Chapter 4 - The Place With No Windows
Mark looked at Lucy.
“Where were you?”
She did not answer.
Diane did.
“Ask her why nobody saw her for seven months.”
“Shut up,” Lucy said.
“No. He deserves to know what kind of woman he spent seven months mourning.”
Mark turned toward Diane.
“If you fire that gun, whatever story you think you have ends here.”
Diane’s hand trembled.
Pike slowly edged toward the rear exit.
Jack saw him.
“Dad.”
Mark did not look away from Diane.
“Pike, move again and I swear—”
“You swear what?” Pike said. “You’re not armed.”
Lucy stepped closer to Mark.
“I was in a psychiatric facility.”
The words stopped everyone.
Jack whispered, “What?”
Lucy looked at her son.
“Not because I was sick.”
Diane laughed.
“That’s debatable.”
Lucy ignored her.
“Pike took me to St. Alder Behavioral Center. Diane had paperwork saying I’d threatened suicide and threatened Jack.”
Mark felt nauseated.
“You never threatened Jack.”
“I know.”
“Then why didn’t they call me?”
“Because my emergency contact had been changed.”
“To who?”
Lucy looked at Diane.
“Her.”
Jack’s face twisted.
“How?”
“Forged forms. A fake court order. A doctor who signed whatever Pike put in front of him.”
Diane said, “She was unstable after the divorce.”
“We were not divorced when you took me!” Lucy shouted.
Mark’s head snapped toward her.
“What?”
Lucy’s breathing quickened.
“The divorce filing you showed me? It was never finalized.”
Mark stared.
He had married Diane four months earlier.
Diane’s gun dipped slightly.
Mark saw it.
“So my marriage to you—”
“Is legal,” Diane said quickly.
Lucy shook her head.
“No, it isn’t.”
Pike said, “This is not the time for family law.”
“It’s exactly the time,” Lucy said. “Because everything Diane built depends on nobody checking dates.”
Mark remembered the courthouse ceremony.
The rushed paperwork.
Diane saying the clerk had “handled a technical issue” with the divorce decree.
His stomach turned.
“You married me knowing I was still legally married to Lucy?”
Diane’s eyes hardened.
“I married you because I loved you.”
“You forged my divorce.”
“I fixed a delay.”
Jack whispered, “She stole you too.”
Diane looked at him as if he had slapped her.
Then sirens sounded in the distance.
Pike’s head jerked toward the alley.
Diane whispered, “Who called them?”
Jack held up his phone.
The screen was cracked, but glowing.
“Me.”
Pike lunged for him.
Lucy stepped in front of Jack.
And Diane fired.
— — —
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