Page 116 of Deception

“How close was she to Grandfather?”

Nadine hesitated.

“Was she his friend?”

“More like a business partner. I ... always felt she held something over him.”

Clayton knew what that was now. His cell phone rang and he checked the ID. “It’s Dani. You want to answer it?” He handed the phone over his shoulder, and she took it from him.

“She probably called my phone, but I forgot to turn it back on.” She punched the answer button. “Hello?” She listened for a minute, then said, “We’ll pick you up in half an hour. Is that okay?”

He took the phone when she handed it back. “I take it we’re picking Dani up at the hospital?” He looked in the rearview mirror.Judging from the slump of her shoulders, the events of the day were wearing on her.

She nodded. “The doctor just came in and discharged her. I thought we’d drop Nadine off and then go to the hospital,” she said, her voice flat, unemotional.

He hated seeing her hurt so badly and not being able to make things better.

Once they reached the house, he walked Nadine to her apartment, and Madison waited until he cleared it before they checked to make sure Bri was okay. Then he turned to Madison, who had set the food on the island for the girl to put away. “Ready?”

She nodded and followed him out the door. Clayton wanted to reach for her hand—do something to take the haunted look from her eyes. What if he only made matters worse? What if she rebuffed him?

He took her hand anyway, and his heart kicked up a notch when she squeezed his fingers. “What you did today had to be hard,” he said gently as they approached his SUV.

For a minute she didn’t respond but instead looked back toward the house, her profile granite. “It’s like I’m free-falling without a parachute. Grandfather is the only person I trusted, and it hurts, but the pain is nothing compared to what it’ll be when what he did sinks in. It’ll be like hitting the ground full force.”

Clayton cupped her chin and turned her face to him. A strand of her blond hair had worked loose from the messy bun, and he brushed it back behind her ear. “I’d like to be there to catch you.”

Her face softened, and she leaned into his touch as her eyes filled with tears and spilled down her cheeks. “I trusted him so much.”

Clayton pulled her to him, gently stroking her back as she laid her head on his chest, and let her cry. More than anything in the world, he wanted to protect her from being hurt again. When the sobs subsided, he lifted her chin. “It’s going to be okay.”

“I wish I believed that.”

“I’m not saying it’ll be easy, but in time, you’ll get past this. Maybe when you read that letter he wrote you, you’ll understand why he did it.”

“The letter. I’d forgotten about it. And the will. I need to take it to the lawyer’s office.”

“I have it in the gun safe, and since the lawyer’s office is on the way to the hospital, why don’t we drop it off?”

“That would be one thing off my to-do list for tomorrow.”

When they dropped off the will, Madison agreed to the time the secretary gave her for the formal reading on Wednesday. An hour later, Clayton pulled around to the back of the judge’s house with Dani in the back seat and helped her out of the SUV. He couldn’t wait to see Nadine’s reaction to Madison’s twin. Now that she wasn’t lying in a hospital bed, she looked so much like Madison, he might have trouble telling them apart. “We’ll go in through the mudroom—there aren’t any steps.”

“Oh wow. This is nice,” Dani said, looking up at the two-story antebellum. “Did you grow up here?”

Madison shook her head. “I grew up in Memphis, but I spent summers here when I was a kid—that’s when I met Clayton for the first time.”

“She was a determined little booger,” he joked.

“I wish I’d known back then that you made my cousins leave me alone—at least when you were around.” Madison patted him on the hand. “How did you do that?”

“I threatened to give them a knuckle sandwich. And I might’ve threatened tell the other boys we hung around that they were sissies for picking on a defenseless little kid. Then you made a liar out of me when you laid Buddy on the ground.”

Madison laughed, and he knew she was remembering that hot summer day. At least he’d lightened the weight of her grandfather’s betrayal that she carried on her shoulders. He hoped he was right, that time would ease the burden. If he got the opportunity,he would remind her only one person would never betray her. Everyone else had the potential, even him.

Bri met them at the back door and gently hugged Dani. “I’m so glad you’re here!”

Once they were in the kitchen, Madison guided Dani to a chair. “Why don’t you rest here a minute. I have someone else I want you to meet.”

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