The Bourbon Kings

“Of course not. God, no. Absolutely not.”

“Was he here last night?”

“Yes. I came home into the storm, and he was here. And he didn’t leave until the morning to take Miss Aurora to church.” She leaped up. “I’ve got to help him! I’ve got to tell the police he was with me—”

“There’s something else.”

“Can you drive me? I’m so scattered, I don’t think I should be—”

“Lizzie.”

At the sound of her name, she stopped, a cold fear gripping her chest. “What …?”

Now Greta’s eyes started welling up. “I’m sorry.”

“What! Will you just get it all out before my head explodes—”

“Chantal’s pregnant. And she told the police … it’s Lane’s.”

Lizzie blinked as everything came to a crashing halt: her thoughts, her heart, her lungs … even time and the laws of physics.

“She says that’s why he beat her. When she told him. She says he was furious.”

A wave of vicious nausea nailed her in the gut—except no. She couldn’t be reliving what had happened before. She couldn’t possibly be in this exact same situation with Chantal and Lane again.

I’ve already done this, she thought. I’ve lived through this nightmare already.

God, no. Please, no.

“When …” Lizzie cleared her throat. “When did she go to the police?”

“First thing this morning. Around nine or ten.”

If you were hurt badly, you wouldn’t wait to get medical attention, Lizzie thought.

If the woman was pregnant, and she told him when he got back to Easterly … he could very well have—

With a horrible lurch, Lizzie skidded her way down the hall—and barely made it to the bathroom before she threw up all that tenderloin.

By the time Lane pulled up to Samuel T.’s farm, he was mad enough to chew tin and spit nails.

Punching his foot into the brake, he skidded to a stop in the front of the man’s mansion and nearly left the engine running as he got out.

Samuel T. opened the door before he even made it around the car. “I called Mitch. He’s going to be here in forty-five minutes with an unmarked. They don’t want to wait to take you in, but we’re going to go in through the impound entrance. No one with a camera can get back there, so you’ll be all right.”

Lane brushed past the guy. “This is a total fucking lie! She’s batshit crazy and is going to—” He stopped and frowned at his old friend. “What? Why are you looking at me like that.”

By way of answer, Samuel T. reached out and took Lane’s arm. “How did you get these scratches all over your hands. Your arms. Your neck and face.”

Lane glanced down at himself. “Jesus Christ, Sam, these are from last night. I went out to Lizzie’s and this limb fell on her car.” When his friend just stared at him, he snapped, “She’ll testify in court if she has to. I pulled her out of her goddamn Yaris. I thought she was dead.”

“Are you seeing her again?”

“Yes, I am.”

“And you think she’s going to want to help you when she finds out Chantal’s having your baby? Again? Didn’t you two try this drama out a couple of years ago?”

Lane felt ninety percent of his blood leave his head. “It’s not mine, Sam. I told you when I signed those papers—I haven’t been with Chantal since I left.”

“Not what she’s telling the police. She says that she’s been back and forth to Manhattan for the last year, working on your relationship.”

“It’s not mine.” He lowered his voice, even though there was no one around. “It’s my father’s.”

Now it was Samuel T.’s turn to be stunned. “Your … father’s.”

“You heard me.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’ve spoken to both of them about it.”

Samuel T. coughed into his fist. “You know, your family is something else.”

“That’s what people tell me.” Lane crossed his arms over his chest. “I’ll take a lie detector test. I’ll swear on a Bible—hell, they should check under her fingernails. They won’t find any part of me on her—or in her. I didn’t touch her, Sam.”

“She says she has a witness.”

“Ha! In her dreams. Hell, she must have done it to herself—”

“It’s a maid? Someone named Tiffany?”

Lane recoiled. “Maid? Tiff—wait, you mean, with a ‘p-h-a-n-i-i?’”

He pictured the one with the towels, who’d introduced herself to him with that look in her eye.

Samuel T. shrugged. “I don’t know how she spells it. I’m getting this on the QT from Mitch. But the woman says she overheard you and Chantal fighting, and you were threatening to, and I quote, ‘beat the shit out of her.’”

“I never said that!”

“You were standing in the second-floor hallway, and the maid walked in on the conversation.”

“She’s lying—” Lane stopped and shook his head, the memory coming back. “Wait, no, no. Not about—no, I said that because Chantal disrespected Miss Aurora. I was pissed off at her. I didn’t mean it literally.”

Samuel T. looked down at the cuts on his arms. “I’m going to be honest here. You seem to have a lot of convenient answers—”