“That doesn’t make it real,” the other person says. “That’s nuts.”
As is everything in this world of mine, I think, but thankfully their voices fade, and I cut my attention to the bar. Michelle immediately catches my eyes, giving me a wave while Eddie continues to impress me, by ignoring me. I manage a smile and a returned wave, but all I can think about is my father; with the way he’s managed to remind me that this isn’t my world without even being in this state. Disliking this idea, I hurry forward, entering the art room, where I store my gift for Michelle and my purse. My stomach growls, I can’t chat and do nice right now. I decide to skip the coffee and cookies. My hand goes to my new necklace. Like my mother, I’m not fearless. I’m afraid of being me; the girl who left her best friend to die because the truth is, that is exactly what the press has been saying about me. It’s what my father said as well.
I rip the necklace off and throw it in the trash and reach in my pocket and do the same with the one I got for Megan. I don’t know her. I don’t know what she fears, but I saw the scars on her arms. She earned the right to own them or discard them herself, and it seems I have that to envy.
***
My class is an escape. Students file in and greet me with excitement, and it’s as if a pin has pricked my nerves, and the tension slowly slides away. I enjoy every single moment of the students and the art. I engross myself in the people and the roses I have everyone painting. Truly, painting is a sweet, calming balm for my soul. Too soon it seems though it’s over when Ashley rushes to the doorway and motions for me to hurry. I nod and end class, offering my farewells. I’ve just grabbed my gift for Michelle when Ashley is back. “Hurry. She’s in the back room. She’ll be out any second.”
I hurry forward, following her out of the door, to find a crowd of people I don’t expect, obviously many of them Michelle’s friends. The next thing I know I’m swept into the crush of about twenty bodies and I’m singing Happy Birthday, confetti flying in the air. At some point, I manage to get my gift on one of the half dozen tables pushed together. Michelle is beside herself and as she opens gifts, my skin prickles and my eyes lift to find Logan watching me from the opposite side of the room. His lips quirk and he gives me a barely-there smile, but what makes this smile right and good, is the way it reaches his eyes. It’s genuine. You can’t fake genuine, not with someone like me, who knows fake like I know my own reflection in the mirror.
“Cake and champagne!” Ashley shouts, obviously closer to Michelle than I realized. “I’ll pass it out! Grab a seat everyone.”
The huddle breaks up and it’s only a moment before Logan joins me, his tie at half undone again but tonight he still wears his jacket. “How about we share a table? Unless you’re still angry with me?”
“I wasn’t aware I was angry.”
“You’re always angry with me,” he points out.
“And yet here you stand,” I say, teasing him, though right now, I hate that he’s right. I think I’ve been unfair to this man.
“Yes,” he says softly, those blue eyes twinkling. “Here I am and here we are.” He motions to a table and we sit down to have cake and champagne appear almost immediately.
“I actually bought you something today.”
“Did you now?”
I smile. I can’t help myself. I can’t remember the last time I couldn’t help but smile. No. That’s wrong. I do remember. I was here, teaching my class, absorbed in the world of art. “I did,” I confirm of the gift, reaching in my purse, where I’ve stashed it. I remove the pen and offer it to him. “It made me think of you. I had to buy it.”
He accepts it and softly speaks the word, “Asshole,” out loud before letting out a roar of deep laughter. I like this reaction. It’s genuine like that smile he’d given me a bit ago, but more so, it’s him being ten shades of easy going. He doesn’t bristle. He doesn’t act insulted. He glances over at me, his eyes alight with amusement. “Should I start considering this an endearment?”
After this reaction, maybe, I think. And in a rare reach in his direction, or anyone’s direction for that matter, I say just that, “Maybe.”
His eyes warm, the interest in his stare, warming me, where life has left me frozen, inside and out. He lifts his champagne glass. “A toast to maybe.”
I hesitate when I don’t want to hesitate, not here, not tonight. I just want to relax and enjoy myself. I know that drinking isn’t my issue. I’ve been drugged. I really do know this as fact but it’s hard to let go of what keeps happening to me. Logan arches a brow in question, rooting me back in this world, in his world, at a birthday party, for people who don’t care about my father. Danielle isn’t here. She’s dead. My gut clenches and I shove aside the demons, trying to claw in between me and Logan. I reach for my glass and touch his to mine. “To maybe,” I say, and then, I dare to sip just a tiny bit of the bubbly.
It’s sweet, like this night, and I like it. Like is such a simple word and it feels like an indulgence. I like this place. I like being normal, or at last pretending for just a little while to belong here, or anywhere, really. I set my glass down and study the cake. “I didn’t eat dinner.”
“There’s a great all-night joint up the road,” Logan informs me. “I can take you.”
“Maybe,” I say, smiling. “I might eat too much cake for that to be an option.”
He picks up his fork. “Nothing wrong with too much cake.”
We both dig in and eat while sipping our drinks, the sweet and tangy, along with Logan’s company, a delicious mix. I ask him questions about his patent case, genuinely interested. I manage to drill him about his practice, more on his family, all of which he answers freely, though I’ve backed myself into a corner. He’s an attorney. It’s quid pro quo. He tells. I tell. That can’t happen. He sees this realization in my eyes, as he leans in closer.
“Hailey,” he says, but it’s just then, despite his intense attention that I feel the prickling sensation I know too well. It’s all about being watched which I am far too often. I glance up and my attention pulls right to find Megan sitting at a table with Eddie, staring at us. I glance at Logan. “Apparently, she has a thing for you. It’s becoming an issue.”
He arches a brow. “Does she now?”
“You are not blind,” I chide. “But I need to go deal with this.” I down my champagne and stand up. The minute I do, Megan does the same and makes a beeline for the bathroom. I push away from the table and start walking or rather swaying, as suddenly, the room spins. I stop in my footsteps, shaking my head slightly and I tell myself this is about needing to eat. I’m right on this, I decide when the sensation fades away. I pursue Megan and catch up to her right as she enters the bathroom, clearly baiting me to join her.
I reach for the door and blink away spots. I need food. Did I eat at all today? No. Just cake. That wasn’t smart. I push the door open and enter to find Megan waiting on me. “I saw you staring at my scars.” She yanks up her sleeve. “You want a close up of the freak?”
I blanch at this unexpected attack but recover quickly. “I never even noticed your scars until we were here in the bathroom. And yes, I looked.” I unzip my pants and yank down one side. “This is why. Because I know what caused them. Because it hit home.”
She sucks in air. “Oh, God. How?”
“Car accident,” I say. “My mother died. What about you?”
“Same. Car accident.” Tears gather in her eyes, I now know to be brown. “I was training for the Olympics and I can’t—it was—no one died. It doesn’t matter. I didn’t lose what you did. I’m sorry.”
“It was a different kind of loss, but a loss that was life-changing,” I say, understanding, thinking about losing my mother and my art in one fatal sweep.
Droplets pour down her cheek and I pull her close, hugging her, understanding her but then my vision is blurry and I’m—I don’t know what just happened. I lost time. Oh God. I lost time. Now Megan is gone, and Logan is pulling m
e into my art room, pressing me against a wall, out of the view of the bar. “I know who you are,” he says. “I know who your father is. I know who you are. I know you’re hiding from that book and the loss of your friend.”
Adrenaline surges through me and I grab his lapels. “What do you want, Logan? What’s your price? Because there is always a price, right?”
“Trust,” he says. “Trust me enough to help you carry the secret.”
“How do you know?” I demand. “How did you—”
The room spins. I lean into Logan and I have this moment, when I’m certain he’s holding me close, worried even. I sense him there. I smell his now familiar cologne. I can’t seem to see him though when I know that he’s right here, in front of me. I can’t make the room stop fading in and out until it does. Everything goes dark. Time fades away.
Suddenly I’m back, but now, I’m blinking into daylight. Where am I? What is happening? I glance down and my hand is on the bed—I’m in my new bed—and there is a heavy weight at my back, on my hip. A hand is on my hip and my gaze rockets to the nightstand where I find a gun and a badge. An FBI badge. I eye that hand where it rests on my body, and the watch is familiar. This is Jake. I’m in bed with Jake and I’m fairly certain I have on no clothes. I suck in a slow breath, trying to remember how this happened. I was with Logan. I wanted to be with Logan. There was cake and champagne. I drank champagne, and—no—no, no, no. This can’t be real. Jake was watching me, waiting for the right moment. I was drugged again. Jake drugged me and then dared to take me to bed like this. Anger explodes inside me and I reach for his gun.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Now would be a good time for a confession and not one of a killer, but rather a victim. I know how to handle a gun. Actually, I know how to handle a variety of firearms and quite well. When I was twenty, I was grabbed in a shopping mall by a man who wanted to blackmail my father. Therefore, I am technically a kidnap victim though it lasted all of ten minutes. An armed, off-duty police officer saved me. Needless to say, I was shaken, even more so than I let on to those around me.
At that time, I’d given up my emotional outlet of painting over my mother’s death. Considering I was crawling out of my own head and skin while trying to complete a yoga class, that replacement recreation wasn’t working. I needed something, anything, and I found that in a newly minted friend: Tobey. Well, not actually in Tobey himself, but his surprising obsession with target practice at the gun range, which speaks of his passive aggressive nature few understand the way I do. He convinced me that the firing range, or rather mastery of a weapon, would deliver focus and control that would overflow into the rest of my life. And so, I went along for a visit, and the rest is history.
I became as obsessed with hitting my mark as he was. I still am. Shooting accurately requires the kind of focus that allows nothing else to exist but the trigger and the target. Of course, as far as protection goes on a college campus, and in attendance at a political event, you can’t carry a weapon, therefore, my skills were not useful.
Until that morning with Jake.
***
THE PAST…
With the gun in my hand, I slide out from under the blankets and climb out of the bed. By the time I’ve turned around, Jake has rolled to his back. Ignoring my state of undress, I climb on top of him and the blankets, straddling his hips to point the gun at him. “Wow, sweetheart,” he says, holding his hands up, his green eyes fiercely alert. “What the hell are you doing? And just to be clear, this is not one of my erotic fantasies.”
“You drugged me,” I bite out. “I know you drugged me. I don’t know how you pulled it off but you’re the one with a connection to Danielle. You did this.”
“Drugged? I have no idea what you’re talking about and I never met Danielle. Put down the gun. This is not going to end well for you, Hailey.”
“In case you didn’t study me well enough, agent and slave to my father that you are,” I cock the gun. “I’m an excellent shot with a get-out-of-jail-free card. I could kill you right now, and we both know that my father will just clean up the mess. Hell, your best buddies at the FBI will bury you, quite literally.”
“I’m well aware of your skills or I’d already have taken my gun back. I’m also aware that you didn’t feel you needed it the last time you were naked and on top of me which was only a couple of hours ago.”
“Taunting me right now,” I promise him, “is like begging me to kill you.”
He grabs the barrel of the gun and my heart leaps to my throat. “Shoot me or give me the gun,” he says. “Decide now.”
“I want to shoot you.”
“That’s a no to shooting me,” he says, and in a blink, he’s rolled me to my back, and somehow, he’s out from under the covers, on top of me. “Don’t fuck with me, woman.” He doesn’t give me time to reply. “I am not your enemy. We established that last night. We’re friends. And I earned that title, remember?”
“Because you gave me an orgasm, if that, since I can’t remember last night? That doesn’t earn you friend status, especially not in DC.”
He narrows his eyes on me. “You really don’t remember, do you?”
“No,” I hiss. “I really don’t remember because you drugged me.”
“I didn’t drug you, Hailey.” He stares at me, his green eyes hard, penetrating and intense, before he abruptly curses, and then rolls off of me, reaching in the nightstand and tossing me an envelope. “My offer of trust, which you already accepted last night. Open it, look at it, and put some damn clothes on so we can talk.” He sets the gun down, grabs his pants, and starts getting dressed.
Unease rolls through me with some vague memory I can’t quite form, and a sense of him telling the truth, but it’s not him I’m remembering right now. It’s Logan, “I know who you are,” he’d declared, right after I’d decided I might actually like him. Right before I’d blacked out and he had access to my drink. Did I go to Jake, to do damage control and end up naked?
“Hailey,” Jake snaps.
I glance over at him to find him already dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, his gun now holstered at his side. Feeling naked inside and out, I sit up, give him my back, needing my feet on the ground. I’m pretty sure the fact that I feel comfortable giving him my back says something, too, but right now: the envelope. I open it, pull out a photo, and suck in air at the sight of Danielle having sex with my father, confirmation of an affair, and what feels like betrayal, that some part of me didn’t accept as real. I drop the envelope and photo as if burned, a wave of nausea coming over me. I push to my feet, grabbing a robe from the chair, and pulling it on, even as I rush to the bathroom. Oh God. I’m so very sick and I don’t even try to shut the door. It’s all I can do to land on my knees in the right spot before I heave over the toilet. I’m recovering, gripping the seat when Jake appears kneeling beside me. “Water?” he asks, handing me a bottle.
“I’m not drinking anything you give me,” I murmur, shifting to rest against the tub, my back against the cold surface. “Why would you show me that?”
“You wanted to know what was covered up that night,” he says. “You wanted to know I was with you, not your father.” He squats in front of me. “Are you sick from booze or that photo?”
“Does it matter?” I ask, defensively.
“I am many things, most of which this job has made me, Hailey, but I don’t get naked with a drunk or drugged woman. You were neither of those things last night. You were as coherent as you are right now.”
I hug my knees to chest, pulling the robe to my ankles. “Considering I just threw up, that isn’t a statement that supports your case.”
“Is this how you felt the night Danielle died?”
“According to the newspapers, I was stumbling all over the place. That also doesn’t fit your description of me last night.”
“But you don’t remember?”
“Does it matter now?” I ask, not about to admit what I’
ve been told not to admit.
“Were you drunk the night Danielle died?”
“Do I need a lawyer, Jake? Is this an interrogation?”
“Danielle’s dead, and her killer is in jail,” he says. “I’m trying to understand your blackout last night. How much did you drink then and now?”
I shove fingers through my hair. “I’ve drank three times in my life. Two times with Danielle. Once with you.”
“You didn’t drink with me,” he says. “Not a drop. Tell me what you remember about last night.”
I look up at him. “I remember the first few swallows of champagne. I don’t remember drinking more than a glass. I’m not a drinker. I was fine and then I wasn’t.”
“You’re telling me you’ve drank three times, and each time you blackout?”
“Yes, but you know this. That’s why you—”
“What I know,” he says, “is that this is medical. Most likely—you’re allergic to alcohol.”
I blanch. “What?”
“This isn’t a professional observation, Hailey. I have a buddy, or did in college, that had the same issue. He saw a doctor. Google it. It’s a real thing.”
“No,” I reject. “That’s impossible. You can’t be allergic to alcohol.”
“You can. It’s a known phenomenon. Rare but known.”
“No,” I say, rejecting this idea yet again, clinging to the one thing I’ve been certain about in all of this. “Danielle drugged me,” I push back. “Someone who knew what she’d done to me in the past drugged me last night. That means you. Someone told you. Maybe she told you.”
“That didn’t happen. Any of it. Not where I’m concerned.”
“Then what did? How did I even end up in bed with you?”
He offers me his hand. “I’ll fill in the blanks. Including the naked parts if you like, or we can just repeat those.”
A Perfect Lie Page 22
