“I want you to disappear until I nail the party nomination.”
“What does that even mean?”
“Rudolf has arranged an apartment in Denver for you to stay at with plenty of money in your account, and a cover identity using your mother’s maiden name. You’ll leave now.”
I’ve wanted an escape from Washington, thus why I’d chosen Stanford, but the idea that I might have lost that opportunity, along with the one here twists me in knots. “I’ll go,” I say, eager to get out of this room to make a phone call. I stand up and head for the door.
Just as I’m about to disappear into the hallway, he says, “Hailey.”
I turn to look at him. “Yes?”
“Leave the past in the past. Move forward and do it quickly and quietly. Understand?”
No, I whisper in my mind, but I say, “Yes, father.”
I exit his office with this feeling that I will never be back, which is crazy. Of course, I will, unless my “drug dealer,” whoever that might be, decides I’m next to die.
***
I climb in the car with Rudolf behind the wheel. “I need to go by my place and pack.”
“You can shop in Denver,” he says, as if nothing I own is personal enough to matter.
“I’ll be gone for months,” I say. “That will be expensive.”
He eyes me in the mirror. “Good thing your father is a rich man. We can’t risk the press getting a hold of your location and following us.”
I don’t argue. If my father wants to pour money down the drain, so be it. If he wants me to go to Georgetown, he can forget it. I’ll go to Stanford, and once I’m in Denver, I’ll put in for a scholarship. I keep my mind on my plans and Stanford, because it’s easier than thinking about all the other horrible things my father said to me. I’ll deal with those when I’m alone, in Denver.
I sink back into the leather seat, and I don’t allow myself to replay the conversation with my father. I won’t let my mind go to the many places it could go if I let him take me there right now. I pull out my headset and I turn on my music, repeating the words in my head. When we finally stop, we’re at a private airport. At the steps leading up to the plane Rudolf hands me an envelope. “Everything you need to know when you land is inside. The address to the apartment you'll call home. An ID with your mother's maiden name. Your cover story. A bank card with that new name on it. And a deposit of ten thousand dollars in your new bank account.”
I frown. “I need a fake ID and a new bank account? Am I in witness protection or just laying low?”
“There is a reason movie stars use aliases. Once someone puts the face with a name, for instance, at the bank, the press is alerted. The idea here is to give them time to refocus on someone else.”
“Can I use my phone?”
“Yes, but it would be advisable to keep your location private and communication limited. Exclude all things about Danielle which I would argue will be easier, if you give it some time. Take a step back, Hailey, and breathe. If you run into trouble, you call me immediately.”
“Why not Jake?” I ask, seeking a solid link.
“I don’t know Jake. I don’t want you to talk to Jake. You call me. Understand?”
“I guess my father doesn’t connect the dots between minions,” I say. “But okay. I’ll call you, not minion number two, Jake.” I start to turn, and he catches my arm.
“Who the fuck is Jake?”
“Ask my father,” I reply, pulling away from him and walking up the stairs.
I enter the cabin, a typical small private jet, and walk past the random seating area to sit in the back. I buckle up and I turn my music back on. I half expect Rudolf to follow me, but he doesn’t appear. It’s ten minutes later when we start to taxi; clearly, my father was eager to get me in the air.
Once we’re there, and I’m thirty-thousand feet up for the second and last time today, I let myself have a real thought. I don’t analyze the photos or why I was alone with some man I don’t know. The bottom line here is that I don’t have to look for answers anymore.
I’m a killer again. My father said so.
PART TWO: THE MIDDLE
CHAPTER NINETEEN
HAILEY ANNE PITT
My mother’s maiden name was Pitt, which made her Caroline Beth Pitt before she married my father. On some level, even before arriving in Denver, I knew that becoming Hailey Anne Pitt would connect me to her in ways I’d long ago disconnected. Ultimately it did more than rekindle old memories. It changed me. She changed me, and ultimately—ironically, considering she was everything good and light in my life and I’d been forced to embrace everything dark and wrong—it would be my dead mother who opened my mind enough to find the truth in that sea of lies. And she who would give me what I needed to keep from being eaten alive by the sharks. That sounds profound and even touching, but don’t let that fool you. It was that connection to my mother that also taught me to kill or be killed.
***
THE PAST—DENVER, CO…
It’s not until seven p.m., when the plane is landing, that I open the envelope Rudolf gave me on the other side of the flight. Inside I find exactly what I was promised: a new version of my driver’s license with the name Hailey Pitt on it, and I don’t ask how my father made that happen. This is my father. There is also a detailed outline of my cover story, which has me working for an art dealer. I ball my fingers into a fist and shove that part of the package back in the folder. Moving on, I find a debit card with my new name and a deposit slip indicating a ten-thousand-dollar balance, along with a note:
Some things are better left alone.
—Your father
In other words, me. I’m better left alone. The wheels to the plane hit pavement and I key the apartment address into my phone and then shove all the paperwork back in the envelope. Once the doors open, I’m on my own. There is no Rudolf waiting on me, and for that, I’m happy. I’m also somewhere around sixteen or seventeen hundred miles from Washington, not by accident I’m sure, and it’s unlikely I’ll be recognized.
Embracing that freedom, I don’t bother to cover-up, but when I reach the taxi station outside the airport, a cool breeze lifts off the Rocky Mountains. My jacket, of course, is in my suitcase back in Washington. Luckily, I snag a car quickly and dictate the address I’ve been given to my driver, an old man who tries to ignore me, which makes him just about perfect. It’s a full forty minutes before he pulls us into what my phone GPS says is our location. He halts in front of a house that is in a nice, cozy neighborhood.
“Are you sure this is it?” I ask.
“That’s the address,” he assures me.
“It’s supposed to be an apartment.”
“It’s a house,” he says, as if I can’t see that.
I frown. “I need to make a call,” I say. “I’ll pay for your time.”
“You’re paying,” he says. “I’m staying.”
I dig for Rudolf’s number and then key it into my phone. “Trouble already?” he asks dryly.
“You said that my new residence was an apartment,” I say, “but the taxi has taken me to a house.”
“Did you try the key I gave you?”
I check the envelope for the key and find it, but that’s irrelevant. “I wasn’t going to stick a key into a strange house when you said apartment. You said—”
“It’s a house,” he repeats. “Anything else?”
My answer is simple. I hang up and the driver looks at me in the mirror. “Problem?”
“No,” I say, “but can you drive me around the surrounding areas, so I can get the lay of the land?”
“If you’re paying,” he says again. “I’ll drive where you want to go, honey.”
“Thanks, honey,” I say, because my mother would want me to check his “honey” with mine, and I am officially a Pitt right now.
He doesn’t reply, but he puts us into drive. I study the view out my window and find a quaint
area, with houses surrounding rows of galleries, stores, restaurants, and salons. There is a gym a short walk away, and even a mall, movie theater, library and finally, a Whole Foods. Obviously, this location was chosen to try to confine me to a small space in this country we call the good ol’ USA. I could rent a car, but why? I have everything right here.
I check my watch and have the driver drop me at the mall, where I pay him to wait. I have just enough time to hit a couple key spots for a few clothing items, as well as toiletries. Next stop is a twenty-four-hour grocery store just a short drive outside of my neighborhood, then finally I’m back at my new house. I stick the key in the lock and open the door to my new life as Hailey Pitt. Just putting the name Pitt next to mine threatens a flashback that has me swallowing hard. I don’t think about that night. It’s too brutal. The steel. The blood.
Shoving aside those thoughts, I flip on the light and take in the shiny dark hardwood, a stairway in front of me with industrial-style black railings that are sleek and modern. To my left is an open concept living area with a kitchen and built-in island that is a cream-colored stone. Everything is pretty much all cream and browns, with all the normal high-end expectations that come with what I suspect is a million-dollar house. Obviously, my father wanted me a) secluded from watchful eyes an apartment ensures and b) feeling cozy enough to stay a while.
I set all my bags by the door, lock up again, and note the security system that doesn’t appear to be armed. Grabbing my kitchen items, I head that direction, unpack, and take a bag of chocolate with me—otherwise known as all three meals of the day. Once I’m loaded down with my bags, I hurry upstairs and find a number of rooms, but the master is my focus. It takes me three trips, but it’s not long until I’m settled into a spacious bedroom with a four-poster bed, sitting area, and of course, a giant bathroom awaits me, with a walk-in closet. I unpack, sort, and end up sitting on the edge of the claw-foot tub, just listening to the silence. The sound of being completely alone, my proof that I was always alone. It’s just more obvious now.
I think that this is like Tobey potentially being gay. I should be upset, but I’m not. Accepting what was obviously always in front of me is rather liberating. The man in my life is likely gay. My best friend who likely drugged me not once, but twice, is dead. My father hates me. I could go on, but what’s the point?
I grab my purse and the envelope that is on the bathroom counter, before exiting to the bedroom and settling into the cushion of a fluffy gray chair in the corner. I set my phone on the chair and open the envelope, pulling out my new driver’s license that reads Hailey Pitt. The name that is really my mother’s cuts through me and I try to picture her, with all her pale blonde beauty, but I cannot. I grab my wallet and stick the license inside and in doing so, thumb to a photo inside.
I drop my purse to the side of the chair and stare at the image of myself standing with my mother and her father, my grandfather Pitt. My mother was gorgeous and my grandfather, tall, lean, and brilliant, like her, or rather her like him. He was a brain surgeon renowned for his skill in the medical world, and his hatred of my father. Ironically, he died in a car accident three years before my mother. I’d wanted to be a doctor because of them, and then I didn’t.
I flash back to the night my mother died, and for a moment I am in the car. It’s after the impact and those moments when I first come back to reality.
My chest burns. My head spins. Every part of me aches with the impact of the car with another car. I look at my mother, steel sliced into her body, and I don’t scream. It’s not real. None of this is real. I need to prove it’s all one big nightmare and I lean forward and press my hands to her chest, warm sticky puddles consuming my hands. I lift them and stare down at the blood on my hands, so much blood.
I snap back to the present and drop the photo, tunneling fingers through my hair and standing up. And there it is. The reason I decided I was better suited to be a cold, calculated attorney. That night was the reason. I pace for several moments, or maybe it’s minutes even, I don’t know, but I need to do something. I need to just do something. I’m coming out of my own skin. I grab the envelope I’d taken from my father’s office and pull out the photo of me getting into a car with some strange man helping me. There is only one person who I can think of that I could actually ask about him with any chance of a real answer, and a limited risk of it backfiring. There is only one person who might know. One person who could shut down all my fears. I walk to the chair and grab my phone, punching the redial on Jake’s number.
He answers on the first ring. “I saw you on the news.”
“As did the rest of the world,” I say. “Did my father pay you to sleep with me?”
“I’m an FBI agent, sweetheart,” he says, his tone less than amused. “I’m not on your father’s payroll.”
“Yet,” I say, “if he becomes President—”
“He has a long way to go to claim that title.”
“Few would dare to say that.”
“I’m fairly certain we passed niceties when we took our clothes off.”
“Getting naked with someone means nothing,” I say. “So said you in a power play before we took our clothes off.”
“And the fact that it didn’t scare you says something about you.”
“What does it say?”
“What indeed,” he replies giving me nothing.
“If you don’t work for my father, why tell me that some things are better left alone?” I ask.
“Why indeed,” he says this time.
He says those words as if I should know what they mean. As if we’re winking over a secret he’s covered up for me or because of me and I don’t like it. “Who was the man who helped me get into a car when I left the bar?”
“I didn’t see you get into a car,” he says, “and why are you asking? You don’t remember who you were with?”
“I don’t remember him,” I reply quickly.
“I guess I should be flattered you remember me,” he replies dryly.
“I wasn’t drinking the night I met you, nor do I drink in general.”
“Right. Just that night.”
“I don’t drink,” I repeat, “and that night, I was—” I stop myself from uttering the word drugged.
“You were what?”
“I wasn’t feeling well.”
“Good thing we caught the killer and you made a friend at the FBI. That kind of answer would have turned you into a suspect.”
“Are you a friend Jake?”
“As long as you let me be a friend, Hailey.”
“All right then, friend. You said that if I needed help, to call you. I can’t afford some sudden tabloid scandal. I need to know who that man was.”
“You don’t need to know. Stirring up trouble where trouble no longer exists creates a problem for those who don’t like to have problems.” He softens his voice, a low warning rasping in his tone. “Listen to me and walk away from this, Hailey. If you struggle to follow this simple instruction, come see me. I’ll give you something else to think about that won’t get you in trouble with anyone but me. Now hang up.”
I hang up.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Silence is only golden to those who want to shut you up. I was fine with the silence Jake proclaimed necessary, if not in so many words. I just wanted to be in on the secret. No, not just. Danielle’s death was at the core of this secret and if my gut was right, I knew I was, too. I needed answers and if Hailey Anne Monroe couldn’t hunt them down, then Hailey Anne Pitt, would. Once she convinced the world, she was just a girl, being just a girl.
As if I could ever be anything but my father’s daughter.
***
THE PAST—BECOMING HAILEY ANNE PITT…
I wake my first morning in Denver with a mission: Convincing those watching me that I’ve moved on from that night in Austin; giving myself space to find answers on my own. I decide the best way to do this is to appear busy a
nd working toward goals that support my father’s run for President. That means I need a job, an internship perhaps, but how I pull that off without a real resume, I’m not sure this idea works for me or my father. Not if I want to avoid bad press. First things first, though, I need my life fully set up here. I shower, throw on the sweats, a tee, and sneakers that I bought in a rush the night before, and I head to the mall.
I spend several hours shopping before I head home with a MacBook and a full wardrobe, including interview attire. I even do it all without being recognized, which is as liberating as being alone, without surrounding myself with placeholders to make me feel better about it. I’m Hailey Pitt now and as long as the world watching me believes this, I’m free, at least for a time, and far more than I would be by simply changing my law school choice from Georgetown to Stanford. This privacy is something I want to guard, to lavish inside, for me, not my father. Which is exactly why I google ways to search for recording devices, downloading several apps that declare me clear of watchful eyes. It’s not full-proof, but it’s better than nothing. For extra safety, I call the security company and activate the system installed in the property.
Next, I settle down with a cup of coffee I’ve made with the Keurig that came with the house, which has me curious about who owns the property. Living by my mother’s favorite saying of “better safe than sorry,” I setup my computer and then dig deeper. Two cups of coffee and a protein bar later, I can finally satisfy my curiosity. I type in the address of my rental and find it is owned by Newman Wright Investments, which leads me to nothing interesting. Apparently, they own a vast expanse of properties in the Denver metropolis, which means rental properties. And they cater to executives that travel, which explains the fully furnished property. At least one mystery is solved without incident, and I’m assured the homeowner won’t be surprising me with a visit. Still, I email the leasing company’s name to myself to be safe. A woman, especially one in my circumstances, should know the local people involved in her life.
A Perfect Lie Page 13
