Crossing Lines: A gripping psychological thriller (Behind Closed Doors Book 3) (6 page)

“You'd have to be deaf, dumb, blind, and stupid not to know that if we asked her, she'd deny it as much as you do!” Georgia's laughter cuts through my memories, and deeper into my soul than I care to admit.
Does she truly believe I could hurt Izzy? Does she believe I am capable of that?
“Isn't that what abuse victims do, Darryl? They protect their abusers?”

Oh God, she does!

“I’m sorry, Georgia, but I refuse to have this conversation with you again.” I reach for the door. “Conversation over.”

I practically sprint through the open door, but run headlong into a petite figure standing on my doorstep. “Huh. Oh—” I'd forgotten the doorbell rang. “H-hello?” I manage, because I’m staring at my own reflection in a pair of dark shades, as my eyes narrow with confused familiarity. I know this woman. But the young child bundled in her arms, and sleeping on her shoulder, confounds me. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear the woman on my doorstep was Krystal Valentina. But it can’t be. If she is on my doorstep after midnight, then whose kid is she carrying?

“I’m sorry, Darryl,” she whispers, “I didn’t know where else to go.”

Chapter Five

AS I STEP BACKWARDS,
the light from the hallway illuminates the woman on my doorstep. I look, really look, at every last detail. The threaded jeans and battered old sneakers. Beneath the sleeping bundle, I can just make out NYC logo on her faded sweatshirt. From what I could see of her straight long hair tucked in behind a beaten-up old backpack it was much too short to be Krystal’s iconic red waves. But it is Krystal.

“Darryl?” she asks, making me acutely aware that she’s standing on my doorstep in the middle of the night. She adjusts the child on her arm, giving me the impression the young one is starting to get a little heavy. But at the same time she reaches for the blacked-out shades covering her eyes.

An inexpensive blue chain of forget-me-nots on her third finger catches my eye and erases my doubts. “Krystal?” I close my eyes, shake the vision from my head and open them again. But she's still there. The thing is, she’s gone from super tall to an average height. I look at her feet and suddenly it all falls into place. I’ve never seen her without heels. “Krystal, what are you doing here?”

In reply, she removes the dark glasses. The most vivid emerald-colored irises I’ve ever seen before, and never saw in the multitude of customizable contact lenses she normally wears, stare back at me. For a moment, they distract me from the ugly red circles surrounding them. Instincts warn me that
that
is going to be one hell of a black eye. “What the hell?”

“This?” Her hand goes to her face. “It’s nothing.” She shrugs again. “I've had worse from the kids at my local dojo.”

“Darryl.” Caleb rolls his eyes at me in frustration, “Are you going to invite her in? Or just make pleasantries on the doorstep all night?” He sidesteps me and reaches out to help Krystal with the child. “This must be Macaulay?” He gathers her into his arms. I’m surprised how easily she goes to him and snuggles into the crook of his neck and shoulder with very little disturbance, “I’ll just put her on the sofa in the den.” Krystal's expression pales. “Don’t look so worried,” Caleb offers. “It’s just here.” He nods towards the door leading into my home office. “And Darryl can take you through to the living room. Coffee?”

She visibly relaxes and nods at Caleb. I take that as my cue to do as I’m told. I lift my arm to lead Krystal through to the living room. “I thought you were back in LA?”

“Everyone does.” She smiles again, sidesteps around me. “I've been enjoying some inconspicuous freedom here in New York with my niece, Macaulay.”

Georgia mutters something unrecognizable in a distasteful tone. When Caleb returns from the den, he glares at his sister, who in turn flips him a finger, turns on her heel, and marches up the stairs. “Please forgive them,” I say, before sending Krystal a polite closed-mouth smile. As we walk through into our living room, I continue, “We've had a few very long and stressful days.”

“Yes, I know.” She whispers, “And I'm sorry for dropping in unannounced and so late at night, but Caleb said it was okay.”

I frown.

“We spoke only a short while ago.”

But the only call Caleb took tonight was from someone called Ashleigh? “Are you Ashleigh?” She nods, so I wait for an explanation to why she has an alter ego, but she doesn’t offer one. Something tells me I’m not going to get one either; I move on, but tuck it away with the intention of revisiting it in our next therapy session. “So you're hiding out in New York. What happened?” I point to the markings on her eye. “Did some fool try to mug you or something? Have you had a cold compress on it yet? Caleb!” I call to my nephew, who is yet to join us in the living room. “Bring some ice, please.”

“Ever the doctor.” She dismisses my concerns but not without a fondness I’m unaccustomed to. “But I’m fine. Thank you.” Her lips work into a tender smile, although it seems hard work for her to do so. “Macaulay gave me an ice cream to put on it,” she laughs. Sentimental is another word I wouldn’t associate with Krystal, but her laugh is exactly that, sentimental. “I lived and worked in New York for years. I'm more than capable of handling this city and the people in it.”

It doesn't go unnoticed that she's avoided my questions again, but I suspect it has something to do with why she’s standing in my living room after midnight. “Obviously not.” I shake my head. “Look at the state of you.”

“Trust me when I say, it won't happen again.” My gaze insists it meet with hers, as the edge of cold steel and determination in her voice drags me back to her whispered confession. Whoever has hit her has lived to tell the tale and she's not too happy about it.

The second I think I’m within inches of solving this mystery, she moves the goal posts again. It seems the subject is not up for discussion. The warmth from a new smile touches her eyes, yet both are absent of her usual heart-stopping bravado. This is the real Krystal, the one I'd only met for the first time three days ago. “Have you found Lisa?”

“Um, yes. She's fine, home, and tucked up in bed.” Her chest deflates as the relief bursts from her lips in a long sigh. “Thank you.” I appreciate the concern, but don’t welcome the element of contradiction; I don’t need to be analyzing who or what she is tonight. “So, Krystal,” my brow lifts as I look at her again, “something tells me this isn't a social call.”

She looks away instantly and nerves vibrate in my stomach. Breaking eye contact was something she'd never have done, before our session on Friday. Her composure has never slipped before then and I’m disturbed by the fact it does now. Someone who has always been so aggressive in her approach to the world now lacks the confidence to do or say whatever it is that has brought her to my door.

I let the seconds drag out while I wait for a reply. She needs time to approach the subject herself. But she doesn’t reply and my patience is too short to wait. I bite the bullet and ask, “Krystal, why are you here?”

A soft, tinkling laugh escapes her throat and I suspect it’s more from nerves. “I've come to collect my niece.” Swiftly she turns, walks past me and stops by the window. “Macaulay attends an elite girls academy here in New York, but Katrina wants her in LA for the time being and she's still too ill to fly out herself.”

Did her voice tremble? No, it couldn't have. Krystal was as hard and as cold as ice. She didn't cry. The image of the insecure girl folding paper in my office, fighting the tears collecting in her eyes, flashes through my mind.
Krystal did cry
.

“Then why are you
here
?”

“Oh … that.” Her fingers twist together. “I'm running out of time, and I need your help.” She stares into the city street and the darkness beyond as she continues, “I thought it was going to be okay. Katrina was picking up Julia, because I was at the premiere of
Dojo Mojo.
But somehow he knew what was going on. He came home.”

Maybe she was used to people catching on to her conversations instantly, but she’s talking in riddles to me. I don't have a clue. I know
Dojo Mojo
premiered at the end of the summer. The 'are they, aren't they?' rumors about Krystal and her co-star and former lover, Dex Leighton, have teased from the gossip magazines front pages for the whole of summer. Still do, now we’re well into fall. I also know Katrina is Krystal's identical twin sister, but who is Julia? And who already knew their plans?

“Krystal,” I lift up my palm to stop her, “you're rambling.” I have neither the time nor the patience for working through her cryptic explanations right now. Today, the enigma that is Krystal Valentina does not appeal to me. Now that Lisa is safe and well, all I want is my bed, and to sleep for at least a week.

I continue to wait as I watch her shuffle her feet and anxiously cast her gaze around the room, toward the doors, then toward the sounds of Caleb brewing coffee in the kitchen. It’s the darkness beyond the windows that seems to make her the most nervous, as though she suspects someone is out there, watching her.

I don’t like this one bit. She’s nothing like the immovable brick wall I’ve become accustomed to, so facing off with her feels like a bad idea, but I know it's the only way I’ll get her to talk. “I'm not moving until you start to make sense.”

“Please.” I shake my head and Krystal sighs, her shoulders sagging in defeat as she whispers. “Julia is my best friend.” She continues to stare out into the darkness. “Her husband is abusing her, and no one will believe me.”

How could no one believe her? This was Krystal Valentina. She was an ambassador for the Faith McKenzie Foundation, and was considered somewhat of an expert on domestic abuse. If she thought someone was at risk, then it was likely to be so. “How do you know?”

She turns away from the window and closes the distance between us, digs her hand into her bag, and withdraws a printed email. It’s a letter of resignation. From Julia.

Dear Krystal,

I don't profess I'm innocent in our story. And I won't tell you it was the alcohol. I won't even blame it on the circumstances of the evening. I just suck at being a decent human being and my life is the outcome of the poor decisions I have made since that night ten years ago. I don't and will never regret them.

I know you disagree. But that's because I know better. They all see the hard-assed super-bitch who takes no prisoners. But I know you. This is why I'm begging you to stop. My husband is not and has never been abusive. He has never laid a hand on me. He will never hurt our child. He loves us too much.

This is my life. I choose to be with Wayne. I choose to start a family with him. So before you jump the gun and start firing, please remember our agreement. My resignation is my choice. I hope one day, we will be friends again. But until then, you have to let me go.

Yours Sincerely

Julia Swift

“It’s lies, Darryl …” Krystal spins away from me. “If her marriage was so perfect, then why would she try to kill him on the same day?”

What, um, what did she just say?

“Isn't it obvious? You hear about these cases all the time. The husband beats his wife, and one day she snaps and stabs him in his sleep.”

“Whoa!” I grab at her forearm, spinning her back to face me. “I'm sorry, she did what?”

“She shot him with his own pistol, but that's not the point.”

“I'd say it very much is the point.” I snap, and draw in a long deep breath while I struggle to process it all. “She fucking shot him?"
What the hell?

Krystal's eyes glaze over. Her head tilts to one side, like a child who doesn't understand. “You don't believe me either?”

“I don't know what to believe, and you're not explaining this very well.” She steps back and my hand drops to my side. “Maybe we should take a seat and you can start at the beginning?”

“We don't have time to cover ten years!” she shrieks. I’ve never seen her like this. So erratic, and jumpy, and … and jumbled. She has every one of her emotions on display. “Please, Darryl, I need your help.”

“Well, I can't help if I don't know what's going on.”

Again she sighs and nods. “He's so … so …” And then her explanation comes out in one long info-dump: “I don't know what he is, but he lords over everything she does. He hates that she works for me, works at all in fact, and then she was pregnant. I knew that was all he needed, to stop her from going anywhere or doing anything ever again.” Krystal pauses for breath. “I'd finally convinced her it wasn't a good thing he acts this way. He doesn't do it out of love and concern. I convinced her to go back to New York. To her parents. He wasn't supposed to be there when Katrina picked her up that night. He already had plans to go out with his buddies from work. But he knew. Somehow Wayne knew Julia was leaving him, and all hell broke loose.”

She drops her hands to her side as she looks up at me again. Her agitation is infectious and I don't like what I’m hearing.

“Darryl, I don't know what happened for sure; I wasn’t there.” She frowns. “All I know is my sister was beaten half to death, and Julia was so mad at me because it was all my idea. But I think this was all Wayne.” She pauses for a moment. Guilt fills her eyes. There’s something she isn’t telling me. But I’m not sure if it will help here or not. “Katrina says she can't remember anything. But she's lying. She’s my twin. I
know
when she's lying, but she won't admit anything to me. She also says this is my fault, like I’m the one who did this to her.” She looks away.
Does this mean Katrina knows how to dent Krystal’s armor too?