Blurred Lines (Behind Closed Doors Book 2) (21 page)

“You promised me, Wayne!” Mimi yells. She slaps and punches at his shoulders. “You promised me all this was in Ashleigh’s head.” She shoves him again but it's like moving a mountain; impossible. “But look at you. You're nothing but a bully.” Again her fist pounds into his shoulder. “A bully who lied to me.” When that doesn’t work, Mimi launches herself on to his back and thumps his arms with her fists. “You let her go right this second, Wayne Swift,” Mimi screams. “Or I call my sister.”

Wayne lets go with one hand and reaches for Mimi. He throws her to the ground and he laughs at her. “And you think Miss all-talk-and-no-action will do what exactly?”

“My sister.” Mimi climbs to her feet. She prods him with a finger, and jabs him as she annunciates each of her words through her teeth. “Will hurt you and when she’s done hurting you she’ll make sure you spend the rest of your life in hell.”

Now why can't I have that much confidence? Heaven knows I need it right now. Instead, I tremble beneath his grip and I know Wayne can feel my fear. All I need is that little something to stand up to him the way Mimi did. I'm not weak. I'm not feeble. I need to prove that not to him. But to myself. I’m not afraid of him.

He tosses me to one side. I stumble backward from the hall and into our living room, watch in horror as he approaches Mimi. I know the expression he has real well. I know what’s about to come. Wayne just towers over her and laughs. “Do you honestly think your sister has what it takes to bring me down? No? Neither do I.”

“Actually.” Mimi meets his furious gaze with a defiant one. “She’s just waiting for an excuse to take you down.”

The back of his hand slaps her across the face. Her body ricochets with the force of the blow. She doubles over and cries out, but her voice is drowned out by his. “Well, there’s one.”

There's a big red stain on her cheek when she straightens to her full height again. She meets his gaze. The back of his other hand strikes her face again. The force of this second blow flings Mimi against a glass framed picture hanging on the wall. It cracks and she falls to her knees. She cries out even louder but he still shouts above her. “And there’s another.”

She looks up at him from her hands and knees and says, “I will tell her, Wayne. I’ll tell her—”

“Nothing!” He roars as his foot connects with her ribcage. Mimi howls in pain as he gives her another fierce kick in the stomach. He grabs a fistful of her hair and yells straight at her, “You'll won't tell her anything.” He slaps her face. “Because you'll never speak again when I'm through with you.”

I can't see which part of him hits her, or where he hits her, anymore. He's like a wild animal trapped in a cage. He even howls but his words aren't comprehensible anymore.

The instinct to protect our baby abandons me as he slams Mimi’s head into the floor. I can't take it anymore. I leap on him. “Get off her!”

He roars again and a hand grabs my upper arm. He throws me across the hall. I half fly, half stumble backwards, my fall cushioned by a solid pine coffee table. It shatters under my weight. My back and my ribs scream in agony. I don't know what to do.

I know he has a gun in the house. He showed me how to use it once. I limp as fast as I can across the hallway and into the study, rummage through drawers to find the lock box where he keeps it. I find it buried beneath our bank statements. It doesn't register that it isn't locked. I'm only relieved when I fumble enough for it to open and the gun and ammunition topple on to the desk. I grab the gun and shuffle back to where Wayne is repeatedly hitting and kicking at Mimi's now limp body. She's silent.

Oh God! I think he's killed her.

“Stop or I'll shoot.” He glances up at me. It's only when he's staring down the barrel of the gun does he stop. “I mean it.” But my hands tremble. The gun shakes in my palms. I don't think I have enough strength to squeeze the trigger if I need to. “Get away from her.”

“Okay.” He lifts his hands up and moves a couple of steps back. “Jules, calm down, babe. It's okay. Everything is going to be alright. Just tell me where you got the gun?”

It feels so heavy in my hands. It's been so long since he showed me how to use it I don't even know if I'm holding it right. I don't even know if it's loaded. I never checked. I just grabbed it and ran. But all I wanted to do was to stop him from hurting Mimi and he's stopped.

There's an explosion in the front hallway. I jump about a mile when the second explosion blasts inside the room. It echoes around us as armed police officers pour into the house from every direction. They’re wearing full riot gear as they surround me. Suddenly, I have what feels like a thousand guns pointing at me. “Police! Drop your weapon!”

I drop it like it's on fire. Hold my hands up in the air.

“Lieutenant Swift!”

The shriek makes me turn to my husband. He’s lying on the floor. A dark red stain spreads across his shirt and a pool of dark liquid grows larger on the ground beside him. He isn't moving. I gasp, call out his name, try to run to him, but someone grabs me. They tug my arms behind my back. The cold from the metal restraints seep into my wrists. “Julia Swift. You're under arrest for attempted murder.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Pain reverberates around my body, my ribs cry with agony and I just want to go home. All this fuss is because Wayne is angry with me. He's angry because I shot him but I didn't mean to. He's going to be so angry when he learns my only call was to Ashleigh. But he'll calm down and when he does he'll explain what happened and all of this will go away. I know he will. So I won't tell anyone what happened. Not even Ashleigh. I won't tell them because it will come better from Wayne himself. If he admits he has a problem, he's more likely to get the help and support he needs from those he works with. If I tell them what happened, his career will be over, and maybe worse, they'll charge him with the assaults on me and on Mimi and everyone knows bad things happen to police officers in prison.

It's also why I don't want any medical attention right now. I've had bruised ribs before and the pain when I breathe is so much worse than that. I don't want to have to tell the medic I'm pregnant. I'm scared someone will overhear and congratulate Wayne. I'm so ashamed that I tried to keep our baby from him. If I hadn't have trusted Ashleigh none of this would have happened. I wish I hadn't used my only call to her, but I was scared for Mimi. She wasn't responding to the EMT when they drove me away. At least I know Wayne is awake. When I last saw him his arm was in a sling but he was walking towards an ambulance. He wouldn't even look at me.

When he calms down he's going to fix this. I know he is. He's going to protect me because that's what he said he'd do. He promised nothing bad would happen to us again. I know it's been years since he made that promise and bad things have happened, but this... it's the worst thing to happen to us since I was attacked. What would happen if I told them Wayne couldn't handle the pressure of his job? His job means everything to him and he's finally starting to succeed. He'll never get the opportunities he wants if I tell them he's possessive and sometimes to the point he's overbearing. And it's not his fault. I know he thinks it is, but it's me, I'm the one with the insecurities. I'm the one who runs in fear even though he's never deliberately hurt me,
ever
. Not until tonight anyway.

I guess I finally see the dark side in him Ashleigh has always seen. He lost it. He really did lose it and he's capable of something much worse than I ever thought possible. I'm so confused because I didn't marry this man. Not a man who's more than capable of killing someone, and I think he would have killed Mimi if I hadn't grabbed the gun. That is not the man I married. My husband is a good man. He doesn't do things like beat women to within an inch of their lives. He didn't. I'd turned him into that man with my lies. How appalling must I be at my wifely duties to drive one of LA's most upstanding police officers to almost kill another woman?

I've tried my best to cooperate with Wayne's partner. His name is Tyler and he's been working with Wayne since Christmas. I've met him once or twice before. Wayne says he's incompetent and green and nowhere ready for homicide. But he's a sweet kid. Oddly, the same age as Wayne was when we moved to LA, but he seems so young to me now that we’re ten years older.

He's asking one or two questions about what happened tonight, but I think he's just trying to keep me company more than anything. I wonder if Wayne has sent him to make sure I'm okay. He's being very nice and considerate. He's even brought me a cup of coffee in a real ceramic cup, and not that vile stuff out of a machine, but a cup that's been freshly brewed. It's a shame I can't seem to stomach it.

Apparently, the arrest, the phone call and their retrieval of my clothing are just a formality because the weapon had gone off. He believes me. Between him and the officer who arrested me, they've given me an NYPD sweat suit that's too big for me and they've found me some warm cotton socks after I started to shiver. I'm not cold. I guess I must have entered a state of shock of some kind because I have goose bumps but I'm not cold.

“Have you heard from Wayne? Can you tell me what's happening?” I've asked a hundred times before, and about Mimi, but they haven't had any word on either one's condition. Tyler keeps saying I just need to make a statement and then they'll take me to the hospital. To Wayne. But how do I make a statement without telling them what happened? Which makes me wonder if I should ask Ashleigh to stay with me. She said I wasn't to talk to anyone until she got here and she's a lawyer, isn't she? She'll know what to do.

“Give me a minute. I'll check.”

As Tyler starts fidgeting with his cell, a flash of black and red cross the doorway and I double take. Was that... It's as though I've conjured her from my imagination. Ashleigh walks backwards and looks inside the room at me. Even with the broken spaghetti strap she looks more beautiful in this floor length black gown than she's ever looked before. The way the crystal details swish from her shoulder to the opposite hip and they catch the light and accentuate her every God given female asset— and the attention of Tyler.

“Excuse me.” She saunters into the room. “I'm having a fashion crisis and I must talk to my personal stylist.”

“I'm sorry, but we're in the middle of an interview.” What? Hey wait a minute! That's not what he said we were doing. He stands up and begins leading Ashleigh towards the door. “I'm sorry, but you'll have to wait.”

She catches my eyes. I think I must have a deer trapped in the headlights expression because something crosses her face and she turns on the charm. She flutters her eyelashes. “But I'm in the middle of my latest movie premiere. I can't possibly disappear for too long, and a wardrobe malfunction like this will make me the laughing stock of Hollywood.”

“Miss, you can't be in here,” Tyler says politely, and despite her inconspicuous attempts to stop him, he moves her as far back as the doorway.

“But don't you know who I am?” she purrs at him. I have never heard her use those words with anyone but me and it was self-deprecating back then. But this, it’s pure sex-kitten Krystal and she draws her hand down the front of his button down. A shudder visibly ripples through him even though he pretends she's having no affect at all. In a voice made of pure sugar and spice, she asks innocently, “So why are you asking my stylist questions anyway?”

“Trying to find out why the crazy bitch shot my bro,’” he spills, and for a second I'm surprised how easy it was for her. She has him eating from the palm of her hand. Then I catch a momentary change in Ashleigh's eyes. They widen. I hadn't actually told her why they'd arrested me. I'd told her about Mimi and that I was at the police station. But then she switches on a sultry smile beneath come hither eyes and gives him a once over in a way that makes me feel uncomfortable.

It's one of those I-don't-even-know-your-name-but-lets-find-somewhere-we-can-be-really-naughty looks. “Even though she doesn't have a lawyer present?”

“She hasn't asked for one yet,” the officer confesses.

My jaw drops open. He's not concerned for me at all. He's just trying to get a confession out of me. That bastard! I look at Ashleigh. I hope she reads the save me desperation that has to be written on my face. I can't believe I fell for that bullshit. I'm a police officer's wife. I should know better.

Ashleigh’s gaze flicks towards me. “Really?” she says, and leans in a little closer to him. “Allow me to introduce myself properly, Detective Gibson.” It briefly crosses my mind that she knows his name but she's going all the way. She's actually going to kiss him. What is she expecting me to do? Run while she has him distracted? We'd never get out of here alive. She stops. Her lips hover just below his. I can't believe she's teasing him, having fun with him when there are so many lives on the line.

“My card,” she says, as she walks her fingertips from his navel to the top of his breast pocket. She slips it inside and taps it triumphantly and says, “Ashleigh Jordan, of Worthington-Jordan and Associates. You might have heard of us before.” They would have heard of them before. William Jordan could turn a simple libel case into something the Russian Circus would be envious of. “I'm usually too busy to handle clients but in this case, and especially for you Detective Gibson, I think I'll have to make an exception. Because you have just confessed to attempting to obtain a confession from my client when she invoked her right to counsel an hour ago. And how do I know she's invoked her rights? Because I wouldn't be here otherwise.”

She straightens her spine, steps back from the detective and tosses a glare at him that should have killed him on the spot. “I don't care where he is, you bring Captain Warren to me right now.” The detective stumbles over his feet. “And you bring me whichever ADA is handling this case and tell them I'm not hanging around for the morning. My client needs to be seen by a medic and whereas
I
will keep a lid on this, if we're not at the emergency room before my father arrives from Florida, someone in this building will be in trouble and Captain Warren will be making a very public apology to my client.”