“Week from Monday.”
“Ten days. We’ll have to work double-time to have answers by then. If she’s guilty, we can’t let her get away with it.”
“We? It’s not us, Lucy, it’s the system—the prosecution had better have a good case.”
But Max’s comment fell on deaf ears, and she learned more about Lucy in that moment than she had in the last two days.
Lucy Kincaid took the world on her shoulders, as if she were solely responsible for putting every bad guy in prison. She didn’t even know Blair Caldwell, she wasn’t involved in the Peter Caldwell investigation, yet she wanted Blair to be punished to the fullest extent of the law. Maybe that wasn’t unusual—most people wanted criminals to be caught. But this was … different.
We can’t let her get away with it.
Interesting.
Chapter Twenty-three
Danielle bowed out of bunco with Nina, Grace, and the others. At lunch with the girls she’d made up an excuse about menopause, that her doctor had adjusted her hormones and she wasn’t quite feeling herself.
She listened to the older women talk about their own menopause stories, and the younger women talk about childbirth.
It was exhausting.
But she stayed because she needed information.
For the last six weeks, ever since she’d seen Tony and Lana at the Christmas party and just knew what was happening, Danielle felt off. As if she wasn’t completely in her body. As if everything was happening around her and no one actually saw her. If they did, wouldn’t they see her suffering? Wouldn’t they recognize that they were as much to blame for what had happened … what would happen … as she?
More so. She was a catalyst, nothing more.
Nina would be at bunco. Tony was staying home with Kevin.
“Having a boys’ night watching some action hero movie.”
That was good, right?
Just delaying the inevitable …
Nina didn’t know the truth. Danielle almost told her about Tony and Lana, wondered if that would change anything. She was so … so in love. She was smart, why couldn’t she see it?
Because she wanted it all. Career. Family. Husband. Friends. Everything.
And when she did find out, Kevin would be a pawn in the cat-and-mouse game of divorce. Because Nina and Tony were just as vindictive and angry as any other couple on earth. Friendly divorce? No such thing.
Danielle didn’t trust Tony. After all, he was a cheater. A male whore. Would he bring his mistress over to the house and screw her in his wife’s bed? Probably not … Kevin was eight.
Danielle waited until the bunco game would have started. She’d been to a half dozen over the last few years, she knew they would last until ten, sometimes longer. She drove to the Fieldstone house and parked down the block.
The Fieldstones lived in La Cresenta, in the hills above the 210 freeway. It was an older neighborhood with small, classic homes, many of which had been expanded and fixed up by the owners, increasing the value of the neighborhood. The Fieldstones were no exception. They had the money—Tony was a lawyer, Nina made in the high five figures as the senior legal secretary. They had one child.
There was one major problem with the Fieldstone house—one she hadn’t encountered before, but had been thinking about a lot over the last six weeks.
The bedrooms were upstairs.
She had a couple of ideas, but neither one was ideal.
The first was the fact that Kevin spent a lot of time with his grandmother, and twice in the last six weeks had spent the night at her house. Her one-story house.
But his grandmother had two small dogs who barked whenever a fly sneezed, so that wouldn’t work. And it would defeat the purpose of exposing his parents for the selfish, egotistical, undeserving, marginal humans that they were.
Danielle took a deep breath. Her head ached. She’d been drinking far too much this week, she had to stop. Relax.
But the nightmares will return …
She could suffer the nightmares to enact retribution. It would just be a couple of days, maybe a week. Two.
Sooner. Because Nina and Tony Fieldstone didn’t want to be parents. They would leave, abandon their son.
They all did it. They all left.
The darkness deepened as she watched the house: 7:00 P.M.; 8:00 P.M.
A tap on her window made her jump.
An older man and his wife stood on the sidewalk with their leashed dog.
She turned her ignition half the way and rolled down the window.
“Yes?” she said.
“Is something wrong, ma’am? Car broke down?”
“No. I was just talking on the phone. Sorry.”
The man looked down at her hands. Her phone was in her purse.
“I-I had some bad news. I needed a few minutes to compose myself. I didn’t meant to disturb anyone.”
“You didn’t, but you were here when we left for our walk nearly an hour ago. Just wanted to make sure, can’t be too careful.”
He stepped back from the door. Danielle didn’t want to leave, but now she would have to. She couldn’t afford to draw attention to herself.
She turned on the car and drove off. She glanced in the rearview mirror. The man was still watching her.
Well, shit.
She drove around for quite a while until she ended up in Burbank and saw a sign.
LAST WEEKEND FOR BLOW-OUT DEALS! LAST-YEAR MODELS CHEAP!
It was time to get a new car.
Just in case.
*
An hour later, Danielle drove off in a brand-new silver Nissan Ultima. Last year’s model, but with only thirty-seven miles on it. She didn’t care much about cars, but this was a good deal, and she’d kept her four-year-old Honda in pristine condition so got a good trade-in. She hadn’t planned on getting rid of the Honda until she moved again, but it was time.
A sign.
She drove back through the Fieldstones’ neighborhood, but didn’t stop. She didn’t know where the old folks lived, and she couldn’t risk being seen again.
It was late, after ten, but Nina’s SUV wasn’t in the driveway. Tony always parked his sporty car in the garage, but with all their things, the two-car garage only fit one small vehicle. She couldn’t tell if he was still home, but there were no other cars in the driveway or directly in front of the house. They had two babysitters, other than Kevin’s grandmother—one had a small pickup truck, the other lived three blocks away and walked because she didn’t have her license.
Danielle drove around the block once.
She’d been to the house several times for parties and bunco. The master bedroom had been expanded out over the garage and looked over both the front and backyard. Kevin’s bedroom was in the front corner of the house. His bed was under the windows which met in the corner. Impossible to reach from ground level.
She left the neighborhood. There was only one way she could do this. She would have to go in through the front or back door. The Fieldstones had an alarm system, but they only used it when they were out of town.