“Or maybe you’re the one who’s confused,” he barks. “My daughter is no liar, and neither is the picture.”
“Picture?” I look between them, frustration and worry bleeding from my eyes. “What picture?”
“Wait here,” Jan says. Then she turns to Piper’s dad. “Don’t hit the boy, Bruce. You’ll go and break your other hand.”
Bruce nods, heeding her request. He stares me down, pinning me to the wall with his wrathful eyes.
After what seems an eternity, Jan returns, handing me a photo. It’s a picture of Piper—young and confidant. Her long honey-brown hair is all one color, falling far longer than it does today. Beautiful.
Then I’m sure my eyes betray me when I see myself in the background. “I don’t understand,” I tell them, hoping they can read the despair in my eyes. “I never met Piper until March of this year. I’d never seen her before. Where was this taken?”
Jan’s eyes betray her, revealing sympathy I’m not sure she wants me to see. She grabs my elbow, escorting me into their home. She gives her husband a look of warning as she guides me into the kitchen. I put the photo on the table and accept the water she offers me, eager to quench the intense thirst spawned by oppressive anxiety.
“What do you know about that night?” she asks.
“Only what she told me, Jan. Please, tell me what’s going on here.” The bitter agony welling inside me is crippling. “Where is she?”
Bruce picks up a chair, turning it around backwards before he puts it down next to me, offensively straddling it and leaning his arms on the top rail. “Let me tell you a story,” he says, his voice deep and rough, edged with a deadly calm. “Once upon a time there was a sixteen-year-old girl. A beautiful, talented, outgoing sixteen-year-old girl who never knew a stranger. She doted on her nephew, helping her sister raise him when she was young and alone. She was a great daughter, a loyal friend and a gifted actress.”
His eyes go dark and distant. “Then one night, a few weeks before junior year, she went to a party with some drama friends. They weren’t her usual crowd, but she was determined to fit in with everyone—jocks, geeks, bookworms; she didn’t want to be labeled or belong to only one group. There were football players at the party and some of her friends were trying to impress them. On a bet, she took some shots of alcohol with the football players.” He pauses to push the photo closer to me. “Shots you and your friends gave her. Shots that were full of drugs so you could have your way with her.”
His uninjured fist pounds the table next to the picture.
I stare at it. And like a movie playing in slow motion, a night from high school floods my memories and my world is pulled out from under me like a cheap fucking rug.
That laugh. Her maniacal, eerily familiar laugh that sent chills down my spine a few weeks ago. It was from that night. I remember it now as clearly as the terror on Jan’s ashen face. I was seventeen and I was drunk. Not wasted drunk, but I had a good buzz going. Coach Braden would have kicked my ass if he knew I was drinking so close to the start of the season. By then, almost a year and a half after my parents died, he was more than my coach. He was my father figure. My guardian. My savior.
My friends had talked me into going to what was touted to be an epic party. The best summer blowout ever. It was at some rich kid’s house in the city. The place was gigantic and I remember wandering long hallways searching for an unoccupied bathroom. I passed by a slightly open door, a bedroom based on the noises coming from inside it. Clapping, cheering, and groans of pleasure were seeping through the crack in the door. Sex oozed from the dimly-lit room. I was seventeen. Of course I looked. There were several guys surrounding a bed, none of whom I knew more than to thank them for pouring me a beer from the keg. A girl was squirming around on the bed, arching her hips and making all kinds of sexual noises that had my young mind fantasizing for days. “Everything good in here?” I asked. All heads turned to me. A few guys looked annoyed as if I were going to join in and take a piece of their pleasure. The girl on the bed, whose face was obscured by some guy’s bare ass, crooked a finger at me, inviting me over with the gesture. “No thanks,” I said, as I shut the door and went to find a bathroom. That’s when I heard it. Her crazy libidinous laugh.
It was Piper. She was the girl on that bed.
For the second time today, my head falls between my knees to keep the bile lining my throat from further rising. “It’s all my fault,” I choke out. I try to tell Bruce and Jan what happened that night. I barely get through it without getting sick on their kitchen floor. “I could have saved her. I didn’t know. Oh, God, I didn’t know. I was right there. Right there . . . ”
When I go silent, finding no more words to defend my actions, Jan stands up and wraps comforting arms around me. “Mason, thank God,” she cries, her tears falling in time with my own. “I knew it couldn’t have been you. Piper was confused. She said she never saw your face in her nightmares. But that picture. The boy next to you—he was one of them. So she assumed. We assumed.”
In a very motherly fashion, she rubs my back in slow easy circles with the palm of her hand. “I’m sorry I ever thought—” she clears the frog from her throat, “—I mean, you’re like family, Mason.”
“I should have known better,” I scold myself, still trying to comprehend how close I was to her. I could have easily barged in and stopped what was going on.
“You were just a boy yourself,” Bruce says. “It’s not your fault. You didn’t know she was being raped.” He looks pained. “And from the way she’s explained it to us, neither did she.”
My heart clenches in my chest once more. My throat burns and my eyes sting. I look up at them to see their anger has turned to nothing but sympathy. I’m sure my face is a wreck; red and swollen from rubbing my hands over it; wet from all the tears that have fallen. “I love her,” I tell them. “Please tell me where she is.”
“We don’t exactly know, son,” Bruce says. “I’m not even sure she knew where she was going when she left yesterday. And her phone got . . . left behind.”
I shake my head, unwilling to accept it. “I have to find her,” I beg. “Please, you must have some idea.”
They share a look. And goddamn if it’s not another look that twists my insides. “Mason, this may have been a big misunderstanding, but you have to know, she may still never be capable of having a relationship with a man who has a child.”
My questioning eyes flit between them. “What does that have to do with anything? Hailey’s no bother. She’s a wonderful little girl.”
Jan nods. “She absolutely is. And we love her. But there is more to this story than you know.” She puts a hand on my cheek. “But it’s not our story to tell.”
She pulls out her phone and taps the screen. “We may not know where she is, but we know someone who probably does.”
I take the phone from her to see the name on the screen.
Charlie Tate.
chapter twenty-five
piper
“No, I don’t need a bellman,” I say. “I don’t have any bags. No hay bolsas.”
The desk clerk runs my card, giving me a sympathetic look. I can see he’s wondering what my story is. Running from an abusive husband? Kicked out by a cheating boyfriend? I’m sure he’s seen it all.
I sign my receipt and ask him if I can use the hotel phone, not having yet replaced my cell. “¿Puedo usar el teléfono por favor?”
“Sí.” He pushes the phone towards me.
“Long distance.” I hold my arms wide open, hoping he understands my gesture as I don’t recall how to say the words in Spanish. I flash him my best damsel-in-distress look, even adding a lip quiver for good measure.
He looks behind him, beyond a glass door into the office, presumably at his boss. She looks busy at the moment. He types a code into the phone and hands me the receiver. “Is fine,” he says in broken English. “You look like nice girl. Hurry, use telephone fastly.”
Thanking him profusely, I dial Ch
arlie’s number. I know she won’t answer, she’s a bonafide call screener. Plus, it’s like three o’clock in the morning in Sydney. Just as well. I don’t want to have to explain everything now. I’m exhausted. I just want her to know I’m back in Barcelona. It’s part of the sisters’ code—always tell each other where we are. Sometimes we’re the only ones who ever know.
The sisters’ code.
It’s something we came up with when we were twelve, after her dad left and she started living her own personal hell. She didn’t want to be her mother’s daughter anymore, so she asked me if she could pretend she had mine. My mom treated her like a daughter anyway. And Baylor and Skylar learned that where there was one of us, the other wasn’t far behind. For all intents and purposes, she was a Mitchell sister.
“Hey, hermana, it’s me. I’m just following the code. I’m back in Barcelona and I can’t wait to see you when you return from down under. My phone broke, so if you need to get me, just call this number. Love you. Hope you’re having a blast with, wait . . . what’s his name? Anyway, just thought you should know. Bye.”
I push the phone back in place and thank the desk clerk again before dragging myself up the stairs to my room to get much needed sleep.
~ ~ ~
Loud knocking wakes me and I curse the noise when the numbers on the bedside clock tell me I’ve only been asleep for twenty minutes.
I cover my head with a pillow, hoping the intruder will just go away. “Por favor limpie después,” I beg the supposed housekeeper to come back another time.
The incessant pounding doesn’t stop. I angrily slide my tired body from the bed and pad over to the door, ripping it open as I yell, “I’m sleep—, oh, my God . . . Charlie!”
Her all-encompassing hug propels me backwards into the room. “I missed you so much,” my muffled words tread through her thick red hair. Then I push her away. “Wait. Why are you here? What happened to Syndey and what’s-his-name?”
She steps back outside the room to pull her heavy suitcase over the threshold. I can’t suppress my smile. It feels like old times. Safe. Comfortable. Familiar.
“Oh, that.” She avoids my pointed stare, placing her bag on the ottoman before she unzips it. “Pfft, it never would have worked out.”
My jaw slackens. My eyes narrow. I point an accusing finger at her. “You lied.”
She starts to unpack her suitcase, dumping the contents into random drawers.
I put my hand on hers, stopping her from grabbing another handful of clothes. “You broke the code, Charlie. Why did you lie? You know I know you too well, so don’t feed me any shit.”
She rolls her eyes. “Technically, it wasn’t a lie, Pipes. I had every intention of going with him. I just changed my mind at the airport” —my punishing stare prods her on— “when his wife showed up and threw her phone at me.” She rubs a spot on her shoulder, wincing.
I pull her in for a hug. “Oh, sweetie, I’m so sorry. Not again. Men fucking suck.”
She laughs half-heartedly. “Well at least this one didn’t actually suck dick like the last guy.”
I close my eyes and shake my head, appalled at the situations she ends up in sometimes.
She looks around my hotel room and then at her semi-unpacked bag before squinting her eyes at me. “Speaking of how men suck, why are you here? And where’s your stuff?”
My throat stings and my heart hurts. It actually hurts—as if it’s not all completely there—like I left some of it back in New York.
She sees the expression of defeat on my face. “Oh, Piper. What happened?” She leads me over to the bed, patting the spot next to her when she sits down.
Her mouth gapes open as I tell her the incredulous story. Then she cradles me until I fall asleep.
When I wake, I’m pissed off at the light for coming through the curtains and touching my face. But at second look, I realize it’s morning light, not evening. I check the clock. I slept for almost eighteen hours.
On the bedside table there’s a note from Charlie telling me she’s gone to work, stocking shelves at a small tourist boutique by the cruise port. I smile, thinking she’s got an actual job instead of relying on a man to put a roof over her head. At least for now. Until she does something stupid again like sleep with the boss and get fired by his wife.
After a long, soothing shower that washes the travel filth from my body, I sift through some drawers to borrow a t-shirt and jeans. Jeans I need to roll up at the cuff due to the differences in our height. I draw the line, however, at wearing Charlie’s underwear and since I’ve been sporting the same pair for two days, I decide to go commando.
I sling my purse over my shoulder and head out on a shopping spree. I never went back to Skylar’s to collect my things and I’m going to need some stuff to get me by until my dad can ship my clothes over. Out of habit, I’ve always kept my passport in my purse, and that along with a credit card was all I needed to get a plane ticket. Everything else was expendable.
Including Mason Lawrence.
My heart sinks. I’d gone a whole thirty minutes without thinking of him. I try to convince myself it wasn’t him in the picture; that maybe his bitch of an ex-girlfriend had Photoshopped him in or something. But how would she have known I was there and that the picture was of that night? I’ll never forget the clothes I was wearing. Months later, when I finally realized what had happened, I burned the pink low-cut sweater and hip-hugging capris.
Even if Mason was one of them, maybe it was just like I told him and he was simply a drunk, horny kid joining the orgy. Could he even be to blame if that were the case? Even so—I can never forgive him for knowing about it and not telling me the truth once I told him what happened to me. Did he think he could be with me knowing what he did? How could we build a relationship on that? On the heels of the second worst night of my life.
The nagging voice in my head says it isn’t so. That I jumped to conclusions. That maybe it wasn’t even him in the picture. It could have been his, what do they call it . . . doppleganger?
Mason is a good man.
I remember chanting the mantra over and over in my head while he kissed me. Touched me. Put his tongue on me. No! Stop it, Piper.
He was different all those years ago. He’s admitted to it. He would sleep with anyone in a skirt until he screwed up and knocked one of them up. It was him in the picture. My head knows it. My gut feels it.
My broken fucking heart hates it.
Out of habit, I reach for my phone to check the time before realizing I don’t have it anymore. I look at the new watch on my right wrist that tells me it’s almost time for my daily coffee. It’s the one indulgence I allow myself even when I get down to my last pennies.
Who needs a phone anyway? Especially when I’m sure it’s jam packed with texts and voicemails from him.
Approaching my favorite café, I wonder if maybe they’ll let me work there again. For coffee, food, and perhaps a few weeks’ stay in the flat overhead like we did for a stint last year. I don’t know, though, I kind of left without notice when Charlie got some dude to fly us to London.
But the hotel I chose in haste is far too expensive for more than just a day or two. We have to start looking for another place. Maybe go back to where Charlie was crashing before yesterday; probably some youth hostel with disgusting shared bathrooms and little to no privacy.
I stand in the busy line, not recognizing any of the employees. Pay is low and turnover is high. But I don’t need much, so when I make my way to the counter to place my order, I pull an application from the box attached to the wall and shove it into my purse. Then, as usual, I walk on my tiptoes from the order line to the pickup line—my eyes trained on the barista preparing my latte. It’s not hard to follow it here since they write everyone’s name on their cups.
“I guess you won then,” a deep, pained, familiar voice says behind me.
My heart thunders. It’s a resounding noise that reverberates throughout my entire body. It can’t be.
> I spin around and stare at him for seconds. Minutes. An eternity.
It’s him. The only man I’ve ever loved. Even against my own will, my body responds to his voice. His face. His mere presence.
My very next thought, however, is that I’m going to eviscerate my so-called best friend and hang her from her pink fucking toenails until they rip from her body, letting her fall and drown in a pool of her own blood.
“Piper?” the guy at the counter calls out.
I turn around and stare at the offending cup on the counter that displays my name. Shit.
Mason comes up next to me, plucking my latte from the tiled surface, depositing it into the trashcan next to him. He reaches into his pocket and throws money on the counter—Euros even. “Make her another,” he commands. “Just like that one.” He nods to the trashcan. “And keep the change. Comprende?”
The barista’s eyes go wide when he sees the denomination of the bill lying on the counter. He’s clearly confused by the situation, but he pockets the money anyway and seems to understand enough English to follow Mason’s order. “Sí. You got it, amigo,” he says, happily.
Mason and I stand side-by-side in silence as my new drink is made while we watch. He doesn’t talk. He doesn’t try to get me to look at him. He doesn’t do anything but stare at every move the kid makes, from writing my name on the cup, to mixing cappuccino with the perfect amount of milk before he places it in front of me again.
Mason nods his head at the kid in thanks. I get the impression he doesn’t speak much Spanish.
I pick up the drink but I can’t make eye contact with him again. I’m afraid if I do, I’ll remember him in a flashback of one of my dreams. They come back to me like that sometimes. When I see a smile that might have belonged to one of them, or hear a vaguely familiar voice, or hear the drunken cheers of partying men.
The Mitchell Sisters: A Complete Romance Series (3-Book Box Set) Page 81
