Page 65 of Everyone Is Lying to You

So did his. I felt the anger radiating off him. He knew he was being played, but he didn’t know the game.

“Have you been to Dr. Carmichael to confirm?”

I shook my head. “I’ve decided to see a new doctor. Someone Olivia recommended.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he managed.

“I wanted to see a woman,” I added for good measure, feeling like a cat dangling a mouse between its claws.

“You should see Dr. Carmichael to be sure.”

“Is there anything you want to tell me, Grayson?”

“What do you think you know?” he snarled.

I suppose that standoff could have gone on all day. But I didn’t let it. “You and Dr. Carmichael did a terrible thing. You allowed that old man to trick me. You both manipulated me.” Gray stoodsuddenly, so quickly that his chair clattered to the floor, but I didn’t let it stop me.

“Our children. Our beautiful children. They aren’t yours.”

“They are mine,” he roared.

“They’re Marsden’s.” The angrier he became the calmer I felt. I was the eye in the center of a hurricane. Unflappable.

And Gray was erratic. “I’m the reason they are here. Whatever you think you know is a disgusting lie. Did this come from Marsden? Have the two of you been talking?”

I laughed right in Gray’s face. My husband despised being laughed at. That was enough to light the fuse. He crossed the distance between us in seconds. Before I could utter another word he struck me with his open palm flat across my cheek and left eye. As I fell to the floor he kicked me swiftly in the stomach. Before I could recover, his hands were on my shoulders, pulling me upright and then tightening around my neck.

“Those children are mine,” he hissed. Flashbacks to the last time he hurt me physically were inevitable. I had prepared myself for it this time, but it didn’t hurt any less. He was also sober now and that felt different. He had no excuse except for his anger and his terrible deeds. He could never apologize his way out of this. We were finished and he knew it.

His grip tightened, but I didn’t drop my gaze from his. I was no longer an awestruck young woman desperate for love and affection.

I let him continue to squeeze, let him think he was draining the life from me, before finally mustering every ounce of strength I had left and slamming my knee upward directly into his balls. I choked and gasped as he backed away, reached behind me for thebutcher knife I’d used to slice the sausage from the roll just that morning.

“Get the fuck out of my house, Grayson. I will stab you and watch you bleed to death on this floor. I’ll watch you cry for your mother. Get out and never come back.” I thought he might charge me again, but he backed off. He still didn’t know exactly what I knew or how I knew it. The ball was in my court, and I know he would have kept squeezing my windpipe until the life drained out of me if I hadn’t been strong enough to kick him. I lunged forward, allowing the tip of the blade to nick his freshly ironed plaid shirt. Blood peeped out from the small tear. He turned then and walked through the door, out to the barn. I managed to crawl through the kitchen and up the stairs to my bathroom.

Only then did I collapse into the darkness. And I still didn’t have a confession.

Chapter Eighteen

Lizzie

When the lights come on in the hotel hallway they blind all three of us and we recoil against the wall.

It can’t be. This fragile, scared child crying in front of me on the floor cannot be Rebecca’s daughter.

“Kiki,” she moans into Katie’s chest. “I’m sorry.”

“Shhhhhh, shhhhh,” Katie keeps soothing her. “It’s fine. It’s okay. You’re safe.”

“I walked out to the ice machine. Same as we did earlier. It hurt so much. I just needed more ice for my ear. It hurt so bad. I thought I left the door open, but it must have slammed behind me and then everything went dark and I was trapped out here. I didn’t know what to do. You told me not to leave, so I stayed right here. I did the best I could.”

“You did great. Great, you hear me? You are brave and I never should have left you.”

Only now does Katie look at me.

“Kiki?” I ask her.

She’s resigned to giving me an explanation. I can tell. “Alice couldn’t do a ‘t’ sound for the longest time when she was a baby. Katie became Kiki when she was about two and it stuck with the littlest ones.”

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