Hush (Black Lotus #3) (19 page)

AFTER MY RUN-IN
with Jacqueline, all I want to do is sleep. The stress of my panic attack should’ve knocked me out, but I’ve been tossing and turning ever since my head hit the pillow.

When my cell phone lights up, I grab it from the nightstand. The screen reads:
UNKNOWN
, and I know it’s Matt calling. I decline the call and turn the phone off. My mind races in a million different directions, stirring up even more memories. Unwilling to lie here in bed any longer, I grab the manifest and my notepad and go to the office to direct all my attention to this list.

I’ve made it halfway through the names, scrambling the letters around and around and around, not knowing what I’m looking for, but hoping I find something. I get through three more names.

Parker Moore

Dorrance Riley

Quentin Malles

All are dead ends, and before the sun starts to rise, I sneak back into bed without Declan noticing.

I manage to get a couple hours of sleep, and when I wake, Declan has already had breakfast delivered. The smell of his coffee and fresh baked croissants fill the air, and before I’m fully awake, he pours me a cup of steaming water and hands me a tea bag.

“Thanks.”

While we sit in bed, Declan reads the newspaper and I watch as bister ribbons through the translucent water in my tea cup. Sleep still fogs my head as I continue to dunk the tea bag up and down until the water turns to a delicate amber, infused with aromatic herbs that help wake me up.

“He’s in the paper,” Declan murmurs.

“Who?”

He hands the
Chicago Tribune
to me, and there he is—Callum. He stands in his prison-issued orange jumpsuit with the headline “Player in Gun Trafficking Ring Indicted.”

I look to Declan as he takes a sip of his coffee, and he says, “You know it’s only a matter of time until we’re getting wrapped up in this.”

“What do you mean?”

“Our involvement. You were married to Bennett, ran in the same circle as Richard, and spent time with my father. That, along with the kidnapping and murder, we’ll both be forced to testify,” he tells me before tossing the sheets off him and getting out of bed in haste. “This is the last thing I need, that man tarnishing my name,” he bites.

He’s pissed about the attention this will draw to him and his company.

“Declan,” I call out in a panic, my heart beginning to race when it suddenly hits me. “What about me?”

He turns to look at me, becoming aware when he sees the anxiety in my eyes.

“They’ll dig into my history and Nina only goes back so far. They’ll know I’m a fraud,” I blurt out in a pitchy voice. “I’ll be charged with identity theft and embezzlement, along with any other crime they can pin on me.”

“Fuck,” he grits under his breath.

I guess it was inevitable that my con would eventually catch up with me. My mind goes into overdrive, thinking about how I could possibly finagle my way out of this, how I could possibly explain this away, but I can’t hone in on anything.

“What do we do?”

“I’ll put a call in to my attorney,” he tells me. “I don’t want you to worry; we have time. It could take up to a year for this to even go to trial.”

“What about you?”

“What about me?”

I slip out of bed and walk over to him. “It’s you that tells me that I shouldn’t hide from the things that hurt me.”

“He doesn’t hurt me,” he immediately defends, but I call his bluff, saying, “He didn’t even try to stop the murder of your mom. He stepped aside and just let it happen. So don’t tell me that doesn’t hurt you, Declan. I know it does.” I reach out to him and place my hand over his heart. “You and I share the same soft spot, the same wound—the death of a parent.”

He covers my hand with his, and it’s full of tension, squeezing me much too hard.

He’s in pain.

Her bones are fragile in my grip as I fight against the agony that marks my soul in wounds that refuse to heal.

And she’s right.

My mum has always been the weak link in my armor. She’s the softest part of my heart and anything that comes close to touching it pains me. But that pain is tainted by the fury I hold for my dad now that I know the part he played.

I look down into Elizabeth’s eyes and see the sorrow in them. She’s called me on my shit, so there’s only one option unless I want her to see me as a hypocrite.

“Let’s go to New York then.”

“You’re going to see him?” she asks in surprise.

“Yes. And then I’m done with him.”

I leave Elizabeth to drink her tea while I make the call to arrange the flight, and I’m told that we can make it out later tonight. When I return to the bedroom, I see her with that damn notepad. She thinks she’s being sneaky and that I don’t notice when she leaves my bed at night, but I do. The moment I lose the heat of her body, I wake up. I’ve chosen not to say anything and to give her the time she feels she needs.

Truth be told, Lachlan and I are hitting roadblock after roadblock. This man clearly doesn’t want to be found, but one way or another, I
will
find him—for her.

She sets the notepad and pencil on the bedside table when she sees me.

“The plane will be ready at seven.”

I sit and wait, looking around the white cinderblock room filled with the city’s disgraced and their loved ones. Guards stand and watch the interactions, making sure the rules that were explained in detail are being abided by.

The metal door in the corner of the room opens, and this time it’s my father who walks through. Donned in orange, he’s escorted into the room, and the guard that’s with him removes the shackles as my father’s eyes find mine.

He’s expressionless.

Once freed from the chains, he makes his way across the room. He looks hard, unshaven, and thinned out.

“Son,” he remarks evenly when he approaches the table.

Animosity sparks as I look at this man who sits across from me. Memories of all the disdain he’s spit my way throughout my life, only to evade his own wrongdoings, ignites rage inside me.

“How did you find out?”

“You haven’t heard?” I respond and he shakes his head. “Your boss?”

“My boss?”

“Keep playing dumb with me,” I taunt. “I know everything. I just want to hear you tell the truth for once in your life.”

“Stop with the riddles, kid, and just tell me what you
think
you know.”

My hands fist; it’s a futile attempt to control my fury, and I glare at him. “I know about Mum. I know she died because of you.”

“I loved that woman—”

His words—his flagrant lie—set me off, and I punch the table, losing control. “You fucking bastard!”

“Hey!” one guard yells, calling me into check.

“She died because of you,” I seethe, lowering my voice. “Because of your greed, she had to pay the consequences.”

“You don’t know shit, kid.”

“Admit it,” I say.

He shrugs his shoulders as if he’s clueless and guiltless, and I can’t stand to look at his smug face any longer, so I speed this up. “You knew Richard was going to kill her. That’s why you left the country, because you didn’t want to be there when it happened. You were running from the guilt, weren’t you?”

“How do you know about Richard?”

“You know he’s dead, right?” I ask and he nods. “I killed him.” His eyes widen when I tell him this, and I smile proudly. “Don’t worry, Dad. Cops already know I did it.”

He doesn’t respond to what I’ve just admitted to him. He simply stares at me, dumbfounded.

“Because of him, I know everything you’ve been hiding from me.
Everything
.”

He takes a hard swallow and hangs his head, succumbing to the truth because he has no other choice at this point. He can’t bullshit me any longer.

“I know it all, Dad,” I whisper harshly, digging the knife into him even deeper, and when he finally gets the balls to lift his head to look me in the eye, he says, “Then you know what I’m facing.”

“It’s all over the news.”

His demeaning voice shifts to that of neediness. “I need your help, son.”

“Admit it first. Admit that you were the one responsible for Mum dying.”

“I need your help,” he deflects, talking quickly in a hushed tone. “Camilla is my only line to the outside, aside from my lawyer, but I haven’t talked to her in a week. I need your help to get in touch with Lachlan.”

“Why?”

“I can’t tell you why, but I
need
to talk to him.”

“About Camilla?”

“Camilla? Why would I talk to him about her?” he questions in utter confusion. “What do you know?”

“Only that your girlfriend has conflicting fidelities.”

“I’m getting the feeling he does too,” he murmurs, jaw clenched in anger.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Ask him.”

“I’m asking
you
,” I say as my irritation grows in sync with suspicions that I’m missing some important details about Lachlan.

“I needed to keep an eye on you when you left Chicago,” he says cryptically. “Tell me, because I need to know, who’s Elizabeth Archer and what the fuck is she doing at The Water Lily?”

That fucking bastard. I will kill Lachlan when I get back to London, because it’s now apparent that whatever involvement he told me he has with my father is a lie. The only way my dad could get that information would be from him. But it’s his mention of The Water Lily that has me curious when I think of the photo that Elizabeth found there.

“I’ll tell you what you want to know,” I say. “But first, tell me what I should know about The Water Lily.”

He looks at me suspiciously, saying nothing.

“Why is there a picture of me there?” I ask, giving him a bit of information to try to spur him into an answer.

“Because,” he sighs, leaning forward.

“Tell me the truth.”

He looks at me for a moment before revealing, “The woman who runs it . . .”

“Isla.”

“Yes,” he says. “She’s your grandmother.”

“What?”

“Isla is your mother’s mum.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” I mutter. “Why was she never around?”

“Because she never approved of me dating her daughter. It was years of ups and downs, and when I married your mum, that’s what finally severed them—the fact that your mother chose me.”

“And even when Mum died, you never told me.”

“What was there to tell?”

I stand, unable to continue this conversation or look at this man who has filled my life with countless lies.

“Son . . .”

“Stop avoiding and just tell me.”

He remains seated, staring up at me. For a beat, I don’t think he’s going to answer, and my anger burns. Then, he opens his mouth to speak. “Yes, I knew your mother would die, and I did nothing to stop it.”

And that’s the dagger that spears into what Elizabeth calls “the softest part of me.” Blood from the wound that was created the day I watched her die pours out, drowning me, numbing me, debilitating me.

My hands shake when I brace them on the edge of the table and tell him, “You’ll never see me again.”

“Declan—”

“You’re going to die in this shithole all alone, you motherfucker.”

I don’t look back at him when I walk to the guard who stands at the exit, and I swear I leave a trail of blood in my wake from the wound he ripped wide open. When the guard pulls his keys to unlock the door, I hear my father call out, “Declan, come on. Come back,” and then commotion before a guard yells, “Sit down, McKinnon!”