Page 46 of Wicked Lies Grow Wildflowers
I can’t even argue with his reasoning. Though I wish he would have asked me about seeing her, even though I probably would have said I wasn’t ready. He probably suspected that, though. So here we are.
“You are so in deep shit for this one,” I say before climbing out of the car. “Sage! What are you doing here?” I ask, my knuckles white around the pie I’m holding.
“Oh, just coming to see why my best friend has been hiding from me after being deathly sick for nearly a week is all.” Her eyes are narrowed and suspicious.
“Me? I wasn’t hiding. I’ve just been busy catching up with work and recovering. And I didn’t want to risk getting you sick,” I explain, but she sees right through me.
“Righhhhht,”she says in the most accusing voice.
“God Sage I really don’t want to get into this right now. The last week has just been a lot. I have Thanksgiving dinner with my mother tomorrow too. I’m just on edge and I really don’t know how to explain everything.” I say as Xander and I walk up to his condo, Sage following right behind. I don’t want to keep her shut out but I don’t even know where to start with everything.
As soon as we step inside Xander’s front door Sage narrows her eyes and scrunches her nose at me. “Cut the shit, Maeren. Iknowyou. Something is going on. You never ever avoid me like this and I can’t think of one other time you’ve done so. Tell me what’s going on with you and maybe I can help. Wait. Is this all about having to play house with mommy dearest tomorrow? Are you really that stressed about it? I can ditch my parent’s and go with you, and you know you’re always welcome at their house if you want to spend the day with us instead.”
“No, it’s not about that. Tomorrow will be fine,” I offer a tight smile, not wanting to lie to her but not wanting to be direct either.
Her eyes widen and then her face falls. “Oh my God! Wait! Does this have to do with Xander? I swear to God Maeren I will help you hide his body if I need to.” She gives Xander a pointed stare and he scoffs at her, rolling his eyes. “I’ll give you an alibi too. We’d never be caught,” she jokes, but I know to hold her words with more weight than that.
My face crumples at the love I feel from her, the love I feel from both of them. The tears come and they don’t stop.
“Oh no honey, I’m so sorry. What’s going on? Do you want to talk about it? Do you want privacy, just the two of us?” She dragsme to the couch and wraps her arms around me, smoothing my hair with her hand.
“I—I. No, Xander can stay. He already knows everything. God I don’t even want to explain it all. Xander and I —-we got into a huge fight a few days ago. I felt like he wasn’t being honest with me. I told him I knew about the notes and the flowers and he denied it all. He said nothing was from him, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that he was lying,” I choke on the words.
“Oh, honey,” Sage says, her voice full of compassion.
“And then I told him I knew he was lying and he still wouldn’t admit it. I screamed at him and shoved him out of the apartment, I told him to get the fuck out and he—he left. I just couldn’t bring myself to believe him,” I sob.
Sage continues to caress my hair, comforting me like a sister would. She doesn’t question me as I tell her everything. She listens and holds me as I choke on the awful things I said and did to Xander. Her grip on me tightens when I tell her about being attacked, when I tell her about the polaroids, and every little coincidence I chalked up to being Xander when it never was.
We sit on the couch and talk for two hours. Eventually Sage does lay into me for keeping so many secrets from her. I know she’s offended I didn’t feel like I could go to her, but it isn’t her fault. I felt fucking crazy for days and then I just didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to involve her. And then, like the amazing friend she is, she eventually understood and forgave me.
She left and I promised to keep her in the loop with, well—-everything. I crawled into Xander’s bed and he said he needed to get some work done in his office. I wanted him with me, but I felt safe with him just across the hall. I close my eyes and drift into a restless sleep.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
XANDER
I wantnothing but to see the blood of Maeren’s stalker running red at my hands. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so much fucking blood lust. I’ve been doing some sleuthing to see if I can figure out who he is, but nothing’s come up yet. For a few days I was worried that he could possibly be The Skinner, but the M.O. still doesn’t fit. Which does fill me with a small amount of relief.
Waking Maeren up with the smell of bacon and eggs, she groggily stumbles into the kitchen in one of my t-shirts and her hair falling out of her messy bun. “Morning, Wildflower,” I smile.
“Morning. This smells amazing, but do you mind if I take a shower first?” She asks, still a bit void of emotion.
“Not at all. I’ll have coffee ready for you when you’re done.”
“You’re a life saver,” she says, rolling up onto her toes to give me a quick kiss.
After breakfast Maeren seems a bit more like herself. I know she is going to need time to process everything, and I’m doing all I can to find the fucker who’s tormenting her. When I do he’s going to be in unimaginable pain for touching what’smine.
By the afternoon Maeren is still set on going to her mother’s. I offered to go with her but she insisted it would be better if I didn’t. I installed a tracker on her phone so I can make sure she gets there and back safely which gives me some peace of mind about her going alone. I tell her at least five times to call me if she needs anything as she’s leaving.
When she’s safely arrived at her mother’s I decide to spend the next few hours on work. I don’t have any time to waste, not now that I have two cases to work on.
I’m finally goingto get him. The Skinner’s about to meet his end, and unfortunately for him I’ll be ruining his final holiday. I had a contact tip me off to an address in town that he’s been spotted at. I had to call in some extra help since he’s so elusive, but the fucker still likes to blab and was talking about a bitch he’s been staying with. I was able to run the description he gave through an illegal database and found a few possible matches for the woman. I didn’t look too closely, that’s what my team is for, and with Maeren’s silence filling every spare thought I’m not up for the technical shit right now. I told my guys to go through the list and stop by each address—ten total—to see if anyone could spot a man matchinghisvaguely known description at any of them and ding ding ding we have a winner.
I open the message with the woman’s name and address, my blood running ice fucking cold, my body going numb. The name staring back at me is Leanne Butler.Maeren’s mother.God no. Fuck. No. The wheels are turning rapidly in my mind, I need to act quickly. I call Maeren’s phone and am sent straight to voicemail three times.Fuck.I stand up and pace, callingher repeatedly with no answer. I shoot off a rapid fire of text messages, begging Maeren to pick up and leave her mother’s house.
5:42 pm: Maeren please pick up. It’s an emergency.
