Page 23 of Sharp Lies

“Exactly my thinking,” I said. “And this way you can be more independent. I mean, you don’t want to have to call me every time you want to get up in the middle of the night to eat chocolate cake or something.”

She looked at me like I’d just insulted her mother. “Lilian Claire, I would never get up in the middle of the night to eat chocolate cake.” She tilted her head and pressed her lips together primly. “Chocolate cake is for breakfast. It’s much better when you eat it in the light.”

I laughed outright at that. “That’s a very good point. Let’s get you unpacked and have some lunch. I couldn’t eat this morning, and I’m starving. Plus I bought a ton of groceries the other day, and I have big things planned when it comes to cooking.”

“Why didn’t you have breakfast? You know it’s one of the most important meals of the day.”

“The most important meal of the day, I think. I didn’t have time to eat. I was too busy cleaning up in here so the place wouldn’t be cluttered when you got home.”

My mom shook her head and reached up to cup my cheek gently, her eyes so full of love it made something inside me hurt. “My sweet girl. Thank you for that, Lil. And for coming home to take care of me. I’m not sure what I’d have done if you hadn’t.”

I rested my own hand on her cheek in return and gave her a very weak smile. “I wouldn’t have it any other way. You took care of me my entire childhood. Now it’s my turn to repay the favor.”

It was spoken from the heart, and the look on her face was so grateful that I couldn’t stand the thought of ruining it with the questions running through my brain. Like whether she’d seen another car on the road when she crashed, and whether she’d wondered if it could have been McCarthy’s doing. She’d known why I was leaving Oakville five years ago and about the money McCarthy had paid me to keep my mouth shut. She’d known all about the threat.

I wondered if she’d thought about the fact that if he threatened me once, he might have gone all out with making good on that threat.

I wondered if either one of us was safe in this town. And if we were ever going to be safe, regardless of whether I followed Mr. McCarthy’s rules about keeping my mouth shut.

***

I LIFTED MY MOTHER out of the wheelchair and into her bed, both of us laughing at how awkward this was.

“We’re going to have to find a better way to do this,” I groaned when I almost fell on top of her, putting her back down. “Or I’m going to end up hurting you worse than you’re already hurt!”

My mother giggled. “This is all so ridiculous. I don’t know why I’m not allowed to do this on my own.”

“Because,” I told her firmly, “if you do it on your own, there’s a very good chance that you’ll get hurt.”

“Kind of like I’ll get hurt if you end up falling on me?” she asked, one elegant eyebrow lifted.

I grinned and was about to answer when the doorbell rang. My mother and I frowned at one another, confused. It was nearly nine at night and very dark out. And we weren’t exactly close to anything that might mean someone had lost their way.

“Who the hell is showing up at the house at this time of night?” my mother asked quietly.

“Probably Girl Scouts. Isn’t it cookie season?” I asked lightly. “You sit tight. I’ll go see.”

I turned and left the room like everything was just fine and I thought it might actually be Girl Scouts.

At nine on a school night.

The truth was, I had a very good idea who it might be, and my stomach was doing flips with every step I took toward the door. I remembered running into Tony McCarthy at the bakery and how angry he’d been that I was back in town and hadn’t bothered to contact him. I remembered how much he’d wanted me to go to dinner with him and how he’d looked when I’d walked past him.

I remembered how he was still shouting at me as I skidded out of the parking place and sped down the road, trying very hard to outrun all the memories he’d conjured up in my mind.

And unfortunately, I remembered that he wasn’t the sort of person who took ‘no’ for an answer.

It probably hadn’t even been hard for him to figure out where my mother lived, small towns being what they were. And if I was guessing right, he’d waited until she was home with me to show up just so he could use my fear of her being hurt against me.

If I was right about the crash, he and his father had already hurt my mother once. I wouldn’t put it past them to do it again—and he’d know that, which meant he was coming here knowing that he’d be holding something over my head.

I stopped on the other side of the door, wondering suddenly if I could just refuse to answer it. It was late at night, after all, and we could very well just be asleep. I might not have heard the doorbell ring. Or, being a woman, I might have heard it and chosen not to answer it. I didn’t have to open the door, did I? I could just pretend that it hadn’t happened.

Then he hammered on the door again and shouted, “Lily, I can see you standing right there! Open up.”

I looked up through the door... and through the fogged glass that made up the entire center of it. Tony was there, staring right through the glass at me, and I was so shocked that I took two steps back. Of course. I’d been through that door at least three thousand times since I got here, and yet I’d forgotten that it was made up of mostly glass. Which meant Tony had seen me walking toward the door. He’d seen me stop and try to figure out whether I had to open it or not.

Great. He’d probably been laughing at me the whole time.