a piece of sausage and pushed it across his plate before answering. “I would have liked to hear it from you, but I understand your reasoning, and I believe my reaction showed that your presumptions were correct. I handled it poorly.” He cleared his throat. “What I said about the visions, that you were hallucinating. I didn’t mean that. I—”

“I know.”

He nodded. More sausage pushing. Another throat clearing. “The rest. When you said we were friends, and I laughed. I was angry. We are. I hope you know that.”

He didn’t say
We are friends
. Just “We are,” as if the word itself was too difficult. But it was enough, and I nodded, and he changed the subject quickly, as if relieved to push past and move on.

We
were
friends. I’ve always said that being more than friends with Gabriel would be a very bad idea. That I was certain other women had hoped to break through his wall, and I wouldn’t fall into that trap. That I’d be happy with friendship. But there’s a difference between knowing a thing and accepting it. Now I accepted it.

—

The police dropped the charges against Gabriel. They’d lost Jon Childs when he vanished from jail a few days after being arrested. He hadn’t escaped. He’d been “dealt with,” as the Cwn Annwn promised. But his incarceration, however brief, had been enough for the police to decide Gabriel wasn’t responsible. They’d even dropped James’s assault charges—a little hard to pursue now that their chief witness was dead. So Gabriel was free
and
on his way to overturning Todd’s life sentence, which meant business was booming, with a dozen new client hopefuls for every one he’d lost.

—

Two weeks later, I was getting ready to leave work early. I wore jeans, an old T-shirt, and an equally old denim jacket. Even my new ankle boots, while gorgeous, did not make the outfit business-friendly, or even business-casual. I’d only popped in for some job-tidying before Ricky picked me up for our trip.

Gabriel and I had come up with a “schedule of availability”—times when he could contact me on my vacation. Telling him
not
to wouldn’t work. As I waited for Ricky’s arrival text, I showed off my tattoo to Lydia, having just removed the bandage that morning. I had my foot up on her desk as she inspected it.

“Hurt?” she asked.

“Like a son of a bitch.”

She laughed.

“Apparently, the closer you ink to bone, the more it hurts, but the less likely it is to look like crap in twenty years. Above the ankle seemed a good choice. Easily hidden, but not always hidden.”

She took a closer look. “Ricky has the same one?”

“Matching tattoos would be a bit much. His is similar but different.”

“In my day, we just exchanged class rings. This would have been so much more fun. Of course, considering the rate I went through boys, I don’t think I’d have an inch of skin left.”

I laughed and she looked up at me, voice softening. “Was he happy?”

I nodded.

“I bet he was.” She settled back into her seat. “Normally, a couple of weeks alone on the road in the wilderness wouldn’t be what I’d suggest for a young couple, but I think you’ll do just fine.”

I smiled as I tugged down my pant leg. “We’ll survive.”

“I hope so,” Gabriel said behind us. “I’ll have work waiting when you get back.”

He headed to the coffee machine. As I put on my boot, he looked toward my ankle.

“Yes, I was showing off my tattoo,” I said.

He selected a pod from the carousel and popped it into the brewer. “It’s relatively discreet, I hope.”

“Yes, sir, though I would point out that since I’m getting my private investigator license, it would be perfectly acceptable for me to have tats. I’m also thinking of a piercing or two.”

He snorted and waited for his coffee. My phone chirped.

“That would be my ride,” I said. “So long, and don’t work too hard.”

Lydia said goodbye. Gabriel apparently considered it redundant, having said it in his office, but he came out after me, murmuring, “Wait a moment.”

He shut the door behind him and checked down the hall, making sure we were alone.

“Before you go,” he said. “I wanted to assure you that Todd’s appeal is my top priority.”

“I know. Thank you.”

He glanced toward the outer door, then adjusted his tie. “So everything is . . . all right?” The last word rose, question rather than statement.

“Everything’s fine.”

“And you and I? We’re . . . fine?”

I smiled for him. “We are. I know this isn’t the best time for a vacation, but—” It wasn’t as if I was leaving for good. This was my job now, and we had plenty to do still, between setting my father free and figuring out how to handle the Matilda legend. Two weeks, and we’d be back at it. Together. That hadn’t changed.

“No, no. You could use a break. I just . . .” He trailed off. Another phone chirp. Ricky telling me he was parked in the lane, not rushing me, but Gabriel said, “You should go.”

“I’ll see you in two weeks.”

I got as far as the front door, my hand on it, when he said, “Olivia?”

I turned. He stood there, hands in his pockets.

“I . . .” he began. His gaze dropped to my ankle. Then he cleared his throat and straightened, pulling out his hands. He reached over and squeezed my upper arm, awkwardly but lingering as he said, “Take care of yourself and have a good vacation. You deserve it.” He released my arm, gave a quarter smile, and headed back for his office.

I opened the front door. As I stepped out, I thought I felt Gabriel watching. I looked back, but he was already disappearing into the office. I paused, feeling the impulse to run after him, to ask if he’d wanted to say something more, to say anything, to hope that—

No, I’d made my decision. I couldn’t keep questioning it. I just couldn’t.

I took a deep breath and continued out to where Ricky waited.