She went downstairs and realized she was alone. Sometime in the night he’d crawled away—whether to give up and score a hit or because he was actually feeling better, she didn’t know. She hadn’t even heard him. After she’d seen the email, she’d collapsed, taken a couple of Ativan, and just huddled in bed, weeping.
She felt empty.
She didn’t know what to do.
Chase was coming today. How was she supposed to face him? How was she supposed to function, knowing that Josh might actually be out there somewhere? Or that someone was trying to make her think he was? He’d think she was crazy. He’d run so fast and so far she’d never see him again.
Maybe she was.
She made a cup of tea and sat at the kitchen table. Put her head in her hands. Ran her mind over the details of the past week.
The cab, the man’s walk. The confusion on his face when she turned him. The happiness he radiated when she’d seen him in the coffee shop. The caressing touches at the bar. The overwhelming sex.
Chase showing her pictures from his life, growing up with his family, his dad and mom and sister, happy and content. She watched him mature through the years.
Asking her questions, expecting answers to things she’d stopped thinking about, her life, her feelings, her dreams.
Encouraging her to disagree with him.
Chase Boden wasn’t her husband. He was his own person. He wanted her, damaged and broken as she was. And she wanted him.
But Josh . . .
Five long years later, she was on the edge of the truth. Could Josh actually still be alive?
God, she didn’t know. She doubted everything. Herself, her world. Her sanity. How could this happen? How could this be? All of the bits and pieces of the past week crashed together, and she realized that he could be.
Maybe Meghan was right. Josh had been waiting to be declared dead and had come back for the insurance money. He’d been hiding in plain sight this whole time.
And if he was alive? Would she discard Chase?
She said, “No,” aloud, making the dog jump, even while she thought about what would happen if Josh walked through the door at this very moment.
She was living in a fantasyland. Josh was dead. She knew he was dead. Whoever sent that picture was screwing with her. Trying to unhinge her mind.
Aubrey had a strong desire to stick a knife in the stranger from the hospital. She replayed his approach in the cafeteria, but this time, when he broke off the piece of chocolate, she gutted the bastard and left him gasping and bleeding on the cafeteria floor.
She was sick of being manipulated. Derek Allen was playing with her. He was dangerous.
It was time he learned she was as well.
CHAPTER 40
Daisy
Today
Aubrey had left, Tom was asleep, and Daisy wanted to weep. She wanted to gnash her teeth and wail and rend the scratchy, nasty sheet into ribbons. It wasn’t right. Her son couldn’t be dead. He couldn’t. She would have felt that. She would have been able to tell.
Wouldn’t she?
She wanted to go find him. They were keeping him from her. What had she ever done to deserve such hatred, such spite? She’d always been a dutiful wife, a good mother. And yet despite all of her giving, she was treated like pond scum by the very people who should love and appreciate her the most.
She should be treated with respect.
Instead, she was stuck lying in the bed, practically motionless, on a sheepskin that smelled of acrylic and must, forced to suffer these indignities.
She hurt. So very badly. Despite the fact she should be healing, despite her bones knitting and the swelling reducing, something was very wrong. She could tell. It was worse than what they told her, or they just didn’t know. But she felt the pieces of her life dripping away, slinking into the void. She wasn’t going to survive.
She had told Tom how she felt, and he scoffed.
“Of course you are, sweetie. You just hurt now. We can get more pain meds for you. But the doctors are very encouraged by your progress, and they think you’ll be out of here next week. You’re doing great. You’re just fine.”
He didn’t take her seriously. He’d never taken her seriously. Always faithful Tom trying to placate her, trying to remake the world in his own image.
Fuck that. She wasn’t going to sit back anymore.
She had sent Tom away and tried to explain to a nurse what she was feeling inside. Something open. A hole, a vastness in places that were supposed to be solid. The nurse told her it was just the morphine.
It wasn’t the drugs, or her imagination. She actually got upset enough the nurse called the chief resident on shift and asked him to come in and take a look.
Pass the buck. In case there was something wrong.
Daisy waited for the doctor to appear. Hospitals weren’t conducive to impatient people.
He finally arrived, all smiles and good cheer. He was handsome, a bit thin through the chin and jaw, but with lively hazel eyes. He pulled a chair up next to her and settled in like he had all the time in the world.