by Megyn Ward
Even though I know from Silver’s texts that Went was in the parking garage this afternoon, the question throws me off balance, confuses me. “What?” I ask him, shaking my head. “Yeah—” I nod like an idiot. “I’m fine.”
“I saw you this afternoon.” He looks at Logan again who’s behind the bar, talking to Conner while he builds a round of shots for the college girls Went let in ahead of me. “You didn’t look fine.”
Jesus, what did he see?
Before I can ask it out loud, Went reads my expression and answers me. “You and the nerd coming out from between the elevator and the stairwell. You looked upset. His glasses were missing and he looked like he just swallowed a sack full of spiders.”
So, enough.
More than enough to completely mortify me. I open my mouth to answer him but he shakes his head at me. “Look—I don’t need a play-by-play. Just tell me what happened was consensual so I can stop thinking about killing him,” Went tells me, his voice held low, probably because he’s just as embarrassed by this conversation as I am. When I don’t answer him, the frown on his face falls into a snarl. “Jane?”
“It was,” I assure him with a jerky head nod. Went is the closest thing to a big brother I’ve ever had and even though he has enough sisters to fill a baseball team, he’s always treated me like one of them. A kid sister, like Delilah. Even still, I’ve never seen this level of protectiveness from him before. “Consensual. It… we—”
“Nope.” He holds out a hand to stop me from explaining further. “That’s as far as I go,” he says with a laugh. “He the reason you’re here?”
“Maybe I came to see you.” Relieved that we’re done talking about it, I give him a wide-eyed innocent look that has him laughing for real.
“Bullshit,” he tells me, reaching out to give my ponytail a playful tug. “I’ve worked here, three nights a week, for more than a year now and you’ve never come here to see me. You come for employee files and job applications—I barely get a hey, Went as you haul ass out the door.”
Because it’s true, his observation stains my cheeks.
He drops his hand and sighs. “Talked to Silver—she said you’ve been acting weird and that the nerd’s been weirder that usual.”
“Logan’s not a nerd,” I say, more defensive than I have a right to be.
Went throws another look over his shoulder, surveying the scene behind him. “Stupid cat T-shirts. Dumb-looking hair. Buddy Holly glasses—” He throws me a smirk. “usually.” He gives me a shrug that practically moves the building he’s leaning against while I blush. “Looks like a nerd to me.”
“You don’t like him.” It’s not so much what he’s saying that leads me to my conclusion, it’s the way he’s looking at Logan while he makes his assessment. Like he knows everything he presents on the outside is a lie.
“He’s hiding something,” Went says, confirming my suspicions. “This whole hapless dork routine he has going is a front. That’s not who he really is—that’s what I don’t like. I like it even less now that I know the two of you are involved.”
Involved?
Logan and I aren’t involved.
We’re afflicted.
By each other.
The past that both binds us together and pulls us apart.
The secrets that shape him.
The secrets only I know.
That’s the truth. Logan and I are afflicted but I can’t say it out loud, not to Went.
Not to anyone.
But I don’t want to lie either.
“And you’ve never found it easier to lie about who you are?” It’s not a question. It’s a gentle reminder that maybe the reason he can see past Logan’s façade is because its one he’s employed more than once in his life. “You’ve never left your past behind and gone somewhere new? Lied about who you are to get away from peoples’ expectations about how you’re supposed to live?”
“I went to college, Jane,” he says, unwilling to acknowledge the clear parallels I’ve drawn between him and Logan. “I didn’t run off and join the circus—and I never lied.” He looks away from me when he says it because as much as he’d like it to be, what he’s telling me isn’t exactly true. “There were a lot of things I kept to myself but I never lied.”
It’s the same thing.
Exactly what he’s accusing Logan of.
Instead of pointing it out, I let it go. Went is important to me. Too important to split hairs over his past behavior. “If you did run away and join the circus, you could be the tattooed man,” I tell him, reaching out to give his bicep a friendly squeeze. It’s like trying to squeeze a watermelon. “Is there anything left that isn’t covered in ink?”
Crisis averted, Went throws his head back and laughs. “Now you sound like my mother,” he tells me. “Wentworth, darling, why must you insist on covering every inch of yourself in those horrendous tattoos?” he says, effecting the haughty, slightly aggrieved tone of Astrid Hawthorne perfectly. “Every time I see you on Page Six, I positively cringe.”
“And then you run out and get another tattoo,” I say with a grin that makes him laugh.
“Pretty much.” He reaches up and takes my hand off his arm to give it a gentle squeeze. “Just promise me you’re being smart—careful with this guy, okay?”
Logan and I left careful a while back.
As for smart… well, I think I’ve proved that close proximity to Logan makes smart impossible.
I catch movement from the corner of my eye and look through the door to watch Conner pull his phone out of his back pocket to give it a look. He says something to Logan before making his way from behind the bar.
Seeing my chance, I take it.
“I’ll be right back,” I tell Went, pulling my hand from under his. Before he can ask me where I’m going, I dip behind him and through the front door that’s wedged open with bar stool, just in time to watch Conner disappear down the hall, toward the bar’s back office.
Weaving my way through the crush of people, past the jukebox and dartboards, I finally squeeze my way into the hallway a few minutes behind Conner. Stopping in front of the closed office door, I drop a hand to the knob before thinking better of it and raising it to knock instead. Giving the door a few terse, hard raps, I step back and wait.
Nothing.
I knock again.
This time I get a muffled fuck off, for my trouble.
Gritting my teeth because I have no idea what I’m about to walk in on, I turn the knob and push the door open, just far enough to wedge my shoulders through the opening. “I’m sor—”
“Not sure how much clearer I can be but let me try—” Gaze riveted to the computer screen in front of him, fingers flying over its keyboard, Conner doesn’t even look at me when he says it. “It’s not possible for me to be any less interested in fucking you. Matter fact, I’d rather stick my dick in a—” He finally looks away from the computer screen and stops short. “Oh.” He lets his hands drop away from the keyboard, his face falling into a frown. “Right.” Flicking another look at the computer screen, he sighs. “Come in—shut the door.”
I’m not sure what confuses me more, the utter lack of puzzlement in Conner’s tone over finding me standing in front of him, or the barely concealed hostility on his face being aimed in my direction.
This was a mistake.
I can see that now.
Coming here. Following Conner. Forcing my way into his personal space so I can ask things about Logan that are none of my business.
Curiosity isn’t your problem, you know. Your problem is that you’re impulsive. You do and say things without thinking them through. Without thinking about how those things might be dangerous.
What Logan said to me this afternoon comes rushing back. Instead of shutting the door like Conner said, I start to shake my head. “Maybe—”
“You’ve made it this far,” he tells me with a brief flash of teeth, too quick and sharp to be considered a smile. “It’d be a shame to los
e your nerve now, Jane.”
He knows.
What I found out.
What I want to know.
Why I’m here.
“How—”
“Shut the door.”
Reminding myself that this is Conner Gilroy—my boss’s brother—and that I’m perfectly safe, I nod my head and ease the door shut behind me. As soon as I do, he reaches up to swivel the computer’s monitor in my direction. On its dark screen are a lot of letters and numbers, rows and rows of them, flashing and moving faster than I can track—computer code. At the bottom of the screen are thumbnail sized images that are revolving and changing, almost as fast as the code.
“I don’t understand,” I tell him. “I don’t—”
“It’s a scrubber program,” he tells me. “I set it up after Logan left MIT. It scours the internet, looks for any mention of him and removes it—everything except the link you clicked. That was a hook—and you swallowed it.”
Conner gives the screen a mouse click and minimizes the window to reveal another one. This one is a full-size screen grab from someone’s laptop webcam.
Mine.
It’s a picture of me, sitting on my couch, time stamped an hour ago. About the same time I stumbled onto the article that linked Logan to the missing MIT coed. “It’s a virus that triggers a worm. The worm mines every bit of personal information you have store on your computer and dumps it into an encrypted cloud file where it waits for me to use it to fuck up your life.” He flashes me his dimples. “Oh, and it also downloads about a million hours of clown porn onto your computer that pops up every time you turn it on.”
I don’t ask why.
I don’t have to.
Conner is a Gilroy—their loyalty is legendary. I’ve witnessed firsthand what they’re willing to do for each other and the people they choose to call family.
So instead of asking why, I ask who. “Who was she? The girl in the article who went missing.”
“Her name was Jenny Wainwright,” he tells me, turning the screen back in his direction. With a few more mouse clicks, he closes the program and shuts down the computer. “She was a computer science major at MIT.”
Was.
He’s said it twice now.
“What happened to her?” I ask, not even pretending to be confused any more.
Conner’s green eyes go dark and flinty. “Is that really what you want to ask me?”
No.
No, it isn’t.
“Did Logan do something to her?”
Something passes over his face. Something that looks a lot like disappointment. “What do you think, Jane?”
It’s not a rhetorical question. Conner expects an answer. A real answer, not one I rattle off just to fill the void or give him because it’s what I think he wants to hear. He wants the truth—the truth as I know it to be.
“No.” The moment I say it, I know I’m right. Whatever happened to Jenny Wainwright, I know that Logan isn’t the one who did it.
Disappointment is replaced by something more complicated. Something that looks like a cross between relief and apprehension. “Then I’m not the one you should be asking.” Before I can do or say anything else, Conner digs his phone out of his pocket and dials a number. “Hey—I need you to take Jane home.” Without waiting for an answer, he hangs up. Refocusing on the computer, he clears the screen and shuts it down. “See you later, Jane,” he tells me, making it perfectly clear that our conversation is over. “And sorry about the clown porn.”
His tone tells me he’s not sorry at all.
Thirty-Six
Logan
Jane left about thirty minutes after she got here. I watched as she followed Conner across the bar and down the hall, telling myself she was probably heading for the bathroom. Heading toward the office for her usual armload of file folders. That whatever she was doing had nothing to do with Conner.
Then Went got a call on his cell and a few minutes later, he’s got Jane by the arm, pulling her through the crowd, toward the bar’s side entrance that feeds directly into the parking lot. Went pushes the door open and pulls her through it, letting it slam closed behind them.
Neither one of them come back.
We called last call about an hour ago. Declan and I take over Went’s usual duty of making sure the women sober enough to drive make it to their cars safely and the rest of the partiers make it into the cavalcade of taxis and Ubers waiting to take them home.
“Where the fuck did Fiorella go?” Declan grumbles as soon as the last of the cars pull away from the curb.
“I dunno.” I shrug, not having to fake the disgruntled tone in my voice. “He left with Jane a while ago.”
Declan nods. Reaches up and swipes a rough hand over his face. Doesn’t ask me Jane who. Doesn’t ask me how or when I found myself on a first-name basis with his administrative assistant. “You can take off too if you want,” he says, offering me an escape route. “I know you’re on overwatch with your brother out of town on business.”
I should take him up on it.
I should go.
Head home.
Check on Silver and the kids before throwing myself in the shower and doing a faceplant in my mattress.
I should.
But if I go home, if I do a fly-by Silver’s place, I won’t make it past Jane’s front door. I’ll plant myself in front of it and this time I won’t be able to talk myself out of knocking on it. And I won’t just knock either. I’ll pound on that fucker. Break it down if she doesn’t answer because something’s been chewing on my guts for hours now. Something nasty and mean, squirming around, ever since I watched Went take Jane out of here, his hand wrapped around her arm like he had every right in the world to touch her.
Jealousy.
So much of it that by the time I’m pulling off my apron and tossing it under the bar, I barely feel human. Out of control and dangerous. Like I could hurt something. Kill it with my bare hands.
All the things I’ve avoided feeling my entire adult life.
I’m halfway out the door, without saying a word to anyone, when my cell buzzes in my back pocket. Pulling it out with a sigh, I check my texts.
Con: We need to talk.
Looking around the bar, I find the security camera he has pointed in my direction and flip it the bird. Three seconds later my phone buzzes again with a series of incoming texts.
Con: It’s about Jane.
Con: And don’t give
me that who’s Jane
bullshit.
Con: She knows
about Jenny.
Staring at my phone, I can’t say that I’m surprised. Not really. Jane is… Jane. I knew she’d find out about Jenny—what happened—eventually. That she’d keep digging because she’s incapable of letting things go.
Because talking about it isn’t going to change anything, I tap out a quick text before shoving my phone back into my pocket.
Me: It’s okay.
My phone buzzes almost immediately.
I ignore it and make my way toward the side door, throwing a half-hearted wave over my shoulder when Tess shouts out a goodbye. Letting the door slam shut behind me, I make my way across the dark lot toward the cluster of parking spots that are blocked out for employees. I can see it from here, blinding white and stuck under the windshield wiper of Tob’s Rover.
An envelope.
Pulling it free, I rip it open and read the note that’s inside.
Looks like you’re still having a hard time
hanging on to your women, Son. I thought I
taught you how to fix that problem.
I don’t recognize the handwriting but it doesn’t matter. I know who it’s from. Wadding it up, I stuff the crumpled ball into the back pocket of my jeans and go home.
When I finally make it home, I pull into the garage to find Went’s G-Wagon parked in the Rover’s spot. Jealousy flares again, a blast furnace of heat souring my gut and I count it a small, personal victory when I pull i
nto a visitor’s spot instead of ramming his ride into a wall.
Instead of the elevator, I take the stairs, climbing them slowly in hopes of dampening the dull, burning sensation that settled into my chest the second I read Conner’s text.
My father knows about her.
Remembering makes it easier for me to keep climbing. To pass Jane’s floor and keep heading toward my own. So does the certainty that she isn’t alone.
I’ll keep the Rover keys like Silver keeps pestering me to. Check on her and the kids in the morning. I’ll wake up early. Maybe take Noah to Benny’s for French toast and hot chocolate before school. Give Silver a break. Settled on a plan that doesn’t involve kicking Jane’s door off its hinges and doing my level best to kill Went, I jam my key into my front door lock and give it a twist.
The door is already unlocked.
Again.
Pulling the key, I palm it and push the door open. Stepping into the foyer, I shut it softly behind me. Take a deep breath and let it out slowly before turning the lock.
When I turn away from the door it’s to find Jane, curled up on the couch, cheek resting on the arm of it like she fell asleep waiting for me.
Thirty-Seven
Jane
I didn’t mean to be here when Logan came home.
To be honest, I’m not even sure how I got here. When Went insisted on following Conner’s orders and drive me home, I told myself I’d just get out of the car as soon as he parked and call an Uber. Go back to Gilroy’s and finish what I started but that’s not what I did.
I chickened out. Let Went walk me to my door and drop a quick, brotherly kiss on my forehead before heading down the hall to knock on his sister’s door. I hurried up and let myself into my apartment before she opened it and saw me standing there.
