Chapter Seventy Her

Chapter Seventy Her

Present Day

This had to be a joke. A vile, too-awful-to-contemplate joke. A new way for her to torture and control me. A game where the

rules kept changing.

She droned on as if she hadn’t dropped the ultimate bombshell. “We’d head out of town to get something to eat. I couldn’t

go back to his house because his parents knew Kathryn and what her role in Richmond’s life was supposed to be. We’d use his

car. We’d go to the movies. I’m not sure when he actually took Kathryn out because he’d come to me after practice.”

No, no, no . Bile rushed up the back of my throat. “You said—”

“Richmond was going off to college. He had something to lose. He was the right Dougherty brother. I don’t regret my pick in

that sense.”

My fingers fumbled with the car door handle. After a few tries I got it open and stumbled into the fresh air. A whooshing

sound filled my ears until Mom’s voice became a faint but persistent buzzing in my head. I heard a slam and realized she’d

gotten out of her side and faced me over the hood.

“I figured he’d do the right thing but then the last time we were together he said Kathryn’s name instead of mine. Actually whispered it twice during sex.”

The ground fell out from under me. My knees actually buckled as the realization of what she was saying hit. Mom and Richmond.

Not Zach. Not even Cooper.

“I can’t believe this.”

“I was curious about why he was so enamored with Kathryn, so I followed her. Slipped into her house, which was easy because

it wasn’t locked. People were more trusting back then.” Mom shrugged as if her words didn’t rip and tear at what little foundation

she’d given me. “Anyway, I read her diary. Accidentally found the reference to the map then went hunting for it and uncovered

the tape, too. She kept her top-secret stash behind boxes stacked in her closet. A good attempt at hiding but not good enough.”

The pieces finally fit together. Kathryn hadn’t known what evidence I claimed to possess and how it could turn their lives

upside down. But then she met Mom and the memories came into focus. Kathryn finally understood Richmond’s downfall would be

her downfall.

“The map and the recording belonged to Kathryn.” I had no idea what lie Kathryn told herself to make losing them all those

years ago make sense. She probably thought Richmond stole them, but that didn’t matter. Only Mom’s actions mattered.

“She likely kept them as leverage against Richmond. Blackmail. Ironic, right? I’m betting she taped the conversation without him even knowing.” Mom came around the front of the car to my side. “My plan was to go to Richmond and tell him he was going to be a daddy. I had the evidence of his plans for the shooting as a backup in case he didn’t do the right thing.”

The horror of what she just admitted hit me like a punch.

“You knew he was going to kill his whole family and did nothing to stop him.” The same thing I’d accused Kathryn of doing.

“I didn’t know the timing. I’d left a note for him to meet me the next afternoon. It turned out that was the day the of the

killings, so he never showed up. The rumors flew around town about finding dead bodies in a house. I immediately knew what

had happened and what it meant for my plans.”

She stood a few feet away. Far too close. “You’re telling this story like it’s no big deal.”

“You’re the one who’s so obsessed with the truth. Now you have it. You would have known years ago but you kept delaying.”

The delay. That’s what pissed her off.

Small inconsistencies now made sense. She didn’t magically find the map and tape. She hunted them down and stole them. She

didn’t go to Zach’s family for money because she couldn’t. A DNA test would have proven she was a liar. She couldn’t go to

Richmond’s parents because he’d killed them. She probably thought he’d kill her next to keep her quiet.

Threatening Richmond with what she knew wouldn’t have helped anyway because, with his parents dead, his money situation was

a question mark. That left her with few options and none of the planned-for financial support she needed. So, she waited and

let the money pile up. She probably never thought the world would make him into a big hero and give him leverage, but that

only delayed her plans. It didn’t destroy them.

I hovered on the brink, teetering between throwing up and screaming the house down, reeling from the idea of Richmond as anything but my enemy. We shared a bloodline. We were fucking married. And all she cared about was her schedule and how I’d messed it up.

“What kind of sick person makes their daughter marry her own father?” We were outside and anyone could see or hear but I was

too lost in a whirl of nausea and pain to care. “What if we would have slept together?”

“That would have been unfortunate but imagine Richmond’s face when I told him what he’d done.”

Unfortunate . That’s the word she picked.

“You don’t care about me at all.” I’d danced around the realization for years. Thought it but fooled myself into thinking

I was being too harsh. Not anymore.

“My plan wasn’t about you, Addison. It was about me settling the score with Richmond by making him pay to get out of your

marriage and to keep me quiet. Getting the money I should have gotten back then. But Kathryn killed him first and I didn’t

get to tell him who you were.”

“To gloat.”

She rolled her eyes. “Fine. Use that word.”

“You’re disgusting.”

The amusement faded from her face and her tone. “Do not talk to me that way.”

I walked back to the car and grabbed my bag. I’d been the only one who ever craved a bond between us and now I didn’t want

anything from her. Regardless of the pain shooting through me and the grinding sense of failure, I was done.

I’d sacrificed so much to please her. She’d sacrificed me. There was no way to forgive her for that, especially not when she

insisted she didn’t need forgiveness.

She watched every move. “What are you doing?”

Unable to see anything in front of me, I finally gave up and dumped the contents of my bag on the hood. More rummaging until

I spotted the checkbook. The ink blurred as my pen scratched out her name. I would not cry over her ever again.

I ripped out the check and held it out to her. “This buys my permanent separation from you.”

She took the check and frowned when she looked at it. “Do you honestly think I’d agree to walk away from Richmond’s estate?

That’s millions of dollars. You’re calling me names and spouting off in judgment, but you’re the selfish one. You don’t get

to hoard all the winnings.”

I was numb to her dismissal now. The check would clear out one of the accounts I made Richmond set up for me. The low six

figures and the amount still wasn’t high enough for her.

“I’m keeping part of the estate but giving the majority away. Trusts for Wyatt and Portia. Donations to charities. Peter Cullen

will get a check. It won’t bring back his son, but it will be something.”

Her hand fell but she kept a tight grip on the check. “Absolutely not. You’re not distributing my money to those people. I

worked too hard for too long for you to hand out dollar bills on the street corner.” She eyed the checkbook. Probably toyed

with the idea of taking it. “You seem to forget I have leverage.”

It took her long enough to drag that oldie out. The threat no longer carried a punch. It had turned into a whimper compared

to what she’d done. “Use it. Turn me in. Go ahead. Implicating me implicates you, and I have money for attorney fees, thanks

to Richmond. You still won’t get one more cent.”

The painful reality was that I let her use the defensive killing against me. She never could have turned me in and remained unscathed. I didn’t do it consciously, but I ignored that fact because a part of me believed that if we had this tie between us, sick as it was, I still had a mother. Her venom tethered us, and I allowed it.

There wasn’t enough therapy in the world to heal this wound.

Her tone changed. Softer. Calmer. “How could you do this to me? I just got out of the hospital. I need to stay here until

I’m stronger.”

Even fifteen minutes ago that emotional manipulation might have worked. “And I just found out that the sole purpose of my

life was to make my homicidal asshole of a father give you money.”

Despite all my running, over the years she’d cry out for food, money, or my time, and I’d race to her, heart and hands open

because I’d confused being used with being loved. Breaking the lifetime habit and severing all ties would throw me into a

hurricane of regret and remorse.

She wouldn’t spend one second missing me.

She sighed at me the way she always did. The noise was her signal that it was time to move on. “I’m done fighting about this.

I’m still your mother.”

“In name only.”

She moved so fast I didn’t have time to block her. Her hand came up and she slapped me. I heard the crack a second before

I felt the sting. She held her body stiff and straight. “You’re angry now but you’ll get over it. You always have these tantrums

then calm down.”

She depended on my acquiescence. Thrived on her ability to betray me and laughed at the way I ran back to her, begging for

another round of insults and threats. Not one day more.

The rip that started with her lie about Cooper split open when she told me the truth about Richmond. The shredded relationship, already flimsy, now lay in tatters. Unfixable. Today a burning hole in my gut but, hopefully, one day a distant ache. Nothing more than a slight twinge of sadness.

“Actually, this time I won’t.” I handed her the car keys. “The SUV is yours. Richmond bought it. It’s new. Let me know where

you’re staying. I’ll send the rest of your things and the car title there.”

No one warned me about the price of freedom. About how much emptiness and despair I’d have to wade through to find it...

if I ever did.

I punched in numbers on the keypad and the gate opened. “I’ll change the security codes and locks today.”

“You’re going to let those Dougherty kids come in and out, give them money and whatever else they need, but kick me to the

street?”

“Yeah. They’re family.” Broken and messy but I might need them as much as they needed me. They couldn’t know about our blood

ties, but I could play the role of concerned stepmom. Put my body in front of theirs when it came to all the news that was

about to break about their parents.

Found family. I’d stumbled over the term in those self-help books. Sometimes it was better to create a family than stay with the one that

raised you. The concept suddenly made sense.

I stepped through the gate and closed it behind me. Mom kept up her complaints as I walked away. Her yelling echoed off the

trees and through the yard. This time I didn’t cave. I didn’t give in to the fantasy of a loving mother or the gnawing pain

at the loss of an ideal that didn’t exist.

Nothing I tried was ever good enough. But I knew she’d cash the check.