Dirty Red (Love Me With Lies) (24 page)

He ignores her. “I’m Noah,” he says.

I’m overtaken by his kindness. I’m
overtaken by his — Oh, God! Olivia’s husband!

I compose myself before I audibly groan. This is a party for Olivia. I am at her best friend’s house, staring her husband in the face. Oh. My. God.

“I better go,” I mumble to Noah’s delighted face. Cammie is vigorously nodding her head. Noah is shaking his.

“You don’t look half as crazy as I thought you’d look.”

Did he really just say that?

“Olivia said something about a redheaded gargoyle with fangs.”

I blink at him. So, she’d told him about me. I wonder if she mentioned the little apartment-trashing stunt … or the driving her out of town stunt … or the trial?  For some strange reason, I don’t want him to think I’m a bad person.

“Noah,”
Cammie says, shaking his arm. “Can you not engage with the enemy? We have things to do.”

“She’s not the enemy,” he says, never taking his eyes from mine. “She’s a dirty fighter.”
Yup, he knows. I feel like I’m in a trance. If this guy told me to drink the Kool-Aid, I would probably do it. Fuck it. I would
absolutely
drink the Kool-Aid.

Olivia married sexy
Ghandi. No wonder she loves her husband. I clear my throat and look around the yard. “So, is this party for her?”

Cammie
squeals somewhere in the background, Noah nods. “Yes, her birthday. It’s a surprise.”

How nice. No one throws
me birthday parties. I swallow hard and step away from the table.

“It was nice meeting you,” I say. “Sam?”

He’s at my elbow in a second, steering me toward the gate. I glance over my shoulder at Olivia’s husband. He’s messing with the speaker. Cammie’s hands are flailing about, no doubt expressing her sentiments about me as he ignores her.

Hot damn.
What does this woman have that I don’t? Why do men like Noah and my husband fall in love with her?

Past

The pressure at work changed after I found out about the doctored Prenavene results. It was like he knew I had unfurled his secret, and he was out to make me pay. The attention I had always desired from him was suddenly there. Except it wasn’t the warm, fatherly love I’d hoped for. He became hostile and demanding, often insulting me in front of people. There were a few times I’d look up to see him staring at me; the look on his face so acutely angry I’d feel lightheaded. I longed for the furrow I’d hidden myself in when he hadn’t known I existed. It was safer out of his eyesight. The most important question was: how had he found out?

It was Cash. It had to be. I'd asked her detailed questions about the trial run. She must have squealed to my father. And what
made it worse was the way my father was treating her — like a long lost fucking daughter.

The caka hit the fan a week before my birthday. My father called an emergency family meeting at the house. Caleb thought it was weird, but I knew what was coming. I thought about prepping him in the car on the ride over, but thought it would be better coming from Charles Austin, the pharmaceutical fraud. That way I could play innocent and pretend I knew nothing about the shenanigans.

When we arrived at the house, everyone was waiting for us in the family room. I slid into a loveseat with Caleb, who was surveying the gathering with mounting suspicion. He looked at me to see if I knew anything and I shrugged. My sister, who was sitting next to my mother, looked at me with sudden realization on her face.

“You’re pregnant, aren’t you? That’s what this is about.”

I shook my head, shocked at her lack of emotional thermostat. Nothing bad ever touched my sister. I felt a moment of jealousy that reached twenty shades of green.

“Johanna’s not having a baby,” my father said. “This is something more serious, I’m afraid.”

For a minute, I wondered what could be more serious than a baby. Would he even let my baby call him Grandpa? Caleb was tense beside me. When
Daddy said the bit about the baby, Caleb grabbed my hand and squeezed.

My father looked at Caleb when he spoke. That’s the way it was with him. If there was a man in the room, that’s who he’d look at
— even if he was about to inform his wife and daughter about his imminent demise.

I listened to the whole thing, clutching my husband’s hand as if it were the only thing tethering me to my sanity. Despite the anger I felt for my father, I hoped he wouldn’t be in too much trouble. Was that possible when you did something like that?

He took us through the trials, and when he admitted to doctoring the results, I felt Caleb go rigid. He ended his story with a nice fist to my stomach.

“I’ve been indicted. They are going to look at Johanna as well.”

Caleb jumped up. “What? What does Leah have to do with this?”

“Her signatures are all over the paperwork. None of the testing could have been done without her signature. The same goes for the releases.”

I made a noise that sounded like strangled fear. Caleb looked down at me, his eyes lit like two burning amber balls. He narrowed them. “Is this true? Did you know what was going on?”

I shook my head. “I just signed what he told me to sign. I didn’t know anything about the real results.”

His head whipped back to my father. “You’re going to tell them — “ he pointed a finger. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Caleb point his finger at someone.

My father was already shaking his head. “It won’t make a difference, Caleb.”

I felt my worth at that point. A penny. I was a sidewalk toss away — a grimy piece of metal stuck to the bottom of the cup holder, couch cushions, old wallets and under the fridge between a shriveled grape and an unidentified hair — that was me. He saw no value in me, except to use me when he came up short.

Fuck.
fuckfuckfuck.

Caleb’s voice was hard rock grinding itself into gravel. I couldn’t make out what he was saying until it
was too late. I heard the words
She’s your daughter
, right before he lurched forward. I saw the tremor of shock pass across my father’s face, as my beautiful, russet haired husband threw a punch that would have had Tyson nodding in approval. My sister and my mother started screaming. I covered my ears. You’d swear they had never seen a man get put in his place. I wanted Caleb to hit him again, mostly for not loving me, but also because I was officially in a barrel of deep trouble.

“Caleb!” I grabbed him, hauled him back. His body was still twisted toward my father like he wanted to hit him again. “Let’s go. I want to leave.”

His jaw was scary. Truly. Put me in a room with a hundred hungry mountain lions before you put me in a room with Caleb's jaw.

Caleb grabbed
my hand. My father, the great Charles Austin Smith was flopped face up on the chaise lounge, his nose bleeding through his fingers and his face the color of raw liver. Before we walked out, I stopped. My breath was keeping time with my heart. Caleb looked at me questioningly, and I shook my head. I faced my family. The three of them were huddled together around my father's bleeding face. My mother's eyes were terrified, as she tried to mop up the blood with a beverage napkin. My sister was saying
Daddy
over and over as she cried. I felt repulsed and terrified as I watched. For the first time, I didn't want to belong with them. I didn't want to be a part of their bleeding, cowering trio.

"Daddy?" He lifted his head and I saw his bloodshot eyes find me. My mother and sister stopped wailing to look at me, too. "Daddy," I repeat. "I'm never going to call you that again. You probably don't care, and that's okay, because I don't either. I'd rather be the bastard daughter of a prostitute than ever share your blood."
 

Caleb squeezed my hand, and we walked out.

Two days later he was dead.

Present

I sta
lk Cammie on Facebook. I swear all that dumb blond does is post pictures of her lunch. I hate that. I keep hoping to catch some snippet of Caleb or that slut, Olivia. I sign on to my barely used account and type in Cammie’s name. I want to see if she posted pictures of Olivia’s birthday. I want to see if Caleb was there.
That’s stupid
, I tell myself. Olivia is married to sexy Ghandi. There is no way Caleb would be invited. I comb through all of the pictures anyway, searching for a piece of his hands or feet or hair. All I see are pictures of Olivia. Someone had snapped a photo of her walking into the surprise party. Her mouth is open and if you didn’t know better, you’d think someone was pointing a gun at her instead of shouting
Happy Birthday
. She is wearing skinny jeans and a tube top. I sniff as I click through the pictures. Olivia hugging Noah, Olivia laughing with Cammie, Olivia blowing out candles on a cupcake tower, Olivia shooting someone with a water gun, Olivia getting pushed into the pool…

The very last picture is of Olivia opening a present. She is sitting on a chair with the box open in her lap. The look on her face is anything but happy. Her eyebrows are drawn together and her mouth is puckered into one of her famous side frowns. I eye the box
, trying to see what’s inside of it, but all I can see is the metallic blue paper. Cammie has captioned the picture: Don’t know who this one is from?? Own up or you don’t get a thank-you card.

I look at the package suspiciously. What could be inside that would cause her to look so horrified? I click to the next pictures, but Olivia is in none of them. It’s like she disappeared after she opened that package. I shove a handful of barely thawed carrots into my mouth. Scooting my chair back, I go in search of Sam. I find him folding laundry in the nursery. Caleb has the baby, but Sam has been coming in
anyway to help me live.

“You were at that party, right?”

“What party?” He opens a drawer, deposits a pile of onesies and closes it without looking at me.

“Olivia’s party, Sam.” His eyes travel from my crossed arms to my tapping foot.

“I will not feed into your stalker tendencies.”

“What was in that blue box Olivia opened?”

Sam’s eyes snap to my face.

“How do you know about that?”

“I was on ... uh ... Facebook.”

Sam shakes his head. “I don’t know. The box didn’t have a card. She took one look inside that sucker and ran into the house. I didn’t see her again after that. I think Noah took her home.”

“What happened to the box?” Why am I so interested?

“I think
Cammie has it.”

I grab his arm. “Ask her.”

He shakes himself free, his brow creased into three deep lines. I point to his forehead.

“You should really consider Botox for that.”

“I am not digging around in the Olivia obsession box for you.”

“I’m not obsessed with her,” I counter. “I just want to revel in what made her upset.”

“Don’t you and Nancy do enough Olivia bashing as it is?”

I screw up my nose. Could there ever be enough Olivia bashing? That woman should have to wear a sign on her back that says ‘White Trash Boyfriend Stealer’.

“Say what you like, Sam, but she didn’t try to destroy your life.”

I am walking toward the living room when his voice catches up to me.

“From what I hear, she saved yours.”

I spin and glare. I
can’t believe he just said that. How completely untrue. I am sick, sick, sick of being forced to feel grateful to that sly looking bitch for something anyone could have done. I could have hired any attorney I wanted. Olivia was forced on me.

“Is that what
Cammie told you?”

He puts the last clean bottle in the cabinet and faces me.

“Isn’t that what happened? She took your case and won it?”

“For G
od’s sake! That was her job.”

“Why did she take your case?”

I am already pale, but when someone asks me that question, e.g., my mother, my sister, my friends … I can always feel the color in my skin peel back. Why did she take the case? Because Caleb asked her to. Why did Caleb ask her to? At first, I thought it was because she lied to him. He was collecting on her guilt, making her pay up for the deceit by defending his wife. But, then I intercepted a look. A look. How long can a look be … truly? A look can be a second long, a freaking, harmless second, and it can tell long, complicated stories. You can see three years in a second-long look. You can see longing, too. I hadn’t known that until I saw it for myself. I wish I hadn’t seen it. I wish I could never see another look transferred between two people with history.

"It seems to me, you give loyalty to all of the wrong people," he says.

"What are you talking about?" I snap.

"Oh, I don't know. You almost take the fall for that father of yours, when he obviously treated you like crap, and then you shove your baby off to the side like she's an inconvenience to you."