In Her Eyes by Sarah Alderson (ebook reader for pc and android TXT) 📕

I feel Nate’s gaze land on me but I ignore it. ‘I’m here to interview the nurse who was on duty last night,’ Nate says by way of explanation, then he tips his hat, nods at Sam and takes his leave.

‘Bye!’ Sam shouts after him.

I glance at the sign to the restrooms, visible over Samantha’s shoulder, and wonder if I can make a break for it while she’s distracted, but I’m not fast enough and Samantha turns her attention back to me before I can get away.

‘Isn’t that weird? Him being the Sheriff and all?’ she asks.

I cock my head at her, not understanding.

‘Well, you two used to date, didn’t you?’

I nod, wondering how on earth she remembers that.

‘Mom.’ Abby tugs on her mother’s arm, though Sam ignores her. Abby’s wearing a pained expression and I wonder if her mother dragged her here against her will, and then I remember the argument she had with June the night it all happened. If they hadn’t argued, then June would have stayed the night at their house. She wouldn’t have been home and we wouldn’t be standing here now. The realization makes me want to scream.

But then Sam says something that catches my attention. I turn to her. ‘What?’

‘You didn’t know?’ she asks, her blue-planet eyes growing round.

I shake my head.

‘The whole time you were dating, Nate was seeing Margot Williams, remember her? That girl from Texas. Her brother Calvin was on the football team with Nate. She was a cheerleader.’ She lowers her voice. ‘Rumor has it he was also sleeping with her mother!’ She takes in my stunned expression. ‘Oh lord, forgive me, I mean, that was just a rumor about the mom. I doubt it’s true. I’m not gossiping. I thought you knew. Everyone knew.’ She gives an apologetic, squirmy smile and once again I want to punch her in the face.

‘I didn’t know,’ I say.

‘He was always such a player,’ she replies with a shrug, as though I’m an idiot for not realizing it. ‘He slept with the entire cheerleading team. Apart from me, of course,’ she hastily adds, brushing a strand of hair behind one ear, her face flushing with the lie. ‘I thought that’s why you broke up.’

I blink at her. Nate was having an affair when we were together? I don’t know why it never occurred to me before now. Perhaps because he acted so broken up when I dumped him. But now I see it was just wounded pride on his part, that I left him and not the other way around. My God, I was such an idiot. I’ve been so blind. I think of how I let him fool me into cheating on my husband, and feel physically ill, like I need to throw up and then rip my skin off my body with my fingernails, scrub myself with bleach.

‘Anyway,’ says Sam, interrupting my thoughts. ‘I guess we should go. Abby has gymnastics to get to.’ She puts her arm around Abby’s shoulders and the casualness of the gesture threatens to unlock the storm of grief that is raging inside my chest.

‘We’ll keep praying for June,’ Sam says as they head towards the elevators.

I spin away from them, feeling discombobulated and like I might scream or throw up or both, but then something makes me stop and turn around. June had a fight with Abby on the night of the break-in. That’s the only reason she came home.

‘Abby!’ I shout.

She turns, her eyes wide and questioning.

I walk over to her. ‘You and June had a falling out, didn’t you? On the night it happened?’

Abby swallows hard and nods, her eyes filling with tears.

I soften my voice. ‘It’s OK,’ I reassure her. ‘I just wanted to ask what it was about.’

She frowns a little at that and glances, worriedly, at her mother. ‘It was silly.’ She takes a deep breath. ‘It was about stealing.’

‘What?’ I ask.

‘She said the Bible was wrong, that sometimes things weren’t a sin, and I said she was wrong . . .’ She glances at her mother. ‘Because stealing is a sin.’

Samantha smiles smugly at her daughter and squeezes her shoulders before pulling her away towards the elevator. I stare after them, confused, trying to figure out what June could have been talking about.

‘Mom? Where have you been?’

I turn around, dazed. It’s Hannah. I’m about to shout at her for leaving June’s side but before I can, she thrusts her phone in my face. ‘Look!’ she says. ‘Someone just texted me this.’

I take the phone and study the website she has open. It’s a gossip site – one of the big ones – and on the front page are several photographs of someone lying in a hospital bed. It takes a few seconds before I realize they’re photographs of June, including several close-ups on her face.

The headline shouts: EXCLUSIVE DEATHBED PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE VALLEY INTRUDER’S VICTIM.

‘How did they get these?’ I say. Dots dance in front of me, blurring my sight. Was it the man in the scrubs who took them or the person who tried to kill her?

‘I don’t know,’ Hannah sobs.

Chapter 36

Laurie drops me home and tells me she’ll be back in an hour to return me to the hospital. I trudge to the front door, feeling numb and exhausted. In the back of my mind is the knowledge that I need to pack up the house and find somewhere to live, but it’s so far down the list of things to do it barely registers.

After Laurie drives off I march towards Gene’s garage apartment. The blinds are drawn and the lights are off. I know he’s not there but perhaps there will be a clue, something that might help me find the money or figure out who stole it.

I’ve fixated on that and it’s probably because it’s impossible to fix anything else. I can’t do anything about June, I can’t find Gene, I can’t get Robert out of jail,