The Sweet Life #2: Lies and Omissions Francine Pascal (manga ereader txt) 📖

him after it became clear Elizabeth wasn’t getting anywhere finding her. And Gavin was the top private detective in the business.

Maybe now he’d finally get some answers. He certainly wasn’t getting any from Elizabeth.

Bruce grabbed his jacket and headed out the door.

Chapter Fourteen

Elizabeth pulled up in front of Robin’s new house, a modest but clean one-story bungalow just down the street from Robin’s parish. The minute Elizabeth had seen the little house for rent she knew it would be the perfect hideaway. It was close to Father Riley’s church and no one would know Robin was there.

With Elizabeth’s name on the lease, she’d be safe from reporters or anyone else searching for her.

Elizabeth rang the doorbell, and Robin opened the door seconds later.

“I’m so glad to see you,” Robin gushed, truly happy to see her. This girl needed her.

“Sorry I’m late,” Elizabeth said. “Got hung up at the office with…” She nearly said “deadlines” and then stopped short. Elizabeth was supposed to be therapist Laura Christer, not Elizabeth Wakefield, newspaper journalist. “…clients.”

“I understand.” Robin smiled. “Someone like you just wants to help people.”

Right, and lie to everyone she knows. Everything she was saying and doing seemed like a lie these days: lying to Bruce, lying to Robin. Elizabeth hated lying. It would be horrendous if either one found out the truth.

“Sorry about the boxes,” Robin said as Elizabeth sidestepped a few stacked up in the living room. “Do you want something to drink? I might be able to find some iced tea. Or there’s tap water…”

Robin dug around in one of the boxes in the kitchen and pulled out a glass only to lose her grip on the tumbler. It fell to the floor with a crash.

“Great.” Robin knelt to pick up the broken pieces and began to cry almost immediately. “This is just great.”

“Robin, it’s okay. Here. Let me help.” Elizabeth instinctively went into mother-hen mode, picking up the bigger shards and looking around for something she could use as a broom. She settled on an empty plastic trash bag on top of one of the boxes.

Robin rocked back on her heels and tears dropped down her cheeks. Elizabeth abandoned the cleanup effort and wrapped her arm around Robin’s shoulders.

“Don’t cry. It’ll be okay. Here, let’s go sit down.” Elizabeth steered Robin to a nearby couch and helped her sit. She reached for a tissue inside her purse and handed it to Robin.

“I’m sorry. I’m such a mess.” Robin swiped at her eyes with the tissue. “You’ve been so kind to me, getting me this house and everything, and here I go and make a mess of it all.”

“No,” Elizabeth said, shaking her head. “You haven’t made a mess of anything, Robin. It’s okay. I’m not even thirsty.”

Robin smiled weakly at Elizabeth’s joke, and then blew her nose loudly in the tissue.

“It’s just that I really don’t know if I can do this.” She glanced around at the stacks of unopened boxes.

“Don’t worry. I can help you unpack.”

“No, it’s not that.” Robin sucked in a deep, shaky breath. “I mean these charges. Against Mr. Patman.”

“What do you mean?”

Elizabeth stared at Robin, noticing for the first time just how disheveled the young girl was. She had tossed her hair back in a hasty and uncombed knot at the base of her neck. She carried dark rings under her eyes like she hadn’t slept in days. Her face was gaunt and thin, as if she hadn’t been eating all that well, either.

“I-I-I don’t know, Laura. I’m so scared he’ll find me.”

“That’s why I moved you here,” Elizabeth reassured her.

“I have nightmares that he’s found me already.” Robin looked at Elizabeth with eyes wide with fear. Robin’s bottom lip started to quiver and then she dropped her face in her hands. Elizabeth was more convinced than ever before that this girl was telling the truth. You couldn’t mistake the real terror in her voice. “What if he found me?”

No way could Elizabeth imagine Bruce coming after this girl. But then, none of this seemed like Bruce, and yet there was no question that Robin’s terror was real. She couldn’t help thinking about the news story that ran just last week in the Tribune, the one about the woman who’d been married to a serial killer for ten years and never knew it. If being a reporter had taught her anything at all, it was that sometimes people were very good at hiding their true selves.

Look how she was hiding her own life now.

“It’s okay, Robin.” Elizabeth patted the girl’s shoulder. “It will be okay.”

Robin took a deep breath and lifted her chin. She wiped her tears and shook her head.

“I don’t know, Laura,” Robin said. “I’m starting to think that this was all a big mistake. Maybe I shouldn’t have come forward at all.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. I’m more scared now than I’ve ever been. Maybe I should just walk away from this whole thing.”

Elizabeth didn’t know what to say. Robin was clearly in a lot of pain and very frightened.

“It’s okay. We’ll get through this.” Elizabeth hoped that wasn’t a lie.

“Maybe it’s not too late, Laura,” Robin said. “Maybe I could still do it. I mean, that night that he almost…” She swallowed. “It was the worst night of my life. But since then, it’s only gotten worse, not better. I’m afraid all the time, terrified he’s going to find me. I should just drop the whole thing, go away and start fresh. I did that once before when I moved here from Kentucky and I can do it again. Maybe then the nightmares will stop.”

Elizabeth froze, unsure of what to say and not trusting herself to speak. Robin was so close to offering to end this nightmare—for Bruce and everyone else. It would be a perfect solution.

This could be her chance to save Bruce. A little nudge and Robin might just drop these charges and disappear. All she had to do was