Page 131 of You Betrayed Me (The Cahills 3)

First, he picked up Megan Travers’s necklace, fingering the delicate links and looping it between his fingers, touching the small, glinting cross dangling from the chain. Closing his eyes, he waited for an image to come. To feel her. To sense her emotions.

He thought the images would come slowly, but he’d been wrong.

In a sudden burst, a kaleidoscope of pictures of Megan flashed behind his eyes: Seated at her desk in the clinic, fingering the cross nervously. Talking on the phone, rapidly, heart pounding. Worrying about . . . an unborn baby? Hopeful? Or not?

Was she pregnant?

Rivers felt a bit of her joy, her anticipation. And something else. Worry? Or disappointment?

Concentrating, he forced his thoughts to the night she disappeared, to her confrontation with James Cahill.

Closing his eyes, he slowed his breathing.

And there she was—Megan panicked and furious, running through her apartment.

I’ll kill him. I will. I’ll kill his cheating ass!

She kicked off her shoes, banged a toe on the corner of her bed, swore, and then stopped short. I’ll make him suffer. All of them. I’ll just leave and not tell him where I’m going. Make him miss me. Make them all miss me! What about Rebecca? And Mom?

“Like they ever cared.” She said the words aloud, her toe throbbing. Mom has her own life. Dad doesn’t give a shit, and Rebecca . . . well, she’ll get by. Besides, she’s never forgiven me for stealing James away. She’ll be glad if she thinks I’m dead . . . that’s it. They’ll all think I’m dead. I’d love to be a fly on the wall when they realize I’m gone. But I can’t give myself away—they have to expect to see me.

She ran to the living room to scrounge in a drawer for a pen and notepad, then jotted out a quick note on the coffee table, stripped off the page, and tossed it into a bag. Still angry, she changed out of her scrubs, taking off her necklace and dropping it onto the edge of her dresser, where she’d left a drawer open. And then . . . and then . . . nothing.

Of course. She hadn’t been wearing it when she’d driven to James’s place.

Letting out his breath, he dropped the necklace onto the counter, where it pooled. Another swallow from the green bottle of beer. So Megan had planned to disappear, at least in those moments when he’d caught a glimpse into her head. Not exactly reliable information, though—gained from a vision while holding a discarded bit of jewelry.

One step away from the loony bin.

Astrid’s little dig seemed more like a prophecy at this point.

“In for a penny, in for a pound,” he told himself and picked up Sophia’s lipstick.

He fingered the tube, opened it, and noted that the pale gloss was nearly gone, as if this were a favorite shade. In his mind’s eye, Rivers saw Sophia at a darkened bar where the bartender was rattling a shaker of ice. With a sidelong glance her way, he poured a martini and set the frosty glass in front of her. She passed the lipstick to her friend, and the other woman applied a sheen to her lips.

Rivers slashed a little of the pink gloss across his palm. It felt slick and warm, and when he closed his eyes, he saw Sophia’s lips, close up, as if in a magnifying mirror.

It has to be perfect.

He blinked. It was as if he’d heard a woman’s voice in his head.

Don’t overdo. Just a shimmer. Thin lipstick, thick makeup. Apply the coverup everywhere. You can’t let any flaw show through. No sign of pimples, no hint of freckles.

He twirled the tube in his fingers and stared at it. Clicked the cap on and off. There was something odd about it and the voice he heard. What was all that about?

What’s any of it about?

Good question.

He set the tube aside to pick up Jennifer Korpi’s squishy tension ball. It molded to his fingers as he kneaded it in one hand and again closed his eyes. For a second, he got nothing and then . . . then he felt the anxiety, the fear. The more he massaged, the stronger the vibe he got. Jennifer was worried, yes. And there was something about her sibling . . . her sister? No, no. Her brother. She was worried sick about him, didn’t want to get involved . . . but she was. Rivers felt it in the fear pulsing through her blood, the guilt sliding through her heart.

Guilt?

His face grew taut as he concentrated, his grip squeezing and releasing, squeezing and releasing the malleable ball, but no firm image came to mind . . . and yet . . . there was something.

“What?” he said aloud, startling himself. Jennifer had found out about her brother being hurt while he and Mendoza were at the school, but she hadn’t picked up or touched the tension ball after learning the news, so that couldn’t be it. She’d been worried about Gus Jardine before she heard of his accident. He was still holding the ball, and James Cahill’s face came into view. He felt the sting of her tears, the overwhelming sadness that he’d left her, the shame that she’d been fooled, the deep-seated pain.

Rivers rolled the ball between both palms, as if he were working clay.

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