Page 111 of Ruthless Intent

I mask the fact I wasn’t listening by checking the time on my watch. “We really have to go, Mom. Can we do this later?” I hold out a hand. “Are you ready to go … babe?”

“Babe?” Ashley mouths the word at me, a look I can’t decipher on her face.

“We need to get to your mom’s place, wait for you to pack what you need, then come back here for dinner. Unless Mom has changed the time she likes to eat from six to later?” I arch an eyebrow.

“Six o’clock sharp. That way we have time to relax afterward, and let the food digest before bedtime.”

For some reason, Ashley turns pink. It takes me a second to connect the dots.

Bedtime. And I’ve told her we’re staying here tonight.

She’s probably wondering how I'm going to get around the fact we’re married, but not sharing a bed.

The answer to that is simple, but I have no intention of putting her out of her misery with an explanation any time soon.

When she doesn’t move, I take a step forward and reach for her hand. My fingers close around hers. She doesn’t resist, and lets me draw her out of the room.

“What did you tell her?” I keep my voice low.

“Nothing.”

“Bullshit. You looked very cozy in there.”

“What did you expect? You left me with your mother. I could have told her what you’re doing.”

“She wouldn’t have believed you. You’re already on the same level as the devil in this family.”

“She might have.”

“You obviously don’t believe that, or you’d have taken the chance and done it.”

She doesn’t say anything in response to that. Because I’m right, and she knows it.

Opening the front door, I guide her down the steps to the car.

“Are we really going to my mom’s?” she asks when we’re inside.

“Unless you want to live in the same clothes you’re wearing now for the next fourteen months.”

She bites her lip and turns her head to look out of the window as I steer the car down the drive and onto the road.

“I told your mom about not remembering the first part of the interview you showed me. She talked about something called false memories.”

I snort.

“You don’t believe that?”

“You haven’t given me a single reason to believe you didn’t know what you were doing.” I say the words, and I sound like I mean them, but the truth is, I’m questioning just how much of what she said was suggested to her so often it became the truth.

Anger shaded my thinking when I first watched her interview, but now … Now I need to go back to Knight’s notes and read them with a clearer mind.

There’s still something that doesn’t fit right about her part in what happened to me. But it’s clear to me now that it’s not all her fault. That my focus might have been on the wrong person. That she might be as much a victim of circumstance as I was. She just got off lighter.

After my conversation with Sheriff McFadden, that thought solidified further, and I now need to adjust my plan.

I glance at the girl beside me.

The problem is I can’t explain any of that to her. Which means I have to carry on treating her the same way I started, otherwise she’ll question my change in attitude. And I can’t afford for her to believe I’m going to allow her to walk away without any kind of retaliation on my part.

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