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Jada looked at Ian to see if she could read what he thought of Sylvia’s confession. A slight lowering of his eyelids and a barely-discernible shake of his head told her he wasn’t buying the story any more than she was.
“What did you think when you saw what they did to me on CGTV Saturday morning?” Jada asked. “How they raked me over the coals and called me everything shy of a Jezebel, and probably only left out that because they didn’t think of it.”
Sylvia blinked, flinched.
It was time to hit her where Jada hoped it would hurt. “And what do you think about today, and the latest lies about me marrying Sasha? I’m the Bisexual Bigamist, have you heard? It’s probably cost me my job. I’ll likely have to leave Springers Glen forever because of this, even if my innocence is eventually revealed.”
Sylvia’s lower lip quivered.
Jada forged on with a final thrust. “People will never look at me the way they once did. Never. They’ll only see the scandal, not the person. And I may never be able to live that down. My life will never be the same. Because this happened.”
Sylvia’s eyes slowly filled with real tears. The tip of her nose turned red.
Jada thought about what she’d said, about how it was true, and how painful it had been to say it out loud. Her honesty radiated outward, reaching across the table and demanding Sylvia face her part in causing Jada’s pain.
Silence, but for a sniff from Sylvia. Then another sniffle and another. She blinked watery eyes, swiped her nose with the tissues still crumpled in her hand.
Any second, Jada thought, willing herself into complete stillness. To wait. Wait until ...
Sylvia sobbed once, hiccuped, then burst into wholesale tears. This time, when she buried her face in her hands, tears dripped between her fingers and splashed onto the tabletop.
In between sobs, she repeated, “I’m sorry. So sorry.”
This time, Jada believed her. She passed her all the tissues she had left. “It’s okay. It’s okay,” she repeated.
It took a few minutes for the worst of Sylvia’s tears to subside. Jada had to resist the urge to comfort and hug her, and she looked to Ian for strength. He gave her a stern, approving nod, encouraging her to be strong, to stay firm so they could get the whole story.
Sylvia’s wet face, her running nose and her bright red eyes, made for a heart-wrenching sight. She pressed soggy tissues against her cheeks. “Th-thanks for the tissues. You’re so kind, and I’m ... I’m such a shit.”
Jada straightened her back and her resolve while Sylvia moaned about how she’d done a terrible, terrible thing. Which was true, Jada told herself. Sylvia had definitely done wrong.
Ian brought Sylvia a glass of water, which she drank down quickly, thanking Ian profusely.
“Are you okay?” Jada asked.
Sylvia dabbed at the corners of her eyes. “No. But I’ll stop crying now. Sorry I broke down like that. I’ve been really stressed.”
“I know the feeling,” Jada said drily.
Sylvia’s thin shoulders sagged. “And it’s all my fault. I don’t know what to say. I’m so ashamed. I lied to you about everything. I don’t know why I did it. I mean, I know why I lied. I’m afraid of what’s going to happen to me and my family when the truth comes out. What I meant was that I don’t know how I convinced myself to do what the woman wanted. That it would be okay and no one would get hurt. Know what I mean?”
Jada struggled to make sense of her jumbled sentences. “I think so.”
“I’ve been wishing so hard that I could go back in time, undo it all. How could I do what I did? And how could I do that to you? There’s no way to make it all right. You have to hate me, and I know Marina hates me, doesn’t she?”
“We don’t hate you.”
“You should. You don’t know what I did. All for money. We needed it so bad, though, but if I’d realized ... it kills me I can’t make it go away.”
“Maybe not, Sylvia, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing you can do to help.”
“I’ll do anything you want. It’s only right and I need to do the right thing now.” Sylvia looked down at the scratched formica tabletop. She was limp and emotionally defeated. “I’ll do anything, even ... you know.”
On their way to the motel, Ian had helped Jada build a brick wall inside herself as self-defense against Sylvia playing on her sympathies. It had protected her well, until now. When Jada heard the desperation and fear in Sylvia’s voice, the wall crumbled away, disappeared. Jada suddenly felt like crying, too.
“I’m not going to ask you to turn yourself in or anything like that, Sylvia,” she said. “I wouldn’t do that.”
Ian scowled at Jada and she ignored him. She knew she was going against the plan. He’d made it clear that they should maintain a silent threat of exposing Sylvia to the authorities as a means of coercing her to tell them everything she knew.
Now Jada had removed that threat. And she didn’t care that Ian wasn’t happy about it. She had to go with her gut, and her gut was telling her to relieve Sylvia’s fears, not as a ploy, but as a simple act of compassion.
Sylvia’s head lifted and she gazed at Jada with wide eyes. “You’re not? Why?”
“Because I know why you did it. You have children, a family to support. You needed the money. Your husband got laid off, the unemployment is gone, and the bills are piling up. Looking around this motel, it’s clear you didn’t take the money and blow it on a fancy vacation and five-star restaurants.”
Sylvia half-laughed and half-wept. “Yeah, well, this is still the first vacation I’ve had in six years.”
“Pizza any good?” Jada asked.
“The kids love it. I like the five-dollar subs down the street.”
They sat for a moment in silence, contemplating one another. Jada didn’t look at Ian.
Sylvia took a deep breath and sat up straighter. “Well, you’re not here to take me in, so what do you want? You name it, you’ve got it.”
“I’d appreciate it if you’d tell me everything that happened and everything you know about the woman who started all of this last Wednesday morning.”
“Yes. Of course. I’ll tell you everything I know.” She took a drink of water and readied herself. “Where do I start?”
Jada flipped open her notebook and prepared to take notes.
Chapter Fiv
e
IN A DIFFERENT RENTAL CAR this time, Ian drove away from the rundown motel, heading back to the small airport where Raul waited with the helicopter. He was a little tired and contemplated stopping for coffee.
Jada sighed deeply. “I’m starting to fade.”
“Me too. Coffee?”
“Please.”
As he drove, he kept an eye out for somewhere to stop.
“I don’t know,” she said. “We didn’t learn much from her.”
“I think she told us everything she knew, don’t you?”
“Yes, and that makes it worse. I was hoping to get more. I thought she’d be the key to solving the whole thing.”
“You got her to admit that she lied, that she was bribed to file a forged document,” Ian said.
“True, but we already had that figured out.”
Ian spied a fast food place ahead. “How’s the coffee at that place? Any good?”
“It’s not a specialty blend from an exclusive plantation in Java, brewed with the purest water from the most remote mountain in the Himalayas and delivered on the backs of endangered ducks, if that’s what you mean by good.”
That was a mouthful, Ian thought. He glanced at her to see if she was joking. Nope. More like bitter sarcasm. “Did my question offend you?”
“No. I’m just ... out of sorts. The coffee at that place up there is plain old average coffee that doesn’t cost a lot. It tastes how you’d expect ordinary coffee to taste. Does that answer your question?”
“Sort of,” he said. “So should we go through the drive-thru, or no?”
“Yes, please,” she said, and turned her head toward her window, shutting him out of view.
Something was wrong, he thought, and it wasn’t merely that they hadn’t gotten much useful information from Sylvia. He wished Jada would tell him what it was.
He’d been impressed with how she’d handled herself all day, but particularly impressed with how she got Sylvia to open up. At first, when she’d blown the plan by letting Sylvia off the legal hook, Ian had thought it was over, that they’d get nothing out of the records clerk.
