And fuck it—I didn’t want to tell her on the phone. My goddamn aunt and sister had buried the seed of doubt in my mind, and although I didn’t believe it, it was there. There was no way to uproot it.
I would know the second she found out whether or not she was lying to me.
She was a shit liar. Her eyes gave her away every time.
“How are you feeling this morning?” Mom swept into the kitchen wearing a bright red onesie that had me double-taking when I turned around. Her response to my shock was a grin.
“Lani will be here in thirty minutes,” I answered. “Perhaps something not originally designed for babies would be more appropriate.”
She laughed, pulling some water from the fridge. “Got it. Does she know yet?”
I shook my head.
Mom walked from the kitchen. “Family meeting,” she hollered. “Library. Half an hour.”
A chorus of shouted acknowledgments followed.
I bent forward and slumped down onto the counter. Awesome. Family meeting. Again.
Just what this situation needed.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
LANI
I got out of my car with a massive yawn. My fingers were clenched tight around my coffee cup, and I kicked the door shut behind me.
There was not enough caffeine in the world to make me adult today. Hell, I couldn’t person, never mind adult. I could newborn baby, and that was about it.
Connie may have slept peacefully all night after the hospital worked their magic and halted her labor, but I sure as hell didn’t. I only left this morning because she pulled the big sister card and told me to go get her bedroom ready so she could come boss me around.
Apparently, my sister isn’t a fan of hospitals.
Neither was I. Sleeping on granite would have been more comfortable than the bed they gave me.
And now I was here at Walker House. I didn’t know what drama could possibly constitute fifty-four missed calls between Brett and Camille, but it had to be bad just judging by Brett’s tone on the phone.
I was attempting to wake myself up enough to deal with it, but I wasn’t doing too well.
I dragged myself up the steps to the front door. I knocked twice before I pushed it open and said, “Hello—ohhhh.” I finished on a yawn. “It’s Lani.” I pulled the door closed behind me and waited.
Brett appeared seconds later. “Hey. Jesus, you look exhausted.”
I blinked at him. “I might be sleepwalking right now.”
“Why are you so tired?”
“I—” I was interrupted by another yawn. Dear god, I was sick of yawning now. I lifted my coffee up to my mouth and tipped but nothing came out. “Crap. I need more coffee. Somebody already finished this.”
He raised his eyebrows and took the empty cup from me. “I’m not sure coffee will fix you right now.”
“Coffee fixes every...” yawn “everything. Yes it does.”
“You might be delirious.”
I smiled. “You’re being kind. I’m definitely delirious.”
“Okay, but I need you to focus.”
“Focusing.” I met his eyes and clamped my jaw shut so I didn’t yawn again. “This is focusing.”
I yawned. Okay, so I was almost focusing. Close enough.
His smile was genuine but it disappeared almost as quickly as it appeared. “Someone knows about the tape.”
I stared at him.
Someone knew about the tape? How was it possible?
“Are you spacing out?”
“No,” I answered him. “I’m trying to work out how someone could know.”
“They heard us talking.”
“Not possible,” I said, shaking my head. There was no way anyone could have heard us. “I checked. There was nobody within earshot of us.”
He put his hands in his pockets the way he did whenever he was uncomfortable. “Someone must have come out. Whatever it was, they heard us.”
“Do you know who it was? Wait, how do you know somebody knows? I feel like I’m missing almost all of this story.” I rubbed my hand across the back of my neck. “I’m so confused.”
“Everyone’s in the library.” Brett turned and walked down the hall.
“Why do I feel like you’re leading me to trial?” I muttered.
Wait.
I stopped right outside the library. “Do you think I did this?”
“No.” He met my eyes. “I don’t.”
“Ah-ha!” Aunt Bel pushed up off the sofa and wiggled one finger in my direction. “Guilty!”
“Wait, what?” I looked at everyone in the library and then back to Brett. “Can you tell me what’s going on?”
“Dad got an email last night,” he answered before Aunt Bel could. “Anonymous email address. It said they knew about the tapes and they detailed the lengths we’d gone through to hide it. It was pretty much word for word for our conversation. We have until tonight to pay the sender of the email twenty thousand dollars or they’re going to print it.”
“Print it? Print it where?”
“Whiskey Key Daily,” William answered, balancing a hot mug on his knee. “Which gives away the sender as Anton Reeves.”
“But what do I have to do with this?” Everything, Lani, you dick. Everything.
This time, Aunt Bel piped up before anyone could stop her.
“Because you were talking to him after dinner!” She was wiggling her finger at me again. “Plotting! Conspiring! You planned the whole thing with your boss!”
I blinked at her for a moment. My first thought was that she really needed to lay off the dramas on TV, but my second was more alarming.
Brett didn’t think I was involved—but that didn’t mean anyone else agreed.
“You think I’m responsible for this?” I asked her. “Just because you saw me talking to my old boss?”
“Your old boss?” Brett looked at me.
My throat went dry. I had to be completely honest.
I put my phone and keys down on the desk next to me and folded my arms. “The second time I met Mr. Reeves, he told me there was a family secret. He wanted me to find out what it was so he could run it as a story.”
Brett’s expression darkened. “That’s all this was?”
“Let me finish.” I wasn’t asking him, I was telling him to let me finish. He had to let me. “Then your dad hired me,” I said in a quieter voice. “So yes, at first, it was. I was hurt. I hated you. I wanted to hurt you the way you had me, but I promised myself that if the secret would hurt your family, I wouldn’t tell him anything if I ever found it out.”
I looked down at the floor. It was completely silent, and even though I was focused on my feet, I knew all eyes were on me.
“But I forgot. Nobody ever mentioned it, so I figured he was imagining things that weren’t there. I stopped caring about what he wanted me to do and started caring about what you were doing.” I peered up at Brett. “And then you took me to the shelter and everything changed. I didn’t want to hurt you anymore.”
“So the other night?” he asked, his voice hoarse.
I turned to Aunt Bel. “The conversation you saw was me resigning. And the only reason the conversation happened in the first place was because he overheard you bringing it up before Brett walked out.”
Her cheeks flushed a deep shade of red. “Then where were you last night? Why could nobody get hold of you?” Aunt Bel asked through her embarrassment.
“At the hospital,” I answered flatly.