Strict Confidence
Page 17
He thought his sister died out on the water. He blamed me for her death, when she wasn’t really dead at all. “That’s the thing,” he says finally. “She doesn’t want to be found.”
If Emily’s alive, my custody of Paige is in jeopardy.
A fierce protectiveness comes up like a shield over my heart. What the hell am I supposed to do if Emily emerges now? Hand Paige over? She’s become mine. My niece.
Maybe even my daughter.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Jane Mendoza
Noah pulls up in front of my old apartment.
The building sags where the foundation has dropped. There’s a hard line of broken bricks down the center. You can feel the shift in the concrete from the inside. Sometimes water pools up from the bottom, spilling into the brown carpet. Our stairs are right in front of the dumpsters, which is great for taking out the trash. Not so great for the smell. It’s not a pretty place, but it’s home.
He’s dropped me off here hundreds of times before. It should be the most natural thing in the world. Instead it feels foreign, like a place I no longer belong.
“It’s a good thing they didn’t sublet your spot,” he says. “It would have been a pain in the ass to find a new place. Especially on such short notice.”
Probably about as painful as having to call my roommate and explain that I’m back in town months early. My old room is still available, with its top-bunk twin bed. I won’t need a full half of the rickety dresser. I didn’t bring all the clothes Mateo bought for me. Only what would fit in the small rolling suitcase. It’s a Louis Vuitton suitcase that a guest once left in the Lighthouse Inn. Marjorie found it in storage. Imagine being rich enough that you can forget a four thousand dollar suitcase and not bother to send for it. Between the luggage, the clothes inside, and my phone, I’m like a completely different person than the woman who left Houston.
“Yeah. It’s better this way.” A lie I’ll keep repeating until it becomes the truth. If it ever does.
It’s better this way, a million miles away from Beau Rochester. Never seeing Paige grow up. Not having the family that had seemed for one shining second like I belonged.
I open the door to his car and get out before I can beg him to drive me back to the airport. It hurts so bad to be here, alone and adrift. My chest aches from it. And everything is wrong. My clothes are too hot for Houston. Ironically the clothes are more expensive than anything I could have purchased here, but the fabric is too thick. They’re not made for heat like this. The yoga pants that felt so good in Maine make my legs feel constricted now.
Noah gets out with me and comes around to hand me my bag. “You sure you don’t want me to come in? I could stay with you for a while. Get you settled in.”
We used to hang out for hours at a time without any particular plan. We’d binge-watch something on the Netflix we shared with the rest of my roommates. Or we’d lie in bed watching TikTok, showing each other the funniest ones. I can’t imagine doing those things now. It feels like a different woman did those. I don’t know who I am now, but I know that I’ve changed. “I’m sure,” I say, giving him a smile to soften the rejection. “I’ll text you later.”
He puts his arms around me for a quick squeeze and kisses the top of my head. His arms around me feel wrong. Not because he’s too rough or anything. He’s just not Beau Rochester. “People like you and me, we don’t stay in one place for long.”
If you leave early enough, you won’t miss them when you’re gone.
But I already know it didn’t work. I’ll miss them forever. “I know.”
He waits in his car while I walk up to the door. This is an old habit, too. Noah and I have never lived in the safest neighborhoods. We don’t just drive off before the other person is safely inside.
The key sticks in the door, and it takes several turns before I can get the lock to pop open. Once it does, I turn around and wave to Noah. He waves back. It’s a minute more before he actually drives away. I step inside the familiar crowded vestibule with the peeling laminate floor and the coat tree that’s packed with hoodies, umbrellas, and backpacks.
I’ve walked through here a thousand times, but it feels smaller now. I’ve gotten used to the Coach House. I’ve gotten used to the inn. Which is unfortunate, because I live here now. This is my life. I’ll use the money from Beau to go to college, but I’m not going to live a life of luxury.
The heat from outside has crept in with me.
It feels suffocating.
No. I can still breathe. In and out. I force my breathing to even. It’s hard because my chest hurts so much. I would love a few minutes to cry in peace. I didn’t want to cry in front of Noah in the airport, and I don’t want to cry in front of any of my roommates now. Though it sounds quiet enough in the apartment that everyone may be at work. It is the middle of the day, after all. Some of them are in college, some are working. We’re all busy, only catching each other at night, usually. I’m sure they’ll want me to share everything tonight, but I can’t imagine opening up about Beau and Paige. It would be like opening a wound.
Nobody’s on the couch, or in the lumpy armchair in the corner, and I let out a big breath.
I might not have to cry in front of anyone after all.
The pitted paint on the walls is the same. The ratty carpet is the same. The tiny kitchen table with its four chairs—not big enough for all of us at the same time—the same. It’s like the stories in the library books I’d escape into. I’m the one who’s different now. I just didn’t expect to be this different. It’s like trying to squeeze into clothes two sizes too small.
I roll my bag over the threadbare carpet to the second door on the left. It’s an old, old habit to stop outside the door and listen. Best not to walk inside if two of my roommates are having an argument. Or having makeup sex. If that’s happening now, I’ll find another time to go in.
No voices filter out into the hall. No creaking floors underneath someone’s chair. No footsteps coming across the living room. Nothing.
My second key fits in the lock. Each of the bedrooms has its own lock separate from the deadbolt. When you share an apartment with six other people, things are bound to go missing. The keys are a way to minimize that.
I shoulder the door open and roll my bag inside. The hallway here is so narrow it feels like the walls are pressing into my shoulders from both sides, but they’re not.
I close the door behind me.
And freeze.
There’s something expectant about the air.
Like someone’s just stepped out. Or just stepped in?
I know better than to let myself dwell in regret about Maine. The past is the past. When it’s time to go, you pack up your clothes and go to the next place. But it’s not regret, exactly, that makes my heart feel bruised. It’s how different this place is from when I left.
Or maybe it’s how different I am here from the woman I was there.
I’ve survived places that didn’t fit before.
I’ll survive again.
A few minutes alone. That’s all I need. After that, I’ll be okay.
There’s a woman sitting at my small desk chair, the one with the broken arm. It always slides down when I’m in the middle of concentrating.
Of course, this woman isn’t studying.
She’s not a roommate.
No. She doesn’t even belong in Houston.
She turns her head and smiles at me.
Emily Rochester smiles at me.
My heart slams into my throat, cold adrenaline raking down my spine. I recognize her from a photo I found in a diary. I know her face. I left Maine because we thought Detective Joe Causey was after me. Does he know his sister is alive?
She’s beautiful, and very much not a ghost.
Her smile is perfectly pleasant. Perfectly poised. “Hello, Jane.”
* * *
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Jane Mendoza is determined to protect the people she loves from every threat—the mysterious arsonist, the corrupt police force. The darkest danger comes from a place she never expects.
She risks more than her newfound family. She risks her life.
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* * *
Wind whips around my ankles, flapping the bottom of my black trench coat. Beads of moisture form on my eyelashes. In the short walk from the cab to the stoop, my skin has slicked with humidity left by the rain.
Carved vines and ivy leaves decorate the ornate wooden door.
I have some knowledge of antique pieces, but I can’t imagine the price tag on this one—especially exposed to the elements and the whims of vandals. I suppose even criminals know enough to leave the Den alone.
Officially the Den is a gentlemen’s club, the old-world kind with cigars and private invitations. Unofficially it’s a collection of the most powerful men in Tanglewood. Dangerous men. Criminals, even if they wear a suit while breaking the law.
A heavy brass knocker in the shape of a fierce lion warns away any visitors. I’m desperate enough to ignore that warning. My heart thuds in my chest and expands out, pulsing in my fingers, my toes. Blood rushes through my ears, drowning out the whoosh of traffic behind me.
I grasp the thick ring and knock—once, twice.
Part of me fears what will happen to me behind that door. A bigger part of me is afraid the door won’t open at all. I can’t see any cameras set into the concrete enclave, but they have to be watching. Will they recognize me? I’m not sure it would help if they did. Probably best that they see only a desperate girl, because that’s all I am now.
The softest scrape comes from the door. Then it opens.
I’m struck by his eyes, a deep amber color—like expensive brandy and almost translucent. My breath catches in my throat, lips frozen against words like please and help. Instinctively I know they won’t work; this isn’t a man given to mercy. The tailored cut of his shirt, its sleeves carelessly rolled up, tells me he’ll extract a price. One I can’t afford to pay.
There should have been a servant, I thought. A butler. Isn’t that what fancy gentlemen’s clubs have? Or maybe some kind of a security guard. Even our house had a housekeeper answer the door—at least, before. Before we fell from grace.
Before my world fell apart.
The man makes no move to speak, to invite me in or turn me away. Instead he stares at me with vague curiosity, with a trace of pity, the way one might watch an animal in the zoo. That might be how the whole world looks to these men, who have more money than God, more power than the president.
That might be how I looked at the world, before.
My throat feels tight, as if my body fights this move, even while my mind knows it’s the only option. “I need to speak with Damon Scott.”
Scott is the most notorious loan shark in the city. He deals with large sums of money, and nothing less will get me through this. We have been introduced, and he left polite society by the time I was old enough to attend events regularly. There were whispers, even then, about the young man with ambition. Back then he had ties to the underworld—and now he’s its king.
One thick eyebrow rises. “What do you want with him?”
A sense of familiarity fills the space between us even though I know we haven’t met. This man is a stranger, but he looks at me as if he wants to know me. He looks at me as if he already does. There’s an intensity to his eyes when they sweep over my face, as firm and as telling as a touch.
“I need…” My heart thuds as I think about all the things I need—a rewind button. One person in the city who doesn’t hate me by name alone. “I need a loan.”
He gives me a slow perusal, from the nervous slide of my tongue along my lips to the high neckline of my clothes. I tried to dress professionally—a black cowl-necked sweater and pencil skirt. His strange amber gaze unbuttons my coat, pulls away the expensive cotton, tears off the fabric of my bra and panties. He sees right through me, and I shiver as a ripple of awareness runs over my skin.
I’ve met a million men in my life. Shaken hands. Smiled. I’ve never felt as seen through as I do right now. Never felt like someone has turned me inside out, every dark secret exposed to the harsh light. He sees my weaknesses, and from the cruel set of his mouth, he likes them.
His lids lower. “And what do you have for collateral?”
Nothing except my word. That wouldn’t be worth anything if he knew my name. I swallow past the lump in my throat. “I don’t know.”
Nothing.
He takes a step forward, and suddenly I’m crowded against the brick wall beside the door, his large body blocking out the warm light from inside. He feels like a furnace in front of me, the heat of him in sharp contrast to the cold brick at my back. “What’s your name, girl?”
The word girl is a slap in the face. I force myself not to flinch, but it’s hard. Everything about him overwhelms me—his size, his low voice. “I’ll tell Mr. Scott my name.”
In the shadowed space between us, his smile spreads, white and taunting. The pleasure that lights his strange yellow eyes is almost sensual, as if I caressed him. “You’ll have to get past me.”
My heart thuds. He likes that I’m challenging him, and God, that’s even worse. What if I’ve already failed? I’m free-falling, tumbling, turning over without a single hope to anchor me. Where will I go if he turns me away? What will happen to my father?
“Let me go,” I whisper, but my hope fades fast.
His eyes flash with warning. “Little Avery James, all grown up.”
A small gasp resounds in the space between us. He already knows my name. That means he knows who my father is. He knows what he’s done. Denials rush to my throat, pleas for understanding. The hard set of his eyes, the broad strength of his shoulders tells me I won’t find any mercy here.
I square my shoulders. I’m desperate but not broken. “If you know my name, you know I have friends in high places. Connections. A history in this city. That has to be worth something. That’s my collateral.”
Those connections might not even take my call, but I have to try something. I don’t know if it will be enough for a loan or even to get me through the door. Even so, a faint feeling of family pride rushes over my skin. Even if he turns me away, I’ll hold my head high.
Golden eyes study me. Something about the way he said little Avery James felt familiar, but I’ve never seen this man. At least I don’t think we’ve met. Something about the otherworldly glow of those eyes whispers to me, like a melody I’ve heard before.
On his driver’s license it probably says something mundane, like brown. But that word can never encompass the way his eyes seem almost luminous, orbs of amber that hold the secrets of the universe. Brown can never describe the deep golden hue of them, the indelible opulence in his fierce gaze.
“Follow me,” he says.
Relief courses through me, flooding numb limbs, waking me up enough that I wonder what I’m doing here. These aren’t men, they’re animals. They’re predators, and I’m prey. Why would I willingly walk inside?
What other choice do I have?
I step over the veined marble threshold.
The man closes the door behind me, shutting out the
rain and the traffic, the entire city disappeared in one soft turn of the lock. Without another word he walks down the hall, deeper into the shadows. I hurry to follow him, my chin held high, shoulders back, for all the world as if I were an invited guest. Is this how the gazelle feels when she runs over the plains, a study in grace, poised for her slaughter?
The entire world goes black behind the staircase, only breath, only bodies in the dark. Then he opens another thick wooden door, revealing a dimly lit room of cherrywood and cut crystal, of leather and smoke. Barely I see dark eyes, dark suits. Dark men.
I have the sudden urge to hide behind the man with the golden eyes. He’s wide and tall, with hands that could wrap around my waist. He’s a giant of a man, rough-hewn and hard as stone.
Except he’s not here to protect me.
He could be the most dangerous of all.
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Books by Skye Warren
Endgame Trilogy & more books in Tanglewood
The Pawn
The Knight
The Castle
The King
The Queen
Escort
Survival of the Richest
The Evolution of Man
Mating Theory
The Bishop
North Security Trilogy & more North brothers
Overture
Concerto
Sonata
Audition
Diamond in the Rough
Silver Lining
Gold Mine
Finale
Chicago Underground series
Rough
Hard
Fierce
Wild
Dirty
Secret
Sweet
Deep
Stripped series
Tough Love
Love the Way You Lie