Swim Deep - Page 76

The question was, who had won the war between Evan and Noah Madaster? Or was it still raging?

I suddenly knew for certain that it was, silently and furiously.

“That’s why I’m here, isn’t it? You brought me here because of this vendetta… because of this war between you and Noah Madaster.”

“Yes.”

That swift admission sliced through me, the pain of it impossibly worse than all the previous blows. He stood abruptly, his expression growing anxious. I realized that tears had sprung out of my eyes, wetting my cheeks. He reached for me. I flinched back.

“Goddamn it, Anna,” he muttered, pacing back and forth several steps. “Goddamn it. What do I do? This is me. It’s still me. What can I do to make this better?”

But I was lost in misery, unable to respond to his agitation. I’d been transported back to that night he’d awoken me from my nightmare, that night when I’d demanded he tell me why we’d come to Les Jumeaux, and his answer: Because I’m sinful.

But that’s not what he’d said. I knew that now. I’d misunderstood him, perhaps purposefully, because I didn’t want to face his real answer anymore than I had the false one.

Because I’m vengeful.

“You almost told me,” I said, wiping my cheeks with the back of my hand. “That night, when you woke me up from the nightmare. You told me we were here because you were vengeful. But you never said anything else.”

“Only because you seemed to not want to hear it. You changed the subject,” he said, desperation in his tone. “I offered to take you away from here. If you only knew how hard this has been, how much I’ve been drowning in regret. I’ve wanted to tell you the truth for weeks now, but I didn’t know how—”

“You hired a private investigator to find someone who looked like Elizabeth,” I interrupted, unwilling to hear about his feelings. It was difficult enough, bearing witness to his sins against me. Hearing his emotion—his regret and pain—was intolerable. “How long did it take you to find a double? How long have you been planning this, Evan?”

He froze in his pacing. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

“Tell me the truth. Or whatever you’ve convinced yourself the truth is,” I grated out.

His expression went stony. Unreadable.

“I started planning about a year after Elizabeth disappeared. At first, I tried to come up with some kind of scheme that would expose Noah for what he is. I tried to meet with some of the people who had worked for him in the governor’s office. I got to know a few of them… a couple better than others. At one point, I thought the young female aide—the one who had first come out to the press about the fact that Noah had touched her inappropriately while he was using the Analyzer on her—would agree to tell more of her story to the press, putting his crimes in the limelight again.

“In the end, Noah somehow silenced her, though. She started to refuse to take my calls. I don’t know how he did it. I’m sure it was related to how he silenced her after she told the press her story the first time. I told you that blackmail is his forte.”

“I had to try another tack. For a year or so, I did exhaustive research into Noah’s financial holdings and contracts. I thought maybe I could find a way to expose any dark business dealings, contrive a way to bring about his financial ruin. Nothing ever paid off, though.

“Finally, I realized that the only way to get to him was through his one weak point, his most single-minded obsession.”

“Elizabeth,” I said.

He merely nodded, that faraway, haunted look once again in his eyes.

“I believe that at the end of her life, Elizabeth and Noah had a big blowout. I suspect that my pleas, and then my insistence, for her to sever her relationship with him had finally gotten through to her. Before she died, I’d told her that if she didn’t break off all ties with her father, I would divorce her for good. I couldn’t stand to see her debasing herself anymore. I couldn’t bear watc

hing her kill herself slowly.”

“You think that Elizabeth told her father that it was either him or you… and she chose you?” I asked in a hushed voice.

“I think that when she told him that his days of manipulating her every move were over, he ended her life.”

My brain seemed to slam against a cold steel wall.

“You’re saying Noah Madaster murdered his daughter?”

His wintry gaze met mine. “Noah did murder Elizabeth. That’s why I’m here. That’s why you are. Because every day that passes that Noah goes unpunished for all that he’s done, the burn inside of me gets hotter and deeper. I can’t rid myself of the fury. The only thing that will give me peace is to see Noah Madaster finally face justice.”

Chapter Eighteen

I felt the full force of his fury at that moment, that anger that he’d always carefully hidden from me. It awed and frightened me. Evan was right.

Tags: Beth Kery Romance
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