Your Eyes Don't Lie (26 page)

She finally emerged from IHOP, looking as striking as ever, though obviously exhausted. Her shoulders hunched slightly, hair escaped in wisps from her ponytail, and the look on her face was almost haunted.

Tossing his cell phone onto the passenger seat, he pushed open his car door and walked toward her, but she was angled away from him, heading to the parking spaces farthest from the building, so she didn’t notice his presence. “Makayla,” he said, his voice sounding more strangled than commanding.

Her head swung in his direction, her solemn expression breaking into a shy smile. Her lips parted, and he could see the slight gap that somehow made him want to grab her and hold her tight.
I am such a fool.

“Hey, Harrison. I didn’t expect to see you. I—”

“I know. I know everything.”

She blinked slowly. “What exactly are you talking about?” Her voice was faint—which surely was an indication of her guilt.

“I know what you’re doing with the help of that man—blackmailing my family. Pretending to be my half sister. How could you?” All the anger, betrayal, and disgust he felt seeped into his voice. “I can’t believe you’d do something like this when you know what it’s like to be adopted. Or was that all a lie?” He raised his hands in a warding-off motion. “I trusted you. I—” He shook his head, too furious—and hurt—to continue in that vein. He reached into his pocket and took out his wallet, grabbing all the cash inside and throwing it at her. Bills scattered over the pavement. His coins followed. “There, take it all. What else do you want? My mother’s jewelry, my nephew’s college fund? My car? What?”

She stared at him for what seemed a lifetime. Just stared, her lips pressed together. A couple came out of the restaurant and eyed them with interest, but Makay didn’t seem to notice. “You have no idea what I want,” she said at last, very quietly. “No idea at all.”

“I know you’re a liar and a cheat,” he sneered. “A user. I never thought anything could be worse than my girlfriend cheating on me with my best friend, but I was wrong.”

Her nostrils flared. Without a word, she turned, starting for her car again.

He reached out and grabbed her bare arm. “Aren’t you going to explain yourself?”

She looked down at his hand. He noticed that the bruises around her wrist were still there and a sinking feeling swept through him. Releasing her, he stepped back.

“I think,” she said, “that you already have whatever explanation you need. I’m a liar, a cheat, and a user. You have made that very clear. What else is there after something like that?”

She turned again and this time he let her go. A ten-dollar bill sailed on a breeze past his feet, and he watched it, hearing her door slam. Why did he feel like he’d been the one chastened? His gaze shifted toward her car, but all he saw was her profile as she drove away without looking back. His anger slipped away until all he felt was the hurt.

Somehow he made it back to the car where his cell phone buzzed incessantly on the seat. It fell silent as he opened the door but began again as he started the car. He grabbed it and looked at the number. It was Tianna.
Not now,
he groaned internally. The phone fell silent, showing four missed calls.

It buzzed again.

He picked it up. “Yeah?” His voice came out roughly, but his sister didn’t notice.

“Where have you been? I know you’re working, but something’s really wrong with Mom. Something to do with a phone call. But that’s all I know. I was at the house, but she wouldn’t tell me anything, and I had to leave. I’m worried. You have to talk to her.”

Chapter Eighteen

M
akay drove to her apartment, a lump of lead in her heart. She didn’t know how Harrison had found out about her, but apparently he was taking it badly—as he should. The betrayal part she understood only too well. She should have been better prepared for his reaction, but she felt as if a hole had been gouged in her heart, removing tissue that had once held all her nerves and feelings.

She wondered how he’d found out and exactly how much he knew. His comment about her “pretending” to be his sister indicated that he didn’t know everything.
I should have told him before.
It didn’t matter that she’d tried or intended to. In the end those things meant nothing.

She carried in the empty cardboard boxes she’d asked for on her break at work. The stench of urine seemed stronger in the apartment building’s stairwell today. Maybe because she no longer had to be here, to make do. She’d already packed a few boxes that morning, mostly Nate’s toys. He was so excited to get to Brette’s house. Of course, now Makay didn’t know what was going to happen. If Harrison went to the police, she’d have to grab Nate and run. But to where?

Pushing past the tears stinging her eyes, she began throwing all the clothes from the dresser into a box. The clothes in the closet she’d take on their hangers. In another box, she put bathroom items, towels, and their extra set of sheets. Canned food piled in another one. She hesitated as she spied the can of diced tomatoes Harrison had tossed at her feet that night at the dance club. He’d probably be throwing his away now. She slipped it into her backpack.

Brette had said she didn’t need kitchenware or furniture, so Makay could return for those things later if she didn’t end up fleeing the state. Ted from next door would certainly lend her his truck, and Lily and Tessa would ask their husbands to help her move the big stuff.

She took the boxes outside, filling up every single spot in the car, except for a small place in the back where Nate would sit, with Snoop on the floor at his feet. She’d packed enough of their things for now. She’d just need to give her key to Janice, who had agreed last night to take care of selling items from her stock, but only in case of emergencies. For regular sales, Makay would return to the apartment a couple times a week, bringing, of course, new inventory.

If she ever went back.

Fear assailed her. What if Harrison got Nate taken away?
Easy,
she told herself.
You can do this.
She forced herself back into the building.

“Hello, dear,” Janice said, opening the door with uncharacteristic flare. “Did you hear the news?”

A little tremor ran through her. Had Harrison come here with his accusations? But no, he wouldn’t. Then again, how well did she know him after so few days? A pit formed in her stomach because she felt as if she
did
know him. That was part of the problem. She’d felt a part of him. She should have known better than to trust someone. “I haven’t heard anything.”

“It’s Sally.” Janice looked up and down the hall. “She passed away.”

“Oh, no.” An image of the pale, elderly woman with the thick glasses and hunched shoulders came to Makay’s mind. “Not Sally.”

Janice gave a sharp nod. “The police came and everything. Apparently, she’d already been gone a day or two. She missed an appointment at her doctor’s yesterday and that’s how they figured it out.”

“Poor Sally.” Makay hoped she hadn’t been in pain or afraid.

“Anyway, guess who actually showed up? Her son.”

“The deadbeat? I’d begun to wonder if she really had a son.”

“Yep, he came about an hour after the police did, demanding to get in her place, but the manager didn’t let him because he’d had a call from her lawyer.”

“Sally had a lawyer?”

“Yep. And boy, was her son angry. There must be something of value in there for him to get so upset.”

“Maybe he’s just sad about his Mom.”

Janice snorted. “If he cared a fig about Sally, he’d have come to visit.” She shook her head. “I hope there’s nothing for him, the ungrateful brat. Sally was the cheapest person I know, but she was my friend and I loved her. That boy broke her all to pieces. We were her family, not him.”

Guilt assailed Makay. “I could have been better to her.”

“Nonsense. I’ve seen that notebook you have with all the stuff Sally owed you. You were a good neighbor to her. You’ve been a good neighbor to all of us.”

You don’t know the truth about me.
“Thanks,” Makay managed, handing Janice her keys. “You’ll call and let me know about the funeral, won’t you?”

Janice’s spotted hands closed over hers. “You go for it, Makay. Go for the new place, that fine-looking man, and everything else. Life is too short, but no one realizes that until it’s almost over.”

Makay nodded, her chest feeling so tight it was a wonder she could breathe. “I’ll see you around. Take care of Ted.”

“Oh, I always do. He may chase those other women in the building for food, but it’s me he always comes back to for real conversation.”

Makay found herself in the Sebring still with a little time to kill before she needed to pick up Nate. What was she going to do? If Harrison got the police involved, they’d be able to track her at work and through Nate’s school. But would he do it? His mother had been willing to pay money to sweep her mistake under the rug.

She held her hands to her face, pushing as though it would hold in all the pain.
I asked for it,
she thought.
I could have told him, but instead I chickened out.
Her actions might have deprived Nate from the only shot he’d ever get at having an uncle.

“Drive,” she told herself. She needed to stop at the store and use those last coupons for canned fruit. Or would she need it now that Sally wasn’t around?

The hardest thing was the first step out of the car, and after that habit took over as she filled her shopping cart and sorted coupons. She made it to the school with five minutes to spare. When Nate reached the car, she jumped out to greet him.

“Are we going to the house?” Nate’s hug penetrated the numbness inside her chest.

“Yes. Well, we do have to stop back at the apartment and get Snoop, but everything else is loaded and ready to go.”

“Aw. Why didn’t you bring Snoop already?” His lips curved in a pout.

She fake-punched him in the arm. “Stop that. I had to go to the store.”

“Did you get more peaches? Because you know Sally is going to want them.”

“I got peaches.” Later she would tell him about Sally but not now. Not tonight.

“Is Harrison coming to help?” Nate pulled the car door open. “He told me he would if we wanted—and I want him to.”

“Well, we don’t need help for this load. Come on. Snoop’s waiting.”

Nate eyed their piled belongings. “It looks like you got everything. Can we open the top?”

“Not unless you want your socks and underwear dancing all over the freeway.”

He giggled. “Oh.”

When she and Nate went in with his key to get Snoop, one of their new neighbor’s three dogs was snuffling about in the stairwell, marking his territory. No wonder it smelled worse than ever. The man was obviously too lazy to take the animal outside and was using the building as a stopgap measure.

Snoop growled and barked at the dog as they went outside, but Makay kept a firm hold on his leash. He barely fit in the space they’d left him in the car but didn’t seem upset about the squeeze.

Makay was almost to Brette’s neighborhood when she got the call from Lenny. Reluctantly, she picked up. “Yeah?”

“We have a pickup tomorrow. Out of town. You’ll have to call in sick at work.”

She was quiet a long moment, her brain spinning but not coming to a conclusion. “How far out of town?”

“We’ll be gone overnight.”

“Overnight?” They hadn’t been away overnight since she’d left Lily’s house, though a couple of times they’d gone on a plane and back again the same day.

“You got a problem with that?”

“Just Nate.”

“Deal with it.”

“Don’t I always?”

At least overnight meant the mark wasn’t Harrison’s mother, and the relief she felt pinned her to the seat, even when Nate and Snoop climbed out of the car and ran for the side of the small house, heading for the backyard.

“Well?” Lenny asked. “Do you want me to pick you up or should we meet?”

“I’ll meet you at the usual place.”

“Be there by seven.” The line went dead.

Makay took a long breath, her eyes following Nate as he went up on his tiptoes, reaching for the rope that would open the gate. She’d have to put a lock on that so no one could accidentally let the dog out. She’d also have to double-check the yard for possible avenues of escape.

If she even stayed.

She sat there for what seemed like forever, but in reality her decision was already made. If she could get the money from tomorrow’s pickup, and it was enough, she’d come back here, grab what they could and leave the state. It wasn’t fair to Lenny’s target either way, keeping the money or giving it to Lenny, but there was nothing she could do to stop the deal. Nothing that didn’t endanger Nate’s well-being, not as long as Lenny held that file over her head like an axe.

Once she was far away, she could send Harrison everything she knew about Lenny and let him take it from there. He would probably still hate her, but at least he’d have the option of confronting Lenny and that might be enough to protect Harrison’s mother.

His mother.

Makay recalled the faint voice on the phone, the obvious stress.
I’m sorry,
she thought. She was sorry about so much. Sorry she’d ever started searching for her mother, sorry she’d found the adoption website Lenny hosted for adopted children and birth parents, sorry she’d ever met Harrison. She was especially sorry she’d glimpsed the life Harrison had with his family.

The one thing she wasn’t sorry about was Nate—or for protecting him. She would get him away from Lenny, even if she had to take him to another country. Fleetingly, she thought of confiding in Lily or maybe Tessa, but Lenny was a person she didn’t want in her friends’ lives. They had enough going on with those abused girls. They didn’t need a problem like hers.

Clenching her jaw, Makay forced herself from the car and picked up a box to bring into the house.

Chapter Nineteen

H
arrison called his mother’s cell phone as he drove in the general direction of work, not knowing if he should go instead to his mother’s house. The third time he called, she picked up. “Hello, Harrison. How are you?”