Page 11 of Sharp Lies

I leaned away from her and looked toward the bed where my mother was lying. She looked... bruised. Bruised and a little bit bloody and very, very pale. But she was whole. And she was sleeping without having to be medicated into it.

That, I guessed, was something.

A second later, the doctor came in wearing a long-suffering look that I hoped was his standard expression rather than a reaction to the news he was about to tell us.

“You’re the daughter?” he asked, eyeing me up and down.

I must have looked like a ragamuffin. I hadn’t showered in two days and hadn’t bothered to brush my hair or change my clothes since I left California. I also hadn’t eaten. Though I’d had coffee, so I was, at least, alert.

“I am indeed the daughter,” I said, letting myself smile a bit. “How’s my mom?”

He lifted one eyebrow—presumably at my outfit or lack of clean face—and then looked down at his clipboard. “She’s broken, but she’ll live. Several broken ribs, some internal bleeding, and a broken leg. She’s going to be in a wheelchair until the leg heals because we just can’t risk crutches with those ribs. Her surgery went well, though, and the internal bleeding is controlled. It’s still going to be a long road to recovery. I’m not going to lie to you about that.”

“A long road to recovery,” I said quietly. “What does that mean?”

“Rehab at first, while we help her strengthen her muscles. She’s going to be pretty weak with the amount of blood she lost, and staying off her feet for the weeks she’ll need to heal is going to mean she has to get her exercise in other ways. She’ll be in the wheelchair for eight weeks, I’d say, and during that time, she’s going to need help with virtually everything. Moving from the chair to her bed. Taking a shower. Cooking and cleaning.”

“I’ll take care of all of that,” I told him quickly. “I’m not worried about that. But she will...” My heart broke a bit, and I had to gulp to keep my voice from breaking. “She will recover, right?”

His face suddenly turned kind and reassuring. “She’ll recover. If you’re there helping her, I have no doubt that she’ll heal just fine.”

The weight I’d been carrying on my shoulders left so suddenly that I felt dizzy, and I nodded. “Anything else I need to know?”

A line appeared between his eyebrows. “I’m not sure. It’s not my place to tell you this, and I’m sure the police are going to be investigating. Hell, for all I know, I don’t even have all the facts. But I think you should know that the paramedics who brought her in said there was no reason for the crash. She was on the outskirts of town driving on what looked to be a deserted road. She seems to have run right off the road and into a tree, but the paramedics said there was no reason for it. There was no one else there. No other car to have caused her to jerk the wheel—or at least not one that stopped to talk about it. She doesn’t remember the accident itself so she can’t tell us much, but I have to say, the facts aren’t adding up.”

I frowned back at him, turning that over and over again in my mind.

She’d run off the road and hit a tree. On a deserted road. And there hadn’t been any sign of her trying to avoid an animal or anything else.

She’d been alone on a deserted road.

Or had she?

CHAPTER 6

LILY

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I MOVED HOME THAT NIGHT, if you could even call it that. I guess the more accurate term would have been that I’d arrived in town, and I didn’t leave again.

I didn’t plan to leave again. Sure, I’d loved my nomadic, free-wheeling lifestyle, and I’d adored seeing a new place every week. I loved my van and my dog and the life we’d built together. But I loved my mom more than all of that, and she needed me.

More than that, I was afraid that something terrible had happened to her out there on the road, and that worse things might happen if I wasn’t here looking after her.

Okay, sure, that was probably a little bit melodramatic. We were living in Oakville, Illinois, not some spy thriller where bad men were after us. But when it came right down to it... well, being in a relationship with a man who abused me and then being threatened by that man’s father? Those weren’t exactly normal small-town living. Getting an offer for hush money and a demand that I leave town—with threats about what would happen if I didn’t take the money and leave town—sounded like something right out of a spy novel.

So thinking that my mom might need protection wasn’t the most outlandish thought I’d ever had.

I wanted more than anything to keep her safe and healthy and happy, and from where I was sitting in that hospital waiting room, the best and easiest way to do all of that was to move home. Give up the road, give up the random gigs, and come back to Oakville.

The problem with that idea was, of course, that I’d be breaking the promise I’d made to Mr. McCarthy and potentially putting myself right in his crosshairs. But if I was right in my guesswork and he’d already attacked my mother, then it seemed like we were already in his crosshairs.

We might as well be there together.

I went to tell my mom that I’d be staying, but she was asleep again by the time I got back to her room, and I didn’t want to wake her up. Instead, I got into her purse, found the keys to her house, and left quietly. I’d tell her tomorrow when I came back.

After I’d seen the house and started building a plan for what I wanted to do with it.