27. Not Going Anywhere

CHAPTER27

Not Going Anywhere

Remy

“I don’t know if this is a good idea,” Wyn murmured, staring at the doorway leading to the hall that led to the stairs, which Remy would be climbing in a few minutes in order to have a conversation with his mother.

The kids were camped out in the family room with Guillaume, setting up to watch Galaxy Quest.

But Wyn had taken him aside to share fully her conversation with Melly, and although Remy didn’t want to adopt her, he did decide to broach the subject with his father to feel out some other way to share their gratitude for her loyalty.

Now, he’d had his conversation with his dad.

He needed to have one with his mother, something he’d just told his wife.

But the look on Wyn’s face screamed she wasn’t a fan of this idea.

“Baby,” he murmured.

“She’s not going to change, no matter what you say,” Wyn noted.

“She’s dying,” he stated, point blank.

Wyn’s lips stretched down before she caught herself in the grimace and wiped it clean.

“I can’t leave here without at least making an attempt with her at some kind of…something,” he asserted, not very clearly, but it was the best he had because he didn’t know what he was looking for from his mother, he just knew he had to try. “I also can’t leave here without making it perfectly clear that what occurred this weekend cannot carry on. She’s dying, he’s losing her, she has to get her head out of her ass and make the time they have left something not this.”

“You kind of made that clear earlier, honey,” Wyn noted.

“I did and I didn’t. I was over-emotional, ranting and had just thrown an ice pack. That isn’t going to penetrate. And it’s important that particular message penetrates.”

“You’ll get no argument from me on that,” she mumbled.

“I—” he stopped talking when an alert sounded on his phone that he’d never heard before.

Puzzled, he pulled it out and stared in surprise at the notification.

It was from the app for the alarm on the house.

Not his house.

Their house.

The home he shared with Wyn, where she now lived.

He’d never deleted the app from his phone, and she’d clearly never updated the account to have him kicked off.

“What is it?” she asked when he opened the notification.

The back bedroom window sensor had been tripped.

The back bedroom being the master.

Her room.

Their room.

“Does the house alarm still go to the police?” he asked.

“Why?” she asked in return.

Shit, fuck.

They did not need something else to worry about.

He looked to her. “Apparently, I’m still an authorized user on the alarm, baby,” he said, turning the screen of his phone to her.

Her eyes dropped to it and widened just as his phone rang.

It was not a known number, but considering what was happening, he took the call.

“Is this Mr. Remy Gastineau?” the caller asked.

Yep, not only did she not change the account, he was still first point of contact.

“It is,” he confirmed.

“Can you please give me the verbal password for your home alarm?”

Fuck.

“Scrum.”

“Thank you. We have a sensor breach on a back window in your home, Mr. Gastineau, and the code has not been entered to stop the alarm. Is this you, or would you like us to dispatch police?”

“What does ‘sensor breach’ mean?” he asked.

“While the alarm is set, someone has either opened that window, or broken it,” the rep answered.

“We’re out of town. Send the police,” he ordered.

“We’ll see to that immediately, Mr. Gastineau. Please stay available for any calls.”

“Thanks,” he replied, and they rang off.

“Sensor breach?” Wyn asked, moving closer to him.

“She said either someone opened the window, or broke it,” he told her, debating calling his friend Bill on a college football Saturday for something that might be nothing.

“Fabulous,” Wyn mumbled.

“It’ll be okay, she’s sending the police,” he told her, then, thinking about her jewelry, much of which he’d given to her, and he wasn’t a man who skimped on presents for his wife, he said, “Please tell me you put a wall safe in that new closet of yours.”

“Of course I did.”

“And you didn’t leave it open.”

She didn’t stop her eye roll. “Of course I didn’t.”

“And you locked anything valuable in it.”

“Darling,” she drawled, and he knew she was losing patience with his questions, so he felt his lips quirk because she was cute when she got uppity, and Remy definitely could use a dose of her cute and her uppity right now. “I’m not an idiot, but I also have tens of thousands of dollars of purses and shoes on display in that closet, and no…none of those are locked away in a safe.”

His smile died.

“Locked behind a door?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“Wyn,” he growled. “Seriously?”

“We have an alarm,” she retorted.

“And we’re out of town for four days, but even if you were at work, that closet should be shut and locked as another line of defense against intruders.”

“If I did that and I came home, as I invariably do, and I went to my fabulous bathroom, which I also do, switch on the light, something I further do, and all of its lush opulence is presented to me in its full glory as a stunning visual of the fruits of my various labors, which it always is, it wouldn’t be if I closed the door to the closet.”

“Do you need that visual more than you need the things that make that visual the visual?” he demanded.

Her face scrunched and she fired back, “What’s the point of having an alarm if it takes away my visual?”

Shit.

He’d forgotten how she could be damned adorable and totally fucking annoying at the same time.

“I cannot believe we’re having this conversation,” he replied.

“Yo,” Yves called from the doorway. “You guys gonna park it with us and watch the movie, or are you gonna stand in here for an hour and chat?”

“There’s been a breach at the house,” Remy told him.

“Remy!” Wyn snapped, obviously not feeling the sharing of this news with their son, which would no doubt lead to the sharing of it with all their kids.

But Remy, for once, had no mind to his wife.

He was staring at his boy.

“Yves,” he said, firm and clear, Remy’s tone meaning Yves needed to communicate what was behind that freaked-out look on his face.

“Which house?” Yves asked.

“Mine. Ours. The family house…our first one. Whatever,” Wyn babbled. “It doesn’t matter. Nothing to worry about. The police are on their way.”

“Our house.” Yves was talking like he wasn’t doing it to them.

“Yves.” This time, his son’s name out of Remy’s mouth was a warning.

Yves focused on his dad. “Do you know where this breach was?”

“The back bedroom,” Remy told him.

“Mom’s room?”

Um.

No.

Remy did not like that.

Therefore, he was back to growling. “Yes. What—?”

Remy didn’t finish as Wyn cut him off to repeat, “It’s nothing to worry about. The police are on their way to check it out.”

But he watched his son look down the hall, then Yves walked fully into the parlor and requested, “Mom, can I talk with Dad for a second alone?”

He liked that even less.

And when Remy looked to Wyn, he saw she’d cottoned on to Yves’s behavior and was now regarding her son with squinting eyes.

“Why would you need to do that?” she asked.

Yves adjusted his request “Or, maybe, can you go get Sah for me? Then stay in the family room?”

Now it was Wyn who was sharing a warning with her, “Yves.”

“Please, Mom, don’t ask. Can you just please go get Sah and let us talk to Dad for a sec?” Yves pleaded.

And it was a plea because he was definitely troubled about something, and it wasn’t just the fact that there might be a break-in.

It was something else.

Or something…more.

“Honey, just go,” Remy urged. When Wyn looked up at him, he promised low, “I’ll tell you. You know I’ll tell you.”

She studied his face, but she did know he’d tell her.

So she nodded, gave their son a look, then walked out.

Yves came farther into the room, and Remy waited until he saw Wyn disappear into the family room before he said to his son, “I’m not going to like this, am I?”

Yves looked to his dad and pressed his lips together.

Movement in the hall had Remy’s attention returning there, and he saw Sabre not sauntering, but hustling to the parlor.

Fucking shit.

Sabre closed the door behind him and asked Yves immediately, “Someone broke into our house?”

“Sabre, me. You’re talking to me,” Remy demanded.

Sah looked to Remy.

“What the fuck is going on?” Remy asked.

“Okay, Dad, uh, you see, well…the thing is that it all kinda…” Sabre didn’t finish and turned to Yves again. “Did you call Theo? I mean, is he on top of shit?”

Before Yves could reply, Remy stated, “If you let your friends use our home while we’re away to—”

Sabre cut him off.

“No, it’s Myrna.”

Remy felt his torso lurch.

“Okay, see, the day you, like, shared about Grandma,” Sabre said fast, “before Manon and me left Tucson, she was waiting outside my last class for me.”

Remy didn’t move a muscle.

“Dad,” Sabre was now talking very softly, “I hate that today, with all the shit that’s going down—”

“If you delay another fucking minute in telling me what the fuck is going on, Sah, I swear to God…”

Remy let that hang.

Sabre quickly began talking again.

“She told me she needed to talk, and she spewed a load of lies at me, Dad. Total lies. Whacked lies. Like, unhinged.”

After he pointed his face to the ceiling, Remy drew in a deep breath.

“Obviously,” Sah continued, “I didn’t believe her, I told her that and told her to back off.”

Remy returned his attention to his son and asked the question that might least have the result of him tearing the room apart.

“What does Theo have to do with this?”

Yves joined the conversation.

“After you told us about your, uh…history, Sah told me what went down. Theo was there and we decided that we were going to give you a breather with the Myrna crap, so you could deal with the Grandma crap. And she said some stuff to Sah that had us thinking she was kinda…stalking you. So, while I kept an eye on Mom and Sah kept an eye on Manon, Theo was going to keep an eye on…other things.”

The reason both Sabre and Yves went shopping with Wyn and Manon last weekend.

Remy didn’t know whether to hug his boys or shout at them.

He did neither.

He asked, “What did she say that made you think she’s stalking me?”

“She knew Mom had been to your house,” Sabre told him.

Remy breathed carefully and deeply.

“Can I call Theo to see if…you know, he’s noticed anything?” Yves inquired carefully.

“Yes, you can. Then you tell him to stop doing whatever it is you talked him into doing,” Remy replied.

“He volunteered, Dad,” Yves shared, and this was proudly.

Theo was a good guy.

He was still a young guy, and it was clear Remy had underestimated just how fucked up Myrna was.

That knowledge settled hard and hot in his gut in a way it was going to linger and fester as anger turned to worry.

Because now, she might be breaking into and thus invading Wyn’s space.

“Call Theo,” Remy ordered. “But again, tell him to stand down. I’m phoning Bill.”

Yves nodded and stepped to the window.

Remy took in Sabre’s expression, which told him that Sah was feeling that hot, hard feeling too, before he pulled up Bill’s contact.

But then something occurred to him, and he asked Sah, “How did she know where to find you on campus?”

Sabre shrugged. “I didn’t ask. She started piling on you and it was total bullshit, so I ended it quick and got away from her.”

“What did she pile on me?”

Sabre’s head moved like he had a crick in his neck.

Shit.

“What’d she say, Sah?” Remy asked quietly.

Sah took a second, then he shared, “She said you got her pregnant, told her to abort the baby, got ticked when she wouldn’t and threw her out. Including dumping all her stuff in the pool.”

And again, Remy was rendered motionless.

“I didn’t believe her from the beginning, Dad,” Sabre assured swiftly. “I knew she was totally lying even before she kept talking, and it was obvious she was totally lying.”

Goddamn shit.

They were here and he had no choice but to take this forward.

To get it behind them, Remy didn’t delay.

“She tried to trap me by attempting to get pregnant,” Remy disclosed.

“You are fuckin’ shitting me,” Sabre whispered, angry color coming to his cheeks.

Remy shook his head. “That’s why we ended. Though, I would eventually have come to the understanding I’d made a mistake with your mom and moved us all where we needed to be. But Myrna precipitated that by playing a very nasty game.”

“That fucking bitch,” Sabre hissed.

“You need to stay calm, Sah,” Remy warned. “And I need to call Bill. He and I have already had a conversation about this, but it seems it’s escalating.”

Remy paused when Yves rejoined them and gave his dad a nod that he’d taken care of things with Theo. Remy went on, encompassing them both with what he said next.

“I understand why you did what you did. Saying that, you shouldn’t have done it. I needed to know this happened.” He focused on Sabre. “I love you. To my soul, I love you, Sabre. And again, I understand why you kept this from me. But not only was it important for you to share it so I’d know the fullness of what’s happening with Myrna, and this was crucial to understanding she was not going to go away gracefully, I’m your father. When anyone puts you in a position like that, I have to have that information so I can protect you, my son, my boy, my blood, as well as my family. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”

Sabre nodded. “Yeah, Dad. I’m sorry.”

“I want to be clear. You don’t need to apologize. You did what you felt was right. You were trying to protect your family too. It’s simply that, in this instance, you made a wrong move for the right reasons. Do you get that too?”

Sabre nodded again.

“Are you going to tell Mom?” Yves asked.

He didn’t want to.

But he was going to.

Therefore, he nodded.

But he said, “We don’t know if this break-in is Myrna. We don’t even know if this is a break-in. But even if it doesn’t have anything to do with Myrna, what you’ve told me she’s already done, both your mother and Manon need to understand that Myrna is behaving erratically.”

When both his sons gave indication they’d heard him, Remy made his first of two calls.

He was brief in explaining to Bill what had happened, mostly because Bill got the gist of it fast and wanted to get into his car and head over to the house.

After that, he asked his boys, “Can you both go to the family room, ask your mom to come back and stay in there with your sister and grandfather?”

He got more nods, his boys took off, and once they were well down the hall, Remy made his next call.

He was not surprised to get Myrna’s voicemail.

“Sabre has shared that not only did you approach him after class, you gave indication to him that you’re watching my house. This will be my last communication with you, Myrna. I’m reporting your behavior to the police. If anything else happens, I’ll be petitioning for a restraining order. Now, I’ll remind you this is done, we are done, and I’ll encourage you to let it go. Please, move on with your life and let me move on with mine.”

He was watching Wyn approach the room by the time he finished leaving the voicemail, and he hung up.

She closed the door behind her.

“Okay, tell me,” she demanded, standing across the room from him.

He hated doing it, that feeling in his stomach intensifying, but he again didn’t delay.

He told her what was happening.

After he was done, for a moment, she said nothing.

Then she asked, “Do you think whatever is happening at the house right now is her?”

He also hated that he had to say, “I think it’s a good possibility.”

Wyn didn’t move from her position in front of the door, but she looked beyond him, toward a window. Though he knew she didn’t see anything because she wasn’t really looking.

She was reacting.

“Honey, I’m so fucking sorry—”

He didn’t finish when her eyes shot back to him.

“You have no responsibility for this,” she declared, her words short.

“I brought her into my life. My home. Our children’s lives.”

“When you did that, were you aware she had stalker tendencies?” Wyn asked.

His lips almost twitched at that, and he answered, “No.”

“So how do you bear any responsibility for her actions?”

“You’d feel the same way I feel,” he pointed out.

“Yes, I would. And when I told you I did, you would share very logically as well as resolutely that I bore no blame for another person’s deranged actions,” she retorted.

Remy had no reply to that.

Therefore, Wyn asked, “Why are you standing all the way over there?”

“Why are you standing where you are?” he returned.

She moved immediately to him.

And that hot feeling in his stomach lessened.

She put her hands on his shoulders and pressed down before she curled them around the sides of his neck and leaned into him.

Remy slid his arms around her and pulled her closer.

“We’ll get through this,” she said softly.

“All right,” he muttered.

She gave him a squeeze. “We will.”

And again, he was not thrilled he had to remind her, “She tracked down Sah.”

“Our son isn’t ten and unable to handle himself. He handled himself and her. Yves knows. We’ll share with Manon.” Remy’s gut wrenched at that. Wyn carried on, “They’ll stay alert, and we’ll be careful to keep communication open. She’ll move on.”

“If she’s broken into your house—”

“Then we’ll press charges.”

“Baby—”

Her expression tightened. “She means nothing to me, and what you two had is over. Regardless that she wishes to mean something to me, albeit something negative, and stay in your life, even if it’s an unhealthy way, we won’t let her. This will be communicated to her one way or another. And that’s it, Remy. The end.”

“You think it’ll be that easy?” he asked.

“If we make it that easy, yes,” Wyn answered.

Remy allowed his gaze to move over his wife’s face.

He noted her eyes were more green than brown.

She was pissed.

But she was also in his arms and not going anywhere.

“Then that’s what we’ll make it be,” he agreed.

It was slightly forced, but at hearing his words, she smiled.

Remy then said something else he detested saying.

“Let’s get this over with, get all the kids in here, talk to them, including Manon.”

“Your dad?”

“You told Sah when you went to get him, did you do it in a way Dad and Manon heard?”

“No, Guillaume and Manon were setting up his Disney Plus. He doesn’t already have it. Apparently, neither he nor Colette watch much TV, which is pretty admirable. But I digress. They didn’t hear.”

Getting that answer, Remy shook his head. “Then no. I don’t want him worrying about this. Can you figure something out to keep him occupied, or stay with him while I talk with the kids?”

Wyn nodded, rolled up on her toes and touched her mouth firmly to his.

“I’ll be right back,” she said as she rolled away.

He let her go.

He’d find out that it wouldn’t just be “it.” It wouldn’t simply be “the end.” Not after he talked to the kids, and when they were on their way to the family room to carry on with their plans, he got a call from Bill.

The break-in was Myrna. The police caught her in Wyn’s closet.

By the time they got there, she’d filled three garbage bags with Wyn’s shoes and purses, what she intended to do with them, she had not yet shared.

Bill asked what Remy wanted him to do.

Remy told Bill to press charges.

Bill assured Remy he’d see to that and then said, “Be with your mom and dad, with Wyn, the kids. You’ll be home Monday. That’s soon enough to deal with this woman’s shit.”

And seeing his father’s eyes come to him with concern, not a stupid man by any means, so he knew something was up, Remy pasted a smile on his face and decided to take that advice.