She looked directly at him then, and he felt an even deeper qualm when none of the horror in her gaze faded. She lifted her hands, steepling them in front of her face as if praying, but pressing them to her mouth as if to stifle another scream.
“It wasn’t a monster,” she whispered. “It never was.”
“Ash?” he said gently when she stopped.
“And it wasn’t a dream. It was a memory. It was real.”
He was afraid to say anything that might disrupt this. He didn’t have to hear the words to know how critical, how crucial this was. So he just held her, and waited.
“It was real,” she said again. “I was really in that dark hallway. Outside my room. I’d heard Dad in his den in the middle of the night and was worried, so I got up to go check on him.”
At eight years old, she’s looking after her father. The thought roiled his gut even more. Still, he waited. She went on in a sort of numbed tone that told him she was barely hanging on.
“I opened the door and saw her go into the den.” He didn’t ask who—he knew. “Brady,” she said, and he could hear the heartbreak in her voice, which damned near broke his in turn. “She had a gun. I don’t think I recognized it back then, it was just a shape in her hand, but now I remember.”
The branch breaking, he realized. It had been almost as loud as a gunshot. It must have triggered this, this flood of memory.
“Ash—”
“He didn’t do it. Brady, he didn’t do it!” She was clutching at him now. “He didn’t kill himself.”
He was familiar enough with the way people grasped at things when they were in shock, the way they fixated on anything except the ugly core of what had happened. And he supposed in the end this would be what would be most important to her. At least he hoped so; much better for this realization to be the most important to her. This one, not the other.
Not the ugly fact that her mother had murdered her father.
Chapter 33
“Quinn? Where are you, really?”
Brady’s voice was sharp, commanding. As he must sound snapping out orders in an emergency. Ashley knew she was seizing on this to avoid thinking about the rest, but she couldn’t seem to help it. Her mind was darting around, looking for anything to think about except the reality she was now face-to-face with.
He listened to Quinn’s answer. “Good. Head back. Now.”
He ended the call—was it a call if he’d made it using the Foxworth phone they’d left for them, the one with the walkie-talkie function?—before Quinn could have done anything more than agree. She wondered—seizing on this now—how many people there were in the world who would dare give a man like Quinn Foxworth orders like that. Not many, she guessed. And yet Brady had, and Quinn had apparently accepted it. Which said as much about Brady as it did about Quinn.
“They’re on their way back.” He set down the phone and resumed his pacing. And Ashley resumed watching him, the way he moved, the long, powerful strides, the barely leashed strength of him. He looked fierce, almost dangerous, and she realized that he could be, if necessary, just that. And she found that of all the things, all the places her desperate brain had darted off to, the only one that had to power to truly distract her was Brady, and the wonder they’d found together.
“Brady—”
He held up a hand to stop her. “Wait until they get here. I don’t want you to have to go through this more than once.”
She lapsed into silence, but it was with a sense of realization, of how different this felt, Brady’s protective instinct, compared to...others. Her mind shied away from it so vigorously it almost made her dizzy, and she knew he was right. Getting through this once would be about all she could handle. Even Cutter’s comforting only took the edge off.
Hayley and Quinn didn’t waste any time once they arrived. They all sat around the table, and Quinn looked at Brady and said simply, “Go.”
Brady sucked in a breath. “Details of how later, but the bottom line is, Ash’s nightmares were born in reality. She saw her mother go into her father’s den with a handgun and moments later heard the shot.”
Hayley gasped, but Quinn’s expression shifted to one very similar to Brady’s—fierce, determined. And somehow, hearing it said flatly like that, with utter conviction, by the one man she trusted above all others, made it real. Truth. And suddenly her mind settled, quit caroming around and arrowed toward the undeniable truth. And something new, something hot and fierce, began to bubble up inside her.
“Well, that tears it open,” Quinn said. “Lay it all out,” he said, his order as clear as Brady’s had been. And as quickly, Brady showed the same respect and complied.
“My theory is this. Her mother realized from the description of the recurring nightmare that started six months ago that Ash had witnessed her going in to murder her husband. And so she started this...campaign to have her declared mentally ill, so if she remembered completely, it would be dismissed.”
The memory of all she’d gone through, all the treatments, the crippling drugs, all the fear and horror at what was happening to her, rose up and tried to swamp her. But it hit the rapidly rising wall of that new factor, that thing she’d never felt during this entire ordeal until now. Cutter nudged her, and she looked at the dog. Oddly, his expression seemed almost approving. And she remembered suddenly that day at the clinic, when her mother had arrived and the dog had growled and put himself between her and Ashley. You knew even then, didn’t you? She leaned over and kissed the top of the dog’s head.
“And incompetent to manage the trust fund,” Quinn said grimly.
“Especially that,” Brady said, sounding just as harsh. “Bottom line, the murder was for the money, but gaslighting Ash was to save herself from getting caught.”
“I suppose I should be grateful she didn’t just kill me, too.”
Everyone stopped dead and stared at Ashley as she spoke icily. She didn’t wonder why; they’d been dealing with such a broken soul, this cold fury must have startled them all.
“Ash?” Brady said after a moment. “I know this is horrible, but we have to—”
“What it is is evil.” She said it in that same icy tone. “That...woman murdered the sweetest, most loving man in the world, for money, and it wasn’t even that much at the time. Worse, she made it look as if he’d killed himself, which to an eight-year-old means he hadn’t loved her enough to stay. And she got away with it, for twenty years. But when there was just a chance she might be found out, she tried her best to destroy her own daughter’s mind and heart.”
Brady was staring at her, with a touch of what she could only call awe. And that warmed her as much as that new force growing within her. “She put you through the worst kind of hell. That you’re even still functioning is a miracle and testament to your strength.”
“I haven’t been strong, but I am now.” She finally gave a name to that new, solid wall of emotion that was holding everything else—pain, misery, fear, all of it—at bay. “And I am furious.”
The slow smile that lifted one corner of Brady’s mouth—that luscious, wonderful mouth—showed her there was still room for one more emotion in her newly fierce heart.
“What you are,” he said in a tone that matched the smile, “is glorious.”
* * *
Brady wondered, for just a moment, if he’d known. If somehow, on some level, he’d known this Ash existed. If he’d sensed that beneath the pain, the anguish and the nearly broken spirit, this fierce, strong woman lived. Maybe that was what had drawn him. Maybe it wasn’t that he hadn’t learned his lesson with Liz—maybe he had, and completely.
In the end, it didn’t matter if he’d known. What mattered was that his fear that this ugly truth would destroy her was not only unfounded but seemed absurd in the light of the way she’d come back fighting. Now that she knew, now that she was sure of herself, Ashley Jordan seeme
d...indomitable. The kind of woman who could take what life threw and spit back in its face.
The kind of woman he’d never expected to find.
“What do you want done, Ashley?”
Quinn’s quiet question snapped him out of the reverie he’d slipped into, visions of last night and this afternoon spinning out into a lifetime of the same sweet wildness filling all the days of the rest of his life.
“What are the options?” Ash said, so briskly it almost made him smile all over again.
Quinn answered in the same way. “Firstly, you do have the option of doing nothing. We can build you a package of proof that you’re mentally fine and help you get started somewhere else, if that’s what you choose.”
Brady stared at Quinn, not quite able to believe what he was hearing. Quinn turned his head as if he’d felt it, and said quietly, “This is one of those points where our goals diverge. We do what Ashley wants.”
“Just let her get away with it? She murdered my dad!” Brady felt relieved at Ash’s reaction. Just the sound of her outrage at the idea reassured him she was going to be okay. He relaxed again.
Quinn looked back at Ash. “It’s just one option. And one I didn’t expect you to take. So, next. I’m not certain we could prove your mother guilty in a court of law of the murder of your father. Gavin is the best, so anything’s possible, but a twenty-year-old crime where it’s entirely reasonable that her DNA would be all over anyway, and with the only new evidence an eight-year-old’s suppressed memory, would be a difficult challenge.” Quinn’s mouth quirked. “Of course, that’s what Gavin likes best.”
Brady had to rein in what he was sure would be a silly grin as Quinn talked so easily of Gavin de Marco. The guy had written the book on blowing up criminal cases.
“I hate thinking she’ll get away with it,” Ash said.
“There’s a court of law,” Brady said, drumming his fingers on the table restlessly, “and there’s the court of public opinion. And from what I’ve seen, in your mother’s case, the latter might be almost as bad.”
Ash looked at him and after a moment nodded slowly. “Yes. Yes, you’re right. Her image has always been paramount to her. If we can’t put her in jail for murder, that would be the next best thing.”
“Gavin can see to that. He’s got an incredible amount of juice, and the media will have what we couldn’t prove spread around as quickly as what we can prove. Which is that she paid and probably planned what was done to you, her own daughter.”
“And take out that disgusting excuse for a psychiatrist in the process?” she asked.
“Indeed,” Hayley said determinedly. Then she looked at Brady. “A wild card in this is your boss. You’ve said he’s tight with Mayor Alexander. How tight?”
Brady stopped his tapping. A wry smile lifted one corner of his mouth. “Not tight enough to go down with her, if that’s what you’re asking. Once the torpedo hits, he’s more of an every-man-for-himself kind of guy.”
“Good to know,” Quinn said with a grin. He glanced back at Ash. “Is there anybody else we need to worry about? Extended family or powerful friends?”
Her brow furrowed. “My grandparents died before I was born. She has a brother she doesn’t have any contact with, but that’s it.”
“By his choice, if he’s smart,” Brady muttered. Ash glanced at him, and he thought he saw a flash of...something, appreciation maybe, in her eyes before she went on.
“She has the usual sort of political friends, but no one she’s really close to.” She grimaced. “She always said taking care of her job and me took all her time.”
“Another layer to the guilt and confusion,” Brady said, feeling the anger surge in him again. He turned and covered Ash’s hand with his own. She instantly turned hers to wrap her fingers around his. Even that small gesture had the power to steal his breath, and it was a moment before he could speak. “Do you want the confrontation, Ash? Do you want to face her down and tell her you know it all, what she’s done, what she is?”
He thought he already knew the answer. And then he saw it in the narrowing of her gaze and the tightening of her delicate jaw in the moment before she spoke.
“Damned right I do.”
And Brady couldn’t help but smile widely as he nodded at her.
Chapter 34
Ashley thought she’d understood the power of Foxworth, but by Monday afternoon, she knew she’d underestimated.
The amount of background and research and evidence they’d put together in such a short time astonished her. The arrival of Gavin de Marco Monday morning was the icing; that a man with his reputation came immediately when Hayley had called spoke volumes. Even Brady had appeared a little awed when they’d shaken hands.
The man wasn’t just dramatically good-looking—he radiated competence and charisma and got up to speed so swiftly she understood why he’d become famous around the world as the man to go to if you were in a jam. She’d never heard why he’d quit the world of criminal defense, but she was sure his years on the top of that heap probably gave him great insight into what the more twisted denizens of the world—including her mother—might do. And yet he was kind, tactfully making sure she knew what she was in for.
“There’s enough to put her away for a while,” he told her. “Perhaps long enough for us to come up with further evidence about your father’s case. But I can’t promise that.”
“I understand.” Then, hesitantly, she glanced at Brady before looking back at the attorney and saying, “I don’t want Brady in trouble over this.”
Gavin only smiled. “He won’t be. He saved them a lot of humiliation, saved a life, uncovered a crooked, drug-dealing physician and solved a cold murder case, all of which got by them because the sheriff succumbed to political pressure. I dare them to try and twist him up over that. And I’ll be happy to take them on if they do.”
She took a deep, relieved breath.
The lawyer studied her for a moment. “How bad do you want this meeting to be?”
Her mouth twisted. “The loving family reunion, you mean?”
He nodded. “Right now, do you want to do this publicly, see her broken and humiliated in front of witnesses and the media, or do you want a private confrontation? It will all become public, but do you want to become public yourself? It’s your call.”
Ashley blinked. Foxworth was definitely different. “I just want...to say what I need to say to her. As tempting as the other sounds... I don’t want to be an act at the circus.” Gavin smiled in understanding.
“I wouldn’t have your restraint,” Brady said from where he sat close beside her. Wonderfully close. “But that would show her you know she’s the crazy one, not you, and that you’re far above her level. And that she didn’t, could never break you.”
She looked at him and smiled. “Yes. That.”
“Then we’re agreed?” Gavin asked, with a glance at Hayley and Quinn. “We take her down now for the gaslighting and bribery and fraud, let her know we’ll be turning over what we have to the authorities to reopen Ashley’s father’s case—she doesn’t need to know that might come to nothing, let her worry about that, too—and that her daughter will be under Foxworth protection until she’s safely locked away?”
Ashley nodded, although she hadn’t really thought of that—that her mother might try to do away with her after all. But she had little doubt, not anymore, that Nan Alexander would do anything she thought would save her.
“I don’t want you alone with her,” Brady warned.
She looked at the man in whose arms she’d spent the last three nights, feeling magnificently light and free despite it all. And from that new, unshadowed intimacy, she’d drawn all the strength she needed.
“I don’t need to be,” she said. “And I’m angry enough it’s probably best I’m not.”
“I’ll be there,” Gavin said. Then with a
n assessing look at Brady, he added, “And you, I think.”
“In uniform?” Brady asked.
Gavin grinned as if he’d read his mind. “Absolutely. And if you could get me a few minutes with your boss, I’ll see to that, too. As Ashley said, we don’t want any of this rebounding on you.”
“That’ll be the biggest name-drop of my career,” Brady said with a laugh. Clearly he wasn’t worried.
“You’re sure it won’t?” she asked anxiously. “Because if it could hurt Brady, I won’t do it.”
Brady’s head came around, and he stared at her. “What?”
“I’ll just take option one and go away.”
“Ash—”
“No, Brady. I won’t have her hurting someone else I love.”
She saw the shock spread across his face. It wasn’t the way she would have wanted to say it, but she wouldn’t take it back. And then he lowered his gaze to stare at their clasped hands. But he was smiling. Almost embarrassedly, but smiling.
She looked at the others. Gavin showed no reaction, but she would have expected that. Hayley and Quinn were both smiling as if she’d only confirmed something they already knew.
And Cutter simply gave her a look she could only describe as smug. And in that moment, she believed every word they’d told her about this uncanny dog.
* * *
Brady felt odd in full dress. He’d been going to go simply for the standard working uniform, but de Marco had said go full-bore dress uniform, complete with honors. So his badge, gleaming name tag, top-ranked marksmanship medal, training officer pin and the two medal of valor pins were on display. He’d even dug out his hat, pulling off the plastic rain cover for better effect.
It had also felt odd, going back to his place to get the gear. He’d found himself looking around his home critically, wondering if Ash would like it.
I won’t have her hurting someone else I love.
The words that had been circling wildly in his mind since she’d said them made another round. He hadn’t had the chance to really respond, and maybe that was just as well. There might be a better time for it.
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