Total pages in book: 140
Estimated words: 137144 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 686(@200wpm)___ 549(@250wpm)___ 457(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 137144 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 686(@200wpm)___ 549(@250wpm)___ 457(@300wpm)
That was odd and not like him at all.
This had to be related to her reaction this morning. Did he think he needed to treat her differently?
Shoot. How did she fix this? How did she prove to him that she was tough enough for anything when she wasn’t exactly sure that she was?
Or maybe she should just go with this. Perhaps this was better, to have a Harvey that wasn’t so controlling or commanding.
Sure. So why do you feel so weird and off about it all?
“Come sit down,” he said. “If you want to sit here, of course. We can sit at the dining table or outside.”
She glanced outside. For some reason, she just couldn’t bring herself to go out there. She didn’t know why.
Instead, she slid onto a stool at the kitchen island. It was familiar territory. And she thought that would make her feel better. He placed a plate, with a very full-looking sandwich on it, along with a glass of water.
Honestly, there was no way she could eat that huge sandwich. Lily wasn’t used to eating a lot of food. And it was going to take her stomach and her brain, it seemed, a while to catch up with the idea of eating more.
“Sorry, I’m starving,” he said as he sat across from her and took a large bite from his own sandwich
“Don’t apologize,” she replied. “How did you get on with my mother?”
Just thinking about her mother was enough to make her stomach clench. And ruin her appetite. Her mother had a habit of doing that.
She set the sandwich down on the plate.
Harvey glanced down at it with a frown. Okay, surely now he was going to say something about the fact that she hadn’t eaten anything.
But he didn’t. Instead, he wiped his mouth with a napkin.
“Your mother is desperate to have you back. Gave the same sort of spiel as the doctor about you being overdue to go to the clinic and needing your medication. There’s something rather off about her at the moment.”
“Off? More off than usual?” she asked.
“Yes. She was frazzled. She didn’t look perfect.”
Really? That was really unusual.
“I suppose being in trouble with the police might do that.”
“And having all her plans unravel,” he added. “We just need to figure out exactly what those plans were and how they involved you. So I can ensure that there is no danger to you.”
“I don’t see how I’d be in any danger,” she said. “I’m here now with you, away from Mother, away from Doctor Wallace, from Rick.”
“That’s right,” he said. “I also saw Rick today.”
There was a slight change of topic, and she wondered if he didn’t intend to tell her exactly what happened with her mother. Although perhaps that was all of it, she’d just been desperate and frazzled and demanding Lily back. She could imagine that was probably how the conversation had gone. Her mother didn’t like anyone going against her.
“You saw Rick? How did that happen?” she asked.
She probably should have waited to have this conversation until after lunch, because now they’d both stopped eating. Although at least he’d taken a few bites of his sandwich.
“We went to the country club to talk to him,” Harvey told her. “He was surrounded by friends and having a great time. I managed to have a few words with him. I wanted to gauge whether he’d had any knowledge that you’d been given those drugs.”
“Do you think he knew?” she asked.
Harvey shook his head. “I actually don’t. I don’t think that Rick could have kept that sort of thing a secret. He’d probably have wanted to try the drugs if he’d known you had them on you.”
She nodded. That actually made a lot of sense.
“What now?” she asked.
“Just as I got home, I had a voicemail left on my phone from the doctor asking if I intended to bring you in today.”
A shiver ran through her. Her whole body seemed to turn cold. She didn’t know why she was so frightened all of a sudden. It wasn’t like Harvey was going to take her to the clinic. She knew that he wouldn’t. He’d done everything he could to protect her. Why would he turn around and betray her like that?
No, this seemed to be a reaction of her body to the idea of going back there. It didn’t matter that her brain tried to impart that they were safe now. Her body had broken out in chills, and she felt the urge to flee.
That scared her. What had happened in that clinic that her body just knew she shouldn’t be going back there? What had been done to her by that doctor while she was out of it on those drugs?
And what did her mother know about it all?
“Are you going to reply?” she asked in a quiet voice.