Page 98 of Husband Missing

“I’ll order a pizza,” Heather answered. “Your dad went back to the hotel to get some sleep.”

Erica tried not to think about how much work he’d missed. He’d told her it didn’t matter but she knew it was going to put him deeper in debt. “I like pepperoni,” she told Heather. “And can we get some Cherry Coke?”

She thought Heather would leave to put in the order, but she merely nodded toward the camera on the wall above them and kept on asking questions. The ones Erica really didn’t want to answer.

“I just want to fill in some blanks. What happened at Mace Phelan’s party that led to you being held against your will?”

Erica squirmed in the chair again. “Can I at least get a cushion for this thing? Or a sweatshirt or something I can fold up and sit on?”

Heather looked like she was fighting a smile. Then she ignored the request. “Why didn’t Gina just call 911 when she found you? I know you told her that her brother was involved but if she’d just called the police, they could have shown up before Mace or the others had a chance to cover anything up.”

“I told you.” Erica sighed. “I don’t know.”

“Why didn’t you call the police after you escaped?”

Round and round they went. “I told you. I panicked.”

Heather placed her notepad on the table and took off her reading glasses. Oh boy. Shit was getting serious now. “I talked with Josie Quinn. Noah’s wife?”

Erica drew her knees to her chest, balancing on the chair. “How is he?”

“Fine. I’m not sure if you’re aware but Detective Quinn has some history with your biological mom, Lila Jensen.”

She knew, all right. From the time she was old enough to be curious about her mom’s special box, she’d been told all about how Josie ruined her mom’s life. It was only when Erica got older and had some distance from her mom that she wondered how Josie could possibly have ruined her life when she was only three weeks old. It took Erica a long time to figure out that her mom was seriously deranged and kind of evil.

“I didn’t know her as Lila Jensen,” Erica said. “I found out her real name when she went to prison and theDatelinesaired, the same time as the rest of the world did.”

Heather blew right past that. “Detective Quinn told me that your mom blackmailed a lot of people. Most of those activities aren’t documented. She was never charged, but I’m inclined to believe it’s true.”

Erica’s body rocked back and forth.

“Did your mom ever tell you about her biological parents?”

Holy whiplash. “Yeah. I know about them.”

“She told you that Clint Phelan was her father?”

Her eyes bulged. Walked right into that one. Did it matter though? DNA wasn’t illegal. “She thought he was, yes. I don’t know if she had a DNA test, or what. My whole life she said she didn’t know her bio-dad but one day she saw him on TV and she was sure it was him.”

“Did she ever make contact with him?”

Erica hadn’t understood what her mother had been doing at the magical house right away. She was young and scared. Itwasn’t until she got older that she asked what had happened that day. “She went to his house—the lodge—when I was eight. I don’t know who was in there or what happened. She made me wait outside. When she came out, she was all bloody and messed up. I didn’t know who owned the house until later. She had taken this bag of these weird little metal things. I don’t know why. They were important to her. I don’t even know what they are but about a week after she was there, Mace Phelan showed up at our apartment and tried to kill us both. We got away. She left me with my dad because she said it was too dangerous for me to stay with her.”

“Why was it too dangerous?”

“At first I thought it was because she stole those metal things but later she told me that Mace wanted her dead because she was his sister and with her mother being a baby-killer and all, he didn’t want that kind of scandal for his old man.”

Heather arched a brow. “It wasn’t also because your mom tried to blackmail the Phelans? Convince them to give her a large sum of money and she’d keep her identity secret?”

When Erica didn’t answer, Heather said, “Lila Jensen is dead. You don’t need to keep her secrets anymore.”

For as obvious as that fact was, it hit her like a slap to the face. Why was she keeping her mom’s secrets still? She’d loved her mom so much but nothing good had ever come from her or their relationship. Even now, years after her mom died in prison, Erica’s dad was still paying the price for her crime. He’d be paying it for the rest of his life because he’d taken responsibility for his actions, even though he hadn’t wanted to embezzle money. What kind of person was she that she couldn’t take responsibility for crimes she had committed? That made her just like her mom, and Erica didn’t want that. She wanted to be like her dad.

“Fine,” she said, voice trembling. “You’re right. My mom did try to blackmail her dad except that she couldn’t get access to him. Mace handled it and he beat the shit out of her and made her afraid. He brutalized her. Broke her in a way I didn’t think was possible. I still don’t understand it but blackmailing her bio-dad was the one thing she never went through with. She even warned me off. I was never to have anything to do with the Phelans.”

Heather leaned forward. “Then how did you end up at Mace’s party?”

She rocked so fast that the chair creaked. Maybe it would break. No chair this uncomfortable deserved to live. “I tracked him down. Researched him. Spied on him. Figured out who his people were, asked around certain places.” Her mother had taught her well. “Mace hired guys to work security on his sites, but he kept a handful of guys on the payroll who were security guards on paper but in reality they just did whatever illegal shit he wanted done. Score drugs. Lure young girls to his parties. Shut people up when necessary. Did you know that after that football player in Denton died on the children’s hospital site, Mace told Holden and two of the other guys to cause a distraction? That’s why they were doing the armed robberies.”

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