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Actually? She got nothing.
There’ve been plenty of documented cases where the children or spouses of abusers blamethe abused—for “tempting” the abuser. Or they accuse them of lying. I wonder if everything that happened to Juliette is enough to drive her to seek revenge on an innocent she might somehow blame for her life’s direction, and her father’s death.
Juliette—Julia, now—works late most nights, I’ve learned, from home. I’m aware too that she’s not home alone: her husband and two children are asleep upstairs. They’ll be fine.She’llbe fine, for that matter…so long as she convinces me she’s not the one who chased Dahlia through the park, and/or possibly sent killers to Adele’s house.
The backdoor is unlocked because this is a nice, safe neighborhood.
Or at least it was before I showed up.
I wait in the shadows of the dark kitchen. Through the living room, a light is on in a small study, where I spy a now thirty-year-old Julia typing on her laptop.
She stretches, yawns, rubs her eyes tiredly, and closes the laptop. Then she shuts off the light and stands before padding through the living room into the kitchen. She moves toward the fridge.
That’s where I stop her.
She doesn’t scream. I doubt she can, with her heart and the terror choking her. I say nothing at first. I just press the edge of the blade to her throat.
“Please,” she finally whispers. “Please, just take whatever you want. There’s money in the coffee can above the pantry, and some jewelry in a safe in the study. The combination is ten-eight-six-two—”
“I don’t want money,” I rasp quietly.
She stiffens, her breath catching. I feel her swallow against the blade, and her head slowly nods.
“I…I think I always knew you’d come.”
“Did you, now,” I growl.
“Yes,” she chokes. She half turns toward me, but I’m cloaked in shadow. “I have children, and a husband.”
“That won’t work on me, sorry.”
She shakes her head. “No, I just mean…” She hitches with a silent sob. “Don’t do it in here. I don’t want them to find me, okay? If you have to do it, can you do it out in the woods behind the house? Please?”
My brows furrow. Something’s not adding up here.
“Why do you think I’m here?” I growl quietly.
Julia starts to cry. “I know why you’re here. Because of him,” she chokes. “Because of that…that monster.”
“What monster.”
“My father,” she blurts. “I know what he was, okay? He tried it withme, once. It’s why I begged my mother to send me away to private boarding school, and then to university early. I can put two and two together. The woman and her daughter downstairs in Paris…they were friends with the mobster, Cross. My father goes missing, and the very next day, they move out completely?”
She hitches as another quiet sob wrenches her chest.
“Do you work for Adrian Cross? Or the woman and her poor daughter?” She shakes her head, tears falling quietly. “Please. I’m not anything like him, okay? I’ve spent my life running from where I came from. I even changed my name.Please!” she whispers fiercely. “Please, my family doesn’t have a clue who I used to be. They’re not involved and never have been. So if you have to do this—”
She flinches when I draw the blade away from her throat. I step back further into the shadows.
“Turn around.”
She’s trembling when she does so, her big blue eyes staring hauntingly into the darkness, glinting from the moon outside.
“Am I right? About the poor girl downstairs?” she breathes.
I nod, and she buries her face in her hands. “I’m so sorry.”
“She’s okay now. She has a new life. They both do.”
