A Silken Thread - Brenda Jackson [75]
“Did you receive a text message containing photos?”
She frowned. “No, at least not that I’m aware of. I was out of the room earlier, without my phone.”
“Mom, check your messages.”
She heard the anxiety in his tone. “Brian, what’s going on? What’s wrong?”
Wilson heard the anxiety in her voice as well and crossed the room to stand beside her, giving her a questioning glance. She shrugged her shoulders.
“Just check to see if you received the photos.”
She removed the BlackBerry from her ear and saw she had one message pending. Pictures for Erica’s special day. She clicked on the caption and what flashed before her eyes almost made her drop the phone. “Oh, my God!”
“Rita, what’s wrong? What’s going on?” Wilson all but screamed and caught her when she almost lost her balance.
Instead of answering she covered her mouth with her hands and shoved the phone at him. He took it and saw what she’d seen and nearly gasped. He recovered his voice to ask in a deep, thundering sound, “Who the hell sent these?”
She couldn’t find her voice to speak. Instead she dropped down on the bed when her head began spinning. Brian had seen them. She could imagine what he was thinking.
In her frantic state she heard Wilson speak into the phone. “Brian, who sent those pictures?”
Hearing Wilson Sanders’s voice was like a knife to Brian’s gut. He had wanted to believe a mistake had been made. Someone had used some sort of trick photography. Anything but what the photos conveyed. Now he knew no mistake had been made. Erica’s father and his mother were together even now in Japan. Sharing the some hotel room. The thought of what they’d been doing was like a kick to his stomach. The man was married. His mother had allowed herself to be pulled into an adulterous relationship.
“Right now it really doesn’t matter who sent them, Mr. Sanders. What matters is that besides me, Mom and you, those photos were also sent to Erica and Mrs. Sanders.”
“Damn.”
“I tried calling and couldn’t reach anyone. I don’t know what’s going on and whether or not Erica and her mother have seen the photos. They were attending Erica’s first bridal shower today.”
He drew in a deep breath and then asked, “May I speak to my mom?”
Wilson glanced over at Rita, saw the look of shock and pain in the depths of her gaze. “Brian wants to talk to you.” He handed her the phone and she took it.
“Brian?” she said in a shaky voice. “I—”
“No, Mom, please don’t say anything now. There’s nothing I want to hear you say right now. I’m going to continue to try to reach Erica and if I don’t get her tonight, I’m going to catch the next flight out of here to Hattersville.”
“I understand. Tell Erica…” She drew in a deep breath and glanced over at Wilson. He was holding her free hand in his. “I guess there’s really nothing you can tell her from me, is there?”
“I doubt it. Good-bye, Mom.” He then hung up the phone.
Wilson pulled her into his arms and she cried onto his chest. “Shh, everything will be all right.”
She pulled out of his arms and glanced up at him. “No, everything won’t be all right. Somehow we have to fix this. You need to leave and go home right now. Your family needs you.”
“No, I won’t leave you this way and—”
“No, please go. You need to be there for them.”
“And what about you?”
Rita knew that was a question she could not answer at the moment and wondered if she ever would be able to do so.
Chapter Twenty
“How is she, Dr. Cobb?”
Ralph Cobb looked into Erica Sanders’s distraught face. He’d always thought she was a lovely girl, and hated the fact that her mother would stop at nothing to manipulate her life.
Dr. Cobb shook his head. He had reached the conclusion that Karen Sanders had to be one cold and uncaring woman to use her daughter the way she intended to use her to get what she wanted. And Karen was willing to do just about anything to achieve her goal.
He had a good mind to tell Erica the truth but knew he could not. In that sense he was a coward. He knew Karen