Page 65 of Cakewalk

You don’t really believe that. You know her. You know she didn’t kill anyone. And if she lied about something, she had a reason.

He shook his head, trying to stop his warring thoughts from getting the better of him. He needed a distraction. The only problem was everything seemed to remind him of her.

The buzzing of his phone was just enough to jar him out of his head, at least for the split second it took to reach for it. Looking down at the screen, the name flashing there told him this was not the distraction he needed right now. But he answered anyway.

“Hi,” he said, his voice clipped.

“Did we interrupt something?” Caulfield replied.

“No.”

“Well, aren’t you a sparking ray of delight! Put Gigi on. If you’re just going to be grumpy, then I don’t want to have to be on the receiving end. I’d rather listen to her sweet southern voice anyway.”

“She’s not here.”

“Where is she?”

“In jail,” he ground out, his jaw clenched. Just saying the words out loud sent a whole new stab of pain straight to his heart. The thought of her sitting down at the Colebury police station, in what he was sure was an itty-bitty cell, broke his heart. It was no small part of him that wanted to run down there and pull her out, hold her in his arms, and tell her it would all be okay. But the other part of him knew better—she had lied to him. There was also the part of maybe killing her husband.

“Jail?” his mother’s voice cried out from a distance. Holden sighed, realizing he must be on speaker phone with the whole family. Great, just great.

“Son, what happened?” his father asked.

“Cops came knocking on our door this morning to let us know that Gigi’s husband is dead. Which was news to her," he said, before launching into the whole story. Explaining everything the cops had told them and the fight he and Gigi had afterwards made it seem like they’d been starring in an episode of some soap opera. But no, this was his real life. “After all that, they hauled her down to the police station for questioning.”

“Why aren’t you down there with her?” Caulfield asked.

“Which part of the story do I need to go over again, old man? The part where she lied to me about her husband being dead? Or the part where she’s a murder suspect?” he bit out. His family didn’t deserve his rage, but by this point in the day it’d been boiling up in him for too long, and he needed to let it out.

“Holden, we all know that sweet girl didn’t kill anyone,” his father said.

“No, Dad, we don’t know anything. Just because she said she didn’t do it means nothing. She’s been lying to me from day one, so how can I believe anything? If she lied about that, what else has she been lying about?”

“Do you for one second think she killed him? That the Gigi you know would have done that?” Caulfield countered.

“No,” he resigned. “But how do I know that the Gigi I know is the real one?”

“Other than him being dead, or not dead…everything else she told you was true, was it not?”

Holden thought back to everything she’d told him. About her childhood, her parents, college. About the things Bradley had done to her, said to her. Her fear. He thought about how skittish she was when she first arrived. How she had shied away from his touch, even if it was just to help her on the stairs. She’d been so lost and afraid. He’d taken it for face value then, a newly widowed woman trying to get back on her feet. But now that he thought about it, those actions made just as much sense for a woman trying to escape an abusive situation.

“So she claims.”

“Holden, I’m going to ask you something, and I need you to be really honest here. With us and yourself,” Caulfield said. “What are you really upset about here? That she lied to you? Or that you couldn’t protect her?”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” he snapped back, pushing up off the couch and starting to pace the room. He had no idea what his godfather was getting at, but he could already tell he didn’t like it.

“You have let the guilt over not being there for Hannah and the baby eat away at you for years. Like it was somehow your fault for not being there to protect them. It wasn’t your fault then, and it’s not now either, but I can’t help but wonder if what you’re really upset about is not the lie, but that once again the woman you love was in danger, and you didn’t know.”

Holden stopped dead in his tracks. His heart split open even more at the thought of his late wife. How dare Caulfield bring up Hannah. That wasn’t what this was about. This was about Gigi lying to him. As if the pain from this morning wasn’t enough, now he had that extra layer thrown on.

“She fucking lied to me!” he shouted.

“Of course she did!” Caulfield hollered back. “She was on the run and scared out of her mind. She had no idea whom she could trust, and then she moved in with you, who went all caveman on her. I think even you can admit you were not the best of company when you two first met. And I won’t bring up your actions at Thanksgiving.”

A wave of guilt hit Holden as he recalled that moment. He had not been on his best behavior, and there would never be a time he didn’t hate himself for it. Especially after that night he and Gigi had bared their souls to each other and he’d found out the truth about her past life. Or what she claimed was the truth. Why hadn’t she just told him then that she’d left her husband and was hiding from him. Could she really not trust him?

"Tell me you never once wished the bastard was alive so you could kill him yourself,” Caulfield said, breaking through his thoughts.