Page 63 of Fatal Betrayal

"Yes." She turned to Monica. "I'll definitely stop by your bakery as soon as I can."

"That would be great," Monica said.

Andi couldn’t tell exactly how Monica felt about her. She wasn't as hateful as Cooper, but she was not as welcoming as her mother.

"I hope you find that little girl, Andi," Kim said.

"I will," she said confidently. "There's no other option."

She walked around the car to get in on the driver's side. Cooper opened the passenger-side door, and she heard Kim's shrill laugh once more as she and Monica found humor in something. As she fastened her seatbelt, an old memory niggled at the back of her mind. And then it came to her.

"Oh, my God!" she said. "That laugh. It's the same one."

"What?" Cooper asked as he shut the door, cutting off the sound of Kim's laughter.

"It was her," she added, shocked by the realization.

"What are you talking about?"

She watched as Kim and Monica hugged, then Kim moved down the street while Monica got into her car.

"Andi?" Cooper pressed. "Where are you?"

"In the past." She turned back to him. "I was about twelve, I think. My mom called my dad one night, looking for him, which she did a lot. He always ran errands or took walks or went on runs at night, but that night he'd been gone for hours, and she was getting worried. When he answered his phone, we heard a woman laughing in the background. It was a shrill, high-pierced laugh. My mother asked him where he was, and he said he'd walked to the store and was coming home soon. When she hung up, her eyes were burning with anger, and she said, 'I can't believe it's her. And he thinks I'm that stupid.'"

Cooper gave her a thoughtful look. "Are you suggesting your father and Kim were having an affair?"

"Yes. That laugh is the same one I heard on the phone that night, and my mother was convinced my father was not at the store."

"Kim has an irritating and distinctive laugh, but you're making a leap, Andi. I'm sure there are other women who laugh like that. And even if your dad was with Kim at that moment, they both could have been at the store."

"My father admitted to cheating on my mom, Cooper. I never got names, but I know there were at least three, because my mom told me one would have been forgivable, but three women was just humiliating." Her gut churned at the thought of Kim and her dad hooking up. "And if it was true, how disgusting was that? They were both married. Their kids went to the same school and were all friends. Kim was on the PTA with my mom at one point."

"My mom, too," Cooper said. "Everyone knew each other around here."

"Maybe Kim and my father knew each other a little too well. It makes sense. Kim's husband, Steve, travelled a lot. And TJ and Will were probably oblivious to anything their mom was doing."

"Probably," he agreed. "They got high a lot."

"I should have tried that. I wanted to be oblivious to what was going on in my house. I wanted my mom and dad to be normal and boring, like everyone else's parents. I didn't want the fighting, the accusations, the car leaving in the middle of the night, my mom crying, my dad apologizing, and then more yelling. It was either tensely silent, politely fake, or just weird. I wanted a family dinner that was warm and filled with conversation and laughter, like yours always were. Even today, even with all the animosity and history between us, your parents welcomed me in." She cleared her throat, feeling a little choked up. "I'm still surprised they did that."

"My parents have always been generous people."

"You're lucky, Cooper."

"I know," he said, meeting her gaze. "I should probably try to be more generous, too."

His words and the look in his eyes twisted her stomach again in a different way as she remembered the tension between them in his bedroom before his mother had interrupted them.

And then her personal phone dinged with a text. Her father—again! "We seem to be on our parents' radar," she muttered.

She read his text, which was long and more detailed. Her father had some of her old things that she'd left behind when she was a kid and now that she had her own apartment, she should come and get them. He was going to put the house up for sale, and he wanted her boxes out. If she didn't come and get them, he'd throw them away, but he didn't want her to get angry if he threw away something she might want, like her favorite books, and her old journals. He added that he was going out of town and would be back on Sunday and to call him then.

"What does he want?" Cooper asked.

"He wants to get rid of some stuff I left behind when my mom and I moved. I'm surprised he hasn't done it before now." She looked from the phone to him. "Do you remember the journals I used to write in when I was working on a case?"

"Of course. You were always officially taking notes."

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