“And afterwards?”
Lena blinked. “What?”
“Why did you come back?” Nicole pressed. “You were alone at Frankie’s with Jessie. You could have grabbed her and ran again. Frankie told us that you refused to stay behind with Henri and Jessie, that you told her to leave and protect Jessie when you arrived. It was your idea to face that beast alone, to save us.”
Lena shook her head, annoyance twisting a knot in her jaw. “For Jaxon. I came for Jaxon.”
Nicole’s blink was slow and methodical. “I know.”
The moment Lena had stirred awake that morning, skin chilled in all the places the sheets didn’t cover, she had known something was wrong. The absence of another person’s steady breathing in the room had been a clue, but the sensation had been gut deep, a twisting that stole the lingering remains of sleep and propelled her to go searching for Jaxon. Instead, she’d found Frankie filling the chambers of a gun with bullets in the kitchen while a small, thin Asian man held a dozing Jessie in his arms. Lena had recognized him as Frankie’s husband from the photos on the mantel. He’d been standing there, ashen, listening while his wife recounted the events.
It hadn’t taken very long to realize what Jaxon had done or where he’d gone. They’d left Jessie with Henri to keep safe, told them to go into the shelter below while Frankie and Lena jumped into one of Frankie’s tiny planes and set off.
But she hadn’t done any of those things because she’d been thinking about Nicole or Richard Westwick. Their health or wellbeing had never even crossed her mind. The woman didn’t seem to understand that.
Her back molars creaked with the force of her gritted teeth. “Okay?” she growled, waiting for the woman to get it through her head. “So, I didn’t do it for you. I didn’t do it for your family.”
A ghost of a smile flickered around Nicole’s mouth, but it could have been a passing shadow flicking in and out of sight. “And what do you think Jaxon is to me?”
Lena turned her head away, refusing to allow the fine, gold threads of redemption to weave around her.
“Is it so hard for you to let anyone think you’re a good person?” Nicole prompted gently.
“I’m not a good person.” She whipped her chin to face the woman once more, lips curled back over clenched teeth. “If you could see my record, you would know—”
“What I know is that you’ve had a hard life,” Nicole cut in softly. “Too many people let you down. You weren’t allowed to see your own potential.” Her head cocked to one side, expression thoughtful. “Do I condone the things you’ve done? No. But, being the wife of a judge, I also know that there are always two sides to every story. One day, if you like, you can tell me your side.”
“From prison?” Lena hedged.
“I certainly hope not.”
Maybe it was the dull throb in her shoulder increasing with every passing minute or simple exhaustion, but Lena was having a hard time keeping the edge from her voice when she asked, “Why did you bring me here? What do you want?”
“We brought you here so you could rest comfortably while you recovered, and I don’t want anything.”
“So, I can just leave whenever I want?”
Nicole shrugged with a dainty flick of one shoulder. “Of course. You’re not a prisoner.”
But there had to be more. It was all too easy.
“Are the cops waiting outside to grab me if I try?”
“There’s no one waiting for you,” she said with a gentleness that only managed to fan Lena’s suspicions. “But I’m hoping you might consider sticking around for a while.”
“Why?”
“One day, Jessie’s going to want to know about her biological mom. The adoption papers told us nothing about her.”
For several long seconds, Lena didn’t know what to say to that. She could only stare, wondering if the woman had lost her mind.
“You want me to talk to Jessie about her mom?”
“Biological mom,” Nicole corrected not unkindly. “But yes. No one would have known her better than you. Jessie might like knowing what it was like—”
“Growing up in a lice-infested crack house with parents who were always too high to remember half the time that they had kids?” Lena finished. “Or how her biological mom was drugged and raped, and impregnated at thirteen, and forced to give birth in an abandoned building surrounded by dead rats and used needles?”
Nicole winced and dropped her gaze. “I was going to say growing up with her as a sister, but…” she broke off with a slight grin. “Maybe save the other stories for when she’s older?”