My Beautiful Lies (Beautiful Nothing #2) (7 page)

I reach in and take the white dress shirt, black slacks, and turquoise tie. After I’m dressed, I head down to Laney, and I’m relaxed immediately when the soft tone rings through my ears. Her fingers are magical; it makes me wonder why she never worked harder for her dream of being a big-time player. I stand at the end of the steps just taking in the sound. I check my watch while I wait—it’s getting late. I’m gonna have to interrupt her song. I say hey, and she jumps up from her bench. 

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.” 

She laughs nervously. “I know, I am just all jumpy. You ready to go?” 

I can tell Jake is still eating away at her. It pisses me off that I let it get this far. We get in the car and head to work. She hates silence, especially if I think she’s hiding something. She talks all the way there about work, our upcoming vacation, and just about anything good to keep her mind off being scared. I listen and nod my head; that’s all she wants from me. Just to keep the conversation going. Pulling up to the school, she gathers her bags, leaving me with a kiss and a reassuring smile. 

I head straight to the pharmacy to get my meds popping one immediately with a bottle of water. Better to start them now so I can get them to move through my system. I set off to work, ready for whatever today brings. 

“Hey, lady, what’s on the agenda for today?” I ask Eleanor as I walk through the door.

“You will be seeing Miss Blake today; here’s her file. She’s a new patient, looks like she’s here for depression. She lost her family in a fire a month ago. Rumors are she is the one who set it.” 

“Great, crazy this early? I should get paid more,” I say, laughing.  

“You? I should get paid more for booking the crazy and putting myself in danger, you silly boy,” she says, playfully pointing her finger toward me. We laugh and joke for a few minutes before I go to my office and look over the girl’s file. Krissy Blake, age nineteen. Released from Bank Wood Psychiatric Hospital a week ago. She was accused of setting a fire that killed her parents and two little brothers. Her statement says a man in a hooded jacket did it then kidnapped her, left her in a ditch, and she found her way to a police station. Eyewitnesses say they saw her through the open curtains, running through the house screaming and fighting with her parents. She was seen walking out the door as the fire ignited throughout the house; she stood there watching it burst into flames before leaving the scene, earning her a year in the psych ward. Well, that’s not what I was expecting to start my day, but I will have to work with it. Twenty minutes later, she walks through my door.

“Hello, Miss Blake, I’m Dr. Hardy. I hope the lighting makes you more comfortable.” She doesn’t say anything at first, walking over to my bookshelf. She’s short, probably around 5’2”, pixie-style, jet-black hair, and sickly looking. She looks exactly what I pictured her to look like. I give her a moment to look through my books, or ignore me, whatever you want to call it. 

“Hi,” is all she says, making her way over to the chair in front of me. It’s gonna be a long day. 

“What are your plans now that you are out in the world again?” I ask, trying to figure out if she should still be locked up or not. 

“I don’t make plans, Dr. Hardy, I live day-by-day in a small room of my apartment. It’s safe there.” 

“Safe? Safe from what?” I say, writing down in all caps
CRAZY
. 

“From myself, from the voices.” She never looks at me, keeping her eyes pinned to the floor. 

“What voices? What do they say?” I ask. It’s very interesting to hear what other people’s voices say to them. I wonder if they’re like mine. 

“Kill them, kill them all.”
Well, that’s not good, how did she get released?
 

“What made them release you from the hospital if you are still not stable?” 

“I am stable; I am on medicine now. The doctors say I have made progress,” she says with a bored tone. That must be a sign that the doctors have given up. 

“Did you kill your family, Miss Blake?” I ask seriously. 

“Only in my head.” 

Well, that is proof she did it. How can she be roaming the streets?
I tell her I will be back and make my way out to Eleanor. “Call that hospital now.” She gives me a worried look, dialing and handing me the phone. “Yes, this is Dr. James Hardy, I need to speak with the doctors who worked on Miss Krissy Blake’s case as soon as possible.” The lady one the other line puts me on hold and Eleanor gives me a look, asking what’s going on. “She is not stable enough to be walking the streets. She basically just admitted she killed her family. She is going back, and she is going right now.” Her eyes get big in shock. 

“This is Dr. Stacey, can I help you?” the lady on the other line asks sounding clueless. 

“Yes you can, I am calling you in regard to Miss Krissy Blake. She is in my office as we speak. She has admitted to murdering her family and she needs to be institutionalized. It’s not safe for someone who has murderous thoughts to be roaming around.” 

“Dr. Hardy, I’m sorry, but she has successfully finished her program, there is no evidence she murdered her family, and the voices she says she hears are for attention. Trust me, I have known her and been her doctor for a year,” she says, getting a smart tone. 

I hang up. I don’t feel like dealing with doctors who think they are better than you just because they are higher up in the food chain. I will remove the girl from my office myself.

I get back into my office and she’s no longer there. What the hell? I guess she went out the back, saves me the trouble. I spend the rest of the day meeting with my regular patients until the day is over. When my last client leaves, I pack up my things and leave to get Laney. I figure once I get there, I will go in to say hi to Katy to make sure she’s okay with Laney taking off for two weeks for vacation. 

“Hey you, how ya doing, Dr. Sexy?” Katy asks, wearing her flirty face. I can’t seem to find her attractive in the slightest. She comes on so strong it annoys me most of the time.  

“I’m good, just picking up my girl,” I say drawling out girl a little longer. “I also wanted to make sure you were all good with Laney taking off for the next two weeks. After the competition takes place this weekend, of course.” She gives me a bright smile, telling me of course. She continues to talk while I zone out. I almost want to jump in excitement when I see Laney coming through the door behind her. 

“Hey, baby,” I say, hurriedly pulling her into my embrace to kiss her. Out the corner of my eye, I see jealous pants roll her eyes, and I smirk. We make our way to pick up something quick to eat from a restaurant around the corner before driving home. She talks about the upcoming competition at the school, how hard she has been working the kids. I tell her about the crazy lady from work, and everything seems normal. This is what it’s like to be happy, to love someone more than yourself, and to just go with your heart. Just like my parents. The medicine will take a month to kick in fully, but I can see a bright future for us. When we pull up outside, I realize I forgot to stop by my house. Shit,
Harry is going to be pissed
. Luckily once we get inside, she needs a shower. I use the time to step outside to call Harry. “Hey, man, I couldn’t make it tonight my car broke down. I will stop by in the morning,” I tell his voicemail. He is probably pissed. Oh well, nothing I can do now. 

Laney is coming down the stairs, towel drying her hair when I walk in. “Why were you outside?” She gives me a confused look. 

“I was just making a call to my voicemail to remind Eleanor to do something. I decided to look around too, just to make sure no one is out there,” I lie too easily. She says okay and lets it go. 

We end up taking it easy for the rest of the night, lying on the couch watching movies. When she falls asleep, I carry her to bed and lie down with her for the night. She has been having problems with nausea, I need to tell her to make a doctor’s appointment to get something to help with that. 

“She’s downstairs, she might have a few broken ribs. I’m not sure, but she is pretty banged up,” I say directing an old friend down to the basement. After I dropped Laney at work, I called Chase; he’s been a nurse practitioner for a year now. He’s also my old foster brother. He doesn’t know anything about what’s going on. As far as he knows, I found her in an alley behind my office building, beat up on drugs. She is still unconscious. Even if she wasn’t, whatever Jake doped her up on renders her unable able to talk. He bends down to get a better look, sliding his glasses up his nose. 

In the basement, Chase begins his assessment. Lifting her arms, pushing on various spots on her body. “Well, she is on heroin, that’s for sure, the tread marks on the inside of her arms tell you that. Her ribs aren’t broken, but they are most likely bruised severely; I recommend ice,” he says, still checking her over. 

“Why is she still unconscious?” I ask. I need to know if she is going to die. 

“It looks like she took a hit to the head pretty hard; she has a concussion. Whoever did it hit her hard enough to knock her out cold with it, definitely something hard. She will wake up when it heals, until then we won’t know if she has memory loss, or worse, she could stay in a coma. She really should go to a hospital, though.”

“Okay, thanks, man. I guess I can take it from here. I really appreciate you helping me out,” I tell him, shaking his hand. After bringing it into a pat on the back, he leaves. Harry comes out of the library upstairs wanting to know what’s up, and I give him the details on Lindsay. 

“So you mean to tell me she is okay, but she is still a problem? What do we do with her now? Jake’s on his way here, and he is pissed. He wanted her dead, and now he is acting like he wants
you
dead.” 

That’s just fucking great
. I guess I have to deal with the son-of-a-bitch sooner or later. While waiting for him to show up, I get Lindsay and the basement cleaned up. I tie her back to the beam, but loosely so I don’t hurt her any further. Jake is taking longer than what I thought he would, so I start to head upstairs for a shower. Having her blood all over the place, when I cleaned I got it all over me. I get to the top of the steps as the door flings open, and I get hit with force, knocking me backward down the stairs. The heavy weight on top of me is making it hard to move. Jake is lying sideways across me, and I lift to push him off. Finally getting to my feet, I get knocked down again. Jake hovers over me, face red boiling with anger. 

“You’re in fucking love with her, aren’t you? That’s not part of the fucking plan, man!” he shouts, sending an upper-cut to my jaw. 

“I never wanted any of this! You’re the one who is fucked up in the head. Look what you did to her!” I say, pointing to Lindsay slumped over. “You don’t fucking get it, do you? I’m done playing your games! I am done doing what you say, we’re not fucking teenagers anymore, Jake. We haven’t been friends in forever, you just don’t fucking accept it!” I yell, throwing my first punch. He stumbles back a few steps. I’m done talking, I’m fuming. I rush toward him until his back goes through the drywall that separates the rooms. 

He brings his elbow down on my shoulder, causing me to drop me to my knees. His fist plows into my face repeatedly until I start seeing spots. He stumbles back, spitting blood onto the concrete floor in front of me. I look up, waiting for his fist to start firing back, but it doesn’t come. He starts laughing hysterically. “You had one fucking job, man, and you go and fall in love with my leftovers. The plan was to help her cope and leave it alone. If you didn’t stick around babying the bitch then she would be fucking dead; she wouldn’t have been able to cope. But you fucking stayed and now look what you did!” he yells and laughs at the same time. “Now both of them have to die, or the game doesn’t end. You already made your decision.” 

“You will fucking touch her over my fucking dead body. If you don’t leave her alone, I will gladly take you out myself,” I tell him, wiping the blood from my mouth with my shirt. He hates when I talk back—his face turns colder with each word I throw at him. 

“That can be arranged, but for now, you may want to work on your plan before mine goes into play. You think you can live a normal life now, James? Do you think you are any less of a monster than me? Fuck you. We will see who wins this fucking game,” he says as walks past me. Before he climbs the steps, he turns around one last time. “When you come after me you better make sure I’m dead, because if I’m not, your life will slowly crumble around you.” Then he’s gone. I’m left with a broken nose, covered head to toe in blood. 

I go to the bathroom to the mirror; I have to fix my nose. I pinch at the bridge and take a deep breath before pushing it back into place.  
Fuck
, it hurts, but it has to be done. This should be a challenge explaining it all to Laney. Especially being a day before the competition at the school. She’s going to be pissed. I can either tell her Jake jumped me or I got mugged. I guess whatever I spit out in the moment will do. After I fix my nose, I hop in the shower. My muscles are sore—bruised from head to toe from the stairs and the hits I took. I let the hot water pour over me, not soothing anything but making it all worse instead. I get dressed and go straight home to Laney. She stayed home this morning, not feeling good. Now all I’m going to do is worry about her, about the baby, and Jake ruining it all. I left Harry with Lindsay who will end up switching watch times with Brad. They are all a bunch of idiots, but I know they won’t let anything else happen to Lindsay because they are scared to go down for murder.