Down and Dirty

by Taylor Holloway

  My dad rolled his eyes at my attitude.

  “Don’t start with me about Angelica. Look, you need to leave,” my dad said. “Seriously. You have to go. Take Jenna and get out of town. Tell Ollie to run, too.”

  “What the hell dad?” I snapped, “I came here to try and reason with you like an adult, and I find out you’re marrying Angelica? Did you suffer a head wound? We have to do something to fix this. We can do the right thing if we work together. It doesn’t have to be like this.”

  My dad just shook his head again. His mouth was set in a stubborn line and his eyes were hard. He wasn’t going to tell me anything. He wasn’t going to help. If anything, he’d probably call Skylark as soon as I left. This trip was a waste of time. Still, I was glad I’d tried. I’d never forgive myself if I hadn’t tried.

  “Fine,” I told my dad, “I’m going. Enjoy your new bride. Try not to get murdered by her on your honeymoon. Oh, and please don’t knock her up? Get the snip or something. Another heir is the last thing this family needs. Especially one that’s mixed with Angelica.”

  I walked out of the Durant Mansion in a daze and then made my slow, careful way back to the hotel, careful to take several false turns and routes on the train. No matter how much I tried, I couldn’t get the sight of my father and Angelica out of my head. It haunted me. As funny as it had been at first, the idea got more and more disturbing as the shock wore off. By the time I got home, I felt ill.

  29

  Jenna

  Harley looked at me from deep within her Elizabethan collar cone of shame and whined pitifully when I picked her up from the vet. Her tail thumped against the side of her crate and then abruptly stilled when she didn’t see Nicholas with me. I hadn’t realized until that moment that a dog could look betrayed.

  “I’m so sorry, honey,” I told her. “I know I’m not the one you wanted to see. You’ve had a rough couple of days, huh? I’ll take you to Nicholas.”

  At mention of his name she rose reluctantly and followed me out of the crate. Her belly had been shaved for the surgery and it looked absolutely ridiculous. I gave her lots of snuggles and pets on the ride home, but she continued to look embarrassed and violated. She curled up against me in a rare display of affection and let me scratch up under her collar. Harley was clearly grateful to be out of the crate.

  I could sympathize. Nicholas had texted that his route home was going to take longer than he anticipated because he thought someone might be following him, so I had happily agreed to pick up Harley. Besides, I really needed the fresh air.

  When Harley and I returned to our hotel room, Nicholas was there to greet us. I knew he’d be home because Harley started wagging her tail and pulling on her leash as soon as she smelled him down the hall. Harley, as dramatic a dog as I’ve ever met, walked over to him and collapsed at his feet in bliss.

  Nicholas was just as overjoyed to see her. Despite the still-healing surgical scar on her abdomen she demanded no fewer than ten minutes of belly pets before Nicholas was allowed to do anything else. They rolled around on the floor like it had been months and not hours since they’d seen one another.

  “Should I give you two another minute?” I asked sarcastically when I returned from the bathroom and they were still greeting one another enthusiastically.

  Nicholas looked up at me as Harley licked his cheek and smirked.

  “Jealous?” He asked me, raising an eyebrow. “I wouldn’t have thought you’d be the type.”

  “I’m not jealous of your dog,” I said firmly, although of course I sort of was. I settled primly on the hotel room’s uncomfortable little sofa and rolled my eyes. “I just want to hear how your meeting with your dad went.”

  Nicholas rose up off the ground and sat next to me. Harley jumped up on his other side. The little couch was a tight fit for all three of us, but Nicholas didn’t seem to mind being wedged in the middle.

  “Not great,” he answered, still scratching behind her ears. “Not only does my dad not seem to care that Durant Industries is producing chemical weapons, he’s apparently marrying Angelica Hunt.”

  “Wait,” I gasped, “the Angelica Hunt?”

  “I guess? I don’t think there’s more than one,” he replied despondently.

  “Huh,” I managed, trying to wrap my brain around the idea. “Wow.” Shock had rendered me totally inarticulate.

  Angelica Hunt was one of a Philadelphia’s more famous residents, but not because people liked her. Ever since the video of Angelica letting her husband choke to death hit the internet, not to mention her protracted media circus of a murder trial, she had become the sort of punch line that late night comedians and internet trolls used as a slur against the city itself. As a result, she was disliked even more intensely by locals than she was nationwide.

  “How old is Angelica?” I asked eventually. Nicholas looked pained.

  “My age,” he replied, “thirty or thirty-one. I don’t remember when her birthday is.”

  Details from Angelica’s trial had entered my brain through unwilling osmosis when it was on every channel and magazine cover. But one detail competed for my attention over the more salacious allegations.

  “You know her, right? Your whole families grew up together?” I asked.

  Nicholas nodded.

  “So, someone your same age is going to be your step-mother?”

  He nodded again.

  Another question, one I didn’t want to ask but simultaneously felt compelled to, stuck on the tip of my tongue. Nicholas must have seen it on my face.

  “No, never,” he replied defensively. To his credit, he seemed appropriately offended and disgusted at the idea of touching Angelica Hunt. “She’s always been awful. Also, even if I had been interested, she banged my cousin Alexander back in the day. So, no, too gross.”

  “Eww,” I said, “She had sex with your cousin and now she’s going to marry your dad? That’s super weird.”

  “It’s many things,” Nicholas replied, shaking his head as if he could dislodge the mental image. “Weird is probably the kindest way to describe it. She could be his daughter, which I could probably learn to overlook, except that he knew her as a little kid. Ugh. Let’s talk about something else. Anything else.”

  “Have you heard from Oliver?” I asked hopefully.

  From the look on Nicholas’ face, this wasn’t a better topic.

  “No,” he answered, “hopefully he’s being careful.”

  I cuddled in closer to Nicholas, competing with Harley who was on his other side for attention. He wrapped an arm around each of us.

  “What are we supposed to do now?” I asked. I was asking about our immediate situation, but in reality, I was having doubts about my entire life.

  It felt beyond strange to spend an entire day without logging into the office and checking my email. I’d been digitally tethered to Durant Industries for years and now that I wasn’t it felt uncomfortable and frightening. Like I’d been cut off from my oxygen supply. The constant, 24/7 flow of tasks, news, gossip, and conversation had become second nature to me, and was never more than two taps away. Now all that happened when I tried to log in was an error message.

  Being cut off from my job only made me realize what a workaholic I’d become. I used to have hobbies outside of work, but these days I was lucky if I made it to the yoga studio once or twice a week. The friends that I’d neglected over the years had long since stopped calling. It wasn’t that my mom was just my best friend, I’d realized when going through my phone that day, she was pretty much my only friend.

  Oblivious to my quarter-life crisis, Nicholas answered the question.

  “We have to stay focused on getting the records we need,” he said, “The one thing I found out today that could possibly help us is that my dad is having an engagement party tomorrow at the Ritz. Theresa Morris will be there. I want to try and talk to her. Get her to help us.”

  “Theresa?” I asked skeptically, “You really think she’ll help you? I might as well
sit this one out because she despises me.”

  Nicholas blinked in surprise.

  “Really? Theresa has always been really nice to me. I’m surprised you two didn’t get along.”

  That just made me giggle. Theresa wasn’t really nice to anyone that I’d ever witnessed. She was, at most, civil.

  “Hmm,” I mused, “maybe she liked you because you’re Richard’s son? She does seem to like him. Well, she tolerates his bullshit anyway.”

  “She’s put up with him for nearly forty years,” Nicholas replied with a smile. “That’s nearly five times as long as my mother could stand.”

  “If anyone could access the records without being suspicious, it would be Theresa,” I said. Nicholas nodded in agreement.

  “If Oliver was my father’s right hand, Theresa is his left,” Nicholas asserted. “She has total access to every part of Durant Industries. I only hope she’s going to come down on our side.”

  “You don’t think she’s in on it, do you?” I asked.

  Nicholas frowned as he thought about it.

  “While it isn’t impossible, I really doubt that my dad would tell her the whole truth unless he had to for some reason. Not only do I think she’d object, but he wouldn’t want her in danger, either. They have a very weird, codependent relationship, but there’s a mutual respect going on. He definitely values her at least as much as anyone else he works with.”

  “Are you sure approaching her while she’s going to the party is a good idea? Skylark will definitely be there too,” I told Nicholas.

  “I actually think it’s safer there than it is here,” he replied, “the number of people should help provide some cover. And it’s not like I’m going to actually go into the party and rub elbows with Ryan Quin.”

  I frowned but was beginning to realize that arguing with Nicholas was pretty pointless. He’d already made up his mind.

  “We should get you a disguise,” I suggested, and he rolled his eyes.

  “It’s cold enough that I can wear a hat and a scarf over my face and not attract attention,” he said, “so I’m not sure how necessary a fake mustache and a pair of glasses would be. Plus, I want Theresa to recognize me. I don’t want her to scream bloody murder after all.”

  I sighed. He was right, but I still didn’t like that Nicholas was going to throw himself straight into danger two times in as many days.

  “Harley will never forgive me if anything happens to you,” I told him, wrapping my arms around his neck and burying my face in his shoulder. “Promise me you’ll be careful?”

  “I promise,” he told me, and then a low chuckle caused his chest to vibrate. “I could never let down my two best girls.”

  30

  Nicholas

  I’d been spending way too much time lurking in parking lots lately. I was getting disturbingly good at standing patiently in the shadows behind pylons, not that it was any especially skilled task. Lurking was more of an endurance event—especially in the middle of winter.

  At least I had the good sense to leave Harley with Jenna and wear a suit instead of popping out with a wolf in my mountain hermit attire. That way, when Theresa saw me, she didn’t scream or instantly go for the handgun I knew she kept in her purse.

  “Nicholas?” she exclaimed in wide-eyed whisper, “is it really you?”

  I nodded, and Theresa slung her arms around me, sending us both flying backward a few feet. She was surprisingly strong.

  “Where have you been?” She admonished, pulling back to inspect me above her glasses with a comically flustered expression on her face. “You never even called to check in. You could have been dead, and I wouldn’t have known.”

  Theresa was the closest thing I had to a grandmother. Although she was actually closer in age to my mother than either of my long-deceased biological grandmothers, she had occupied that role my entire life. Jenna may have never seen the nice side of Theresa, but it was in there. It might be buried beneath layers of judgment, guilt, and scolding, but it was there.

  “I’m sorry,” I told her honestly, “I never meant to make you worry. Didn’t my dad tell you why I left?”

  She shook her head. I couldn’t believe that she would lie. Just by her reaction to seeing me, Theresa had no idea about any of this. I doubted she had any idea about the weapons.

  “Your father will be so happy you’re home!” Theresa told me, grabbing my arm and attempting to pull me to the elevator and the party beyond. “I can’t say I approve of his engagement to that woman, but maybe you can even talk some sense into him.”

  I resisted her pull, and swiftly changed the subject off Angelica. I could tell that even saying her name would cost Theresa something she’d long refused to openly acknowledge. Going to this engagement party must be killing her.

  “Theresa, he knows I’m back,” I told her seriously. “There’s something really bad and extremely illegal going on at Durant Industries. That’s why I left five years ago. Skylark was trying to kill me over what I found out.”

  Theresa dropped my arm and stared at me in shock.

  “Nicholas what are you talking about?” she demanded, shaking her head in disbelief. “You must be mistaken. Richard would never allow something like that.”

  I took a deep breath. The riskiest part of bringing Theresa into this was her four decades of unwavering loyalty to my dad.

  “Haven’t you noticed how strangely my dad acts around Ryan Quin?” I asked her. “Didn’t you think it was weird that he never looked for me?”

  Theresa looked anywhere but me.

  “I-I thought you two just had a disagreement about something and you needed some time to figure things out on your own. And Mr. Quin? He’s always been a weird one.”

  “Theresa, come on!” I pushed, “You know that Ryan Quin is bad news. He and my father are concealing a program that I found out about five years ago. A program to create and then sell chemical weapons.”

  She looked at me for a long minute in silence before shaking her head. All I could do was plunge ahead.

  “My father won’t raise a finger to stop Quin. Even though they’re willing to kill me, and Ollie, and Jenna.”

  “Jenna Masters?” Theresa interjected with a frown. “She’s involved?”

  I nodded. The displeasure on Theresa’s face when I mentioned Jenna was obvious. Clearly there was no love lost on either side of that relationship.

  “Yes,” I told her, “Jenna and Ollie were trying to help me get the records to prove what Skylark and Durant Industries are doing. Now we’re all in hiding. I haven’t heard from Ollie in days. I’m worried about him.”

  Theresa shook her head again, clearly refusing to believe what she was hearing.

  “Nicholas, you have to be wrong,” she told me, “there’s no way your father would allow something like that at Durant Industries. Your own grandfather grew up with a brother who was blind from the mustard gas used in World War I.”

  I sighed.

  “I don’t understand it either,” I admitted, “I really don’t. But I know it’s true. I know because I’ve seen the records with my own eyes. Please believe me. I’ve spent five years hiding from the truth. I can’t do it anymore. We have to find a way to put an end to this.”

  Theresa swallowed hard. Her expression shifted from apparent disbelief to something more optimistic.

  “Nicholas, why don’t you come with me to talk to your father,” she urged. “We can get to the bottom of this together. Clear up the misunderstanding.”

  “I talked to him yesterday face to face,” I replied, trying not to allow my irritation at my father to bleed into this conversation. “He’s set on this path. You of all people know how stubborn my dad is. You know that he would rather continue down a bad path sometimes than admit he’s wrong.”

  “He’s not a bad person, Nicholas,” Theresa insisted, “Richard has his flaws, but he’s not bad. We just need to talk some sense into him.”

  “I tried. Please believe me, Theresa, I really
did try,” I replied, “He told me he has no intention of helping me. He’d rather let Skylark kill me than put a stop to this.”

  “I don’t believe that,” she said stubbornly. “You’re his only son and he loves you.”

  I’d believed that, too. Once. Part of me still did.

  “Maybe there’s another reason, then,” I admitted, “but the fact is that he won’t help us. That’s why I need your help.”

  Theresa nodded.

  “You’re right. You do need my help,” she told me. “You need my help to talk to Richard. I know I can convince him to stop whatever he’s doing with Skylark.”

  “No, Theresa!” I told her more sharply than I meant to. She jumped. “Please,” I said in a gentler tone, “please, you can’t tell him that you know.”

  Theresa had been staring intently at me, but her gaze dropped back to the ground when I started to plead with her.

  “You might be the only one that can help us,” I said earnestly, “we need you to get the records from the program.”

  “I can’t,” she said in a small voice, “you’re asking me to betray Richard.”

  “No, I’m not,” I answered, “I’m asking you to save me.”

  She looked up at me with a strange, unfamiliar look in her eyes.

  “Look,” I pushed, “why don’t you just look up the records and then decide. If you look, and then find out that there is no chemical weapons program, then I promise I’ll drop this immediately. We never have to talk about it again. But if you look it up and find out that it’s true, will you help us?”

  Theresa nodded her head, and then hung it in apparent defeat.

  “Alright Nicholas,” she said, “I’ll do this for you. I wouldn’t do it for anyone else, not even Oliver, but I’ll do it for you.”

  I handed her a slip of paper with the number of the project that Jenna had found associated with the misallocated revenue and explained about Project Winterspring.

  “You know your father would be much too smart to associate the project with the revenue twice,” she said, “If he were going to hide the project again, he’d do a better job.”