Page 82 of Luck of the Devil
I expected my grandmother to get onto her case again, but she just hung her head.
“I suspect he was pretty mad,” Malcolm said.
“Furious, but he also knew I had him. He wanted to know whether I was gonna tell Sarah Jane, and I asked him how long it had been goin’ on. He told me it was none of my business, and I got up, a bit wobbly, and asked if he knew where his wife was. Well, he sure surprised me with what he did next.” She paused. “He pushed me back down in the chair. Hard. Just put a hand on my chest and shoved me down. Then he leaned over my face, veins popping on his forehead, and told me that if I said anything to her, he’d make sure I regretted it.”
I stared at her in shock. Was she telling the truth? Or an exaggerated version of the truth? I’d never seen my father violent like that.
“Did you tell her?” I asked.
“Not at first, but it wasn’t because I was scared of your father. Not yet.” She drew a breath. “When he threatened me, I asked him what he thought he could possibly do to me, and he said that I had no idea what he as capable of. I laughed in his face and told him that if he ever touched me again, I’d have him arrested for assault. He laughed too and said he had the cops in his pocket. It ended in a standoff, and I stormed out.”
“You said you were scared of him later,” Malcolm said. “What happened?”
She gave him a tight smile. “We were there for that whole weekend, and I kept a close eye on him after I caught him in the act. I was pretty pissed that he’d shoved me like that, not to mention he was cheating on my sister. Sure, I was pissed at her too, but I was tryin’ to look out for her. We had dinner together later that night, and right after we finished, I saw him sneak off into the backyard with his phone. I followed him. I thought maybe he was gonna call his lover, and I was hopin’ to catch her name. But he wasn’t talkin’ to his girlfriend. He was talkin’ to someone named Richard, and he mentioned a guy named Ambrose, saying Ambrose was getting out of control. He told Richard he needed to rein him in. I thought that sounded kind of dangerous. I never would have thought that Paul was capable of hurting someone or paying someone else to do it, but after the way he’d shoved me…”
She took a breath and shook her head, then gave me a pleading look before continuing. “I was worried about Sarah Jane and you girls. So I got a subscription to the Lone County paper and started scouring the news, looking for anything to do with a Richard or an Ambrose. I knew it was a long shot, and I hoped I didn’t see anything, but then…” She took a breath. “About a month later, there was a story about a man named Dale Ambrose driving his car off a bridge into the Red River. They ruled it an accident, but I knew in my gut that your father and that Richard guy had”—her eyes suddenly grew large with realization—“drove his car into the river,” she finished, barely above a whisper.
Two things became apparent. The first, Aunt Hannah had figured out my mother’s accident had been anything but, and second, my father had done this before.
It was looking like my father really had killed my mother. Now I needed to prove it.
Chapter 22
Chaos erupted as my grandparents started shouting that my mother had been murdered, then demanding why Hannah had never told them.
“At least you could have warned Sarah Jane!” Grandma said, her voice shaking. “You could have saved her!”
“I did,” Hannah said quietly. “I did warn her.”
My grandmother’s face fell and she slumped back in her seat.
“How soon after you saw the article did you tell her?” Malcolm asked, his voice tight.
“That very day,” she said, tears filling her eyes as she glanced at me. “I told her everything—about your father screwin’ that woman in his office, how Paul shoved and threatened me, hearin’ his conversation outside, and then what I saw in the paper. She was quiet through the whole thing, and when I finished, she said, ‘Are you done?’ I expected her to be pissed, if not at Paul, then at me for keeping it to myself for so long. But she wasn’t pissed. Her voice was quiet and calm, like she was a Stepford Wife or something.”
That sounded like my mother. I’d heard her use that tone on my father and me multiple times.
“Well,” Hannah continued, “When she asked if I was done, I said, no, I wasn’t done. I told her to take the girls and get away from him. I even offered to help her. That’s when she accused me of making up lies and exaggerating, and I told her that in this case, it was one or the other—either I was lying about the whole thing or part of it was true and I was exaggerating the truth. Which one did she pick?”
“I’m sure she didn’t take that well,” I said under my breath.
She titled her head, still full of attitude from her storytelling. “You’re right on the money. It was no surprise when she said she picked her husband, then she hung up on me. After that, the only time we saw each other was when she came to see Mom and Dad, and she barely spoke to me. But then Andi disappeared…”
Her face twisted into an apologetic look, like she knew bringing up my sister’s kidnapping would hurt me. “It’s okay,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. “Go on.”
“After your sister…” Aunt Hannah’s voice faltered, the sharp edge of her anger dulling. “I was worried sick about Andi. About your mother. About you. I didn’t know how she’d take it, but I had to try. I called her, and when she answered the phone, I asked her if Paul had something to do with it.”
I blinked. “You asked if she thought my father had something to do with Andi’s kidnapping?”
She gave a tight nod. “I braced myself for her to tear into me—call me delusional, vindictive. But she didn’t. I’ll never forget her answer. Or how she said it.”
The room tilted, and I gripped the table, my knuckles growing white as her words hit me like a physical blow. A cold weight dropped into my stomach, spreading through my chest like ice water. “What did she say?”
Aunt Hannah’s eyes met mine, her jaw tightening. “She said, ‘I don’t know.’”
I felt like the floor had vanished beneath me. My chest constricted, each breath coming shallow and fast. I opened my mouth, but nothing came out—the air seemed too thin, like I was drowning. I didn’t even realize Malcolm had reached over until his fingers closed around mine, firm and steady.
Never—never in my life—had I considered that my father could have hurt his own daughter. Even if he’d gotten mixed up with bad people. He’d loved us. He’d adored us. I could still see him squatting in front of Andi when she was six years old and had just found a dead bird in the backyard. His voice had been so soft, so patient, as he gently wiped her tears with his thumb and told her that death was a part of life, but it was okay to be sad. His hands had looked so large and safe around her small ones as he’d helped her choose the perfect spot for the burial. Those same hands had pushed my aunt in anger. The thought made my stomach lurch.
