“Novah, listen. They don’t know where Finley is. This is a scare tactic.”
“Yes, it is, and it’s working.”
“I understand.” Then the phone buzzed again, and he clicked the keypad. “Here’s a text.”
“What does it say?” She took a step back, wrapping her arms around her waist, feeling like she’d be sick.
“Silence is golden’.” He sighed. “That’s all it says.”
“I knew I should have been with her.”
Without a word, Egan clicked the keypad on her phone. She listened to him say, “Justice, Egan here. How are things? All fine? Yeah, put her on.” He stuck out the phone for Novah to take.
She took the offering and pressed it to her ear. She heard Finley say, “Mommy?”
“Fin? Hi, baby. How are you?” She forced the quivering from her voice.
“We’re having fun. I rode a horse. And fed a baby goat. His name is Snuggles. I named him.” The energy in her daughter’s voice made Novah smile although her heart was breaking. “I have to go. Grammy made ice cream. Call me later, Mommy.”
“I will. Love you.”
“Love you.” Then a click ended the call.
“See, she’s okay. Trust me. If I doubted her safety, I would have never left her with Justice.”
She dropped to the bed and the tears streamed down her face. “What have I done?”
Egan joined her and wrapped his arms around her shoulders. “You haven’t done anything.” He soothed her by massaging her head.
“I swear if I were with Langley right now, I’d wring his neck. We need to go to Fin. I know you say she’s okay, but I need to be with her.”
“We can. We’ll go to her.”
She looked at him through wet lashes. “What will we do? In the pictures, it looks like Langley and I are in an embrace, kissing. That’s not how it was, Egan. Not at all.”
He nodded. “He didn’t have anything to hold over your head, so he scraped the bottom of the barrel. This is his way of discrediting your character. If you go to the press, or the police, he’ll make you look like a spurned lover.” He stood and rubbed his jaw. “I should have wrung his neck while I had the chance.”
A rapid knock came on the door. “Banks? You in there?” It was Pao.
Egan stood and stepped over to open the door. Novah could see Pao standing in the hall, his jaw tight and his lips thin. “I came to tell you that Lindsay is gone.”
“Gone? What do you mean?” Novah asked.
“She told me she’d meet me in front and when she didn’t show, I went to make sure she was okay. She’d climbed out of the bathroom window. I couldn’t find her.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
“HE’LL FIND HER, Novah. That’s the last thing you need to worry about,” Egan told her. “She couldn’t have gotten far.”
Novah had her feet tucked up under her in the passenger seat and she forced her breathing in and out. “I know we made the right decision leaving Pao to handle the situation with Lindsay, but why would she run? I just don’t understand. Where will she go?”
Egan scrubbed his whiskered jaw. “I hope it was her family she called and not Langley.”
“She wouldn’t do that, Egan.”
“And you’re sure?” He cast a quick glance across the seat.
“Yes. No. I don’t know.” She rubbed her temples where a dull ache had started the second she saw the pictures sent to her phone. “Sometimes we can know what’s bad for us, but we can’t resist gravitating toward it.”
“Somehow I think that’s directed toward me and I disagree highly being lumped in the same category with a man like Langley,” he sneered.
“I’m not saying you’re anything like him.”
“Then what are you saying?”
Overcome with emotion, she blurted, “I was a good wife, Egan.”
He blew out a long breath. “And you think I need to hear that because I don’t already know?”
Where was she headed with that statement? She’d lost track for a second. “You slept with Hannah. Don’t deny the truth.”
Glancing at her, the area between his brows were scrunched. “Okay. It was after the divorce,”
The logical side of Novah’s brain warned her to not step any further into the emotional mine field. Jealousy could be a bomb and she was about to implode in these ridiculous feelings. Why did that needling raw pain appear again right behind her left breast? As if the breaks in her heart were cracking deeper. “ Don’t you think that’s something I should have known?”
“No, I don’t. We weren’t married any longer and that’s in the past.”
“Fine. I hope you can be happy.”
“Hannah and I are just friends, Novah.”
His words drove through her like a dozer. “Friends? Really? Does she know?”
He rubbed his jaw as if trying to control his emotions. “My God, Novah.”
“God didn’t get you into this situation.”
His shoulders slumped. “Novah, I was lonely and so was she. It just happened. It was an accident.”
“Oh, so you tripped and fell into her bed? Does Pao know?”
“No, at least I don’t think so.”
“I was lonely too, you know, but I didn’t try to ease my pain by sleeping with someone.”
“I went through a time of anger as I tried to navigate all the crazy feelings going on inside me. Pao invited me to Noel Farm to take a break. Hannah became…well…” He seemed to grasp for the right words. “A comfort. Yes, we were close and at some point she thought there could be more between us. Hell, maybe I did too, then I realized I wasn’t over you and that wasn’t fair to her. We remained friends and that’s all.”
“You didn’t tell her who I
