Page 35 of The Next Mrs. Parrish

Rough hands are pulling on me and I try to open my eyes, but it’s like they’re sewn shut. I hear voices yelling, chaos all around me. Finally, I come to and there’s a police officer standing in front ofme.

“Ma’am, are you okay?”

I look around. Jax is gone from the enclosure. But then I see Amber holding him. And the girls, Bella crying, Tallulah looking angry, standing with Jackson and Amber a few feet away. My eyes keep trying to close.

“What’s happening?” I can barely get the words out and I sound different to my ears.

Amber’s face is red. “I’ll tell you what’s happening. You got high again, and your kids almost drowned. The tide took them way out and a lifeguard had to get them. And you left my baby all alone.”

“That’s not…No!” I struggle to stay awake but feel myself falling back into the abyss. From what seems like a great distance, I hear their voices. Snatches of conversation.

“Officer…not first time…. problem with alcohol…swore she was clean.”

I open my eyes again, and Jackson is standing over me. “Did you mix your antianxiety meds with alcohol again?”

“What? What are you…”

The officer gives me a look I don’t like. “We need to call DCF. The children will have to come with me.”

It takes everything I have to snap out of this feeling of sinking.

“Can I come with them?” Jackson asks.

The officer shakes his head. “I’m sorry but until the Department of Children and Families clears you, they’ll have to stay in mycustody. You can meet us at the station if you like.” He turns to me. “Ma’am, maybe you should get medical attention. It can be dangerous to mix alcohol and drugs.”

Alcohol and drugs? What is he talking about? I try to stand and fall back into the chair. I call over to the girls, “Sweeties, I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened.” I still speak as though I have marbles in my mouth. Am I having a stroke?

Jackson stands in front of them, shielding them from me. “You need to get to the hospital. I’ll go to the station and wait for DCF.” He turns to the officer. “Can you arrange for someone to take her to Norwalk Hospital. I can call her friend Meredith Stanton and have her meet them there.”

“Yes, I’ll call someone.”

I don’t want to go to the hospital, but I can hardly speak. “The girls?”

“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of everything.” Then he smiles at me. It’s the same smile he gave me when he had me committed twelve years ago. I try to think but my brain isn’t working right, and it’s like I’m stuck in quicksand. My eyes close again and everything goes black.

– 21 –

AMBER

Amber left Jackson at the police station where he was waiting to meet with someone from the Department of Children and Families to see about bringing the girls home with him. Jax’s constant babbling was on her last nerve and the first thing she did was call for Chloe to take him. She hated noise, and now she’d have twomorenoisy children running about. At least Chloe would do most of the heavy lifting if that came to pass. And anyway, Amber would be gone in a few days. She’d have to make the best of it while she was still here. Tallulah wouldn’t be a problem—she and Amber had formed a tenuous bond over the girl’s desperation to be in touch with Jackson. It would be fun to lord that over Daphne and even help to sabotage Tallulah’s relationship with her mother before Amber left. It had always irked Amber how loyal those little brats were to Daphne. Unfortunately, Bella was most likely a lost cause, but then again, Jackson had told Amber how taken she was with little Jax. She could use that to her advantage. The more she thought about it, she could probably turn them both against their sainted mother. Especially now that it appeared as though Daphne had gotten drunkandhigh and put her own children’s lives at risk.

The plan had come fully together a few days ago. Jackson had spotted the Klonopin in Daphne’s medicine cabinet during one of his many visits to her beach house. Nosy as he is, he counted them and saw only one had been taken. That didn’t surprise Amber—Daphne had always been such a boring straight arrow. Thecombination of pills and Beluga vodka, which Jackson said was so pure and smooth that it tasted like water, did the trick. Once she drank the drink he’d laced, it was less than half an hour before she was passed out. In the meantime, Jackson had let the girls take the paddleboard out past the swim buoys and toward the public beach. He’d timed it so that the tide was coming in and the water would be deep where they were. Amber, parked a short distance away, ran down to the beach as soon as she got Jackson’s text, and she sat on the sand with Jax. Jackson stood out of sight of the lifeguard watching Tallulah and Bella paddleboarding. The day was windy, and when it became obvious that the girls were tiring and having a hard time getting in, Jackson ran to the lifeguard and yelled for help. Once they were safely onshore, Jackson told the lifeguard that their mother was supposed to have been watching them. Amber was the one who called the police. Not only had Daphne let her own daughters almost drown, she told them, but the woman had left Jax unattended on a blanket next to her. Amber used her best sobbing voice to explain that when she arrived, poor baby Jax was almost in the water. Amber had played her part beautifully and Jackson had given her back her passport. But before she started a new life abroad, she had some scores to settle. If she didn’t, Amber would spend the rest of her life looking over her shoulder, wondering who was out there trying to destroy her. By the time she was through, Daisy Ann would rue the day she ever declared war on Amber. She would be sorry she hadn’t left the past in the past.

Jackson was keeping his end of the bargain to help her get back at Daisy Ann, and his financial expertise had come in handy as they formulated the next plan together. After some extensive research into Daisy Ann’s company, Amber had discovered that even though it was privately held, stock had been issued. The Texas Secretary of State website listed only two current stockholders, Daisy Ann Briscoe, who held 70 percent, and Wade Ashford, who held 30 percent. Why did that name sound familiar? When she typed it into Google images, a man in his late sixties with a ten-gallon hat and a roundcraggy face populated the screen. She remembered now. He had been a friend of Daisy Ann’s father, Jake. Amber had actually met him at the café in Gunnison when he’d come to Colorado to meet with Jake on business. This was before she and Jake were a couple—when she was still a waitress there. But after they were married, Jake confided to Amber that he no longer had respect for the man. When she’d pressed him for a reason, he wouldn’t say—Jake was not a gossip. But curiosity got the better of her when she overheard Jake terminate his business with Ashford. She’d wondered why. Wade was as rich as Jake, and the two of them had planned to buy a development together. So, Amber tearfully confessed that when Wade had been in town, he’d hit on her quite aggressively and she’d had to fight him off. It was a total fabrication, of course, but it enraged Jake and he then told her the reason for his antipathy. And what a reason it was. And now little Daisy Ann was in business with the man. She supposed Jake had died before he was able to warn Daisy Ann about him. Amber was going to do some digging and if she was right in what she suspected, Wade would be her first line of attack in getting back at Daisy Ann.

As for the disintegration of their marriage, Jackson had agreed to tell everyone it was her idea. That she wanted to move on. He would get his half of the diamond money as soon as they completed her plan of revenge against Daisy Ann. Jackson didn’t know about the three diamonds she’d kept in reserve for herself. They would bring another six million, according to Mr. Stones’s assessment. Jackson and Amber were meeting with the lawyer to set up the shell company that would act as Amber’s front. Once that was taken care of, she’d follow through with the second part of the plan and go to where her immediate future beckoned. Dallas.

—

Hours later, Jackson arrived at home with the girls in tow. At Amber’s instruction, the cook had prepared a feast of fried chicken, mac and cheese, milkshakes, and double fudge brownies. Tallulahand Bella were quiet as they followed Jackson into the house. Amber pasted a sad expression on her face and embraced Tallulah, then a stiff Bella.

“My dears, what a traumatic day this has been. You must be starving. I’ve cooked up all your favorites.” She texted the nanny to let her know the girls had arrived, and moments later Chloe arrived with Jax in tow.

Jackson gently pushed them toward her. “Go on, girls; Chloe will get you settled. I need to talk to Amber for a minute.”

He and Amber went into his study.

“Where’s Daphne?” Amber asked as he closed the door behind them.

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