Thief (Love Me With Lies #3)

After a few minutes, the doctors come in to speak to me. Doctors. She has multiple because of all the injuries she sustained. By the time the 747 touched down on American soil with me in its belly, my three-year-old daughter had survived surgery on hers. I listen to them talk about her organs, her chances of recovery, the months of rehabilitation she’s facing. I watch the back of their white coats as they’re leaving the room and I hate them. Claribel, who had slipped out a few minutes earlier, comes back into the room with her phone in her hand.

“I spoke with Sam,” she says softly. “Leah is in Thailand. It’s why no one has been able to reach her.”

My eyes narrow. It’s almost second nature when Leah’s name is mentioned.

“Why?”

Claribel clears her throat. It’s a tiny, chirping sound.

“It’s all right,” I tell her. “I don’t have ties to her emotionally.”

“She went with her boyfriend. Since you were supposed to have Estella for Christmas.”

“God, and she just didn’t tell anyone? Was he able to contact her?”

She pulls on her necklace and frowns. “He’s trying.”

I cover my eyes with the heels of my hands. I haven’t eaten or slept in thirty hours. I glance at Estella.

“Her mother should be here. Let me know as soon as you hear something.”

“I’ll get them to send a cot up. You should eat. You need to be strong for Estella,” she says.

I nod.

I don’t eat. But, I do fall asleep in the chair next to her bed. When I wake, there is a nurse in the room checking her vitals. I rub a hand across my face, my vision blurry.

“How is she?” I ask. My voice is hoarse.

“Vitals are stable.” She smiles when she sees me rubbing the back of my neck. “Your wife went to get a cot sent over.”

“I’m sorry. Who?” Had Leah made it back that quickly?

“Estella’s mother,” she says. “She was just here.”

I nod and start walking toward the door. I want to know where the hell she was while our daughter almost lost her life. You don’t just leave the country without telling anyone when you had a child. She could have made it here before I did if anyone had been able to contact her. Why she didn’t bother leaving a number with my parents … I stop walking. Maybe she had. They weren’t here to confirm it. Maybe that’s why my mother had sounded so strange on the phone. Or maybe my mother had known who Leah left the country with, and that’s what made her upset. My mother. Think about that later, I tell myself for the thousandth time today. My feet kick-start and I’m walking again. Around the corner, into the main corridor where the nurses’ station is. Beeping … beeping … the smell of antiseptic … I can hear muffled footsteps and hushed voices, a doctor’s pager going off. I think about the crying I heard earlier and wonder what happened to the patient. Had it been tears of fear or mourning or regret? I could cry the trifecta of those emotions right now. I look for red hair and see none. Rubbing my hand across the back of my neck, I stand in the middle of the corridor, not sure where to go. I feel detached, as if I’m floating above my body instead of being inside of it. A balloon on a string, I think. Is this what exhaustion looks like, everything muted and blurry? Suddenly, I’m not sure what I came out here to do. I turn around to go back to Estella’s room and that’s when I see her. No more than a few yards away, we’re both still, watching each other, surprised — and yet, not — to have fallen into this same corridor together. I feel the balloon pop and suddenly, I’m being pulled back into my body. My thoughts regain their sharpness. Sounds, smells, colors — they all come into focus. I am living in high definition again.

“Olivia.”

She walks slowly toward me and doesn’t stop a few feet away like I think she will. She comes right into my arms, molding herself against me. I hold her, pressing my face into her hair. How does such a tiny fleck of a woman have so much power that I can be restored just by looking at her? I breathe her in; feel her under my fingertips. I know, I know, I know that I am the match and she is the gasoline and without each other we are just two objects void of reaction.

“You were in the room earlier?”

She nods.

“The nurse said that Estella’s mother was here. I was looking for red hair…”

She nods again. “She assumed and I didn’t correct her. Sam called Cammie, Cammie called me,” she says. “I came right away.” She touches my face, both hands on either cheek. “Let’s go back in and sit with her.”

I blow air through my nose trying to quell the overwhelming emotions, the relief that she’s here, the fear for my daughter, and the anger at myself. I let her lead me back to Estella and we sit on either side of her, saying nothing.





Olivia stays with me for three days. She coaxes me into eating, brings me clothes and sits with Estella while I shower in the little bathroom attached to the room. In the days that she is there, I never ask why she came, or where her husband is. I leave out the questions and allow us to exist together in the worst few days of my life. Besides Leah, another person missing in action is my brother, Seth. Steve had mentioned that he was going on a deep-sea fishing trip the last time I spoke to him. I wonder if Claribel had managed to contact him and if he knew that our mother and stepfather were dead? Then, the strangeness of the situation hits me. Leah and Seth both missing at the same time, and how strangely my mother was behaving days before they were supposed to fly to London with my daughter. Had my mother known that Seth and Leah were together? I try not to think about it. What they do now is their business.



On day two, Olivia quietly reminds me that I have to make funeral arrangements for my parents. I’m on the phone with the funeral director late in the afternoon when Olivia walks in holding two cups of coffee. She refuses to drink hospital coffee and has been making the pilgrimage across the street to get Starbucks twice a day. I take the cup from her and she sits down opposite me. Albert — Trebla — the funeral director is asking questions, but I can’t focus on what he’s saying. Flowers, religious preferences, email notifications. It’s all too much. When she sees me struggling with the decisions, she sets her coffee down and takes the phone from me. I hear her speak in the voice she reserves for the courtroom.

“Where are you located? Yes, I’ll be there in forty minutes.”

She is gone for three hours. When she gets back, she tells me that everything is taken care of. She is just in time to see Estella wake up. I’ve been looking at her eyelids for days, so I almost cry when I see the color in my daughter’s irises. She whimpers and asks for her mommy. I kiss her nose and tell her that Mommy is on her way. Leah had trouble getting a flight out of Thailand. We’ve done nothing but fight over the phone. Last I spoke to her was a few hours ago, and she was in New York switching planes. She blames me, of course. I blame me too.

When the doctors and nurses leave the room, Estella falls asleep holding my hand. I am so grateful she didn’t ask about her grandparents. Long after her fingers go limp, I’m still gripping her little hand, my heart beating a little easier.

Olivia is standing at the window watching the rain late in the day. She left earlier to go home and shower. I expected her to be gone for the night, but she came back two hours later, wearing jeans and a white tunic shirt, her hair still wet and smelling of flowers. I watch her silhouette and for the tenth time that day, am overtaken with the grief/regret cocktail I’ve been drunk on.

“This is my fault. I shouldn’t have left. I shouldn’t have made my parents bring my daughter halfway across the world to see me…” It’s the first time I’ve said any of this out loud.

She looks startled, turning away from the window and glancing my way. She doesn’t say anything right away. Just walks over and sits in her usual chair.

“The day I saw you in the music store it was raining too, do you remember?”

I nod. I remember everything about that day — the rain, the drops of water clinging to her hair, the way she smelled like gardenia when she furtively approached me.

“Dobson Scott Orchard was standing outside of the music store. He offered to walk me to my car with his umbrella. I don’t know if I was one of the ones he watched, or if he decided on the spot, but I had a choice: high tail it out of there under his umbrella, or go inside and talk to you. It would seem that I made the right choice that day.”

“My God, Olivia. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I’ve never told anyone,” she shrugs, “but, that moment — that one, ever-changing moment — has made a profound impact on me. My entire life would have been different had I not walked toward you. The next time you would have seen me would have been on the news.” She nods, staring at the floor, her little mouth pulled off to the side. When she continues, her voice is lower than before. “The sum of all the things we shouldn’t have done in our lives is enough to kill us with the weight, Caleb Drake. Neither you, nor I, nor anyone else in this life could possibly know the chain reaction our decisions cause. If you’re to blame, then so am I.”

“How?”

“If I’d done what my heart said and said yes to you, you wouldn’t have left for London. Luca and Steve would be alive and your daughter wouldn’t be in the hospital in a medical-induced coma.”

We are quiet for a few minutes as I think over her words. Everything she has said is frightening.

“So why did you take his case?”

She breathes deeply. I hear the air leave her in a great sigh.

“Brace yourself, this is going to sound really sick.”

I mock grab the arms of my chair, and she snickers.

“I felt a connection to him. We were both dealing with our obsessions that day, Dobson and I.” She makes her eyes wide when she says the last part. “We were both looking for someone. We were both so goddamn alone that we took a risk not to be. Are you disgusted with me?”

I smile and run my pinkie along Estella’s. “No, Duchess. Your ability to see outside the box and mentally align yourself with the scum of the world is why I love you.”

The minute the words are out of my mouth, I regret them. I glance at her face to catch her reaction, but there is none. Maybe she’s used to me professing my love by now. Maybe, she didn’t hear me. Maybe-

“I love you too.”

I catch her eyes and hold them, my heart pounding.



“Well, isn’t that beautiful. All the f*cking inappropriate love.”

Our heads spin toward the door as Leah strides into the room. She doesn’t look at either of us as she walks past our chairs. She goes right to Estella. At least her priorities are right; I’ll give her that. I hear her intake of breath when she sees Estella.

“Shit,” she says. Both of her palms are pressed against her forehead, her fingers splayed out above them. If the situation weren’t so dire, I would have laughed. She lowers herself to her haunches, says “shit” again, and then stands back up too quickly. She wobbles on her heels then steadies herself on the bed.

She spins toward me. “Has she woken up? Has she asked for me?”

“Yes, and yes,” I say. On the other side of the room, Olivia stands up like she’s going to leave.

I mouth wait and turn back to Leah who has started to cry. I put a hand on my ex-wife’s shoulder. “She’s out of the forest. She’s going to be okay.”

Leah looks at my hand, which is still on her shoulder, and then at my face.

“You mean the woods,” she says.

“What?”

“The woods,” she repeats. “You said forest. Except you’re not in England anymore, you’re in America, and in America, we say WOODS!” Her voice rises and I know what’s coming next. “And if you’d stayed in America, this never would have happened. But, you had to run away because of her!” She points a finger at Olivia. If her finger were an arrow it would have wedged in Olivia’s heart.



“Leah,” Olivia says quietly, “if you point at me again I’m going to break that manicured finger right off your hand. Now, turn around and smile, your daughter is waking up.”

Leah and I both spin toward Estella, whose eyes are fluttering open.

I give a quick thank you glance at Olivia before she slips out the door.



The funeral is three days later. Sam comes to sit with Estella while we are gone. I have a sneaking suspicion that something is going on between him and Leah, but then I remember he told Claribel that Leah was in Thailand with a man. I wonder again bitterly if that man was my shithead brother and then I kill the thought. I am a hypocrite. I slept with Olivia while she was still legally married. To each his own. I toast my bottle of water to the ceiling of my car and press down on the gas. I asked Olivia to come to the funeral a few days ago.

“Your mother hated me,” she said, on the phone. “It would be disrespectful.”

“She didn’t hate you. I promise. Besides, your father would have hated me, and I still would have gone to his funeral.”

Her breath hisses across the line.

“Fine,” she says.

I’ve pushed every thought of my parents from my mind in order to give Estella what she needs, but when I walk through the doors of the funeral home and see their coffins, side-by-side, I lose it. I excuse myself from an old neighbor who is approaching me with condolences, and walk briskly to the parking lot. There is a low hanging willow to the rear of the property. I stand underneath it and breathe. That’s where she finds me.

She doesn’t say anything, just comes to stand next to me, taking my hand and squeezing it.

“This isn’t happening,” I say. “Tell me it’s not.”

“It’s happening,” she says. “Your parents are dead. But, they loved you. They loved your daughter. You have so many good memories.”

I glance down at her. She saw two parents die and no doubt only one of them provided decent memories. I wonder if she had anyone to hold her hand after Oliver and Via died. I squeeze her hand.

“Let’s go in,” she says. “The service is about to start.”

When we walk into the chapel, every eye is trained on us. Leah is sitting next to my brother. When she sees me with Olivia, it is a mixture of jealousy and rage. She quickly averts her eyes and steams privately. For now.

Doesn’t she know Olivia isn’t mine? What does it even matter that an old friend is comforting me? She’ll just drive home to her husband afterward. I take my seat near the front.

My mother’s favorite roses are — were — English Garden. There are several tasteful arrangements around her casket, as well as next to the blown up picture of her face, which is sitting on a large easel. Both caskets are closed, though Olivia told me that she had her dressed in a black Chanel dress that she chose from my mother’s closet. Steve had always jokingly said he wanted to be buried in his old baseball uniform. She blushed when she told me she took that and a suit to the funeral home, and when she got there she left the suit in the car. I reach out and squeeze her hand. She’s so f*cking thoughtful, it’s ridiculous. I wouldn’t have even been able to walk in my mother’s closet, never mind choose an outfit I’d think she’d like. When the service is over, I flank one side of the door, and my brother takes the other. We don’t speak to each other, but do plenty of speaking to the people offering their condolences. It makes me sick. All of it. That they died. That Estella won’t know them. That it’s all my fault.

When the room clears out, we move to the gravesite. It’s so sunny, everyone is hidden behind sunglasses. It feels like a Matrix funeral, I think jokingly. My mother hated the Matrix. When my parents’ boxes are lowered into the ground and covered in dirt, Leah starts the fight.