Page 168 of What Started In Deception

Lydia sat at her dining room table, staring at the blank document open on her laptop screen, like she’d been doing for close to an hour. She’d officially been home for the last six days, and none of them had been productive.

On Sunday, she’d enthusiastically written down her list of to-dos that she’d planned to check off throughout the week, fully intending to reestablish her Oliver Heights routine, yet here it was Friday, and she’d accomplished almost nothing.

Her optimism to move on with her life and forget about Ty had quickly faded after she’d realized that there were memories of him everywhere. At the grocery store and in the gym. In her classroom and at the park. She couldn’t even eat a cheeseburger from her favorite food truck without thinking of him.

It hadn’t helped that she’d found several of his items scattered here and there: a book that he’d forgotten on the nightstand, a pair of his slides by the back door, a can of his shaving cream by the bathroom sink, two of his shirts that had been thrown into her hamper, and the cozy hoodie that she’d accidentally worn home when she’d been too distraught to remember to take it off.

And she couldn’t get the scent of his aftershave out of her bedroom, no matter what she did. She’d tried washing her bedding and opening the windows, but it was still there.

He was haunting her—torturing her—no matter where she went.

Sighing, she closed her eyes but opened them just as quickly when her cell phone started to ring.

A small part of her yearned for it to be Ty, but ultimately, she was relieved when Mac’s grinning face filled her screen. “Hi,” she answered with more enthusiasm than she felt.

“Hi,” Mac said.

Lydia frowned, hearing the tears in Mac’s one word. “What’s going on?”

“I met with Will today. We went to the park down the road from my parents’ house so we could talk without the kids around.”

Lydia stood now as her nerves got the better of her. “Okay.”

“He wasn’t cheating on me, Lydia.”

She exhaled a breath of relief, even when she already knew that. “That’s really good, honey.”

“He’s been gambling.”

Her frown was back as she sat again. “Gambling?”

Mac’s breathing grew unsteady. “He spent it all. Our savings account. The money from the sale of my business. Every dime. It’s gone.”

Lydia clutched her phone, entirely shocked. “What?”

Mac sniffled. “Apparently, it started last summer—just some harmless sports bets to pass the time while I lay in bed, sick as a dog. Over the months, it turned into an addiction. He kept spending money to try to win it all back. Now there’s nothing left.”

Lydia closed her eyes. “Mac, I’m so sorry.”

Mac started to cry. “I don’t know what to do. I’m so scared. We’re broke. I’m broke, and I had no idea.”

“Oh, honey, I will never let you be broke. Never, ever. Neither will anyone else in the family.”

“I can’t take your money,” Mac said, adamantly shaking her head. Lydia couldn’t see her, but she knew her best friend.

“It’s not taking if I’m giving it to you.”

“I can’t think about that. I don’t want to talk about that right now.”

“Okay.”

Mac sniffled again. “Will told me that he got himself into trouble with some bad people—a man he thought was a friend but who turned out to be a loan shark. Ty helped him get out of it.”

Lydia sat up taller as she clutched her phone again because she’d been wondering and worrying all week, agonizing over what exactly had happened with Will, especially after she’d heard Richard Russo’s name connected to the Giordano crime family and a major drug bust in the news. Suddenly, everything about the summer made perfect sense: Will’s uncharacteristic behavior, Richard Russo’s connection to Will, and Ty’s investigation. “He did?”

“Mm-hmm. Some of Ty’s clients are FBI agents. He contacted them, and they came up with a plan to help Will, which I’m so grateful for. Will wouldn’t tell me much about what exactly happened. Apparently, that was part of the agreement that he and Ty made, but I’m still grateful.”

Lydia closed her eyes as she pressed her lips together, struggling with her own emotions. Ty had kept his promise. He’d taken care of her family. “That’s really good, Mac.”