“I lost my mobile.”
“That’s no excuse. You should have checked in,” she said.
“I’m here now. What happened?”
“She took the check and left him.”
His eyes widened. “Bloody hell,” he whispered.
“To say he didn’t take it well would be an understatement,” she told him. “That twat Suzi called to say he was tying on a good one and had locked himself in his cabin. I asked her what had happened and she said Lina had left with the check.”
“Man, I thought she was different,” he said, raking a hand through his hair.
“So did Synnie and that’s what set him off I reckon. Craigie, Kit and I had to go down to Savannah to fetch him back. By the time we got there, he’d gone berkers and had totally wrecked the cabin. There was glass everywhere and Craigie had to suture his feet and one of his knees. Apparently he’d been crawling around on the floor.”
“Shit,” he growled. “Where is she now?”
“I have no idea and at this point I really don’t give a rat’s prick. She hurt him, Jono. She hurt him bad.”
“So she stayed in Savannah?” he pressed.
“I don’t think so. Synnie said something about her catching a plane back here.”
“Then she could be at work.” He shook his head. “Scratch that. She wouldn’t go back there since Synnie owns the fucking place.”
“Not to mention she doesn’t have to work another day in her life if she doesn’t want to.”
He looked at the closed door. “Is he all right?”
“No, he’s not all right, Jono!” she snapped. “He’s wrecked worse than his cabin!”
“I’m of a mind to call Jake and have him stop payment on that check.”
“She’s probably cashed it by now,” she stated. “Where are you going?”
He was headed for the grand hall with its spiral stairway leading up to the second and third floors then on to the marble-tiled foyer.
“I thought she cared about him,” he said over his shoulder. “I liked her. I thought she was good for him. I can’t believe I was that piss-poor a judge of character. I want to know why she took the money and ran!”
* * * * *
She hadn’t slept all night. She hadn’t eaten anything since the morning before. Her head was throbbing with a hunger headache but her stomach was so tied up in knots she couldn’t even think about eating.
When she’d gotten back to Atlanta, she went straight to the apartment Jono had procured for her and packed all of her belongings. She left the key to the apartment on the foyer table along with the key to the car that belonged to MI. She’d rented a minivan and driven over to her old place. At that time of the morning there were no camera crews loitering on the block and for that small favor she was grateful.
Her face felt tight and her eyes were red and swollen. She couldn’t seem to stop crying but she felt numb all over. The pain had driven deep. She just tried to keep it pushed down for she had left her heart in Savannah.
Left everything she had ever wanted there.
Her eyes strayed to the check sitting on the kitchen counter. It lay there like a coiled serpent and—like that venomous creature—was as deadly to her self-esteem as the poison from a viper’s fangs would be to her bloodstream. She hated the sight of it and every time her gaze slid to it, her stomach roiled.
Her name and the amount had been typed in but it was his bold signature that drew her eyes like a magnet. She wanted to trace the swirls and dips that read Synjyn McGregor but was loath to touch the evil thing.
“You are pathetic, Wynth,” she said. Wanting to touch what he had put his hand to was just plain silly but it was the last connection she had to him.
The last connection she would ever have.
The longer she stared at the check the more she hated it. It had no place in her life since what it had managed to do was destroy what little happiness she’d ever found.
And it was no longer needed, she thought.
“Drew is a true delight,” Ann-Louise Holloway-Lutz had told her when she called to check on him that morning. “You don’t have to worry about us taking excellent care of your brother. Mr. McGregor would have our heads if we so much as let Drew catch the sniffles! As I told you yesterday, his place here is assured for as long as he lives.”
Drew had everything he would ever need and was as happy as a squirrel with an ear of corn.
“I’ll be moving out of town,” she had told Mrs. Holloway-Lutz, “but I’ll come visit as often as I can.”
It wasn’t like Drew would know her then any better than he did now but she felt an obligation to her brother even though it hurt every time he looked at her without recognition.
“You’ll leave a forwarding address, though, won’t you?”
“Yes,” she said. “Most definitely.”
“I’m sure Mr. McGregor will hate to see you go,” the woman said wistfully.
Oh, yeah, she thought as she glared at the check. He’ll be pining away for me.
Unable to look at the hateful thing one second longer, she picked it up and tore it in half. Tore it in half again and yet again. She scattered the pieces on the counter then went to the window.
The cardinal was on the birdfeeder again but there was no lunch for the pretty boy. He pecked at the opening anyway, pecked again and then flew off to a more accommodating household.
“Sorry, sweetie,” she said. “I just keep letting you down, don’t I?”
The knock on her door startled her and she whipped her head around. No doubt it was one of the persistent paparazzi. She had no intention of answering the door. Instead she wrapped her hands around the edge of the counter and returned her attention to her backyard.
Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock.
“Go away,” she said quietly.
Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock.
“Go. Away, you moron!” she whispered. “I’m not going to—”
Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock, accompanied by “Melina? I know you’re in there. Open the damn door!”
It was Jono’s voice and she groaned. He was the second to the last person on earth she wanted to talk to at that moment.
Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock. Knock!
“Melina! I’m not going away. You might as well open up if you want this door to stay on its hinges!”
“Shit!” she snapped and pushed away from the counter. She knew he’d make good on his threat.
The first thing she noticed about him when she jerked the door open was a look so mean, so nasty and so thoroughly dangerous she took a step back.
He lifted his chin. “May I come in?”
“Do I have a choice whether you do or not?” she countered.
“Fuck no,” he said and barreled past her.
He went straight into her living room. She followed at a slower pace, puzzled and a bit concerned at why he was there. He was pacing in front of the window when she took a seat in her favorite chair.
“Why are you here, Jonny?” she asked.
“I was in Mobile,” he said as though he hadn’t heard her question. “Picking up a birthday present Synnie ordered for Kit. I lost my damn phone and that’s why Spike couldn’t reach me.” He swept his hand to the side. “And she read me the riot act because I didn’t phone in. If I had known the shit had hit the fan…” He stopped and turned a cold look on her. “I went to the apartment but all your things were gone. I came here straightaway.”
“I’ll be out of here by the end of the week,” she said. “It’s his house and he can do whatever he wants with it.”
“You can keep the damn house. He doesn’t want it. He wants you.”
She laughed although there was no mirth in it. “Oh, yeah, I’m sure he does.”
Jonny’s face twisted. “Why, Lina? Why did you leave him?”
“Saving face, I suppose,” she said, looking down at her hands. “I left him before he could toss me out,” she said.
“Toss you�
��?” His scowl was threatening and she felt her heart speed up. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“Why are you here?” she repeated. “Did he send you to get the check back because if he did…”
“He doesn’t know I’m here,” he said. “And I’m here for answers, Lina. I think you owe us answers.”
“Excuse me?” she said, beginning to get angry. “How is it I owe you answers? It would have been nice if someone had warned me not to get close to him, not to let myself have feelings for him. If one of you had told me not to get invested in him it wouldn’t have been so bad at the end.”
“Feelings for him?” Jonny questioned. “That’s rich, you completely devastate the poor bugger and then sit there and tell me you have feelings for him?”
“Me devastate him?” she snapped. “What about me?”
“What about you?” he sneered. “You got what you signed up for didn’t you? You got the fucking money!”
She shot up from the chair and stormed to the kitchen. Sweeping the pieces of the check into her palm, she intended to take them back to the living room but when she turned around he was standing in the doorway to the kitchen.
“Here’s your fucking check!” she said and threw the pieces in his face.
He looked down at the paper on the floor, stared at it, and then leveled his gaze on her. “You tore up the check?”
“Pick it up and get the hell out of here,” she said. “I don’t want anything more to do with him or the rest of you deceitful bastards.”
“Deceitful bastards?” he echoed. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“One of you should have told me about the other girls,” she said. She put distance between them by going to stand beside the stove. “Oh, I knew he had other women but it would have been nice to know about the clones before I let myself think about a life with him.”
He blinked. “A life with him?”
“Yeah, stupid huh?” she snapped. “Idiotic, naïve Southern girl who bought his entire line of shit, who let herself fall in love with a prick who has mommy issues. Tell me, did any of the clones know about the ones before her?”
“Clones?” he questioned. “What the hell are you talking about? What clones?”
“All the women who look like Mommy Dearest!” she yelled. “Those other eight girls with long brown hair and green eyes like Olivia’s! All the women he gave money to so he could bust their cherries like dear old rich man Dad popped Mom’s! All those women who were just like me!”
“Now, wait just a damn minute,” he said, anger turning his cheeks red. “Those bitches weren’t anything like you. They were in it strictly for the money and he knew that. They knew there wasn’t going to be anything after the last day of the sessions. They knew it because he made it perfectly clear to them right from the fucking start! He never once took them anywhere other than the Room or to the Dungeon. Never to the dining room of the Club or to his private suite. He never took them to visit their brothers or out for ice cream. He didn’t want to be seen with them. He kept it strictly business. He was paying for their services like…”
“High class prostitutes,” she finished for him.
“Like the grasping, greedy bitches they were!” He shook his head. “But we thought you were different. He thought you were different. And he was different when he was around you. He was happy, Lina. He was enjoying himself but you put a stop to that, didn’t you? You left him down there and sent him into a tailspin. You’ve no idea how much damage you’ve done!”
“I’m sure the next girl will assuage his hurt feelings,” she said.
“What next girl?” he demanded. “He wants you!”
“Oh, sure, he does,” she said with a snort. “That’s why he’s already looking for the next clone?”
“What are you talking about?” he yelled. “He’s not out looking for another woman! The man is lying in the fetal position in the middle of his bed with his heart broken.” He pointed a finger at her. “You did that to him.”
“He’ll get over it when the next girl answers his ad,” she told him.
“There wasn’t going to be another ad,” he told her.
“Bullshit!” she said. “Do you really think I’m that much of a fool, Jonny?”
“Why would I lie?” he asked.
“Why indeed?” she asked. She came over to the table where she had placed the manilla folder Jake had given her. It had been her intention to leave the folder and the check when she left the house for the last time. She snatched up the folder and slapped it against his chest. “Explain that!”
“What is it?” he asked, taking hold of it before it fell to the floor.
“Look at it and you tell me what it is!”
He opened the folder, scanned the page inside it then slowly—very slowly—lifted his eyes to her face. “Where did you get this?” he asked, his voice nearly a whisper.
“Does it matter?” she countered. “If there wasn’t going to be another ad, how do you explain that?”
“Where did you get this?” he repeated, this time with a fierceness that made her uneasy.
“He was going to put that ad in the South Carolina paper,” she said.
“No, he wasn’t,” Jonny said.
“That is his handwriting!” she said, stabbing a finger on the line that read Contact Janice Layne Jan. 2 for run Feb. 1. “Are you going to tell me that he didn’t write that?”
“He may have but I swear to you it had nothing to do with placing any ad,” Jonny told her.
“Cut the crap, will you?” she shouted at him. “That is the same ad he placed for all the other women. I know. I saw them!”
“Okay,” he said, closing the folder and tossing it onto the kitchen table. “Number one, he never placed any of the ads. I did. Number two, I want to know where you saw those ads and who gave you this one!”
“Get out, Jonny,” she said. “I’ve had enough lies for one morning.”
“Who gave you the fucking folder?” he bellowed at her.
“Jake!” she replied. “Okay? It was Jake.”
He looked as though she had smacked him brutally across the face. He literally stumbled back, his eyes wide and mouth open. When he closed it, it was with an audible clicking of his teeth. She watched his lips peel back and when he spoke, he spoke through the tight clench of his teeth.
“Son of a whoring cunt!” he cursed. “That’s why he’s not answering his fucking phone!”
“Just go,” she said. “I—”
He snaked out a hand and grabbed her arm, dragging her with him as he exited the kitchen. “I’m not going anywhere until you and me have a nice informative chat, love!”
* * * * *
He was as silent and still as a stone as he sat beside her in the car. His big brown hands were tight on the wheel, his lower lip thrust out in a pout that would have done a former U.S. President proud. He wasn’t angry at her but he was angry. No, he was infuriated and it was a wonder steam wasn’t puffing from his nostrils.
“What will he do?” she asked.
“Before or after he pins Jake’s balls to the dunny wall?” Jonny asked.
She bit her bottom lip. “I don’t want to be the cause of their friendship ending, Jonny.”
“Too late for that,” he mumbled. “And it ain’t your fault that it’ll be over and done with when he hears what the bastard did to him.”
Turning to look out the side window, she thought back to what Jonny had told her after he pushed her none too gently onto the sofa at her house.
“Woman, you’ve been played.”
When she went to speak, he held his palm out to her as though he were a traffic cop halting her vehicle at an accident scene—which is exactly what it felt like to her.
“Let me tell you something about the five of us,” he said. “When I’m finished, you can say whatever the fuck you feel the need to or ask any questions you have. Are we clear?”
She felt chastised. “Yes,” she said.
&
nbsp; “All right. Here’s the way it was.”
It had started to rain again as they got on the interstate and headed for Stockbridge. The glare of the headlights intensified her hunger headache and made her a bit nauseous. She wanted to ask him to stop so she could get a Pepsi. She desperately wanted to take some aspirin but his mulish silence and set jaw didn’t bode well for asking favors.
“We were poor kids,” he said. “Hand-to-mouth poor. We stuck together because…well…” He shrugged. “We clicked, you know? We became tight as shit in a constipated man’s bowels and there wasn’t anything we wouldn’t do for Synnie or him do for us. I can’t tell you how many beatings that boy took for things either me or Craigie did.”
“He loved you,” she said.
“We loved him,” he replied. “And when his father offered him the golden ring, he took us on the merry-go-round with him. He was responsible for all four of us going to college, getting our degrees. He laid the world at our feet and stood back saying, ‘Okay, mates. I gave you the chance. Make what you will of it.’ He helped us get apartments and furnish them. Gave us jobs or saw that we got one. He paid for law school and medical school—the full ride—for Craigie and Jake. He did right by us, Lina, because we always did right by him. I didn’t think it was possible for any of the four of us to betray him.” He snorted. “In that I was wrong.”
He asked to borrow her cell phone and she fished in her purse for it, handing it to him without asking if she could dial for him. The traffic was fairly heavily, the road slick, and it made her nervous for him to thumb in the number while he was driving eighty miles per hour down the interstate, but she kept silent. He put the phone to his ear.
“How is he?” he asked. He listened then nodded. “That’s good I guess. Hey, has there been any word from Jake? Still? Okay. If you reach him, let me know, but do me a favor, eh? Don’t let him know I’m trying to reach him.” He listened again. “No, I just want to know where he is. It’d be best he not know I’m looking for him, okay? Unh huh. It’s got everything to do with our boy. Huh? Yeah, yeah, yeah, will do.”
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