Forever With You

by Laurelin Paige

  I'd been so protective of Alayna, so jealous of any other man in her presence, that even after I was sure Jordan wouldn't come on to her, I thoroughly double-checked his background myself before selecting him.

  In the years following, Jordan had proven himself over and over. Eventually I stole him away from his security firm and gave him free rein to start a team of his own. The more time we'd spent working together, the less sure I was of the facts on his resume. It stated he’d been special ops, trained in the Navy, had specific high-level computer coding knowledge—if those items weren’t true, he certainly had the skills to fake it. The rest of the details on his resume were what I questioned. That he was given the name Jordan Black at birth. That he had grown up in Omaha, Nebraska. That his parents were named Hannah and George. I wasn't even sure if he was actually gay or he'd just said that to deter Celia.

  But I was sure I trusted him.

  He was the only person outside our family who had access to the penthouse. That meant he didn't have to buzz in when he arrived on Saturday morning, early. He texted when he was on his way up, and I went to the foyer to wait for him.

  "I don't need to ask if you got any sleep," he said, looking me over. "If I hadn't been up all night with you on the phone, I'd be able to read it all over your face."

  "Hello to you too," I said dryly. “Let's take this to the library." I didn't have to tell him I wanted to hide our meeting from Alayna, if possible.

  Unfortunately, we weren't quick enough crossing the hall.

  "Good morning, Jordan. It's a little early for company. Should I be concerned?" She pulled the top of her robe closed as she stared into me. Brett, still in pajamas, chattered away in her mother’s arms. Behind her, Holden pushed his walker while Mina cheered him on.

  "Of course not, precious," I answered swiftly. Smoothly. "Routine security updates. Weekends are the best time to get those things taken care of, and you know Jordan's an early riser."

  She glowered. "I suppose this means that we're doing breakfast without Daddy, kids."

  I winced. It was eight fifteen, and on Saturdays the nanny didn't come in until ten. Even with the cook taking care of meal prep, the children would be a handful. I felt guilty leaving Alayna alone to deal with them, but reminded myself that I was thinking of her first and foremost, whether she was aware of it or not.

  And I saw no reason why it would be helpful for her to know.

  "Can we have pancakes?" Mina begged as the crew headed toward the kitchen. “Can I help make them? I can stir!”

  "Oh, yes, that won’t be messy at all." Alayna’s sarcasm was evident. She called back over her shoulder. "I am not getting you coffee, so don’t even ask."

  "I already brewed some," I called back, glad I'd at least done that.

  Jordan gave me a disapproving smirk.

  But who was he to judge? I was ninety-five percent certain he wasn't married.

  Or... at least seventy-five percent certain.

  We went to the library, and I shut the French doors. As an extra precaution, I locked them too. Silently, we headed past the sofa and the lines of bookcases that housed Alayna's collection, to my desk by the windows. I opened the top drawer and pulled out the envelope and photo I'd received the night before, then carefully handed them to Jordan.

  “The handwriting looks like the others,” he said, putting on his gloves before he took them from me. I hadn’t gloved up before opening the envelope myself, but had only touched the corners as soon as I’d realized what I was looking at. I didn’t imagine there would be any prints, but I wanted nothing left to chance. "This is all there was?" he asked.

  "The photo was wrapped in a blank sheet of paper. I have that too." I retrieved the blank paper by the corner as well and passed it on.

  Jordan pulled a Ziploc bag from his jeans pockets, and secured the items I’d given him inside. He scanned the room, his gaze landing on the shelves. He selected a random book, one with a tall spine and wide cover, then tucked the bag inside.

  "Mind if I borrow this?" he asked facetiously.

  "By all means." Hopefully, Jordan would slip out without encountering Alayna again, but in case he didn't, the photograph would now be hidden from her view. Why he was borrowing classics at eight in the morning on a Saturday was a question I’d leave him to answer.

  "There won't be any fingerprints. There haven't been on any of them. But I'll see what I can find out," he assured me, confirming my suspicions.

  I nodded. “The doorman said for sure that it hadn’t been hand delivered?” We’d been over this already, but I wanted to hear it again. I’d texted Jordan on the drive to Larchmont the night before and informed him of the situation, so while I was enduring the tedium of another Nash King birthday party, my head of security was interviewing the man who’d given me the envelope.

  “It had been on the counter when Paul Gershwin, the one who gave it to you, arrived. I tracked down Stuart Patton, the doorman on shift before Gershwin, and he swears it came in a bigger envelope addressed to the building. It was enclosed with a menu for a new Ethiopian restaurant and an advertisement for a strip club. Patton threw everything away except the envelope addressed to you, which he left on the door stand counter.” Jordan recited the details without any hint of irritation at having to repeat himself for the fourth time.

  I liked him as much as I trusted him.

  “Damn,” I muttered. “I really thought we had him. If it had been personally delivered...”

  “The cameras in the lobby would have caught him,” Jordan finished for me.

  “Or her.”

  “Or her.” He waited a polite beat before stating the obvious. “This guy—this person—has proven to know you well enough to know you’d never leave the lobby of your building without eyes.”

  I hoped that was true. I hoped that this asshole counted on me forming a very tight protective perimeter around my family. I hoped this asshole didn’t dare try to invade it.

  But if my optimism was in vain, I’d be ready. "How is the surveillance team coming together? Have you managed to fill every position?”

  "Remember, you only asked for the increase last night. But I think I've got all the shifts covered for the next couple of days. Long enough to recruit some boys from the old office. How do you want me to handle the team dedicated to your family? Your wife is going to notice she’s being followed."

  “If they’re good enough to have the job, they should be good enough not to be noticed,” I snapped.

  Jordan stared at me blankly.

  “Oh, don’t look at me like that.” I ran my hand across the back of my neck, trying to relieve the knot that had taken root at the base. "I'm going to tell her. Soon."

  I should've told her months ago. I didn't want to tell her at all.

  "For now, tell them to do their best to hang back. She’s a mother with three kids. She’s usually preoccupied with them. She shouldn’t be too hard to watch from a distance.”

  "All right," he acquiesced. “As for the other thing we talked about last night, I’m planning on spending the rest of today setting up as many interviews as I can.”

  “Good. That’s good.” I didn’t know if I was telling him or myself.

  I brought my hand around to rub at my jaw, the prick of morning stubble reminding me I likely looked as ragged as I felt. Reminding me that it was Saturday morning, and I was supposed to be in the dining room eating pancakes with the kids.

  I had to hand this off to Jordan, had to trust that he would do his job while I focused on my weekend with my family.

  “You know, you have enough cause to bring the FBI in now, if you decide that’s the route you want to go.” Jordan was always serious, but he managed to sound even more somber by suggesting to give another team a job that he’d usually command.

  That was enough to give me pause.

  But involving outsiders meant my past would be looked at as scrupulously as my present. That created more problems than it solved.

 
“No. It’s too messy,” I said, definitively. “You’re as competent as anyone on the FBI’s team. More so. We’ll keep this between us, if you think you can handle it.”

  “I can handle it.” With that, he took his borrowed book, and slipped out of the penthouse.

  I found my wife in the kitchen, and I wrapped my arms around her from behind as she tightened the lid on a baby bottle, hoping she knew that the weak security of my embrace wasn’t the extent of the ways I worked to keep her safe.

  Hoping she never needed to know that she wasn’t.

  "The next one is starting," Jordan called from the couch.

  I finished dumping my cold coffee into the sink, put the dirty mug on the counter, then, with a deep breath and the promise of a scotch later, I headed over to take my place sitting next to him.

  The setup was simple—a live feed recorded in a hotel room downtown, displayed on my computer screen here in the loft. It worked pretty well for the most part. Sometimes the picture would buffer, and all we’d get was sound for several minutes, but the camera in the conference room recorded it all so we could catch what we'd missed later.

  "Thank you so much for coming in," Allison said. She was part of Jordan’s security team, usually assigned to computers, but it seemed she had useful acting skills as well.

  From the angle of the camera and of the door of the conference room, we weren't able to see the face of the person she was greeting until they sat down at the table, and I hadn't bothered looking ahead to see who was on the list.

  There was a certain amount of trepidation waiting for the next interviewee to be unveiled, and for good reason. While I'd always known what I'd done to my victims, it was quite another thing to hear it from their own mouths.

  When this one came onto the screen, I knew immediately the story was going to be one of the worst.

  "Isaac Zucker," Jordan said next to me. "Do you remember what your engagement with him was?"

  Yes, I remembered. In excruciating detail. "He's probably going to be one of the ones you’ll want to pay attention to," I confessed.

  "As I said over the phone," Allison began, "I'm in the process of writing a tell-all book about Hudson Pierce. I want all the dirt, all the scandals. The worst of the worst." She continued with her spiel about a pretend biography she was writing, creating a safe space for Isaac to speak before asking if he could be videotaped—not disclosing that he was already being filmed.

  Isaac was eager to talk. It took him two hours to recite all the details of how I'd picked him out at a Stern symposium years before I'd met Alayna. How I'd invested time and energy and interest in his innovative approach to harnessing solar energy for tech use. He had a multimillion-dollar idea, and I'd courted him, tempting him away from any other offer until it was just him and I on the playing field.

  Then I deserted him. Changed my mind. Told him I didn't think his idea was very good after all.

  It probably wouldn't have been so bad if I had left it at that, but then I had black-balled him, telling all the biggest names in the business that he was an individual who should never be worked with.

  When Isaac had nothing left, no options, no job offers, I'd come back to him and bought up his cutting-edge idea for a measly hundred grand. Then I sat on the patent, and did nothing with it, letting it waste away in a locked file cabinet.

  Those were the facts I knew, but in his interview I also learned the constant up-and-down of his career had caused great tribulation in his relationship with his wife. She’d left him, after he found her in bed with another man. He’d developed a cocaine problem. Been through rehab—twice. He was clean now. All of it, everything, he blamed on his lost career. The life he hadn't gotten. The life he’d deserved, stolen by Hudson Pierce.

  I hadn't forgotten him over the years, but Isaac had eventually quit bothering me about the patent on his idea, so I'd assumed he was past it, had moved on.

  I'd assumed wrong.

  "He's definitely angry," Jordan agreed. "I'll see if I can get a better look at his timelines, perhaps I can match up anything to the dates the letters have been sent."

  I nodded as I pulled out my phone and texted Norma. -Draw up a $4 million payment to Isaac Zucker. Then contact development, tell them to pull his patent and get you a figure for what it would cost to start working on it.

  -Okay.

  A second later she texted again. -This is the fourth such request this week—should I be concerned about your psychiatric well-being?

  If only she’d thought to ask that fifteen years ago.

  -I'll swing by before going home to sign the checks, was all I said in response.

  When I looked up again, the interview was over, finally, and Isaac was leaving the room.

  Jordan reached forward to turn down the volume on the computer then sat back and looked at his clipboard. “I’m crossing Jeffers off the list,” he said, as his pen followed through with the action.

  I rubbed my forehead with the palm of one hand, wishing I could erase the interview we’d just watched. Wishing I could erase the need for the interviews in the first place.

  But I’d been who I’d been. “Marlene Jeffers spent ninety minutes explaining how I ruined her senior year of college by playing head games with her, and you’re convinced she couldn’t possibly be the person threatening me?”

  He shook his head. “It was in her body language. She had been angry, yes. Hurt, yes. But those are old wounds. She doesn’t feel that now. She only showed up to the interview because she’s hoping for a free plug of her Instagram lifestyle profile. Didn’t you notice how she dropped the name over and over? I stopped counting at mention number nine.”

  “Hmm.” He was right—I could see it now that he’d pointed it out. Usually I was good at reading people, at discerning their ticks and their tells. Was I losing my touch? I had barely slept in days—that could be it.

  Most likely my block came from the stakes on the line. When I’d used my skills to predict other people’s moves in the past, it had always been for fun or for money. It had never been to protect my family’s lives.

  It was a good thing I wasn’t doing this alone.

  “Cross her off, then,” I conceded.

  It was Thursday, and this was our third day of this. Jordan had set up the feed in the loft, at least, so that I wouldn’t have to take it apart when I had a meeting or explain it to anyone who came into my office. It hadn’t ended up being an issue since, by Tuesday afternoon, I’d cancelled the rest of my week’s schedule. It was too hard to switch gears from this task to any other, and hearing the twisted things I’d said and done to people once upon a time was gruelling. I felt like I was on trial.

  Maybe I was, in a way.

  Jesus, how much longer could I endure this?

  I held my hand out toward Jordan. “Let me see the list.”

  He handed me the clipboard comprised of all the names I’d given him over the last eighteen months. Every person I could remember who I’d thought might possibly be a suspect. It was a long list. And yet I knew I was still missing so many names.

  “What do the highlights mean?” I asked, noting some had been marked in bright colors.

  “The green are the people who have interviews scheduled. Yellow haven’t called back. Pink declined to meet.”

  “There’s a hell of a lot of pink. How is this going to work if we can’t get one of your people in front of them?” I knew the level of my pessimism was related to the level of my discomfort at the process. I’d renounced my past when I’d met Alayna, but for so many other people, it was still present.

  Jordan took my mood in stride. “People who don’t want to meet are less likely to be our guy. Our guy wants to talk. Our guy wants to shit all over you, and if he or she gets the opportunity, our guy isn’t going to pass it up.”

  All of our best leads were based on profiling, and that didn’t give me peace of mind. I wanted cold, hard clues.

  But this was what we had at the moment, and it hurt lik
e a like a kick to the crotch to admit it.

  “Christina Brooke,” I said, spotting her name highlighted in yellow. “I saw her the other night.” I’d somehow forgotten to mention that.

  “And?”

  I took a breath before I answered, replaying our conversation in my mind, searching for anything in her words or actions that would tell me her motivations.

  “Perhaps this isn’t the time to bring it up, but, seeing you, I feel I need to address the way I behaved with you in the past,” I’d said. “It was inappropriate.”

  She’d tilted her head and twisted her lips questioningly. “You mean the night we fucked each other’s brains out, and Celia showed up? What was inappropriate about that? We had fun. You weren’t with Celia. If she got her feelings hurt, that was on her.”

  “It may have appeared that way,” I’d kept my voice low and quiet. “Yet I had indicated to her that there might be something more between her and I. I betrayed that when I went into a bedroom with you.” Even after years of therapy and saying it out loud many times, it had made my stomach churn to have to admit it to someone else.

  Christina had pondered then shrugged casually. “Not my business. I had a good time, like I said. Did you think I’d care if you were unfaithful? Don’t you know how I feel about fidelity?”

  "I thought I did, certainly," I’d said. "You might've changed your mind."

  Had I learned anything from that encounter?

  “She wants to fuck me,” I said to Jordan, remembering her flirtation, even in front of Alayna, when she’d joined us. “I don’t think she’s ‘our guy.’”

  “Are you sure she doesn’t want to fuck you enough to resent everyone else who has a piece of you that isn’t her?”