We exchanged small talk and deep talk. He liked to unwind with karaoke, and I liked to unwind with swimming. He shared his desire for a family, and I confessed my knack for screwing such things up. He told me I was perfect, and I told him he would make someone a lucky wife one day. He stood by my side as I prayed for the life of my baby, then wept as I lost her. He hugged me when the loneliness crushed me, and brought me flowers before I was discharged with empty arms that should have held my child.
I hadn’t thought much about Lane in the following months, only that he was the perfect example of what a man should be, but I was stupid back then. I hadn’t yet figured out that there were only two types of men – the Noahs who crushed you, and the Lanes who built you up. I was still stuck on adventure and bad boys. I hadn’t yet been awakened to security and love. My stupidity had instead led me to Ben. But now that Ben was dead and I was pregnant with Ben’s baby, I needed someone with no baggage. Someone ripe for love and a family.
The answer to all of my problems had been right in front of me on the day I arrived to this town, and he lived inside the four walls of the quaint, suburban, three-bedroom house with its promise of better things. Lane Flynn wasn’t bad-looking either. And he made decent money as a nurse. And he wanted a family as desperately as I wanted to give my unborn child a father. He was perfect.
Months had passed since we had met, and I doubted he would remember me with my new hairstyle. If anything, it was better that way, starting fresh. All it took was a ‘chance’ meeting at the karaoke bar that he often frequented, a lot of flirting, two chocolate martinis, and a little destiny to bring two lost souls together …
Chapter 38
Lane
The crack of the front door being thrust open, and the subsequent swarm of emergency workers storming a house is something you’d expect to see in a movie. You never expect it to happen in your own home.
It didn’t happen exactly like that, but it felt pretty damn close in the moment, minus the guns blazing and the SWAT team breaking down my door.
After Candace went down, I ran for my cell phone to call 9-1-1. I didn’t know how long she’d stay unconscious, but hopefully long enough until the cops arrived. Most of what I relayed to the emergency operator was lost in the recesses of my brain. I was in work mode, delivering facts: Sister stabbed multiple times, at least one abdominal laceration. Wife attacked her. Wife unconscious. Possible skull fracture. Please send EMTs soon.
Pressing a balled-up shirt against Harper’s stomach, I carried her to the bathroom, where I stockpiled gauze and bandaging. While tending to the gaping hole in her abdomen – the most pressing of her injuries – the tread of boots rumbled into the entryway.
‘Paramedics!’ a voice called out.
‘We’re upstairs!’ I yelled. ‘Hurry!’
Harper faded in and out, then winced awake as I pressed a bandage to her wound. The footsteps trudged up the stairwell, two paramedics appearing at the bathroom door, ready to attend to her. I handed her off to them, assured Jackson and Elise that their mom would be fine as I led them out of the way into their bedroom, then went to search for the cops. Just as I descended the stairs, Detective Meltzer walked through the front door, wearing jeans and aviator sunglasses, his badge clipped to his belt. His bulk filled the entryway, at odds with the warmth of the sunlight that spilled in around him. I waved him over to follow me upstairs. He flipped his sunglasses on top of his head, and I talked while we walked.
‘I … I don’t even know where to begin. I just found out that my wife killed my sister’s husband.’ The shock hadn’t yet settled.
‘I can’t say I’m surprised,’ Detective Meltzer replied. ‘I’ve been looking into Candace Wilkes for a while now.’
I stopped and turned around. ‘Was that you who was watching my house?’
‘Yep, and you almost caught me that day in the rain – the day of Michelle Hudson’s murder when you approached my car.’ Detective Meltzer aimed his finger at me like he was pointing a gun. ‘It’s a damn shame, too. If I had followed Candace instead of watching your house, Michelle Hudson would still be alive.’
‘You think Candace killed Michelle?’
‘I bet I’ll find evidence in her belongings that proves she did.’
‘How did you figure out she was involved?’ I asked as the detective trailed behind me up the stairwell.
‘Of course I started looking into you and Harper when Ben was first killed. It was only recently that I came across your marriage certificate to Candace Moriarty though, and when I looked into it I found a dead woman’s records. That was enough to start watching her.’
‘And you never said a damn word to us about it?’
‘I never said a lot of things to you. It was an ongoing investigation, Lane. You know the rules. So where’s our suspect?’ We arrived in the upstairs hallway, and he glanced around, looking for her.
‘In my bedroom.’
‘And what exactly happened?’
‘She attacked my sister with a pair of scissors. I knocked her out with an urn.’
He hmphed. ‘An urn, huh? That’s a new one,’ he said as we reached the doorway.
We both stopped short when we entered the empty room. No Candace. Just a smear of blood on the floor.
‘What the—?’ I rushed to the other side of the bed. Where could she have gone? I checked the window, but the screen was intact, and there was no way she could have slipped past me in the hallway without anyone noticing. At
