The Beautiful Daughters (32 page)

“No,” she shook her head. “I want to hear it all.”

Caleb nodded. “He's out of surgery, for what it's worth. And when he woke up from the anesthesia, he asked about you.”

“I'm fine,” she said.

Caleb gave her a quick once-over. Seemed to assess the thick bandages on her ear, her scratched cheek and undoubtedly bruised jaw. Her palms were scratched, her jeans torn. Harper
hadn't seen herself in a mirror, but she assumed she looked terrible. For a moment, Caleb seemed like he wanted to ask her how she was, maybe what had happened, but he refrained. He said, “We told Will exactly that. That you'd be just fine.”

Harper looked around. There was no we, only Caleb, alone in the waiting room. And now her. The outsiders.

Caleb guessed her question before she asked it. “Sam and Adri are with Will. And Jackson is getting some things for him from Will's house. After asking about you, Will asked for his toothbrush.”

Harper grinned in spite of herself, then buried her face in her hands because she was afraid that she'd laugh or scream or throw up all over Caleb. She had forgotten how vain Will was about his perfect teeth. How they had to be, at all times, pristinely clean. It made her unaccountably happy to think of him bending over the sink, scrubbing his teeth.

Sighing, Harper turned to Caleb. “May I . . . Do you think I could see him?”

But Caleb wasn't looking at her anymore. His attention was fixed on the entrance to the waiting room, at the place where Adri stood rumpled and gorgeous and vengeful. And, though she was a good six inches shorter than Harper, looking for all the world like a diminutive, dark-eyed Amazon.

28

ADRIENNE

C
aleb excused himself quietly, but as he walked past Adri he ran his fingertips along her cheek. She closed her eyes for just a second, tolerating his touch. No, she savored it, turning her face toward him in the moment before he broke contact. She kissed the palm of his hand.

Everything had changed. And whether or not she could forgive herself for all that had happened, Adri needed Caleb now. She couldn't deny the depth of her longing for him. No matter what happened, Adri knew that a part of her would love Caleb forever. He had helped her save Will's life.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

Caleb shook his head a little, but his gaze told Adri everything she needed to know. Later, he said silently. And then his eyes flicked toward Harper. She was curled up in one of the plastic waiting room chairs, as limp as a rag doll and just as worn and patched. One side of her head was swaddled in thick, white bandages, and the other bore the purpling stain of a wicked bruise.

Adri crumbled a little as she studied Harper. She was furious, so insanely angry that someone would dare to shoot her brother, so she could hardly see straight. Some of that anger was directed at Harper—of course, her former best friend was wrapped up in all of this. She would have to bear some of the
blame. But seeing Harper so fragile, as small and scared as an abandoned child, Adri felt her fury leaching away.

Caleb caught her hand and gave it a fortifying squeeze. Then he disappeared behind her down the long hallway. Adri and Harper were alone.

“I'm sorry,” Harper croaked before Adri could think of a single thing to say.

“You should be.” There was a quiver in Adri's voice, but she got it under control. She hadn't meant to say that. To sound so judgmental and harsh. But she was sick of lies and half-truths; she could taste bile on her tongue. Adri wanted to vilify Harper, but she couldn't. She still loved her too much. And yet, she wouldn't stand for anything less than the truth. Not anymore. “I want to know what happened out there, Harper. I want to know everything.”

Harper nodded. “Okay.”

“And I mean everything. You've been hiding something since the day you showed up at Piperhall, and though I have done my level best to be your friend, to be there for you no matter what, you have lied to me again and again.”

Harper didn't deny it. She didn't say anything at all.

“I need a change of clothes.” Adri held out her arms to show Harper that her shirt was stiff with dried blood. Her hair, too, though she had pulled it back in a sticky ponytail. The scent of her brother's blood in her hair had almost sent her to her knees in the hospital bathroom. A part of Adri couldn't shake the feeling that this was all a nightmare and she'd wake up feverish and sweaty in her little bungalow, Caleb knocking on her bedroom door to make sure she was okay. But she couldn't bury her head in the sand anymore. She couldn't hide.

“You're coming with me, Harper.” Adri said. “You're not leaving my sight until I know exactly what is going on, and how Will got tangled up in it.”

“Okay.” Harper nodded, looking contrite.

“Wait. Before we go . . .” Adri held up her hand, stopping
Harper before she could edge her way out of the waiting room. “I need to know: are we safe?”

It was a loaded question, and Adri wasn't sure that Harper would know the answer.

“He's on the run,” Harper finally said, and Adri could tell that it was the truth as far as Harper understood it. “I saw his face after . . .” She stalled. Tried again. “He's afraid. I don't think he meant to shoot Will.”

Adri's heart clenched, but she believed that at least they wouldn't be facing a deranged gunman in the parking lot. She spun on her heel and led Harper out of the hospital without another word.

The sky was milk and honey, pale with the promise of a brilliant sunrise. It was changing by the second, honey deepening to butter and then to the warm, rich tones of a ripe pumpkin. The prelude to a spectacular autumn day. Adri would have turned her face to the hint of sunshine, the softening horizon line, but her chest was too tight to take in such beauty.

Sam's old truck was parked crooked between two spaces near the front of the visitor lot, but no one had bothered to give him a ticket. Whoever monitored such things was probably well versed in the middle-of-the-night, emergency parking job, in the way that people in crisis might leave lights on or doors open or engines running. Sam had barely managed to park his car, but the lights were off and Adri held the keys. No matter that the doors were unlocked and the spare tucked in a magnetic holder beneath the driver's side wheel well. Sam had thrust the ring of keys into her hands in the emergency room hours ago. He had been pacing frantically, one fist pressed to his mouth and his eyes wild with fear and worry. It hurt Adri to see her characteristically calm, immovable father anchorless, and when the jangle of the keys at his waist seemed to drive him momentarily insane, she happily accepted them.

The girls didn't speak all the way back to Blackhawk, but when Adri pulled down the road toward Piperhall instead of turning in
the direction of Maple Acres, Harper opened her mouth to ask why. “Do you really want to go back here?” She sounded fearful.

“It's closer than the farm,” Adri said. “Will is sleeping, but I want to be there when he wakes up.”

The estate was only four miles closer, but Adri wanted to bring Harper to Piperhall. She hoped the harsh reality of all that had happened there would work as a catalyst. Besides, they each had a change of clothes and toiletries at the estate, and she did want to be back before Will woke up.

But when they turned off the main road and down the gravel drive, it became obvious that they might not make it to the mansion at all. Three police cruisers were parked along the lane, and a handful of officers milled around snapping pictures, taking notes, and talking into cell phones.

Adri shook her head to clear it. “I forgot that they'd be here. Piperhall is a crime scene, isn't it?”

One of the policemen was already breaking away from the group, heading toward Sam's truck. It was Officer McNeil. Adri had met him outside the emergency room when Will was in surgery.

“Good morning,” he said when Adri rolled down her window. “Sorry about this. We're almost done here.”

Adri pressed her lips together for a second and nodded once. “Do whatever you need to do. We'll help in any way we can.”

“You already have,” he said kindly. “We've got all your statements, and Ms. Penny here has set us up well to snag this guy before he goes underground. We'll get him, Ms. Vogt. I trust your brother is doing okay?”

“Sleeping,” Adri said. “The surgeon had to stabilize the arm with external fixation because it was a comminuted fracture and that was the only way to keep all the fragments secure . . .” She sighed a little, realizing that she was talking way over their heads. “What I mean to say is, Will's going to be livid when he wakes up and discovers that he has metal rods sticking out of his arm.”

“We like livid.” Officer McNeil smiled. “Livid is good. He can be as mad as he wants to be. It'll fuel his recovery.”

“I hope so.”

“You're remembering that we'll need to speak with him as soon as he wakes up?”

“Of course.” Adri pointed through the windshield at the police cars. “Are you finding anything?”

“Everything we expected to find. It's not a murder scene,” Officer McNeil said, gravely, gratefully, “so it doesn't require quite the same vigilance. But I'm still going to have you do a little off-roading. I take it you're headed to the house?”

“I'd like to clean up,” Adri said, tugging the blood-stiffened collar of her shirt.

“Of course. I'll show you where you can drive.”

Officer McNeil walked in front of the truck, leading the way into the shallow ditch beside the road and then indicating that they should take it all the way to the mansion. Adri drove slowly past the police cruisers and the yellow tape, and though she tried to keep her eyes trained in front of her, she couldn't stop herself from searching the gravel for evidence of all that had happened there. Deep gouges in the dust, a wide swath of tire tracks from a hasty departure, a dark pool of blood where Will had fallen. Or was she just imagining it all? There were red tags scattered across the ground, sprinkled in a haphazard pattern that indicated there was much to read in the clues left behind.

Rather than going all the way around the circular drive and parking beside Betty and Caleb's borrowed car, Adri pulled up beside the stables and cut the engine. She breathed heavily for a few seconds, her hands still clutched tight to the steering wheel, and then swiveled to face Harper.

“I'm ready,” she said without preamble. She didn't dare to say anything more. Didn't trust herself to. Adri knew that if she opened her mouth, she'd be the one apologizing, dragging Harper into the past and forcing her to relive every mistake
they had made. But this wasn't about that. It was about Will. And as much as Adri ached to come clean about David and everything that happened five years ago, before she could focus on the sins she had to atone for, she needed to know who shot Will. And why.

Apparently Harper was just as ready to confess as Adri was. She started to talk. About the guilt she felt after David's death and all the ways she tried to punish herself. Drugs, the bite of a razor, men who treated her as if she was disposable. It sounded like a bad after-school special to Adri, but this wasn't fiction. It was Harper. Her Harper. And Adri didn't have to wonder if her former best friend was spinning a story. The thin white lines on her wrists and the hollow look in her eyes were evidence enough.

And then, Sawyer Donovan.

Adri found that she had tears rolling down her cheeks when one slipped off the edge of her jaw and dropped on her folded hands. She was weeping without making a sound, and though she wished Harper would reach out and wipe all those tears away, fold Adri in a hug that would erase everything that had come between them, Harper simply looked away. Kept going.

It was the right thing to do, and Adri palmed away her tears. Forced herself to give Harper her full, deliberate attention.

By the time Harper made it to the night before and Sawyer's unexpected appearance at the mansion, Adri had gotten hold of herself enough to speak.

“Will was collateral damage,” she whispered, interrupting Harper's account. Adri shook her head. “I don't want to hear anymore. I know what happened next. Will tried to stop Sawyer and got shot.”

“More or less,” Harper admitted. “But I can't figure out how Will knew I was outside instead of asleep in my bedroom.”

“I don't think he knew you were outside. Will came downstairs after escorting you to your room.” Adri looked her friend full in the face. “I don't know what happened between the two
of you, but my brother thinks he's in love with you. You're breaking his heart. Again.”

“I don't want to break his heart.” Harper's voice was so faint that it hardly existed at all.

“Yeah, well, you're breaking mine, too.” Adri rubbed her cheeks again, wiping the tears away so harshly it was as if she was trying to erase them altogether. “I just don't understand. Why, Harper? How did you ever end up with a man like Sawyer? It's not you.”

Harper looked as if she had asked herself the same question a hundred times. A thousand. “I hated myself. I believed I deserved him.”

“That's a terrible answer.” But it wasn't as awful as Adri claimed. She understood. She hated herself, too. Adri believed she deserved the exile she had forced upon herself, the hiding and the pretending. It was easy to convince the world that she loathed Blackhawk and everything about her past, but it was much harder to convince herself.

“I don't know what else to tell you,” Harper said. “It's the truth. After college I was sad and vulnerable and more or less homeless. You know my family life has always sucked, and everyone disappeared after David died. It wasn't always . . . like that with Sawyer. It wasn't always as bad as it got to be in the end.”

Adri could tell that Harper was just scratching the surface. But she didn't make her friend say any more. She was all too aware of her own warning signs. Signposts along the way that pointed to the ruin where she now sat trying to piece back together all that had been broken. How many times had she tried to erase herself? In how many ways? But she couldn't say all that. She wouldn't. It was too self-serving.

Adri sighed a little, but decided to let it go for now. There was another question burning on her tongue. “Why didn't you tell me? I could have helped you, Harper. We could have stopped Sawyer before he ever showed up here.”

Harper swallowed hard. Then squeezed her eyes shut and plunged forward. “He was blackmailing me. He knew something that would have ruined my life, that would have made me lose everything and everyone I ever loved.”