Page 52 of Clever Deceit

“She would never hurt anyone,” I replied at once. “She’s so gentle and sweet. I just don’t understand why he would do this to us...”

“Because he wants to hurt you,” Warren told me. “It’s not about Silver. He doesn’t even care about that dog, he doesn’t want anything to do with it—”

“Why would he have been targeting you?” Rocco asked, sounding confused. “With respect, Lily, I thought whatever you two had was over a long time ago.”

“It was,” I admitted. “Or at least, I thought it was. But I...I had to come back here recently, to help my mom after the accident, and I started seeing him again. And the way he treated me before, I...I just couldn’t handle it. I reached out to some other women who had been involved with him and I found they all had the same stories that I did. So we’re making a case against him. Hopefully his father, too, because he seems to be in on it.”

Rocco stood there for a moment, then let out a long, low whistle between his teeth.

“Damn,” he muttered. “That explains it.”

“Yeah,” Warren agreed, squeezing my knee as he crouched down beside me. I could tell he was really concerned about me, and I felt guilty for taking the attention when I knew full well what was going on with Silver, but I just couldn’t help it. I felt like my heart had shattered into a million pieces, and I didn’t know how I was going to put it back together.

“You have anything on the McCarthys and how they use their money in this town?” Warren asked, glancing up at Rocco and Frank hopefully. They exchanged a glance.

“We have some information,” Frank replied carefully. There were a whole lot of layers to what he was saying right now, I could sense it, as though the two of them might have spoken about this before, but chosen to put it aside until they had more to work with.

“You do?” I perked up. I would take something, damn near anything right now. Anything that would let me believe for an instant that there was a way out of this, when it felt like the walls were closing in on us.

“So does he know you’re planning this?” Rocco asked, pressing for more information before he shared anything they had.

“I’m not sure,” I admitted. “I know he’s been following me for a while, and I don’t know exactly how far that stretches.”

I shivered at the thought, trying not to let it linger in my mind for too long. I didn’t even want to think of everything he had seen, everything he had been watching me for.

“But he doesn’t know the details, right?”

“Unless one of the women who spoke to us about it has come to him with any of them,” I replied. “And trust me, I don’t think that’s likely.”

“Then we have to move fast,” Rocco replied. “We need to start pooling information as quickly as possible. The more people we can get in on this, the better. Are any of the women who came to you willing to testify in court?”

“A couple,” I replied.

He winced. “Not enough,” he remarked, shaking his head. “These guys have roots that run really deep in this town. It’ll take a hell of a lot to uproot them.”

I nodded, but before I could stop myself, I found my face crumpling again. I couldn’t focus on any of this, not right now—not knowing that they had Silver, and they were likely doing who knew what to her right now.

“Hey, you’re all right,” Warren tried to comfort me, and I shook my head.

“No, I’m not,” I gasped, a sob finally escaping me. “They have Silver. And I just know that Tony and the animal control officer are going to be plotting to put her down the first chance they get.”

“Lily, don’t even say that!” Mom interjected. But she must have known I was right. I could hear the terror in her own voice, evident in how terrified she was at the mere mention of it.

“They’re not going to do that,” Warren told me firmly. “They can’t. Not without good reason.”

“Don’t you get it?” I exclaimed. “Tony doesn’t need a good reason. He never has, not for any of this. All that’s ever mattered is him getting what he wants. All it takes is his dad pulling a few strings, and then Silver will be...”

I clapped a hand over my mouth, not even daring to say the words out loud again. The thought of it ripped a hole through my chest. My dog, my sweet, precious dog, who had been my companion through so much of this—I didn’t know what I would do without her. Before Warren came along, he had been the only one I felt truly safe around, and he had been relying on me for the same thing. I had let him down, utterly and completely. I had totally failed him, and now, I knew there was nothing I could do to change that.

Warren wrapped his arms around me, knowing there was no more point in trying to argue with me. My emotions were too high, the mess in my head a million times more than I could take. I wanted to scream, I wanted to tear my hair out, I wanted to run out of there and go find Silver and show her that I would never let anything happen to her. That had been the responsibility I had taken on when I had gotten her, and I had failed at it.

And what else was I going to fail at, too? Was I going to let down Madison, Jane, Julia, Iris, all the women who had been hurt by Tony? I felt like I already had, by not doing more to stop him after he had driven me out of town. I had taken the money and run, and I wasn’t sure anyone would take me seriously knowing how easy it had been to get me to give up on what was right.

Warren rocked me, and nobody said a word. The only sound in the room was that of my heaving sobs. I wanted to control myself, and I knew I was looking a total fool in front of everyone, but I didn’t care. I was spiraling out, wondering if any of this had been worth it—wondering if I had been crazy to think for a second that I could fight off Tony and everything he brought with him.

Once I had managed to start breathing normally again, Rocco stepped forward.

“Now I’m not going to claim to know everything about this situation,” he remarked. “But I do know a little about animal control cases. And if Tony wants to bring this case against you, he’s going to need that dog alive.”