I should tell her about Dante, because the thought of him being someone she knew, someone she possibly didn’t want in her life anymore, nagged at me. No, I’d look him up tonight, see what I found out.
Getting him into Midpark…I could do it, theoretically, but I didn’t want to do either if it meant Jaz would be hurt. She’d already been hurt enough lately.
Look at me, trying to be some savior. It was worth a laugh or two.
She worked to unzip her coat, shrugging it off her shoulders. She wore a plain shirt, one that dipped a little too low on her chest—I had to fight my gaze, stop it from automatically dropping there once her coat was off. “So,” Jaz began, leaning forward on the table, “what did you find out? Don’t keep me in suspense.”
I moved my gaze to the windows beside us. The entire front of the diner was a wall of clear glass, allowing me to stare hard at my car just outside. “There’s…it’s not something I found out,” I eventually said, “it’s something you should know, though.”
That puzzled her. “What?”
“You want me to look into Oliver Fitzpatrick.” The diner around us was mostly empty; an old-timer sat on one of the stools near the register, reading the paper—the paper, an actual newspaper—but that was it. It was too odd of a time, which was good. The story I was about to tell was not one I wanted everyone to hear. “We…we have a history.”
Her dark brows furrowed, and even with the quizzical expression on her face, she was gorgeous. “What? A history? Why didn’t you mention it before?”
“I didn’t want to,” I said, biting back my initial response, which would’ve been: because my past is none of your business. “But, I think you should know, in case we run into anything going forward.”
Jaz waited a moment before muttering, “Now you’re kind of scaring me.”
I chuckled at that, even though I shouldn’t. This wasn’t a chuckling matter. “How much do you know about Celeste Chambers?”
“Enough,” she said, her expression changing. “This is about Celeste, not Oliver?”
“This is about the entire Fitzpatrick family, not one of them in particular,” I told her. The waitress came back with our drinks, but neither one of us touched our glasses. “Three years ago, I was a cop. Pretty much fresh out of the academy. It wasn’t long before Celeste Chambers came back and threw this whole town—and the entire fucking country—in disarray.”
A rich white girl, stumbling back home, after being assumed dead? Yeah, that was something the whole nation threw a party for. News documentaries and newspaper articles, so many celebrated her return, and yet, not soon after that, it was like she fell off the face of the earth.
“By the time she came back, her mother had split with her father and married Oliver,” I said. “Celeste inherited two stepbrothers, along with a new house. I was put on her case, mostly because the MPD knew this was the biggest case they’d get in years, that the whole country’s eyes were on us. I was stationed to follow her, inside Midpark High, just in case her kidnapper tried to nab her again.”
Jaz’s lips turned downward. Not a full frown, but the start of one. “But…”
“I didn’t follow her for long. Her…stepbrothers came after me. Not physically, but…” I scratched the back of my neck. “They threatened me, told me I was getting too close to her, even though I was never unprofessional with her. Somehow, they got pictures of Celeste, before she turned eighteen. I ignored their threats, because, at the time, I thought those rich twins couldn’t do shit against me—but I was wrong. My supervisor got word that I might have some unsavory pictures of Celeste, and what do you know—somehow they’d been uploaded to my Cloud.”
“Her stepbrothers did that? Oliver’s kids?” Jaz sounded as if she was having the toughest time believing a single word I said, and I couldn’t blame her. But after what happened to her at that party, she had to realize how fucked up everyone in this town was. The darkness knew no age limits.
Nodding, I added, “I lost my job because of them, but I didn’t stop following them. Unsurprisingly—and shortly after Celeste’s father was found brutally dismembered—I found Zane, Thorne, and Celeste on the run.”
“Wow.”
“I cornered Celeste in a bathroom. My intent was to drag her back to Midpark and force her to clear my name, but…” I closed my eyes, remembering that encounter. “She told me things that…that made me change my mind.”
“So, you let them go?” She sounded horrified.
“I did.”
“What did she tell you?”
My shoulders rose and fell with a sigh. “Something deeply personal. She never had a good life, even before she was kidnapped. The general consensus was that her father had kidnapped her, though that theory flew out of the window when he was found butchered. The blood on Celeste’s clothes when she came back matched her father’s, but she claimed to not remember any of it.”
Jaz’s stare narrowed. “You think she was lying?”
“I think she was protecting someone—maybe two people—who helped her out of a terrible situation the only way they knew how,” I chose my words carefully, not wanting to defend either Fitzpatrick boy. “Things got quiet after that. I assumed Astrid and Oliver tried to go about their lives, that they chose to let their kids go.”
It was a long time before Jaz muttered, “But Astrid isn’t there.”
“And she didn’t leave with her daughter and the twins,” I said.
“Meaning…”
“She either left, or something happened to her that Oliver is covering up. With how his sons were, I can’t imagine that’d be the first crime he’s had to cover up.”
Jaz opened her mouth to ask something else, but the waitress came with my food, setting the plate down with a smile and a quick glance at Jaz. She waited until she was gone before saying, “You don’t think…”
I grabbed a fry, studying it before shoving it in my mouth. “Let’s just say, I don’t think Astrid was the kind of woman who’d ever leave a man with money on her own. I think Nathaniel Chambers left her, and when she was introduced to Oliver, she latched onto him like a leech. Do I think she went off on some long vacation without her husband? No.”
“Shit” was what Jaz chose to mutter next, and I hid my smile behind my burger.
Shit was right.
“I’ve looked her up, and it’s like, according to everything I’ve found, she’s still living in that house, still married to Oliver.” I paused to take a bite of the burger. “Oliver hasn’t said anything about her at all?”
“No,” Jaz said, folding her arms over her stomach as if she was pained to hear this. “Nothing, and when I bring her up, my mom tells me to quit it. She doesn’t want me upsetting Ollie. I think she’s scared he’ll kick us out.”
That made sense, since she and her mother had nowhere to go.
She sighed. “I really just want to know that my mom and I are safe.”
I set my partially-eaten burger down. “I don’t think Oliver would hurt you, or your mother. Now, if his sons were in the house, then I’d be worried for you.”
“But what about the Scotts? When Ollie had his charity event, I heard them talking—”
“The Scotts are another story. Their business is…so well-hidden behind their money, you can’t even walk on their property without their permission. It could be that Oliver is their lawyer on retainer, as he is for most of the families around here.”
Jaz bit her bottom lip. “What do they do?”
I took a sip from my drink before saying, “You’d be hard-pressed to get a straight answer out of anyone. I don’t think anyone in this town knows exactly what they do, so whatever they do, they have to do it well.” I dipped a fry into ketchup. “Do I think the Scotts are capable of hurting someone, someone like Astrid, and making her disappear off the face of the earth?” All I could do was nod.
She looked like she wanted to be sick. “I don’t…I don’t know what to make of that.”
Shr
ugging, I said, “As long as you stay away from the Scotts, they won’t bother you. They’re not like that. Of course, I’ll try to find out what I can, if you still want me on them, but—”
“It’s going to be hard to stay away from them,” Jaz cut in, her dark eyes heavy on mine. “I might’ve accepted help from one of them earlier today.”
I nearly dropped the burger I was in the process of eating, and it took far too long for me to swallow what was in my mouth. “You what? Help with what?” I did not like the thought of Jaz getting wrapped up with the Scotts. The Scotts…they weren’t good people. They were the worst of the worst. Worse than me, definitely.
“Getting back at everyone for what they did to me at that party,” Jaz muttered, frowning.
Getting revenge? She’d accepted help from a Scott to get revenge on those little pissheads? She was digging herself into her own grave without realizing it, if that was true, and I didn’t like the thought of her getting tangled up in their business.
Shit. I’d have to keep on the Scotts, now.
“Jaz…” I didn’t know what else to say besides her name. That was the literal worst idea I thought I’d ever heard, no joke.
“What? I can’t just sit back and let them get away with it. If you hadn’t shown up, if you weren’t working on another case, I…” Jaz blinked, shaking her head. “What could’ve happened to me instead of passing out in your apartment—I can’t just forget that, Jacob.”
That was the first time she’d said my name in what felt like forever, and I couldn’t help how it sounded to me. To avoid the mushy-gushy shit that my mind and body was feeling, I’d just say this: it sounded good. I liked hearing her say my name.
I shouldn’t.
It took me far too long to say, “I get it. I just don’t want you to get hurt.”
Jaz’s full lips—lips I stared a tad too hard at—curled upwards in a smile. “I didn’t think you cared. I’m just a job, after all.” She wove her fingers together, leaning her elbows on the table and resting her chin on her hands. The way she stared at me right then, as if she waited with bated breath for whatever I would say next, made my stomach harden.
She was just a job. Just a client. She wasn’t anything more, and she never would be.
Why the fuck couldn’t I open my mouth and say, yes, you are just a job? Why couldn’t I confirm to her what I’d told her in the past, what I’d thought to myself countless of times? I couldn’t. It was like I was physically unable to, and I didn’t know what to make of that.
I would not start to feel things for this girl, this kid. Just because her appearance gave her a more mature look didn’t make it okay. It was wrong to entertain any inappropriate thoughts when Jaz was involved in them.
“Your silence is telling,” Jaz remarked, her grin growing.
Finally I found my tongue, though I didn’t exactly use it well. “It is not.”
“First, you march in and save me like a white knight, keeping your hands to yourself all night, and now you refuse to tell me that I’m just a job after saying you don’t want to see me get hurt,” she rattled away, looking like the cat that swallowed the canary, as if she couldn’t get enough.
I hated it.
“I know I might be wrong,” Jaz paused, “but it sounds to me like you care.” Those full lips puckered. “Grumpy old Jacob, usually prickly and grouchy, letting his guard down to the sweet, innocent girl he somehow got wound up in—”
“Okay,” I cut in, “I take offense to that.”
“To what part?”
“All of it.”
Me, grumpy? Sure, I guess I could see it. But old? I wasn’t that old. It was like what Dante said all over again—except worse, because…because of who it’d come from.
Even though it was wrong, even though I knew this thought shouldn’t cross my mind, I didn’t want Jaz to think of me as old. She could think of her mother as old, of Oliver Fitzpatrick as old, but me? I didn’t want to be lumped in with them.
I wanted this girl to think of me differently.
I also took issue with how she called herself sweet and innocent. I might not have known her that well, but I knew she was no such thing.
Jaz let out a fluttery sigh, reaching over the table and plucking a fry off my plate. I hadn’t taken a single bite in a while; less than half my food was left, but she didn’t seem to care. She made a big show of chewing it, keeping eye contact with me all the while. “Vaughn Scott is the whole reason I thought to contact you, you know,” she said. “I’ll have to remember to thank him.”
Though I didn’t particularly like hearing about a Scott—probably the same Scott she accepted help from—I found myself asking, “Why?” If Vaughn Scott hadn’t sent her my way, somehow, odds were I still would’ve been hired by Mr. Anonymous, and then I would’ve had to find a way to integrate myself into her life, anyway. I supposed, maybe, I did owe that one a thank-you.
Not that I would ever admit that out loud.
Once she was done eating the fry, Jaz grinned, flashing me her pearly whites. “Because I’m man enough to admit that I like you. I find your bubbly personality refreshing.” Her sarcasm was dry, and she let out a giggle as she lifted her legs, resting her feet on the space on the booth beside me. Her legs were…far too close to mine.
She liked me. I wasn’t stupid enough to think she meant it like that.
Actually, I wasn’t quite sure how the hell she meant it at all.
I glanced at her feet, her shoes only an inch away from my hip, before meeting her eyes. She lost her sarcasm, speaking quietly, “No, I…you’re not like anyone else in Midpark. I didn’t realize it before, but I do now.” She shrugged. “So, yeah, it might be weird, but I don’t care. You’re not a bad man, Jacob Hall, even if you are hella expensive.”
I rubbed my cheek, fighting the smile I felt forming. Her compliments would get her nowhere; I wasn’t sure what she was hoping to accomplish with me, but…
She said I wasn’t like anyone else in Midpark, but she was wrong. I wasn’t a good man, so she was wrong there, too. If I told her the entire truth, that someone else had hired me to keep an eye on her, would she still say those things? I highly doubted it.
I finished eating, ignoring her stretched legs. After reassuring her that I would still keep up my investigation into the Scotts—she was okay with me laying off Oliver for now, if I was sure he wouldn’t hurt her or her mother, which I was—I paid the tab and we left.
The car was mostly silent as I drove her to the Fitzpatrick’s. I had to stop the car a ways away, so the guard on duty wouldn’t see Jaz getting out of my car. It was the same daytime guard as three years ago; he wouldn’t recognize my car, since I’d always been in a police cruiser, but he would recognize me—and having Oliver aware of my closeness to Jaz was something I wanted to avoid.
“Thank you for driving me home,” Jaz spoke, unbuckling her seatbelt and shooting me a smile.
“Just add it to your next payment—” I hardly got the words out before I heard her start to laugh, and I shot her what I hoped was an evil look. “I mean it. I’m not your chauffeur—” I stopped when I watched her lean over the center console, run a hand along my cheek.
Her touch was…way too soft. Knowing how her hand felt on my face was not something I wanted to be aware of.
But then she pinched my cheek and spoke like she was talking to a cherub child and not me, “Whatever you say, Mr. Grumps.” I swatted her away, but it was too late; she was already moving away and hopping out of my car, grinning ear to ear like she’d gotten away with something.
I scowled.
After shutting the door, she turned and gave me a wave before walking off. I watched her go for as long as I could, hating the ghostly sensation tickling my cheek, where she’d touched before pinching me. I tried to shake it off, tried to itch my cheek and give my skin something new to feel, but it didn’t help.
It was like that quick touch had sparked something in me, something I’d been trying to
push down this entire time.
Fuck.
Chapter Eight – Jaz
Friday morning, I gathered the money under my mattress—deciding I was going to slip it into my mom’s purse before school. The car would cost more than that to repair, but it was a start. I’d figure out a way to explain it later.
Luckily, with everything going on with the car, Mom had cooled off after the party thing, our little fight mostly forgotten. I still wanted to talk to her about Dad, but I couldn’t even think about doing it right now, not while I had revenge on the brain. Those bullies would get theirs, mark my words.
Mom wasn’t exactly okay with me walking to school, but I wore her down, saying I couldn’t keep bugging my friends for rides.
Hah, like I had friends. Funny, I knew.
She was also more okay with it because I told her that Bobbi would be coming over after school on Friday to practice for choir. God, Thursday night she could not shut up about it, asking me all these questions, like Bobbi was my new best friend. Moving to Midpark in the middle of senior year kind of negated the whole best friend thing, especially considering she made me switch telephone numbers and drop all social media.
Bobbi was nice, don’t get me wrong, but I wasn’t sure I’d go so far as to consider her a friend.
It was a rather warm day, so I wore a hoodie to school, feeling only a little chilly as I walked. I was in a better mood than I was mere days ago. Maybe, revenge plots aside, things could turn around for me here.
I should’ve known not to think something as optimistic as that.
My locker was open when I got to school, something black stuffed inside it. My legs immediately slowed as I approached it in the hall, and I threw glances around, trying to see if Brittany and her crew were near, or even Archer.
No one, just a sea of faces going about their morning.
I inched toward my locker, unease settling in my gut as I reached for the door and pried it open. Whoever it was had gotten in, maybe with a janitor key, or maybe used their charm to wile it out of the office staff.
Defiant: A High School Bully Romance (Midpark High Book 2) Page 8
