Perfect Paige

by Ines Saint

  Anger left her feeling more in control than the alternating pain, confusion, and denial of the last four months. It felt more like acceptance.

  Her sisters came in then, and silently sat by her, knowing better than to try to comfort her at that moment. Paige swept a tired hand over the papers strewn about the coffee table, inviting them to look at everything that had been laid before her. They’d figure it out on their own, same as she had. Agent Hooke had obviously thought she needed his stupid finger pointing at everything in his pompous way.

  “Why that little . . .” Gracie’s shocked whisper interrupted her thoughts. She was staring at a picture she’d pulled out from the second manila envelope. Paige didn’t want to see any more of it, though. The one she’d ripped up had been enough.

  Hope’s eyes met hers. Paige half-expected her to say, “I told you so,” because she had, in fact, told her so. Instead, she said, “I’m so sorry,” like she meant it.

  And then, two sets of arms were around her. Hope’s perfume smelled of power and control and her grip was fierce, while the weight of Gracie’s head on her chest added new pressure, filling some of the hollowness there. Their familiar embrace made her remember old talks of new days and new beginnings.

  “Are you going to cooperate with them?” Hope asked, bringing her back to the here and now. Her new reality was right there on her coffee table. It was now up to her to decide what to do with it. So much was happening so fast . . .

  “I don’t know. I think I need to. It hasn’t all sunk in and settled yet. But Agent Hooke left before he could explain what the FBI needs me to do.”

  Gracie and Hope exchanged a look before Hope turned to her. “Grandma Sherry, Ruby, and Rosa will explain. It was their idea, although I’m not sure Agents Hooke and Boyd agreed with every aspect of it. I think they were humoring them because the first part of it is very . . . convenient.”

  Hope opened the door and asked the three older women to come inside. She then shut the door in Agent Boyd’s face.

  Chapter 4

  Paige listened to her grandmother’s plan in disgust. “He’s moving next door? Today? The man who handcuffed me, threatened to arrest me, and today basically told me to cooperate or he’d make sure Glenn was prosecuted, and that I wouldn’t be able to get a job? And you want me to cozy up to him?”

  Grandma Sherry calmly shook her head. “You’re looking at it the wrong way, Paige dear. You will not be ‘cozying up’ to him. You will only pretend to look smitten. And he’s moving in because he only has thirteen days to canvass the entire town.”

  Ruby leaned in. “The idea is to whip Glenn up into a frenzy so he slips up or confesses. Think about it. He’ll be furious about the enemy moving in right next door to his kids, and nervous about the FBI closing in on this journal, we hope. Seeing you flirting with Alex will make him so mad he can’t—”

  “Alex? You’re on a first-name basis with him?” Paige interrupted.

  “We’re on a first-name basis with everyone.” Her grandmother shrugged. “And please remember that the end game here is to keep Glenn out of jail, for Tyler and Riley’s sake. Keep your eye on the ball.”

  “Riley and Tyler’s sake, right.” Paige blew a pent-up breath out. “On top of everything else they’ve been through, you now want them to witness their mother making googly eyes at a new man while she’s in the middle of divorcing their father.” This was unbelievable.

  “Hope and Gracie will run interference so the kids won’t see a thing. It’ll only be a series of quick setups. They’re tracking him. They’ll always know exactly when Glenn is set to arrive, and everyone will get into place. It’s simple. Like a play,” Rosa explained.

  Paige could see Agent Hooke wanting to avail himself of the apartment next door. Not only would it give him unfettered access to the town, but people would automatically trust him if they believed Sherry, Ruby, and Rosa did, too. But to have her flirt with him? To piss Glenn off? “Glenn knows you’re tracking him. He’s not stupid. When he sees Agent Hooke living here and me flirting with him every time he arrives with the kids, he’ll know exactly what we’re up to. He won’t allow it to trip him up or whatever it is they’re trying to do, and he’ll know for a fact the FBI is full of idiots.”

  “Of course he’ll be on to you,” Rosa said. “That’s the point.”

  “We’re banking on him thinking you’re the idiot,” Ruby explained.

  Gracie sent Ruby a look, and Ruby looked suitably chagrined. “That didn’t come out the way I intended it to. What I mean is, Glenn thinks you’re an idiot, and you can use that to your advantage.”

  Paige gritted her teeth. As if that explanation was any better.

  Grandma Sherry leaned in and put a hand on Paige’s arm, as if begging her to listen and consider. “Glenn’s competitiveness is compulsive. He’s always trying to prove to himself, and everyone around him, that he lacks nothing. You know this—trying to keep him feeling that way is what has him thinking you’re an idiot.”

  There it was. That word again! Paige was about to burst, but her grandmother squeezed her arm, hard, and raised her voice. “You think I didn’t notice? It bothered him that you understood more about the technology he was supposed to be marketing and transferring than he did, and so you started pretending not to get it. He married you because he was eight years older than you, it made him feel like a big man to teach you about life and take you out of the trailer park, and you were a beautiful trophy wife to boot. When he no longer felt big around you, he found himself another, younger version of you who was also ready and willing to be swept off her feet, to see if he could feel good about himself again.” She swept her hand toward the pictures of Glenn and Jasmine.

  But if Paige thought her grandmother was done with the assault on the choices she’d made, she was wrong. “He also always blames someone else for his problems, and when he got in over his head and things got uncomfortable, that person became you. He began underestimating you. He had to, in order to keep his image of himself intact. So yes, he’ll be on to the feds—but he won’t be on to you. He’ll believe you’re falling for Alex just as easily as he watched you fall for him. It will make him angry at you for being so gullible, insecure because you got over him so quickly, and on top of it all, nervous about Alex being here. His emotions will be all over the place, and he’ll be more likely to make a mistake . . . and we’ll all be watching.”

  “You’ll all be watching?” Paige looked around, her heart sinking. Five heads nodded, and Paige lowered her own head into her hands. How had everyone in her life suddenly gotten involved in her mess? How could she have gotten everything so wrong in the first place? Money laundering and intellectual property theft. He’d told the kids everything was sorting itself out because he was guilty, he was cooperating, and he’d been offered immunity.

  After months of stressing out because she was being kept out of the loop, she was now being slammed with the truth and magnitude of it all. And after everything he’d put them through, Glenn was now jeopardizing his immunity . . .

  Paige covered her head with her hands. Agent Hooke was right. Glenn stealing his father’s closest colleague’s research was a personal, shameful, and unforgivable betrayal, and his father would likely disown him for it. Glenn probably felt hiding information was a lesser risk than having his father take away his trust fund and all his financial support. It meant he had to feel pretty good about where he’d hidden the journal.

  What could she do?

  Her kids would have to go through the whole mess again if the journal was found after the fact. New charges. Possibly a trial. And then they might have to grow up with a daddy in jail. Nowadays, with the Internet, social media, and barrage of companies offering detailed background checks, it could haunt their lives for a very long time.

  The Internet had already cost Gracie so much. And that had been before social media exploded on to the scene. All because Paige hadn’t been around twenty-four/seven for the first time ever. She’d b
een out getting a degree, aiming for a better life for all of them. But both of her sisters had messed up while she’d been away, and they were both still paying the price. Paige had formulated a new plan to make sure she wouldn’t mess up with her own kids. Having her own kids was supposed to be her second chance to get things right.

  And yet here she was. If her painstakingly constructed world hadn’t been real, what had it been? Painstakingly constructed, a little voice inside her head responded. You answered your own question. Idiot.

  She lifted her head and looked at her grandmother. All their lives, Grandma Sherry had tried hard to help, but they’d refused. First their mother, and then Paige and her sisters, thinking they were being loyal and afraid that they’d be taken away from the mom they loved. They’d worked to hide how bad things often were. They’d paid the price.

  Now her grandmother was offering to help again. But could she help? Could any of them?

  The pictures of Glenn and Jasmine that Gracie had pulled out caught her eye then, and her stomach roiled. Somewhere, deep inside, she’d known. But desperation to keep her family intact had made excuses easy to come up with and necessary to believe.

  She shook her head. “All I’ve ever wanted was to be a good mom.” She took a few deep breaths and latched on to that one truth and guiding principle that would never change. She clasped her hands together and struggled to direct her thoughts, despair, and anger. Her kids needed her to derive strength and determination from her emotions. Not denial and victimhood. Victimhood . . .

  A healthy dose of shame stole its way through her. The true victims were the people who needed the drugs and technology others had been profiting from. Their needs were more important than the lie Paige had been living. “Right now, that means they need to see that their dad will pay for his wrongdoing and bad decisions, and he will. He’s going to lose everything. And I have no doubt Gerard will disown Glenn when his testimony comes out.”

  And Glenn’s mom would blame Paige for leading him down the path. She’d always said her tainted blood would somehow infect Glenn and the kids. She’d overheard her once, telling Glenn that marrying the daughter of a trailer-trash alcoholic would be the biggest mistake of his life.

  But that was going down the road of victimhood again. She needed to resist that, and move on.

  “It also means I need to help Glenn stay out of jail.” She also needed to find a job that would still allow her enough time to be there for the kids the way they needed her to be. A job that would be difficult to obtain while her name was still linked to Glenn’s.

  “So . . . Are you going to help Agent Hooke find the evidence before Glenn can dig himself into any more trouble?” Gracie asked.

  Paige started. Help Agent Hooke. An image of him as he’d unfeelingly tossed both his warnings and the photo onto the table swam in her mind’s eye. They were nothing but a case and a means to an end to him, of course . . . but did he have to threaten her at every turn? From handcuffing her moments after raiding her house, to telling her to cooperate or watch the father of her children be charged and prosecuted, to suggesting the FBI wouldn’t clear her name if a background check by a potential employer linked her name with Glenn’s, and by extension, his crimes . . . he’d shown zero empathy. He kept treating her with scorn, as if she was dim-witted at best, and empty-headed at worst, even though he knew nothing about her beyond stupid facts someone else had dug up and typed up for him. And the way he’d ripped into the kids’ belongings the day of the raid was still fresh in her memory.

  She and her children were people—so much more than some stupid dossier. More than his limited emotional intelligence could glean from documents and categorical behavioral analysis. She’d help, because it was the right thing to do. Dr. Kumar deserved to have her research back, after all. But Agent Hooke had to do the right thing, too. She needed guarantees, not threats. Was there any way to get through to him?

  Paige looked at Gracie and nodded, slowly. “Yes. The way I see it, we’re all going to help each other get what we need. I only have one request.”

  “Shoot!” her grandmother said.

  “If he’s here, then I no longer want to use that eight-digit alarm you installed. I can never remember the order of the numbers, and I make it go off all the time.”

  “Deal.” Grandma Sherry stuck out her hand.

  * * *

  Alex hit the pavement and began talking to people who either worked or owned businesses near the café. Spinning Hills had close to seven thousand residents, many of whom preferred to bike or walk. Someone must’ve seen something.

  Nobody liked talking to a federal agent, but people seemed to treat the fact that he was Sherry, Rosa, and Ruby’s new tenant as an endorsement. Which it was, in a way. For that, he was grateful.

  Quite a few people remembered seeing someone who matched Glenn’s description that day. Some had even realized the man they’d seen looked a little like Paige’s husband. Only they hadn’t made the connection because he’d worn jeans when Glenn always wore suits or khakis. He also rarely visited, and never without Paige and the kids.

  When he asked how they remembered him, they all said it was because he’d kept his head down, hadn’t replied to their simple hellos, and was walking a cute Pomeranian. That last part was new. Glenn didn’t have a dog, but his mistress owned a Pomeranian.

  Either Glenn had been pet-sitting, or he’d brought the dog along in order to fit in and look like just another guy walking his dog. It hadn’t worked. But people thought up the dumbest, most idiotic plans when they were under pressure and letting it get to them. The things that brought even the biggest criminal masterminds down were often things laymen later scoffed at when reading about it in the news. Foolish decisions were often made when people were either under pressure, or in the throes of a passionate affair. The dog detail would make Boyd laugh.

  It was a good thing the people he spoke to had sharp memories. They explained that even when the town had been in a decline, it had always been renowned for its unique history, its storybook housing stock, and its quirky niche businesses. These things made their townspeople especially careful to treat strangers as potential customers and residents, to help the town thrive once again.

  Their reasoning for remembering was strong, which made them reliable. The problem was that Holly Bell-Amador, from Uncommon Scents, had seen Glenn walking west. Jessica Carter from Red Realty had seen him turn left up the street near Amador Construction. Eduardo from Coco Loco saw him heading south. And Jenny, a waitress at a place called Huffy’s Tavern, saw him turn back into the alley where they already knew he’d been. It all meant Alex had to expand his radius, in every single direction.

  The good news was he’d managed to gather some security footage from three businesses. Most people in town didn’t bother with security cameras, and those that did had done so because they were tech geeks. Luckily for him, the tech geeks were on different, strategic streets. The only way the cameras wouldn’t have picked up the guy in the Reds baseball cap was if he’d headed north. By tomorrow morning he’d have a better idea of where to begin questioning residents.

  Despite the time crunch, it was an easy enough assignment in terms of investigative techniques. It also meant more time to catch up on his other cases. He’d always enjoyed both the physical and analytical aspects of his job, but after being on SWAT for years, he’d been missing the workout his mind got from discovering well-hidden pieces of information and putting complicated puzzles together.

  His phone buzzed, and a quick look told him Glenn was on his way back from taking the kids out for ice cream. He’d taken them to a farm in Yellow Springs that made their own ice cream. It was about thirty minutes from Spinning Hills.

  Ice cream in honor of the first day of school. Yeah, right. It was more likely an excuse to be back in town.

  When he arrived at the converted Tudor mansion for the second time that day, he took a moment to step back to study the house. Steeply pitched, cross-gabled
roof, off-white stucco with rich brown half-timbering, stonework down the middle, and four chimneys. The windows were tall and narrow, but there were enough of them to allow plenty of light. Three windows were grouped in the middle, where the top of the stairs could be seen. A gable-roof portico concealed the small downstairs lobby.

  It was impressive and a real beauty . . . but he didn’t care. His observations were mostly for tactical reasons. The rest of the street had a mix of similarly impressive mansions in different styles, but all except two looked like they needed major repairs. No wonder it was known as the third most haunted street in Ohio. It looked haunted.

  The view in front of the houses was a different matter. There was a paved, tree-lined bikeway that likely led to the city of Dayton. From where he stood, two bridges could be seen crossing the Miami River. It was a sunny day, and he had to shield his eyes as he looked out to see kayakers on the sparkling waters.

  He went up, taking in the details as he went. Apartment 1A was to the left, and 1B was to the right. Regal stairs, wrought-iron rails and mahogany handrail, and an elaborate hardwood sun medallion on the second floor landing. The doors to apartments 2A and 2B were off the balcony.

  He changed into jeans and a T-shirt so he could fix the mailbox Sherry had bent with a crowbar. She’d also yanked the door off of it. He’d never seen anything like it. Rosa had been pissed.

  When he went back down, Paige was sitting on the stoop. She looked different than she had in the morning, and more like the woman he’d seen in the month leading up to the raid. Her hair was perfectly waved. “Rich girl hair,” one of the female agents had called it. It was supposed to be a thing now, hair in perfectly messy waves. She was also wearing an expensive brand of workout pants and a hoodie. Alex wondered, not for the first time, why Glenn had lost interest in his wife’s body. She had a great figure. Losing interest in her mind, though, he could definitely understand.