Chapter
Fifty-Five
Leighton
* * *
My finger shakes as I ring the doorbell.
Their house is decorated for summer with a popsicle doormat, and the potted flowers on each side of the door have pinwheels in them. The banner across the floral wreath on the door says, Welcome Summer.
It all makes me want to throw up.
It took all of Hayes’s willpower not to come with me, but I feel as if I’ll get more answers if I’m alone.
The lock slides, and I hold my breath, every muscle in my body screaming for me to run and forget this whole thing. Who cares what happened? But I want the truth. And maybe someday the kids will too. Who knows? That’s something I’ll have to figure out as the years go by, though right now I think that it’s probably best that I keep the truth to myself.
The door creeps open, and he rears back when he sees me.
“Leighton?” he asks, because I’m probably the last person he expected to see.
“Can I come in?”
He steps aside. I was worried I wouldn’t even get this far.
I walk into the house that smells as though they have a scent pod on the stove. It’s nice and not as homey as I prefer, but not as cold as I had imagined either.
“We can sit in the study.” He shuts the front door, flicks the lock, and walks to his right toward the kind of room I’ve only ever seen in magazines.
There are two brown couches across from one another with a long table in between, holding perfect magazines and some sculpture that is definitely for show. I want to laugh at the thing, knowing that in our house, it would probably last a week before Lincoln knocked it over with a ball that ricocheted off the wall.
He settles on the couch across from me, one arm draped across the back of the couch and his ankle resting on his opposite knee. He’s the picture of aloofness and relaxation. Or at least he’s pretending to be.
I shift to the edge of the couch, reminding myself that I hold the cards here. “I was going through some of Skylar and Patrick’s things, and I found this.” I place the phone on the table between us.
He glances at it and back at me, shrugging. “I’ve never seen that phone before.”
“I figured. It was Patrick’s second phone.”
An irritated expression crosses his face as if I’m wasting his time.
“He hired a private investigator,” I add.
He flinches, just for a heartbeat, then shifts in his seat, jaw clenching. He relaxes again as he forces himself to embody the aloofness he wants to portray.
“I paid his fee, and he sent me the pictures that Patrick had requested.”
“I don’t understand why you’re here or what this has to do with me. I wasn’t in business with Patrick, and he never told me anything, if that’s why you’re here.”
I unlock the phone and slide it in front of him, opening the picture I saved to the Photos App. “But you were in the business of fucking his wife.”
Art glances at the screen, then right back at me.
“Would you like to see another one?” With the flick of my finger, it moves to one of him and Sky outside this house, on the porch. Arthur was wearing shorts and no shirt, kissing her goodbye. “Or this one?” They’re at a park, she’s pressed against a tree, and again, they’re kissing. “Should I go on?”
His chest rises and falls as he draws in big gasps of air. “So what? They’re dead now. It doesn’t matter.”
How did Sky ever feel something for this cold man? Patrick was his complete opposite. So loving and friendly. Never treated anyone badly. I can’t figure it out. I’m not sure I ever will.
