I Know What You Did

by N L Hinkens

  It seemed like an eternity before Mia walked into the room, accompanied by a smartly dressed woman in a herringbone suit and black pumps. Jo swallowed hard, struck again by how truly beautiful Mia was even in her unflattering prison jumpsuit.

  A satisfied smile flicked across her lips. “I wasn’t sure you’d come,” she said in a slow drawl, her liquid blue eyes roving over Jo like a predator eying its prey. “Despite what good friends we’d become.”

  Jo rubbed her hands nervously on her thighs beneath the table. “To be honest, I wasn’t sure I should come.”

  Mia gave a sharp-edged laugh and leaned back in her chair, folding her arms in front of her. She looked remarkably relaxed, as at home in her new environment as she had been turning heads across the high school campus. “I’m glad you did. You would have missed out if you hadn’t.” She straightened back up and leaned across the table, looking intently into Jo’s eyes. “We were good friends for a while, weren’t we, Jo?”

  “Robbie was my friend,” Jo said stiffly. “You were his wife, and I respected that. But you seduced him, and betrayed him. You murdered Sarah and tried to frame him for it. You can’t expect me to offer my continued friendship after that.”

  Mia wagged a finger at her. “Now, you’re twisting the truth. I admit I tried to blame Robbie for what my father did.” She glanced idly at her nails and then flexed out her fingers in front of her before adding with a hint of amusement, “But I didn’t murder anyone. I was a lowly chauffeur in an evil plot. An abused child who couldn’t stand up to her abuser.”

  Her lawyer cleared her throat and pulled out a leather folder. “Shall we begin?”

  Sweat prickled along the back of Jo’s neck. Her breathing came in small shallow pants as she waited for the lawyer to deliver the blow she fully expected was coming. The sooner it was out on the table, the sooner she could get to work recruiting the best adoption attorneys in the state to keep her daughter out of Mia Allen’s clutches. As a convicted murderer, she’d never win custody, but she would revel in tormenting Jo in the process.

  Mia reached across to her lawyer’s leather folder and retrieved some paperwork. She straightened it in front of her and then raised her head and looked Jo directly in the eye. “I want you and Liam to adopt Olivia.”

  Jo’s jaw dropped. She blinked, speechless, wondering if this was another twisted joke in Mia’s repertoire.

  “She’s Claire’s sister and all they have is each other now,” Mia continued. “Thanks to Robbie's testimony about my drinking, I’ve been declared an unfit mother. And I don’t want Tory raising her.”

  Jo blinked across the table at her. “Why not? You told her to abduct Olivia from my house.”

  A twisted smile formed on Mia’s lips. “So she said. It’s what you want to believe, isn’t it—that I’m the evil sister and she’s the sad, little victim?” Mia paused, and leaned across the table. “Well, that sad little victim drained our mother’s account dry. And then she killed her, two days after my thirteenth birthday. I couldn’t sleep for years afterward, I was terrified she was going to kill me next.”

  Jo shook her head slowly. “No, you’re lying again. You’re sick.”

  Mia arched a condescending brow. “I’m flattered you think I was the brains behind it all, but you give me too much credit. Tory outfoxed us all.”

  Jo took a few shallow breaths. “Then why let her get away with it?”

  “There’s nothing to pin on her. She never gets her hands dirty.” Mia slid the paperwork across the table. “Robbie signed it already of his own accord. You can check with his attorney.”

  Jo stared at the adoption placement form, the words swimming in and out of focus, and then glanced at the attorney, numb with shock at this stunning turnaround. Mia could have gone in the opposite direction and tried to get Claire back, hanging the case up in court for years, and forcing Jo and Liam to endure the stress and financial burden of it all. But, for whatever reason, she’d chosen the higher road.

  Jo blinked back her tears. With Robbie facing charges of his own, Olivia had no one left to bat for her. “My answer is yes, gladly.”

  Mia turned to her lawyer and nodded. “Show her where she needs to sign.”

  After Jo had added her signature to the form with shaking fingers, Mia stood, a curious smile on her lips. "Have fun with those two little she-devils of mine.”

  She walked over to the corrections officer standing in the doorway and then turned back to Jo, arching a theatrical brow. “Oh, and be careful on the stairs.”

  32

  Jo smiled up at Liam sitting next to her on a park bench on a warm summer evening. He reached for her hand, his familiar fingers slipping between hers as he tilted his head down to kiss her. When they drew apart, he casually draped an arm around her shoulders. They watched in comfortable silence as Bethany pushed Claire on a swing while Olivia slept in the pram next to them. They were a family of four now, a patchwork family that had risen above the nightmare they’d lived through to build this life together.

  In the end, Robbie was sentenced to three years in prison, but Jo and Liam assured him once he was released, he could visit the girls whenever he wanted to and that he’d always be included in birthdays and holiday celebrations.

  “Don’t tell them I’m their biological father,” he said. “They can call me Uncle Robbie. I only want the best for them. I gave up the right to be their father when I made the decisions I made.”

  At times, Jo worried about how much of Mia was in the girls—Mia’s parting words had a bad habit of echoing around inside her head late at night—but Liam always reassured her that the way they raised them would be enough to instill a sense of right and wrong to serve as their moral compass. Whether it would be enough to counter any predisposition to their mother's sociopathic ways remained to be seen. Mia had expressed no interest in ever seeing the girls again, and although she’d promised to write to them, so far nothing had materialized. Secretly, Jo hoped it never would. Mia showed no remorse for what she'd done, and Jo feared she would only grow harder behind bars. Officer Bowman had informed them she was appealing her sentence—which didn’t surprise Jo in the least.

  In another twist, the state was struggling to build a strong enough case to prosecute Mia for her mother's murder. Tory, their star witness, had inexplicably disappeared. Jo still wasn’t sure which of the sisters had really killed their mother—but she was certain either one was capable. She could never quite shake the fear that Tory might resurface one day. She even caught herself glancing over her shoulder from time to time, shivering at the thought that Tory was out there somewhere, watching them perhaps. But it did no good to speculate.

  Jo had gone to visit Sarah’s grave shortly after the trial ended. She brought Sarah’s art journal with her, along with a bunch of daffodils. She sat beside the tombstone in the setting sun, taking the time to go through the journal slowly and read everything that Sarah had written. It was a heart-warming celebration of life, a life that had been so cruelly taken. Jo desperately missed her, even more so now that Robbie was incarcerated. It felt as though she’d lost a limb.

  Every once in a while, she drove by their house. It looked unloved and uncared for. The gardeners still came by once a week, but the flowers Sarah had planted looked jaded. The lights were on a timer and came on every evening but there was no spirit behind the drawn curtains. Barb’s money should have been more than enough to take care of things, but her niece, the same Ella who had read a poem at Sarah’s funeral, had filed a new lawsuit laying claim to the estate, alleging it had been illegitimately inherited by Robbie. For his part, Robbie didn’t care about the money, which was one thing Jo had got right about him.

  There had initially been some discussion about exhuming Barb’s body, but, in the end, the extended family decided against it. The doctors at Brookdale Meadows advised them that there was a good chance Barb had passed away of complications from Alzheimer’s. Mia adamantly denied having done anything to contribute to he
r death, and it would be an uphill battle to prove otherwise.

  Jo still had her suspicions, but she’d made her peace with it. Exhuming Barb’s body wouldn’t change anything at this point. Justice, to the best of anyone’s knowledge, was being served for Sarah.

  Lydia had called Jo and let her know that she and Sérgio visited Mia in prison a few weeks after her incarceration. They wanted to look her in the face and ask her why she had helped murder their son. But they’d gotten no satisfaction from the visit. Mia had fluttered her eyelashes and stuck to her story that her only role had been to drive him to the garage.

  “It was as if she was laughing at us,” Lydia told Jo over the phone. “There was nothing in her eyes but darkness. It breaks my heart to think that Noah loved her to the end, never suspecting she would ever harm him.”

  “He had a good heart,” Jo responded. “People with good hearts always believe the best of others. Naïve perhaps, but the world would be better off with more people like Noah.”

  “You and Liam are good people too,” Lydia said. “Not everyone would have taken on Mia’s children. At one point, I expected to be the grandmother of her children. After seeing what she’s capable of, I’d be scared to take on that task.”

  “They’re innocent children,” Jo replied, quashing the niggling thread of fear that sometimes surfaced. They wouldn’t be children forever. One day they would be thirteen—and she couldn’t deny that the thought filled her with an element of dread at times. “I refuse to put the burden of what their mother did on them. They’re the only beautiful thing to come out of the evil Mia intended.”

  After the phone call, Lydia had surprised her and Liam by sending a generous check to start an education fund for the girls. She included a short note thanking Jo for her persistence in getting to the bottom of what had happened.

  Jo also had a long conversation with Ed McMillan regarding her position at Emmetville High and decided to take a couple of years off to raise the girls. “I feel my role is with them right now. So much has been taken from them. They need me.”

  Ed rubbed his jaw and nodded. “When you’re ready to come back, your job will be waiting for you. You’re an excellent counselor, highly praised by both parents and students alike. We’re lucky to have you, and those girls are lucky to have you as their mother.”

  Liam got up from the park bench and stretched, letting out a loud yawn and startling Jo out of her ponderous thoughts. “We should take the girls back to the house before it gets too late. Do you want to invite Bethany for dinner?”

  Jo nodded. “Let’s pick up some pizza on the way home.”

  She got to her feet and walked over to the swing, smiling at Claire’s shrieks of delight as Bethany pushed her higher and higher.

  “Ready to go?” Bethany asked, catching sight of Jo.

  “Yeah, it’s time to get this little madam in the bathtub. Will you join us for pizza?”

  Bethany smiled. “I’d love to.”

  After both girls had been scrubbed and put down for the night, Jo, Liam and Bethany gathered around the table over pepperoni pizza and Caesar salad.

  “That was so much fun today,” Bethany said, reaching for another piece of pizza. “I love seeing Claire’s face light up when I push her on the swings. She's such a little thrill seeker, not afraid of anything.”

  Jo caught Liam's eye and smiled uneasily. Time would tell whether they had a daredevil or a she-devil on their hands. “The girls are lucky to have you as their babysitter, Bethany. You're so patient with them.”

  “And you’re a wonderful mother to them,” Bethany replied. “At least Mia’s instincts didn’t lead her astray when it came to that. She knew you’d be a good mom.”

  When Robbie was released from prison three years later, Jo and Liam were there to pick him up.

  “How are the girls?” he asked, his voice husky with emotion as he climbed into the back seat.

  “Very talkative and inquisitive, and extremely smart,” Liam responded as he started the engine. “Prepare to be bombarded and depleted of all energy reserves.”

  Jo turned around and grinned at Robbie. “We told them their Uncle Robbie is coming for a visit, and that he loves pillow fights, is a formidable tickle monster, and always keeps his pockets stuffed with candy.”

  Robbie let out a snort of laughter. “I think I can live up to that, although we might have to stop at a gas station to stock up on the candy.”

  “Already done,” Jo said, rattling a plastic bag at her feet.

  Robbie stared out of the window for a few minutes absorbing the sights. And then out of the blue he said, “How’s Mia doing?”

  Jo exchanged a quick look with Liam before responding. “Same as ever. Still working on her appeal. No word on Tory’s whereabouts. Let’s hope it stays that way.”

  “Mia wrote to me a couple of weeks before my release,” Robbie said quietly.

  Jo bit her lip, waiting on him to continue.

  “She said she wanted me to—” His voice cracked, and he heaved a heavy sigh. “She wanted me to know that my name was … the last word on Sarah’s lips. That’s as close to a confession as I’m ever going to get. I know she just wanted to twist the knife, but it gives me some peace of mind to know that Mia’s sentence was a just one.”

  They rode the rest of the way to the house in silence, a tribute of sorts to their memories of Sarah.

  Jo unlocked the front door and two little girls scampered down the hallway to greet her, followed by a smiling Bethany. The girls ran straight past Jo and came to a halt in front of Robbie, staring unabashedly up at him.

  Olivia pulled out her thumb and pointed at him. “What’s your name?”

  “He’s our Uncle Robbie,” Claire said indignantly.

  Robbie kneeled down and winked at Olivia. “Your sister’s right. I’m your Uncle Robbie and I’m … a … tickle … monster.”

  The girls tore off down the hallway shrieking with delight as Robbie thumped after them, arms outstretched. Bethany pulled out her phone and followed them to video their antics.

  “I’m loving this already,” Liam said. “I can put my feet up and watch the game while Robbie provides the evening’s entertainment.”

  Jo smiled and slipped her arms around her husband’s neck. “You know, at one point I wasn’t sure we’d make it—all the heartbreak, the miscarriages.”

  “But we did,” Liam assured her, brushing a strand of hair from her face. “And that’s all that matters to those two little girls. They may have been conceived in a web of lies, but they’ll be raised in the truth that they have always been loved and very much wanted.”

  Ready for more? Check out my next heart-stopping thriller The Lies She Told!

  Not all bad deeds can be undone...

  Brilliant and beautiful Haley Burrows has just landed her dream job at a prestigious law firm, but someone is stalking her. When she finds her tires slashed, and a menacing message scrawled across her windscreen, she quickly realizes the situation has become a deadly game for her anonymous stalker. But she can't involve the police because she's hiding a guilty secret from her past that would instantly unravel her charmed life if it ever came to light. Ensnared by the lies she has built her life on, she is forced to rely on her own wits and intuition to track down her stalker before he makes good on his threat to kill her.

  But will the awful truth of her past prove her undoing?

  - A riveting thriller with spine-tingling chills, twists, and turns to the very last page! -

  Do you enjoy reading across genres? I also write young adult science fiction and fantasy thrillers. You can find out more about those titles on my website.

  www.normahinkens.com

  Afterword

  Dear Reader,

  I hope you enjoyed reading I Know What You Did as much as I enjoyed writing it. Thank you for taking the time to check out my books and I would appreciate it from the bottom of my heart if you would leave a review, long or short, here on Amazon as it mak
es a HUGE difference in helping new readers find the series.

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  All my best,

  Norma

  Biography

  NYT and USA Today bestselling author Norma Hinkens writes psychological suspense thrillers, as well as fast-paced science fiction and fantasy about spunky heroines and epic adventures in dangerous worlds. She’s also a travel junkie, legend lover, and idea wrangler, in no particular order. She grew up in Ireland, land of make-believe and the original little green man.

  Find out more about her books on her website.

  www.normahinkens.com

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