The Sound of Secrets (The Monsters Duet #2)

Chapter 20

Channing

“We cleared the building aside from your mother, her doctor, and her lawyer. Still no sign of your father anywhere near the building.”

The agent in charge was an Asian woman who looked several years younger than me. She said little as we drove out of the city, and I felt a slight air of condemnation coming off of her. As if I played some part in Winnie’s disappearance and this was all an elaborate ruse cooked up by my family to fleece Win of a few million dollars. I didn’t bother explaining to her that the amount of money my father demanded was basically pocket change to Win, and the payout in the terms of our marriage contract was triple the amount my father demanded.

It was wild to me that anyone could look at Win and only see his wealth. That face of his was enough to make anyone to fall in love, no questions asked. And when you added in that fragile heart he kept so well hidden that no one knew it existed, he had something far more valuable than his money to offer .

“What lawyer?” I frowned and tried to puzzle through the agent’s cold words. “We don’t have a legal representative.” I’d never been able to afford something like that.

“He says he represents your mother. It sounds like your father may have hired him before he set up this meeting. We can’t ask him to leave if he’s her legal representative. And if he has any information about your niece, he won’t say.”

I frowned harder. If my dad sent a lawyer, it was because he planned to use my mother to facilitate his plan to get his hands on Win’s money. I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. My mom was always my weakest point. My father knew just where to strike to bring me to my knees. I asked the driver to stop the car. As soon as he pulled over on the shoulder of the road, I threw open the door and dry heaved until my ribs felt like they might snap in half. I was a shaky, sweating mess. I was more nervous to face my mother than I’d been when Colette Halliday pointed a gun at me.

The building was dark and looked abandoned when we arrived. I couldn’t see the hidden federal agents or the local law enforcement officers in charge of trying to ambush my father. Once again, I felt like I was a character in a video game, facing the most difficult level. This time I knew I didn’t have any extra lives to spare if something went wrong. The female agent walked into the facility with me. She was speaking to her team on a device that wasn’t obvious to the naked eye. Her vigilance made me nervous.

My mom’s doctor looked tired and frustrated when he led us to the room my mother had called home for many years. He quietly mentioned they’d monitored her closely, and she’d had no visitors or contact with the outside world since her most recent breakdown and attack on me. The facility management was as confused by the sudden appearance of the lawyer as I was. If Win wasn’t paying the bills for the entire business, it was obvious they would no longer welcome my mother and all the difficulties caring for her had brought them recently. There were other patients who required a calm and serene environment for their mental wellbeing, and my parents fully disrupted that. All I could do was apologize and assure them this was the last time my father would cause this sort of unwelcome chaos.

The man seated next to my mother at her small kitchen table didn’t look like the sort of lawyer who excelled at his job. He was in a mismatched, ill-fitting suit that was wrinkled and had a dark stain on one lapel. He was scruffy with bloodshot eyes, and I could smell the scent of stale booze all the way in the hallway. He had several papers spread out on the table in front of my mother and was speaking to her in a soft voice. His pen pointed at various places requiring a signature, and my mother bobbed her head as if she understood what he was explaining. I knew very well she did not.

I sighed as I stepped into the room. Before either of them could speak, I demanded to know, “Where did Dad take Winnie?”

My mother looked confused, and the shady lawyer had a gleam in his eye. “You’re finally here. We’ve been waiting for you.”

I glared at him as I walked to the table. “Did my father hire you? ”

“It is irrelevant who hired me. I represent your mother. I have paperwork stating as such.” He pushed a contract in my direction, but it was the federal agent who moved forward to grab it.

My hands curled into fists and my fingernails dug into my palms with enough force to draw blood. I ached all over and felt like I was listening to what he said through cotton stuffed inside my ears. My family was always fucked up, but it was hard to fathom how we got this far off track. I felt as out of touch with reality as my mother and as vicious as my father at that moment. I resented the hell out of the hand I’d been dealt, and I made a mental note to appreciate the fact that I had a seat waiting for me at a brand new table if I was willing to take a gamble.

“Did you bring the money?” The lawyer’s eyes shifted around, zeroing in on my empty hands and the armed federal agent behind me.

“Of course not. Even billionaires don’t keep five-million dollars in cash lying around. Win transferred the money into a secure account in my name.” I was the only one who had the password, and it was at my discretion to hand it over or not.

“Have a seat. We have a lot to discuss and negotiate. Isn’t that right, Georgie?” My mom nodded, but her gaze was locked on me, and I could see her confusion and disgust through every blink.

“I’d rather stand. I need you to tell me where my niece is. I’m not discussing a thing until I know she’s safe.”

“If she dies, it’s your fault. You stole her mother. You’re unfit to be around her. She deserves better than you.” My mom whispered the words. I heard the pure hatred dripping in her tone. I had to admit this mental break was far worse than any of her previous episodes. I chalked up another reason to loathe my father. He managed to turn the woman I spent my life taking care of, regardless of the hardship, into my worst enemy overnight.

“She already has better than me, Mom. She has Win. If anything happens to her, he’s going to level the city. He’s going to burn this facility to the ground. You won’t have anywhere to go, and there is no place Dad can hide. Just tell me where she is, and we can end this as peacefully as possible.”

It was hard to remember she’d been so happy not that long ago because she was finally allowed to have visits with her granddaughter. Whatever was happening inside her head was so harmful. It was so frustrating how the switch flipped so suddenly, and that I didn’t know how to reverse it.

“You killed your baby. You’re a murderer, Channing. Your father just wants to keep Winnie safe so you don’t hurt her. You can’t be trusted.” She pushed a bunch of papers in my direction. “Sign these papers. You’re an unfit mother.”

I gave a brief glance at the different legal documents and felt my heart freeze. Her words cut me to the bone, and her accusation made me feel like I was dying. I was sick and tired of having my most vulnerable moment used as a sword for others to stab me. I was never going to forget my baby was gone. I was never going to forgive myself for not being able to do more, and for not making better choices. It felt like a physical lashing to have the woman I sacrificed so much for berate me with the same accusations I leveled at myself in my lowest moments.

“Ouch. I see you’ve heard Dad’s version of events from that night. Interesting that you’ve never asked me what happened when I lost my baby. I didn’t think you even remembered I was pregnant. You’ve never mentioned it before.” I laughed out loud and shoved the emergency guardianship document back across the table. “Win is Winnie’s guardian. Not me. Even if I wanted to sign that, my signature is worthless.”

The lawyer chuckled and tapped his pen on the table. “I know. I also know Win will listen to you if you tell him the only way to guarantee Winnie’s safety is if he signs the agreement. Neither of you are fit to be her guardian. Your father took the girl for her best interest. He was doing his best to protect his granddaughter. I can prove you’ve alienated her and mistreated her for years.”

“You’ve both lost your minds. You should never have let my father convince you to get involved in this. He kidnapped his granddaughter. You’re both going to be accessories to his crimes. He doesn’t want custody; he wants the right to get his hands on her inheritance. This is all about money. And even if Win lost his mind and agreed to this, her actual father wouldn’t. You’ve been scammed.”

The rumpled lawyer shrugged and tapped his pen on another contract. “Fine. We can discuss the custody agreement later.” Even this fly-by-night guy had to realize battling Win and his legal team was a fight he’d lost before it began. So, he turned his attention to the easier prey. Me. “For now, sign this. It gives your mother legal access to all of your assets. Including the account with the ransom money. You’ve kept her hostage in this facility for years. You’ve isolated her and controlled her every move. Consider this compensation for years of neglect and abuse. You owe it to my client.”

The pen tapped a rhythm that was almost hypnotic. I stared at the tip and the words on the contract in front of me blurred together. “Why would I do that?” It seemed as absurd as Win letting go of Winnie.

“Because if you don’t, I’m going to kill myself.” My mother’s words were eerie and chilling. I’d heard her say something similar before, but never with such stone-cold conviction.

My head jerked up, and I watched in disbelief as my mother pulled a boxcutter out of nowhere and held it to her wrist.

My eyes widened in shock, and the federal agent behind me took a hasty step forward. I held up a hand to stop her and watched my mom like she might shatter into a million pieces any moment.

“You brought that in and gave it to her, didn’t you? My father told you to set this up.” It wasn’t a question. There were no dangerous objects allowed in the facility, but they rushed this guy in when all hell broke loose. My mother was always the leverage my dad planned to use to get what he wanted.

“No comment. I suggest you sign everything over before the situation gets out of hand and you live to regret your choice.” The slimy lawyer looked so smug it made me want to vomit .

A thin line of blood lifted on my mother’s thin wrist. I had flashbacks to all the times I stepped in to stop her from hurting herself when I was younger. I was always willing to do whatever it took to keep her safe and to stop her from harming anyone. Except for me. I let her injure me repeatedly because I always understood she didn’t mean it and couldn’t stop her illness from affecting everyone who loved her.

I reached out to stop my mother, but she just dug the razor deeper into her skin. I heard the agent responding to someone as she stepped out of the room. The doctor hovered at the door, unsure if he should intervene because of all the law enforcement involved. It was obvious by now my father wasn’t going to show. He wanted me to make my mom the executor of my estate, and once everything was transferred to her, she would turn right around and send everything to him. She had no awareness of just how horribly she was being manipulated.

“If I sign those papers, these people are going to arrest you, Mom. Dad’s going to take the money, and you’re going to pay for his crimes. What if something terrible happens to Winnie? You hate me so much right now and have no trouble calling me a murderer, but you’ll be the same if she dies because Dad is a greedy asshole. Do you want to go to prison, Mom? Can you try to see through the fog he’s pulled you into? Do your best to remember how everything was before he came back and messed everything up when he started toying with you. I know you don’t want to hurt yourself or Winnie.”

The lawyer tapped the papers with his pen again. I could see he was getting impatient. He was sweating more than when I first arrived, and he appeared to understand how inane and ill thought out this plan was. If I didn’t sign anything, he wouldn’t get a dime.

There was enough blood that it was dripping on the table, and I was getting lightheaded. Annoyed, I grabbed the pen from the creep and scrawled my name on all the pages of the contract. I didn’t have any of my own money. I was barely making ends meet when Win and I got married. While I was with him, I never needed to pay for a thing. He provided all that I needed, in more ways than one. I got a decent salary from Alistair, but it was far from the windfall my dad thought I was hoarding.

“I’m not giving you the password to the account with the ransom money until you tell me where my niece is and I know that she’s safe. There will be no further negotiation on the subject. Mom, stop. I did what you wanted.”

“I need access to all your accounts. And you need to transfer all your property and your assets from Halliday Inc. into your mother’s name.” The lawyer kept pushing his luck, and I could see the gluttonous gleam in his eyes.

I scowled and tried to snatch the razor from my mom. She kicked back her chair and rose to her feet. I recognized the unhinged expression on her face. She was no longer in reality. It was anyone’s guess if she was still seeing me or the lawyer, or if she was envisioning us with monster heads breathing fire. She hadn’t had an episode this bad since Willow died, but I couldn’t blame her. The stress from this mess my father caused was enough to make me feel like I was losing my mind, and I was the only sane person in my family .

“I don’t have property. Or anything to do with that company.” I spoke flatly and kept trying to get close enough to my mom to grab the boxcutter.

The lawyer snorted. “You own a brownstone in the city. You own an apartment in Rome and a property in Spain. There’s also a condo on the beach in Hawaii. You own five percent of the shares in Halliday Inc., as well as several of its subsidiaries. You also have an as of yet unnamed business of which you have complete ownership, but is listed as a partner of Halliday Inc. You are also listed as one of the board members for a newly established charity directly headed by Winchester Halliday. None of these assets are included in your marriage agreement. I won’t tell you the lengths I had to go to in order to obtain a copy of that document.” He gave me a creepy grin and looked overly proud of his underhanded methods. “If you divorced today, you’d see a windfall. You’re an incredibly wealthy woman on paper, Ms. Harvey. At least you were.” He tapped the paperwork I’d scribbled my name on in a condescending manner. “We don’t need the password since we have this.”

Win.

The man gave me more than I deserved. More than I needed or wanted. Definitely more than I could ever give him back. However, the only thing he handed over that I was determined to keep was his heart. I was still shocked he trusted me enough to put it in my hands. The least I could do was let him hold mine for a little while. I needed to adjust to having someone close enough to touch my deeply hidden wounds so he could start to heal them .

I wanted to get the razor away from my mother. The trained professionals could do their thing and get Winnie’s whereabouts from the lawyer. He had to be guilty of something, and someone was going to jail today, even if it wasn’t my father.

Just as I grabbed my mom’s arm and called for the doctor to hurry, the sound of a helicopter blasted from overhead. I watched in horror as my mom’s expression shifted, and her face became a paranoid mask of fear. She screamed, “We’re under attack,” and lunged at me. I fended off her flailing arms and felt the edge of the razor on my cheek. I heard the federal agents and medical staff move from where they’d been stationed. It was a tangled rush of bodies trying to get into the room, all while my mother lost control at an alarming pace. I was worried the feds might take aggressive action to get her to drop her weapon, so even though I was terrified I kept my body between her and the excited swarm of people fighting to get in the room and screaming about who was in charge of the situation.

“Die! You need to die! Everyone should die so we can be with Willow.”

I didn’t want to hurt her, but dodging the flying razor was getting harder.

“Mom! Stop!” The helicopter sound got louder, and I heard more activity in the building. I yelled for the doctor, pleading with him to get a sedative to get my mother under control.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I wondered if there was another bride anywhere on earth who was nearly killed by both her mother and mother-in-law within the first year of marriage. It felt like a particularly specific punishment for a crime I didn’t even know I committed.

The scummy lawyer did his best to slip away unnoticed, but my armed companion stopped him and started reading him a legal riot act. I watched him get handcuffed and hauled away as I rolled around on the floor. The razor skimmed over the top of my ear and a trickle of blood trailed across my cheek and into my mouth. I hated everything about this scenario. I felt guilty, but I was also enraged that she could come undone so quickly after all the effort and time I’d put into helping her figure out how to be independent and mentally stable. This uncoordinated wrestling match made me feel like all the care I gave to her over the years was worthless.

The doctor finally rushed into the room and did his best to subdue the older woman. I sat, panting, on the floor, my face bloody and my heart broken as my mother folded and deflated, the weapon in her hand falling next to her like a harmless decoration. Her eyes were glassy, and she stared at the ceiling like she was waiting for the now silent helicopter to burst through the building.

The doctor went to pick it up but was stopped by one of the authorities. When they said it was evidence, I realized how much trouble both of my parents had gotten themselves into. My mom might escape the charge of being my father’s accomplice, but she wouldn’t be so lucky when it came to her trying to take my head off.

Win dashed into the room, looking like a movie hero. He was very disheveled, and smelled like a pirate, but I’d never been so happy to see anyone.

He took one look at the blood on my face and the temperature in the room dropped fifty degrees. He pulled me into his embrace and whispered, “I found Winnie. She’s fine. Everything is going to be all right.”

I nodded because I needed to believe him. I trusted him. If he said things were going to be fine, then they were. I was so thankful that my niece was okay that my knees went weak. I would’ve fallen to the floor if he wasn’t holding me up. “My dad?”

Nothing would be okay until that menace was out of our lives forever.

Win shook his head as he searched around for something to hold against the slash on my cheek. He was pissed at the feds and the doctor that they let me get beaten up and did nothing to stop it because they were too concerned about which agency had the proper means and authority to contain the situation

“No word on where he is yet. I’ll get the lawyer to talk. He won’t get away with this. I promise.”

Someone found him a towel that he held to my cheek. He kissed me on the top of the head and muttered soothing words under his breath as he started to guide me out of my mother’s broken sanctuary. I couldn’t begin to wrap my head around what I was going to do with her and felt devastation flood my tired bones. I should have hated her, but I didn’t. Because when she was better, these recent events would be nothing more than a nightmare.

“Win, I lo –” The shaky confession was cut off by my mother’s weak voice .

“Your dad is hiding out at the old bakery where I used to work. He’s friendly with the new owners. They let him stay in the storage room when he needs a place to sleep. He’s waiting there until I transfer him some money, then he plans to stowaway on a shipping boat that’s headed to Costa Rica. If he did anything to my granddaughter, I’m going to murder him.”

I watched as her eyes drifted shut and the lucid words faded away. Win hugged me closer as he told her unmoving form, “Thank you.”

I wrapped my arms around his waist and pressed my bloody cheek to his chest without a care that I was leaving a mess all over him.

“Win. I love you, too. I loved you before I found out about the condo in Hawaii, the shares of that awful company. I love you despite all that stuff.” I felt his heart pound against my wound. “I haven’t figured out how to be your wife, but if you give me a chance to learn, I will. And for what it’s worth, I know you’re already the perfect husband. I just need to catch up.”

“I’ll wait for you.” They were more than just words. He’d proven more than once that he would stay while I found my way back to him. He gave me the home I’d endlessly searched for without me having to ask him to do it. He proved to me I was anything but common because he loved me, and he wanted me more than his family fortune. Win Halliday would only ever give his heart to someone as extraordinary as he was. I liked the version of myself I saw through his eyes, so much more than the one everyone else saw .

All along I’d given him the one thing I was never able to relinquish to somebody else. My trust. Ultimately, that’s how I knew I was in love with him.