When I Was You (17 page)

I never had a chance to ask her what she did with his body, nor did I care.

The way I looked at it, those checks were payment for all those years living with a verbally abusive alcoholic. It took years for Sonya to tell me that I was the only reason she stayed. She said she couldn’t leave me to be raised by him. What she didn’t say was that I was her second chance at motherhood, but she didn’t have to say that. Some things are felt.

But as far as the IRS and government are concerned, my father’s still alive and well, living it up in fabulous Buckner, Nebraska.

“Dr. Emberlin?” A different woman comes on the line. “This is Jackie, one of the nurses here. Nancy said you wanted an update?”

I place the call on Bluetooth, pull away from the gas station, and drive the rest of the way to Brienne’s house as the nurse tells me, “Kate is stable” and “in good spirits” and “they’re pleased with her willingness to participate in her treatment.”

It’s nothing new or notable, which is a good thing for me.

I thank her profusely—being the concerned husband that I am—and I pull into Brienne’s driveway a minute later, parking behind the A4 (an exact replica of Brienne’s car) that I procured for Sam when she landed her job at Opal Green. I had to drive to Michigan to get it, and we got it dirt cheap from some salvage dealer because it once had flood damage, but from the outside it’s identical.

The house is dark when I go in, except for the flicker of the TV from the back room.

“Sam?” I call out. My stomach growls, and the house smells like nothing.

“In here,” she answers, though it sounds like it’s coming from Brienne’s room. My jaw tenses, and I head in that direction.

“What the hell are you doing?” I ask when I find her rifling through Brienne’s closet. I don’t normally speak to her this way, but all I see is red and any hint of self-restraint I have goes out the window.

Sam shrugs, giggles.
Giggles.

“Do you think this is some kind of joke?” I spit my words at her, my fists balled at my sides. The number of times I’ve lost my temper at this woman, I can count on one hand.

Tonight might make it two.

“You want to get me fired?” I rush at her, gripping my hand around her wrist.

“Whose room is this?” she asks. “You can’t tell me Eleanor wears this.”

She pulls a white flower-covered dress off a hanger and drapes it over her body, running her hand down the front to smooth out the creases.

“Her granddaughter stays here between semesters at college,” I lie. “Now put that back before you get me in trouble.”

Sam hangs the dress back up before heading toward the door. I almost see red once again when she takes a detour at Brienne’s dresser, pausing to sniff a pale-blue crystal bottle of perfume.

“I like this one,” she says, reading the label on the front. “Never heard of this brand before. Where do you think she finds this stuff?”

“Sam.”
I roll my eyes and motion for her to hurry. Odds are her touching stuff in here won’t affect anything, but I’d rather not risk it.

Plus, I don’t want Sam getting a wild hair, thinking she’s free to do whatever she wants in this house just because my nonexistent elderly boss is out of town visiting her nonexistent family. The last thing I need is her coming across some piece of mail with Brienne’s name on it. I did a sweep of the place before Sam came over the first time, but I can’t be too careful.

Sam puts the bottle back and saunters toward me. It’s almost like she’s dragging her feet, literally and figuratively.

“You hungry?” I switch gears. Distraction usually works with her. “Let’s order something. I’m starving.”

She’s still dressed from her day job: heels, dress, and jewelry. Her last day is next Friday, and it can’t come soon enough. It was dangerous enough having her use Brienne’s actual name on the résumé and application, but we lucked out. No one in that firm had ever heard of Brienne Dougray (at least I can only assume so since no one made any comments about there being two of them in one town), and the papers never printed Brienne’s name after her attack, nobly opting to let the victim maintain her privacy.

I close Brienne’s bedroom door and lead Sam to the kitchen, swiping a takeout menu for Little Taipei off the fridge and handing it over.

“Why don’t you order? Anything you want,” I say before ducking out to the front porch to check the mailbox.

It hasn’t been seven to ten business days yet, but I’m starting to get antsy.

I spent most of last night researching all Brienne’s bank accounts and their respective ATM and daily withdrawal limits. One account—a platinum account at Quinnesec National Bank—has unlimited wire transfers up to two hundred and fifty grand per day. That’s going to be my baby, right there.

I won’t be able to nab the entire thirteen million, but what I can grab will set us up for life. Easily. Especially if we settle in a place where the dollar stretches quite nicely—maybe Indonesia or Thailand or somewhere in Central America.

It took a bit of number crunching and a couple of beers to relax my mind, but I managed to figure it all out, the deposits, the withdrawals, the holds. All of it. In the end, the whole system is something like a perfect row of dominoes. As soon as I knock over the first one, they’ll all come tumbling down in proper order.

“You want crab rangoon with yours?” Sam calls from the kitchen when I step back inside.

“No,” I call back, continuing to rifle through the mail.

No checks. Yet.

Before I return to the kitchen, I check my phone for a text from my guy. He came through with Brienne’s fake Kate Emberlin driver’s license for me, but only by the skin of his meth-mouthed teeth.

God, I hate outsourcing.

He’s working on getting Sam and me a couple of new identities. I told him he had until Friday. Any earlier, and I’d make sure it was doubly worth his while.

I love watching people scramble for an extra buck, but even more than that, I love that someday in the very near future, I’ll never have to scramble for anything ever again.

“I got you sesame chicken,” Sam says from the doorway by the dining room.

There’s an air of sadness or something in her eyes. I can’t quite place it. Or maybe it’s in her voice. I swear my mind’s been all over the place lately, wheels constantly turning, thoughts coming at me so fast I can hardly keep up with them.

It’s possible I’ve missed something here.

“Thanks, babe.” I go to her. I take her hands in mine. I kiss her, long and slow, the way a good boyfriend should. “You’re amazing, you know that?”

She stiffens at my touch.

This isn’t good.

“You okay?” I ask. I can’t read her, and that’s a first. “Is this about the job?”

Sam inhales, her glassy gaze finding mine. “Yeah.”

“Sam . . .” I wrap my arms around her and hold her tight. I hate that she’s upset over the fact that I convinced her to quit a job she very much enjoyed, but she needs to trust me.

I have nothing but her best interests at heart.

“Remember when we were in seventh grade, and those Richardson douchebags were making fun of my shoes because they were all scuffed up? And one of the pricks said my hair smelled funny? And the other one told the whole school I had lice, and no one would talk to me for a whole year after that?” I bring up a painful memory of mine because I need her to feel this. “And what’d you do? You never left my side. You stood up for me. For an entire school year, we ate lunch at a table by ourselves in the cafeteria, like two outcasts.”

Sam blinks, reaching to wipe away a tear. She doesn’t like to talk about the past, and I hate to see her cry, but I need to get through to her. “I don’t understand what you’re getting at.”

“My whole life, Sam, you’ve always taken care of me. You’ve always put me first. You’ve been better to me than anyone. Better to me than I probably deserved,” I say. “But now it’s my turn to take care of you.”

She doesn’t answer.

“Yeah, but you’re working two jobs now,” she says. “And I never see you. I’d rather live paycheck to paycheck and get to see you every night than only get to see you twice a week.”

I wish I could tell her the second job is temporary, but seeing how poor “Eleanor” is going to pass next week, it’ll come out soon enough.

“I have a plan for us, Sam,” I say. “I’m finally going to marry you. We’re going to have that family you always talk about having. Two boys and two girls.”

She rolls her eyes. “We can’t control that.”

I ignore her pessimism. “I want to build you your dream house. Anywhere you want, Sam. I mean that.”

“Are you hearing yourself right now?” She tries not to laugh, but it’s a good sign that she’s eating up my every word.

“I’m saving every penny from this job,” I tell her, looking her straight in the eyes. “The life we’ve always dreamed of is closer than it’s ever been.”

“You make it sound so easy.” She sighs.

“Oh, but it’s not. You think I like sleeping in this old house every night? Only seeing you on the weekends? It’s hard as hell, Sam. But it’s going to be worth it, I promise you.”

She kisses me, her hands in my hair, her sweet lips against mine.

Lie. Cheat. Steal. Beg. Borrow. It’s the way it’s always been for me, the way it has to be for people like us, and we have to be smart about it, or we die with needles in our arms or bars on our windows.

Taking her hand, I lead Sam upstairs to my room, with every intention of making a devil out of my sweet angel—at least for tonight.

And I promise, hand to God, when we finally get out of here, I’m going to spend the rest of my life giving this woman the kind of heavenly existence she deserves.

CHAPTER 30

“Man, I must be doing something wrong.” Brian walks with me to the staff parking lot after work the next day.

“What are you talking about?” I walk a couple of steps ahead of him.

He points to my car, which is parked next to his twenty-year-old Civic with mismatched doors that he drives without a shred of embarrassment. It’s like the man’s got no ego. Amazing, really, but not surprising.

“It’s called money management,” I say, pressing the key fob until the car chirps.

“At fifteen bucks an hour?” He laughs at me, shaking his head. “Right.”

He plops himself into his car, manually cranking down the driver’s window. A second later, the engine coughs to a start, and his FM radio plays over his tinny speakers. Slamming the door, he grabs his white mirrored wraparounds, pops them on his fat face, and peels out of the parking lot.

Tool.

He can speculate and insinuate all he wants, but he’ll never know that I bought the car with someone else’s credit and the bank is thirty days away from repossessing it since the card I used to set up the auto payments was recently reported as fraudulent.

The Volvo’s a bit flashier than I’d have liked, but it was a necessity. I mean, sure, I could’ve played the humble surgeon in the gently used Camry, but I needed to be the stereotype rather than the exception.

I yank my work badge off my shirt and stash it in the visor next to the one I only wore when Brienne was around.

Pulling out of the hospital staff parking lot, I start my ten-minute trek across town to Brienne’s place with the windows down and Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song” blaring over the speakers. I tap my thumbs against the steering wheel to the beat and come to a stop at the next intersection. A pretty blonde in a blue BMW checks me out from behind pristine mirrored aviators. I give her a half smirk before gunning it the second the light turns green.

She wishes . . .

I’m five blocks from home when a call comes over my speakers, replacing Robert Plant’s signature wail with obnoxious chimes.

Glancing at the caller ID, I recognize the South Dakota area code and force my annoyance aside so I can get into the right frame of mind.

A second later, I accept the call. “Dr. Emberlin speaking.”

“Hi, Dr. Emberlin. This is Jackie, and I’m one of the charge nurses at Crestview,” the voice on the other end of the line says. “Do you have a second?”

“Of course. What’s going on?” My pulse quickens. It’s almost never a good thing when someone asks if you have a second.

“Well, good news.” She pauses, drawing in a breath.

Good news?

No. Good news is bad news. At least in this case.

“Kate is making
huge
strides,” she says. I can almost hear the pride-laced grin in her voice.

My hands grip the steering wheel so tightly the leather stitching is almost embedded into my flesh.

“We’re happy to inform you that as of this morning, Kate’s alter is . . . gone,” Jackie says. I can hear the smile in her voice. “She woke up this morning as, well, herself.”

I have no words.

This is impossible: there is no Kate.

What the hell is she trying to pull? Is she onto me? Does she know?

“Dr. Emberlin? Are you still there?” she asks.

“Yes. Yes, sorry.” I clear my throat. “That’s . . . wow. You have no idea how happy that makes me. The last time, it took a bit longer for her to make progress. I guess you just caught me off guard.” I force a chuckle. “But in a good way, of course. My God. That’s great news. Fantastic. Wow.”

“Dr. Schneider was surprised, too, but he’s extremely pleased with her progress,” she says. “If things continue, she should be able to come home sooner than we originally thought.”

A jarring flash of red and blue illuminates my rearview mirror, and a jolt of cold ricochets through me, my heart hammering in my chest.

I was so distracted, I must have blown through the stop sign behind me.

“Anyway, just wanted to give you that update,” she says. “Kate’s getting ready for dinner right now, but I could probably find her if you wanted to talk to her for a minute? I know she’s been anxious to talk to you now that she has an idea of what’s going on. She was upset this morning when she woke up and didn’t know where she was.”

I pull over, my rims scraping the curb.

She woke up not knowing where she was?

Highly unlikely.

“You know what, Jackie? I’ll let her eat dinner. Tell her I’ll call her tonight before bed,” I say, glancing up as the officer climbs out of his squad car, his hand on his duty belt as he strides to my window.