Chapter Fifty-Nine Her

Chapter Fifty-Nine Her

Present Day

This was a nightmare. A family nightmare. Technically not my family because I’d done everything to stay separate from this

group, but I got sucked in. Clawing my way out proved impossible. I couldn’t calm things down or stop the inevitable crash.

Reckoning day finally had arrived. Richmond had dodged it and let it slam right into Wyatt.

The mood in the room kept changing. Fury morphed into confusion. I wasn’t sure where we’d landed, so I palmed the paperweight,

waiting for the right moment to go on the offensive.

“You’re lying. You have to be.” Kathryn gasped. Not one of those fake ones she used when she commented on my outfit or my

slippers. This sound came from her soul, as if it had been ripped out of her. “I don’t believe you.”

“Dad came up with the plan.”

Of course he did. Typical Richmond asshole behavior. Crowning a new accomplice in a new generation. This time, instead of

his brother, Cooper, Wyatt played the role of assistant. More Dougherty roadkill.

I didn’t think I could hate my dead husband more. I was wrong.

As the secrets seeped out, I couldn’t save Wyatt or make this better. He’d made a choice. At his father’s twisted request, yes, but Wyatt wasn’t a child anymore. He needed to own his shit without anyone coming behind him to clean up the mess.

“Dad said Addison lied to him and that’s why they got married. I thought she was the one who...” Wyatt shot me a quick

glance. “He made it seem like he had no choice.”

“That’s right. She blackmailed him.”

Kathryn’s comment shattered any last pretense about her being estranged from Richmond. Even with the divorce acrimony and

her insistence on fueling the poor Kathryn sympathy around town, their lives remained entangled. She knew exactly what was happening in my house and about Richmond’s

plans to cause chaos.

“He said he couldn’t fake an allergic reaction and I had to help. I was nervous and added too much extract to the sauce on

the sandwich.” Wyatt hesitated but this didn’t look like the usual twenty-something melodrama. He expected a big reaction

to his news, probably shock or wailing.

I was too busy basking in a brief moment of I knew it satisfaction to feel anything else.

“He started eating the sandwich when he saw you coming back from your run. I thought he’d take one bite, but he ate half the

thing. He was lecturing and got into it and...” Wyatt stopped to take in a huge gulping breath. “He was so pissed. I thought

he was going to kill me.”

“Knowing Richmond, probably.” Being on the losing side of blackmail blew out Richmond’s boundaries. Turning Wyatt into the

latest Dougherty fatality wasn’t inconceivable. If a plan allowed Richmond to slither away from trouble he’d do it, regardless

of what that meant for anyone else.

Tension had Wyatt in a stranglehold. Disclosing the truth diffused some of the nervous energy radiating off him but not all. “Dad staged the thing with the car. I helped him after, but that was all him. He said he needed leverage against you. He wanted people to think you were unstable and dangerous.”

Richmond’s big plan. I could see all the pieces now. His goal was to put pressure on me so I wouldn’t use the evidence I’d

collected against him.

At seventeen he’d dreamed up a complex, diabolical masterpiece with moving parts, different locations, and an element of surprise.

As an adult, he relied on shrimp extract delivered by his son. Quite the fall of the evil empire.

“He thought he’d run me out of town.” I could almost hear Richmond’s planned future threat. The grating sound of his gloating

as he warned me about evidence he’d planted and the line of witnesses he’d cultivated to speak against me. He’d insist he

won, and I had to make a new deal. My evidence in exchange for him not going to the police.

The bargaining wouldn’t have worked, but he probably knew that, too, or he would have moved faster and not landed in that

box.

“It was weird. He was, like, desperate. Furious but saying he had to be careful. That we couldn’t mess up.” Wyatt shrugged.

“Then I screwed up the sauce.”

“That’s outrageous. He should never have asked you to help him. You are his son.”

Well, look at that. Kathryn being a reasonable person and decent parent. I almost clapped. “Your mother and I don’t agree

on much, but we do on that point. If your father had a problem with me, he should have handled it and left you out of it.”

“Okay.” Kathryn seemed to shake off the horrid news. “Whatever Richmond did or didn’t do doesn’t change what needs to happen here. Today.”

She meant me. Get rid of me. My hand tightened on the paperweight. “You insisted I tried to kill Richmond a few minutes ago.

That was your whole reason for your being here, your excuse to come after me, and now it doesn’t matter?”

“You did kill Richmond.” Old Kathryn had returned. The perfect diction. The annoying self-satisfaction. “You came up behind

him with that bat and hit him.”

She tried to hold on to that story, but she’d said too much. Only one of us realized that. “It’s funny how you knew about

the bat. About the money Richmond offered. Hell, you knew the amount and offered the same. One hundred thousand dollars.”

She waved off my point. “The part about the bat was in the news.”

“It wasn’t.” I’d looked for any mention of the murder weapon. Elias told me the police would hold the information back and

that’s what happened.

“You’re twisting the facts instead of facing them. That’s what liars do,” Kathryn said.

Dissembling. The performance wasn’t one of her best. She said the words but couldn’t sell them. She wove a narrative that

absolved herself and kept her halo intact.

Watch me smash it to pieces. “You’re saying everyone is a liar but you.”

Wyatt frowned. “What bat?”

We were done. There was nowhere for this train to go. I bet on my instincts and went all in. “Is this how you want Wyatt to

find out the truth about his father?”

That stopped Kathryn for a second. “He already knows about the surgery allegations. We haven’t been able to avoid seeing and hearing them.”

Nice try. “I mean Annapolis. The school. That map.”

Kathryn’s expression turned carefully blank. All anger and passion gone. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Poor Wyatt stood there, looking lost. The confusion showed on his face and echoed in his voice. “One of you please explain.”

Kathryn’s arm moved. The bat rose a fraction, not even an inch, but my brain shifted into gear. I lifted the paperweight and

launched it. Aimed for the bat but hit Kathryn’s arm. Probably more from surprise than pain, she yelped and let go.

The yelp turned into yelling. “You bitch.”

She hissed when Wyatt touched her as if she might break into pieces. Her body rocked back and forth. She held her arm. Doubled

over in pain, cradling it. She touched her wrist then her elbow.

Clearly Kathryn wasn’t done with her time in the spotlight. Her ability to command a room remained unmatched. But in all the

acting and whining she forgot what part of her arm was supposed to be in pain. I hit her forearm. Barely.

“Really?” My mom struggled with very real injuries. I needed to get to her, not wallow in this nonsense. “Don’t you think...”

All the fake crying stopped. In a flash, Kathryn’s knees bent and that supposedly injured arm reached down.

The bat. At her feet.

I dove for it.