Page 44 of Dirty Liars

“Dickie’s car is gone,” Jack said, breaking the silence as we sat in the driveway, both of us reluctant to leave the safety of the Tahoe and face what had happened.

“Thank God for small favors,” I said, my voice sounding strange in my own ears. “According to Max, it sounds like maybe Chloe did care about Dickie. I feel sorry for him.”

I found myself thinking about how quickly life could end. How Chloe had been planning to run away with Dickie only to end up dead on her wedding night. How Max had been alive and talking to us one moment, then gone the next. How fragile everything was. How close we’d come.

Jack sighed, his eyes focused on something distant. “Dickie’s a product of his upbringing who has refused to grow up and take responsibility for the things he can change. I feel sorry for the boy he was. But how he is as a man is sorely lacking. The best thing for Dickie would be to check in to rehab and get away from his father for a while. Maybe forever. He’s done nothing but look for a woman to love him since we were fifteen years old. He’s had good women, and none of them are ever enough, because he doesn’t think thathe’senough.”

My lips twitched despite the rawness inside me. “Your psychology is showing.”

“That doesn’t make me wrong,” he said, a flicker of the usual Jack shining through the battle-ready sheriff who’d gotten us through the past few hours.

Jack came around and helped me get out of the Tahoe, his hand steadying me when my knees threatened to buckle. He rubbed my arms when he felt my shivers, and I leaned into his warmth, needing the solid reality of him. Alive. We were both alive when we so easily might not have been.

“Come on,” he said, his voice gentler than I’d heard it all day. “Let’s get you in a hot shower.”

Oscar came running to meet us at the door like he usually did, but he skidded to a halt when he saw us, nose twitching at the metallic scent of death that clung to our clothes. He turned and ran back upstairs to Doug’s room, nails clicking against the hardwood in his hasty retreat.

“I guess we look worse than I thought,” I said, teeth chattering so hard I worried they might crack. The shock was hitting me in earnest now, my body temperature plummeting despite the warm spring day.

Jack ushered us both upstairs to the third floor where our bedroom was located. I caught a glimpse of us in the mirror—blood-spattered ghouls with haunted eyes—before he guided me into the bathroom and turned on the shower. Steam began to fill the room, but even that warmth couldn’t touch the ice forming in my core. My arms and legs were leaden and uncooperative, and I fumbled helplessly with my sweater, unable to coordinate my movements.

“That was a cashmere sweater,” I said as Jack gently but efficiently stripped my ruined clothes off. The strange, disjointed thought floated to the surface of my mind, a trivial concern amidst the horror of the day. “I liked it.”

“I’ll buy you more,” he said, his voice rough with emotion as he peeled away the blood-stiffened fabric. His hands lingered on my skin, reassuring himself I was whole and unharmed before he guided me into the shower. “I’m going to use the shower in the guest bath. I don’t even want to think about what’s in my hair right now. Take your time. I’ll be back.”

I grunted and moved under the hot spray, a sob escaping as my muscles cramped from the excessive shivering. My body was processing what my mind couldn’t yet face—how narrowly we’d escaped. The image of Max’s face as the bullet struck him replayed in vivid detail, and I wondered if he’d known in that final millisecond what was happening. If he’d felt fear, or pain, or if it had been too quick for him to register anything at all.

I watched in morbid fascination as pink-tinged water swirled around my feet and disappeared down the drain. Someone’s life—their hopes and fears and memories—reduced to a bloody residue circling a shower drain. I pressed my forehead against the cool tile as tears finally came, mingling with the water streaming down my face.

I cried for Max, for the daughter he’d mentioned who would never see her father again. I cried for the life growing inside me that had almost lost both parents before ever taking a breath. I cried from the sheer relief of still being alive when death had brushed so close I could taste it.

I don’t know how long I stood there letting the water sluice away my tears, but I eventually found the energy to scrub my head with shampoo and wash my body, reclaiming my skin from the horror that had marked it.

“You okay?” I heard Jack ask, and I turned to see him come in through the clear glass shower wall, his face etched with concern.

“Yeah,” I said, though we both knew it wasn’t entirely true. “Much better now. A little hungry. We haven’t eaten anything since this morning.” The mundane observation felt like reaching for normalcy in a world turned upside down.

“I texted Doug and told him to order pizza,” Jack said.

He wore a towel wrapped low around his waist, his body still damp from his own shower. Droplets of water traced paths down his chest as he grabbed a clean towel for me and spread it over the warming bar. I watched the steady movements of his hands, grateful for his strength when mine had deserted me.

“Good thinking,” I said, letting the hot water beat down on my neck, not yet ready to leave its comforting embrace.

I heard the shower door open and sighed, but instead of urging me out, Jack stepped in behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist. I felt him press against me, solid and alive. He turned me in his arms and dropped his forehead so it rested against mine, our breaths mingling in the steam.

“That was a close one today,” he said, his voice breaking as he tightened his grip on me. “Just a slight shift in any direction and it could have been either of us. I keep seeing it happen, over and over. I keep seeing it being you instead of Max.”

“Yeah,” I whispered, looking up to meet his eyes. I put my hand to the side of his face, feeling the barely contained emotion trembling beneath his skin. The invincible Sheriff Lawson was gone, replaced by just Jack—my husband—terrified of losing me, of losing everything we’d built together.

And then he kissed me with a desperate intensity that took my breath away. I felt the raw energy pouring off of him, the need to affirm life in the face of death, and I met it with equal fervor. His hands clutched at me like I might slip away if he loosened his grip, and I pressed myself against him, needing the solid reality of his body against mine.

“I don’t want to be rough,” he rasped, coming up for air and somehow pulling me closer.

I kissed him again, pouring everything I had into it—all the fear, the relief, the desperate joy of still being alive—and said, “I won’t break.”

I needed this as much as he did. Needed to feel his heart pounding against mine, to know with absolute certainty that we had survived. That whatever darkness was closing in around us, we still had this—each other, our love, and the life we’d created together.

CHAPTERTHIRTEEN

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