Then again, it also turned into a nightmare.
A sudden rapping against the door makes me pull away. Brett’s arm slides off me, leaving me cold.
“Brett? Catherine? Are you ready?” It’s Meryl.
“Just a sec,” he calls out to his mom.
“What do I say when I get to that part in the story?” The moment of peace is gone and my nerves are kicking in again.
He uses my bed’s footboard to stand and adjust himself on his crutches. “What do you want to say?”
“I don’t know. What would you do?”
He shuffles his way toward the door, stopping just before it. He reaches out for me, his large hand beckoning.
My breath catches as I eye it. Hesitantly, I step forward, sliding my hand into his, feeling miniature by comparison. He’s shockingly gentle, though, closing his fingers over mine. Pulling me toward the door and closer to him, he reaches up to push a stray stand of hair off my face. I meet his eyes.
His mint-laced breath skates across my face as he hovers over me for five long heartbeats, something unreadable in his expression. “I’ve always been big on the truth.”
“The truth.” I exhale a shaky breath, his proximity making me a little dizzy. “I can do that.”
Chapter 14
March 2010
“Mr. Philips is waiting for you.” Mrs. Lagasse’s narrow face is even tighter as she scowls at me from behind her secretary’s desk.
I don’t bother smiling back—the woman has never been friendly to me. I stroll past her and down the hall to the principal’s office at the end, my stomach in knots.
“Close the door behind you,” Mr. Philips instructs somewhat absently, his focus remaining on his computer screen for a long moment after I’ve pushed his office door shut and taken the chair across from him.
Finally, he turns to settle his naturally cold, hard gaze on me. It’s nothing like his son’s. “Miss Wright, I wish we were meeting under more pleasant circumstances.”
And which circumstances would those be? I’ve sat across from him at this desk on more than one occasion and it has never been pleasant. Though, I’ll agree, this time feels a hundred times worse. “How is he?” I blurt out before I can stop myself.
Mr. Philips’s lips press together as he seems to consider his response. What must he think about Scott and me being together? “Hurt,” he finally says. “He doesn’t understand why you would go to the police with this . . . matter.” The way he says it makes me think he knows the truth—that Scott and I are together. Or, were together.
The lump that’s been lodged in my throat for the past nine days flares, hearing that I’ve hurt Scott. “I didn’t want to, I swear. I would do anything to get out of it. Please tell him that.”
Mr. Philips settles back into his chair, his fingertips meeting each other in front of him. “Then recant your statement.”
“What?”
He smirks, as if he knows I have no idea what that means. “Tell them you’re withdrawing your statement. Tell them you made it all up. They don’t have enough to pursue the charges without your testimony.”
“But . . . Won’t I get in trouble?” And what about the texts? My mother’s account?
“No.” He says it so simply. “Do you want Scott to go to jail? Do you want his reputation ruined?”
“No! Of course not.”
“Then recant. They’ll let you go.”
“But . . . lie to the police?”
“People do it all the time. They won’t pursue it.” Mr. Philips leans forward. “You don’t have to cooperate with them, Catherine. You’re the ‘victim.’ ” I don’t miss his sneer at that word. “They won’t force a victim to testify, and if you refuse to testify, then this whole mess will go away. Isn’t that what you want?”
I nod furiously.
I coil my fingers together as everyone takes their places, Brett easing around the furniture with careful maneuvers. I just watched him wash pills down with a bottle of water, unable to delay it any longer. He’s putting up a strong front, but there is pain in his eyes. Even though he encouraged me, I’m feeling guilty for pushing this interview on him so soon.
Meryl rubs his arm affectionately as he passes her to edge around the coffee table. Just as he’s turning to sit, he knocks his cast against the corner of the table, his face contorting in pain, his eyes closing.
Instinctively, I reach for him, grabbing his hand, hot and rough and so tense. “Are you okay?”
Keeping his back to everyone else, his chest puffs out with a deep inhale. With a long, slow exhale, his grimace fades and that relaxed, perfect smile appears again. “Yeah, I’m good.”
And I’m left holding his hand with a room of people watching us.
I quickly drop it and resume my old-lady hand-wringing in my lap as Jess clips on my microphone. If we don’t get this over with, I’ll be rocking back and forth soon enough.
My love seat cushion sinks as Brett settles in next to me, and I feel myself naturally tilting into his big body, as much as I try to hold myself up straight. Rodney spent so much time repositioning me, I’m afraid to throw off my angle by adjusting.
“You good?” Brett whispers.
“Yup.” My tight one-word answer, delivered in a high-pitched squeak, betrays me.
He leans in, ever so faintly catching my ear with his mouth. “Just remember to take a deep breath before you answer each question. It’ll help, I promise. And if there’s something you don’t want to answer, just nod toward Simone and she’ll shut it down. Or take my hand.”
As if I’m going to take Brett Madden’s hand on a prime-time television broadcast.
“’Kay?”
I give him a nod as Kate, in a smart blouse and pencil skirt, saunters in to take her seat, adjusting her microphone. She looks like she might roll out of bed ready to be on camera. I doubt that’s the case, but I wish I was as at ease with this whole production as she is.
Rodney starts the countdown. “Five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . .”
You could hear a pin drop on my floor, the two heartbeats of silence are so acute. And then . . .