Find Me

by Laurelin Paige

  No wonder he’d had to hide. Yet, even understanding that as well as I did now, I was also irrationally pissed that he hadn’t told me more, because now I was lost and left out of a very important part of his life.

  I opened Google and stared at the screen wondering where to begin. After a few minutes, I typed his name into the search box and pressed enter. Instead of choosing the first result that came up, I skimmed through the headlines until I landed on one that read Who is Justin Caleb Bruzzo?

  Yeah. Exactly.

  I clicked on it. When the page loaded, I was struck first by a picture of JC that filled the width of the screen. He looked nearly the same, but younger, some of the familiar smile lines missing from the edges of his eyes. He wore faded jeans and a plain black T-shirt, so I could see the ink was absent from his forearm, confirming that the pic was from before Corinne’s death. But even if I didn’t have that to help date the image, it was obvious from the woman who sat at his side, her hand woven through his. She had dark skin and big eyes, tight black curls, and a large diamond on her left hand.

  I hadn’t known she’d been black. It was strange to think of JC in a bi-racial relationship. I wasn’t against them. It was just that I wasn’t black. I wasn’t petite like her either. Nor was I feisty or fun like her outfit and the spark in her eyes suggested. Every difference between Corinne and me represented something else I didn’t know about JC. I’d assumed he’d preferred curvy blondes because he’d gone after me. I’d assumed he’d liked serious girls with hard-to-penetrate walls.

  How could the same man who’d been engaged to a woman like this one be interested in a woman like me?

  My chest pinched.

  “I loved her,” he’d told me once. “Now I love you.”

  It had been easier to believe when I’d been with him. Easier to believe when I wasn’t face-to-face with how happy he had been with her.

  This was probably an engagement picture, I told myself. They’re designed to make the couple look happy.

  The thought didn’t comfort me.

  I forced my eyes away from the image and read through the article.

  Justin Caleb Bruzzo is the state’s secret weapon in the trial against Ralph Mennezzo, it began, and included a link to another article that described the crime. I didn’t click on it and continued reading about the man who had the potential to put the killer in jail.

  Justin Bruzzo grew up in New Hampshire, the only child of highly successful criminal lawyers, Janet and Telford Bruzzo. His childhood was spent in various private schools, and his high IQ and diligent studying allowed him to graduate early. Justin then went on to Yale where he received a double major in Economics and Piano. Telford suffered a fatal heart attack during this time, but it didn’t slow Justin down. By twenty-four, he’d finished at Yale, leaving with a joint masters in business and law.

  With his substantial inheritance, Bruzzo went on to open his own investment firm, specializing in financing high-risk start-up companies. After the death of his fiancée, Bruzzo handed the reigns of the firm over to a board of directors and moved to Los Angeles. Though he continued to bring in clients on a part-time basis, he devoted much of his time to the police search for Mennezzo, who fled soon after the police showed interest in him. When Mennezzo was finally caught and charged with Corinne Jackson’s death, Justin was taken into protective custody in an undisclosed location until the beginning of the trial here in Manhattan.

  Nearly everything in the article was new information for me, with only enough details to confirm that JC was indeed the same person as this one. I’d known he’d had money, but not that he’d had a substantial inheritance or his own successful investment firm. I didn’t have a clue that he’d held several degrees from an Ivy League school. The small part of his life that I filled was nowhere on the page. I hadn’t expected to be, of course, but seeing his bio like that, the important events and people in his life referenced and not being included shifted my perspective. I was extraneous. I was unnecessary. I was irrelevant.

  I hit the back button and looked at the search results. Over 100,000 web pages had been found. How much more would I find that I didn’t know? How many more articles would display the image of a man I knew intimately, but then proceed to describe a stranger? Did the JC I knew even exist? And if so, where did he end and Justin Caleb Bruzzo begin?

  I shut my laptop, not able to read anymore. The information I wanted about JC wasn’t online. The only way to find out whether he and I had a chance, whether any of our relationship had been real at all, was to see him.

  ***

  After a restless two-hour nap, I dressed and headed for the courthouse.

  I didn’t care that I’d lose my day’s sleep and that I had to close that night—a Friday night, no less. Or that he might not want me anywhere near the trial. Or that I wasn’t prepared emotionally to face him again. None of that mattered. The only thing I did know for sure was that I had to see him.

  And I knew I didn’t want him to see me.

  Not yet.

  I arrived early enough to make sure I got in, but not too early to have to wait around for that day’s proceedings to begin. It wasn’t my first time watching a trial—I’d been present for much of the one that had sent my father to jail for nearly ten years for beating up my little brother. But it was my first murder trial, and I wasn’t sure what to expect. I wasn’t even sure I’d be able to go in and watch.

  After making it through the security screening, I found the board that listed the day’s docket then made my way to the courtroom. Unlike the trial for my father, the People of the State of New York versus Ralphio Mennezzo was open to the public, and the back rows of the center section were roped off for anyone who presented a press card. I chose the closest seat to them I could find, hoping I’d blend into the crowd enough that I wouldn’t be seen, knowing at the same time that JC would see me if he really looked out at the audience.

  I considered leaving. I considered staying outside where I’d have less of a chance of being spotted yet still get to see him. But I stayed.

  Maybe I wanted him to see me after all.

  The bailiff walked to the front of the court almost as soon as I sat down and asked us to silence our mobile devices. I shut off my phone and stuck it in my purse. The trial began a minute later. We were asked to rise. We rose. The judge entered. Some court business occurred, and then the prosecuting lawyer called Justin Caleb Bruzzo back to the stand. The doors in the back opened. I shifted in my seat to look.

  And there he was, looking simultaneously younger and older than I’d remembered. Simultaneously sexier and just-as-sexy. Mine and yet not-at-all mine. Never mine, even. Or maybe always mine. For half a second he paused. The world seemed to freeze around me and I thought he sensed me. Thought he’d turn and look me right in the eye as though we had some invisible string between us. Some connection that defied any reason or explanation.

  But he never turned and the moment passed.

  My eyes stayed pinned on him as he walked confidently down the aisle to the witness box, and with each step he took, I felt my heart expand. He was here, within twenty-five feet of me. Every second that he’d been gone melted away, as if no time had passed at all. He was here and everything was right with the world again. He was here, and I could finally breathe.

  The judge greeted JC—Justin—and he returned the greeting with a slight smile that made my belly flutter. There was some conversation between them—something about having already been sworn in the day before with a reminder of his oath, and all I could think about was the oaths he’d given me. Unspoken promises. The touch of his lips on mine. The feel of his hands on my skin. The way that he moved when he was inside of me—all vows that he’d made and then broken when he’d married a stranger in Vegas and then disappeared from my life.

  Maybe I was a little bitter.

  But I was a lot of other things as well—relieved, elated, confused, remorseful, anxious. I was hungry for every word that came out of h
is mouth and yet too bewildered to concentrate on anything he said. I yearned for his arms to lie on me instead of on the rests at the side of his chair. I ached to yell at him and slap him and tell him I hated him. Then I wanted to cover him in kisses and tell him how much I loved him.

  Each emotion was so vivid, so intense, so overwhelming that I could hardly bear it. They were agony and ecstasy all at once, too tumultuous and contradictory. The only thing I knew to do was swallow them all, bury them deep. Make myself cold and frozen and immune. The way I’d been before I’d ever met JC. The way I’d dealt with all the other hard emotions in my life.

  So I did.

  I took a deep breath and let myself go numb.

  And then I could finally pay attention to the proceedings.

  “Was Ms. Jackson expecting you that evening?” the prosecutor asked.

  Since I’d missed a day of testimony and hadn’t been able to focus earlier, it took me a few minutes to catch up.

  “She was expecting us, yes,” JC answered. “We were going to catch a Rangers’ game.”

  I didn’t even know he liked hockey.

  “You said, ‘us,’” the lawyer said. “Could you tell the court who else was with you?”

  Maybe it had been Corinne who liked the sport.

  “Two guys that I was working on a project with. Tom LaRue and Steve Stockbridge.”

  “So, Mr. Bruzzo, these two, Thomas LaRue and Steven Stockbridge were with you when you arrived at Ms. Jackson’s office?”

  “Yes. They both were there. They saw everything I saw. They aren’t here to testify, though, because Mennezzo had them both killed after he found out they were called as witnesses.”

  The defense attorney called out an objection. “My client hasn’t yet been charged with the deaths of Mr. LaRue and Mr. Stockbridge.”

  “Yet being the key word,” someone muttered at my side as the judge said, “Sustained.”

  I forced my eyes away from JC to study the defendant, the man who was to blame for all of this—Ralphio Mennezzo. From where I sat, I could only see a partial profile as he turned to consult with his lawyer. Then he shifted his attention forward, and all I could see was the back of his head.

  I stared at the bald spot in the center of his near-black hair, and a sour taste formed in my mouth. I was keenly aware that, when I let myself feel again, I would hate him. Hate him for killing another person. Hate him for taking away something that JC had loved. But mostly hate him for taking JC away from me.

  I hadn’t even yet heard his crimes, and I already hoped he’d rot in jail.

  And then I did hear his crimes, slowly, through the story that emerged from JC’s testimony. Heard how Mennezzo had bought votes in his last election—that remark had of course been met with an objection. Then heard how he’d funneled client funds into his own bank account. Another objection. Then, the worst, heard how, when his young female assistant confronted him about his wrongdoings, he’d taken out a gun from his desk drawer and shot her.

  It had been late. A cold winter night, and everyone else in the office had gone home except Corinne, who was working until her fiancé came to pick her up for a hockey game. Who knew why she’d picked that night to say something? No one was even positive that’s what she’d done to provoke him, but only the week before she’d shared her suspicions with JC, who guessed that had to be the reason.

  And when JC had arrived to meet her, he’d come just in time to see Mennezzo fire the gun, see the woman he loved crumple to the floor, blood pooling around her. His friends had held him back when he’d wanted to rush to her. They’d covered his mouth and stifled his screams, pulling him into the shadows where they heard the state representative make a phone call to someone. Heard him saying he had a mess that needed to be cleaned up. They’d stayed quiet and hidden while Mennezzo calmly turned off all the lights, locked up the office and left like it was the end of any other work day.

  “Did you call the police then?” the prosecutor asked.

  “Tom did. Or Steve. I’m not sure who.” JC’s tone was as cold and empty as I’d made myself. He’d told me once he had that in him, but I’d never seen it until now.

  “What about you? What did you do?”

  “I ran to Cori. I put my hand over her wound to try to stop the bleeding. I tried to get her to open her eyes or say something. Anything.”

  “But she didn’t respond?”

  JC paused a moment, and I saw a crack in the armor he wore. “No.”

  The room was reverent, quiet except for the occasional sniffle as JC continued to recount the details of his fiancée’s final moments. The awkward way her body lay on the floor. The awful sound as she tried to draw in breath around the bullet lodged in her lung. The blood that gushed over his hands, soaking his clothes even after she went still and lifeless.

  I could picture it—the image JC created was devastating and horrible. It was a scene I thought I might never be able to get out of my head, and I hadn’t even actually seen it.

  “And then what did you do?”

  JC lifted his head, and I swear, he looked directly at me. “I stopped living.”

  Chapter Five

  The court broke for a recess after that, and I bolted. I didn’t like to think of myself as someone who ran from hard things—and I wasn’t running, exactly. Well, I was literally, but not because I was avoiding something that I needed to face. It was more like I didn’t belong. There wasn’t a place for me in this part of JC’s world where he loved a woman so much that he’d felt like he’d died when she did. I was a third wheel. An extra puzzle piece.

  And if he had stopped living with her, then what was he doing when he was with me?

  It forced me to confront the fear that always lingered just at the edge of every one of my JC fantasies—what he and I had, what I’d clung to for the past twelve months, maybe it hadn’t ever really been anything at all.

  But he’d looked at me. He must have known I was there, and yet he hadn’t looked at me until he’d said the hardest thing for me to hear. He had to be trying to tell me something, and what I heard was, She was my life, Gwen. Not you.

  So when the court let out, I hurried down the corridor, avoiding the elevator and the main stairway and the bathrooms, and headed for the farthest exit. I had to get back into my world where I had a firm place and a defined role. A lonely place, maybe, but far less lonely than this one where I didn’t belong at all.

  My hand was on the door to the stairs when someone called my name. A familiar voice, but not JC’s. I turned back. “Matt?”

  “Gwen. I thought that was you.”

  Matt had been my manager at the club I worked at before The Sky Launch. I hadn’t bothered to look around the courtroom, but he must have been there, which made sense. Matt had been friends with JC, despite the age difference.

  No. Not friends, I realized as Matt gave me a hug. Matt’s last name was Jackson. Why hadn’t I put it together before now?

  “She was your daughter,” I said, when he pulled away. “JC was going to be your son-in-law.” Odd pieces from the past slipped together, taking shape into a bigger picture. The allowances Matt made for JC at the club. The radio news story Matt had been so wrapped up in about an arrest made in an old murder. A conversation I’d overheard where Matt told JC he “just couldn’t be around that week”—that week had been the anniversary of Corinne’s death.

  Matt nodded. “I’ve known the boy for quite some time now. He sacrificed a lot to bring my baby’s murderer to justice, and I owe him for that. I’d prefer to think of him like a son.”

  A son.

  Another piece of JC that I knew nothing about. I remembered when I first met him and I’d sarcastically asked him if the initials stood for Jesus Christ. They might as well have, I thought now. I knew as much about that enigmatic man as I knew about this one.

  “I didn’t realize your relationship,” I said, hoping I didn’t sound as cold as I felt. Then, because I didn’t want to be discussing JC at
all, I changed the subject. “I had no idea that you’d had a daughter. Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

  Matt smiled weakly. “It’s not necessarily something that comes up in day-to-day conversation.”

  “I guess not.” God, I didn’t know what to say to him. There weren’t scripts for these situations. “I just…I just wish I would have known.”

  He put a hand on my upper arm. “I appreciate that. I’ve always had a soft spot for you, Gwen. I wish there were things I would have known too.”

  I felt the color drain from my face. The events of the morning had me so wrapped up that I’d forgotten for a moment the embarrassing circumstances that had caused me to leave my old club. “My father. Yes. I should have told you.”

  My father had gone into prison a child abuser and had come out ten years later a heroin addict. It wasn’t long after his release before he’d gone looking for someone to fund his addiction. He’d found me one morning when I was alone at the Eighty-Eighth Floor. He’d hit me and threatened me. Said he’d return the next day and expected me to have money for him.

  That had been the last day I’d ever gone into the club. I moved into a new apartment and took the job at The Sky Launch. I’d darkened my hair a shade. I’d done everything I could to hide from my father.

  I guess I really was someone who ran from hard things.

  And now when I looked back, I was ashamed. I’d been a coward, living in fear. In the year since, no one had heard from my father again. He hadn’t tried to approach Norma. He hadn’t returned to the Eighty-Eighth Floor. He’d skipped out on his parole and disappeared, probably too drugged up to remember he had any children, let alone that he’d wanted something from one of them. If he was even still alive.

  “Nah,” Matt said with a shake of his head. “That wasn’t something that I’d expect to come up in day-to-day conversation either. I’m just trying to say that I understand you.”