Book #3 of the series is also completed and available on my profile! The story is set five years after the end of Obsessed. I wrote this book for Halloween, so please check it out if you like Dark Romance. I'm including Chapter 1 below!

The Liar's Wife (Book #3 of the Obsessed Series)

Chapter 1: Asylum

July 2017

Adam leaned against the side of the dust-covered pickup truck with his arms folded across his chest, squinting against the orange-red glare of the sun as it sank low in the sky behind the lonely rural railway station. He glanced down at his watch. 6:52 PM. The train must be running late. His foot tapped impatiently. He had places to go and people to see, he thought to himself with a little laugh. He should have sent someone else to pick up the new nanny, but he’d wanted to check her out for himself before bringing her back to the house.

The nanny agency had sent over her paperwork last week. Amy Sutton: 50 years old, with 30 years of childcare experience. Sounded promising, but they all sounded good on paper. How many had he gone through now? He looked down at his hands and started counting on his fingers. Four? No five. He knew the drill by heart at this point.

The rumble of the approaching train reached his ears at last, and he started moving toward the single platform as the train pulled in with a screech of brakes. He watched as a grand total of four people got off before the train sprung back into motion again. Two men, a woman who looked closer to 80 than 50, and a girl. She wasn’t the one he was looking for, and she wasn’t particularly pretty either – not in any conventional sense. Her mouth was a touch too big for her face, and her smile was a little crooked with a slight gap between her two front teeth. But something about her face arrested his gaze for a moment. Her skin was fair, without a single speck of makeup. Her eyes, rimmed with pale lashes, could have benefitted greatly from a sweep of mascara. But it was her hair that caught his attention. It fell just past her shoulders in a thick, wavy mass – flaming red with streaks of orange and gold, an exact replica of the color of the sun setting behind her.

Adam sighed in frustration. The nanny must have missed the train. He turned to go back to his truck when he heard a voice call out after him. “Hello? Mr. Levine?”

It was a deep voice for a woman, with a raw throaty edge to it. Had he missed her somehow? He spun back around, scanning the platform again for the source of the voice. The redhead had a piece of paper in her hands now and was looking down at it before raising her eyes to meet his. “Are you Adam Levine?” she asked.

He cringed internally. Just what he needed, he thought. A fan girl.

“I don’t know,” he responded, bracing himself for the inevitable teenaged squeal. “Am I?”

“Ummm. I guess not?” Her forehead wrinkled in a confusion. She went up on her tiptoes and craned to see past him, looking out toward the otherwise empty parking lot. “You don’t know him, do you?” she asked. “He was supposed to meet the train. Adam Levine?”

Adam stared at her for a moment. She really didn’t know who he was?

“Are you the nanny?” he asked, examining her face again as she nodded. At least he wouldn’t have to fire this one for selling pictures to the tabloids. She was so young, though. “What are you, 12 years old?” he asked.

“I’m 22. Didn’t the agency send you my paperwork?”

“Must have been some mix up.”

“So, you are Mr. Levine, then?”

He started to say yes, but caught himself, a half-smile twisting his mouth. It was too tempting – the urge to escape being Adam Levine for just a little while. “Nah,” he said. “He just sent me to pick you up. I’m—“ he paused, casting about for a believable lie, “I’m the gardener.”

“Oh,” she said. “This place must have quite a staff.”

He shrugged. “Yeah, well, you know these Hollywood types.”

“I thought we were in Idaho.”

He laughed. “Yes. We are in Idaho. Adam moved here a few years back to get away from the media.”

“Is he famous?”

“You might want to look him up.”

“Or you could just tell me who he is.”

“Or we could just get in the car,” he said, taking the suitcase out of her hand and leading her toward the pickup truck.

She climbed into the passenger seat beside him, and they pulled out onto the empty country road. He switched on the radio and twisted the dial to the only station with halfway decent reception, recognizing the melody of an old Tears For Fears song through the static:

And I find it kind of funny.
I find it kind of sad.
The dreams in which I'm dyin'
Are the best I've ever had.

I find it hard to tell you
'Cause I find it hard to take.
When people run in circles,
It's a very, very…

Mad world.

She watched out the window as the scrubby landscape rushed past, and her eyes came to rest on the only visible structures – a complex of two story buildings set back about 100 feet from the road, surrounded by a high fence and a padlocked gate.

“What’s that?” she asked the man who was humming along to the music beside her.

“That’s the old asylum. It’s been shut down since the ‘80s.”

She craned her neck back to look at it as they drove past.

“Trust me. You don’t want to poke around in there,” he added.

“Why not?”

“Oh, you know,” he said, glancing at her for a moment with a smirk. “Bloody Face might getcha.”

She gave him a blank look and watched as his smirk turned into a grin, bringing out dimples in each of his cheeks.

“Sorry,” she said, feeling like she was missing an inside joke. “I’m not from around here.”

“Yeah, neither am I.”

She looked away from him and back out the window. She wasn’t going to like this gardener, she had a feeling. He was wearing an old concert t-shirt and a pair of ripped jeans, and he looked like he hadn’t shaved in a few days – his face was covered in a thick layer of stubble that was just about a days’ growth away from what would pass for a beard. His arms were wiry but muscular and covered in tattoos. She didn’t usually go for the inked up bad-boy type, but there was something boyish about the dimples in his cheeks when he grinned that softened the hard edge. There was no denying the butterflies she felt in her stomach when he flashed that smile at her, but there was something about him that made her uncomfortable. She had the weirdest feeling that he was making fun of her, somehow.

“Seriously though,” he said, pointing back over his shoulder with his thumb at the old mental hospital. “The place has been abandoned for 30 years. It’s a real hazard.”

“OK. Whatever.”

They drove on in silence again, and she realized she had yet to see another car pass in either direction. This really was the back of beyond. They’d been driving for a good 20 minutes now, and she wondered just how far from the little railway station they were going. She was about to ask him when he turned the wheel and pulled the car into a long unpaved driveway, flanked on either side by vines growing wildly in a tangled, impenetrable mass for as far as the eye could see.

“What are those, potato plants?” she asked.

“No, grapevines.This place used to be a winery.”

She gazed at the landscape for a long moment, feeling unsettled by the disorderly overgrowth. “I can see why they need a gardener,” she said.

He chuckled. “The boss likes to keep things a little scruffy.”

“So is Mr. Levine at home right now?”

“You’ll meet him soon enough.”

“And Mrs. Levine?”

“Not in the picture.”

She nodded.

The house came into view, and she saw that it was smaller than she had anticipated. It was a white clapboard farmhouse with the paint starting to peel. He pulled the truck up to the front walk and got out of his side without further comment, before walking around to the passenger side and reaching to take her suitcase from her again. She held onto it with both hands as she stepped down clumsily. “I can manage, thanks.”

She had started walking toward the house when he glanced back into the passenger seat. “Hey, you forgot your book,” he called after her. He opened the car door and picked up the tattered paperback, glancing down at the title. Jane Eyre. Figures, he thought. He could’ve pegged her for one of those buttoned-up Victorian types.

He grabbed the book and jogged it over to where she stood waiting on the house’s front stoop.

“Go ahead, the door’s open,” he said as he handed it to her.

“Are you coming in?”

“No.” He turned and started heading back toward the truck. “The baby-sitter’s inside. She’ll show you around. Adele's probably down for the night already.”

“OK,” she said to his retreating back. “Thanks for the ride.”

“Nice to meet you, Amy,” he tossed back over his shoulder, flashing her one last disconcerting grin. “Welcome to the madhouse!”

“My name’s not Amy!”

He stopped walking and turned around to look at her again. Nanny agency to the stars, huh? What a joke. “Sorry,” he called back to her. “What’s your name then?”

“Jane.”

He laughed, a brief ugly bark, and threw back his head to look up at the sky for just a minute. Jane. Another Jane. Of course they would send him another Jane. Without responding, he turned back around and headed for the truck, opening the driver side door.

“Where are you going?” she called.

Good question, Adam thought. That was another truth he’d rather set aside for just a little while, but there was no escaping this particular reality.

“Gardening!” he shouted, gesturing toward the acres of twisted vines with one arm. “Didn’t you see the state this place is in?”

He slammed the car door shut and turned the key in the ignition. No, that was another lie, and not even a believable one. Where was he going? The same place he’d gone every day since he’d moved to this godforsaken place in a desperate attempt to take refuge from the prying eyes of the adoring public.

“Where am I going?" he muttered to himself. "I’m going to visit my wife.”

***

Hold up-- WHAT??? Where is Jane? Don't worry, she's still a major character in the book, but you won't find out where she is until Chapter 4!