Selling Scarlett

by Ella James

  “Maybe. Maybe not.” I shrug. “You said you didn't mind—remember? And it's worth it. I promise.”

  He shrugs. I can tell he's down, and I wish so much that I could help more. We're almost there when he says, “Change of subject.”

  “Okay.” I wait a beat and he blows his breath out of puffed cheeks.

  “Suri likes me, doesn't she?”

  His question throws me off so much, I actually cough. It's everything I can do to keep my eyes from widening. “You think so?” I ask neutrally.

  “C'mon, Liz. Shoot straight with me.”

  She does like him. I’m ninety-nine percent sure.

  “Fine. Then yes. I think maybe.” I'm breaking the girl code by telling him, but Cross is as good a friend to me as Suri is, and he's got enough drama in his life at the moment without having to wonder about that.

  Cross sighs. He looks out the window, at the vines, and I can tell he's not going to say anymore right now.

  We're on the last stretch of the dusty little road to Hunter's octagonal home, and I'm getting nervous. Nervous about taking Cross back here to the site of his accident, and nervous about coming here myself. But Cross wanted to come with me. In fact, he insisted.

  I'm quiet as we pass the spot to the right of the road where the grass is black and frayed. Cross lets out a deep breath, and press my right arm into his left.

  “You remember it, don't you?” he asks after a moment.

  I nod, and he does something funny with his mouth—a thing he does when he's trying to push something down instead of show his feelings.

  For the next fourth of a mile, I try to think of something soothing to say, and when I can't, I wrap my right hand around his left one, not threading our fingers together but enveloping his hand with mine. He leans his head a little my way on his head rest and closes his eyes.

  I'm worried he's asleep as we pull into the driveway, but when I park and touch him lightly on the knee, he looks right at me.

  “Wish me luck.” I force a smile.

  “Good luck. And, Lizzy—thank you.”

  “You're welcome.” I hug his neck, and out I go.

  The belly bats are back in full flock as I walk to the front door. I've tried to get in touch with Hunter six times in the last twenty-four hours, and each time he's hit the 'ignore' button on his phone. I don't even know for sure he's here, although I did hear he was released after being questioned in Sarabelle's murder, and I know that he prefers his Napa place to Vegas.

  I knock once, then twice, then three times before I try the handle. As my fist closes around it, it's jerked open from the inside, and I'm thrown off-balance. I bump into Hunter's beautiful bare chest.

  The second we make contact, he shoves me off him. His eyes widen as he sees my face. “Libby.”

  I nod, and my eyes rake down his body. He's shirtless in black gym shorts, and his bare chest is every bit as delicious as I remember. I pull my eyes up to his face, steamrolled by another wave of emotion as I think of all he's been through in the last day.

  “Hunter, hi.” I swallow, because suddenly my throat is dry and tight. “I tried to call you.”

  “I know.” He looks put out, but now that we're face to face, I'm not nervous at all. I want him so much, and I'm so worried for him, I just can't be.

  “How are you? I heard that you were officially questioned in Sarabelle’s disappearance.”

  I search his eyes for some sign of how he's doing, but they're carefully blank. “That's kind of you, but I'm still standing.”

  I can tell he's trying to sound strong, but for just a second as he says 'that's kind of you', his eyes look lost.

  “I miss you,” I say softly, which is what I feel the strongest. His brows draw together, just a little, and for a second I think he's going to hold out his arms and say he misses me, too. Instead he rearranges his mouth and folds his arms across his chest. “What can I do for you, Libby?”

  I’m silent for too long—stung that this is the reception that I get. His lips tighten. “I said I would call you if I could, Libby. I haven’t had the time.”

  “I don’t understand what’s going on.” I lower my voice, stepping closer, and Hunter retreats, taking a step backward into his boxy foyer. “You didn't hurt Sarabelle, and I don't get why you haven't told the FBI what's really going on.”

  “What’s really going on?” he asks flatly.

  I shake my head. “I thought you had people investigating. Your father, too.” All of a sudden, my eyes are swimming with tears. I try my best to blink them back.

  I look at the floor, because there's nothing emotional about the floor, and that's when I see Hunter's ankle. There's a metal band around it.

  I cover my mouth. “Oh my God! You have a tracker.”

  He scowls, shuffling his foot a little bit behind him, and hot tears start to trickle down my cheeks.

  He reaches to catch them, then drops his arm, like touching me would violate some rule. “Libby, please don't cry for me.”

  I throw my arms around him. “Hunter—how?”

  He folds his arms around my back and whispers into my hair. “I'm the only lead they have.”

  I squeeze him harder, like the strength of my hug can fix this mess. “Tell them about Priscilla and Michael Lockwood, and their connection to Governor Carlson. Tell them what you know. I don't know the whole story, but I know there is one. I know your father doesn't have bad information.”

  I feel him shake his head as my cheek is mashed against his chest. “You don't understand.”

  I pull away and look into his sad green eyes. “So make me understand. I'm tired of being in the dark.”

  Now he drops his arms off me and steps back, away from the light that streams through the windows of the door and into the darkness of the foyer. His eyes search my face as he brings his lower lip between his teeth. “Libby...some of what they have against me is true.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It wasn't Sarabelle,” he says. “It's something else. You don't need to know the story, Libby.” But I do. My mind is racing. I remember what his father said. “Let me warn you, you may have to go farther than I did for you.”

  “Did you do something bad when you were younger?”

  His face hardens, and he looks out over my shoulder. I pull the door shut behind me and step forward to grab his hand. I pull him into the hall where Cross punched the wall that night what feels like two lifetimes ago. Looking up into his eyes, I can't believe the guilt I see.

  “Hunter, talk to me. Please.”

  His head snaps up, those green eyes flashing. “Libby, I can't. Don't you think I would if I could? You're the only person I want to talk to.”

  “So talk to me.”

  He shakes his head. His jaw is locked, his shoulders set. “I can't,” he says. “I won't.”

  “But it's not a secret? The FBI knows it happened?”

  He grits his teeth, looking stoic. I take the answer as a 'yes'.

  “Are you ashamed?” I ask. “Embarrassed? Please don't tell me that you think I'll judge you.”

  He grabs my shoulders. The face I miss so much is tantalizingly close, only inches from mine. “Libby, please. You need to go.”

  “No.” I’m tired of being sent away, dismissed, denied access to people I want, feelings I need. “I—I've never liked anyone the way I like you, Hunter. And I don’t want to have what's going on with us cut off before it even has a chance to start, all because of someone like Priscilla or that Lockwood guy. I can't let you get dragged further into this because you won't accept some freakin' help. I heard Dr. Bernard that day, and I heard her say you were in the right. She knows about this secret of yours, doesn't she?”

  His brows are drawn up tight, his face set, harsh and sad and pessimistic.

  His mouth quirks into a little frown, and as he looks into my eyes I swear that for a brief flicker of time, I can feel how much he wants me. Not my body—me. But then he stalks to the front door and pushe
s it open.

  “I'm sorry, Libby. Later on you'll see it's for the best. You don't want to get close to me right now. You don't know who I am, and if you think you do, you're wrong.” His gaze rolls over me, and I'm left with the poker face. “Did you get the check?”

  Rage lights up inside me like a match. “I don't know if I got the check. I haven't checked the mail because I've been so damn worried about you I forgot there was mail!” I whip out my phone and text Cross: 'It might b a while. U prob have time to take that walk u mentioned.'

  I hold it up. “My ride is gone. You're stuck with me.” I sink down to the floor and cross my legs and glare up at him. “While I'm here let me tell you something that I need from you. Something I think might help you, too. Because I've found out something of my own. Something important.

  “My friend Cross says a man was messing with his bike that night at your house, and that's one of the reasons he lost control of the wheel. The guy's name—or the name of the man he thinks it is—is Jim Gunn, the man who used to date Missy King. Cross knows about Missy. He knows his father made her disappear and he says Jim Gunn is the one who did it. I need to know what you know about Jim Gunn.”

  If Hunter was wearing his poker face before, now his features go completely slack. He turns a wobbly half circle before he crouches, jerking a hand back through his messy golden hair. “Is this a fucking joke?”

  “No. Of course it's not. Hunter, just bear with me for a second. I want to show you a picture of him. Of Jim Gunn.” I pull the image up on my cell phone but am hesitant to hand it over to Hunter. The snapshot came from Governor Carlson's computer, and Cross found it—and a whole bunch of other crazy shit—by accident one day almost a year ago when his laptop died, and he decided to hack his way into his father's to re-image plans for a wrecked motorcycle. I meet Hunter's eyes and hold his gaze as I pass him my phone.

  I can tell the moment he sees what I saw: Michael Lockwood's face. Jim Gunn has different hair in this photo, but his face is unmistakable: the sunken cheekbones, thin lip, super square jaw. His hair is blond instead of dark, like it is now, but he even wears it the same: greasy and brushed back.

  Hunter's eyes widen. “Holy shit.” His gaze bores into mine. “How does Cross know this? How does he have a photo?”

  “Cross borrowed his computer. He found this and some saved e-mails

  “Does he still have the e-mails?”

  “Yes, I think. He had the picture in his inbox. He logged in on my phone and there it was.”

  “Holy shit.” He's on his feet again, pacing. “Holy shit, Libby.”

  I nod. “And if Jim Gunn AKA Lockwood somehow knows that Cross knows, it would make sense that he tried to mess with Cross's bike.”

  He nods, still pacing.

  “What do you know about him? Do you have any kind of evidence? Or maybe knowing he and Jim Gunn are one and the same will make something connect. Either way, this is new info. You have to tell the FBI.”

  He stops mid-step and turns to me, looking like he's seen a ghost.

  “You're not? Why not? That makes no sense.”

  He shuts his eyes, and I grab onto both his hands, squeezing them in mine as I stand right in front of him. “Hunter, please.”

  “I don't have anything to share with them. Jim Gunn is just a name. A name Dr. Libby knows, and one Cross knows. Unless Cross has info that’s very damning, and that also happen to deal with the Sarabelle situation specifically…I don’t know how much it will help me.”

  He looks into my eyes, and his are so bleak, my heart sinks before he even continues. “I'm a good suspect, Libby. They'll charge me before they pin it to the governor.”

  “But...why?” I let go of his hands and raise mine in the air, ready to launch into a passionate attempt try to get his deep, dark secret out of him again. But before I can start talking, he bows his head.

  “Because. I killed my stepmother. And then there was a cover-up.”

  I frown at him, confused. “No you didn't. She had cancer.” Everybody knows this. When his father ran for U.S. Senate, his wife Rita's untimely death was a major part of his sympathetic story. “Hunter...?”

  He slumps down against the wall and pulls his knees up to his chest. He props his forearms there and rests his head on top of them. All I can see is the top of his hair. But I can hear his voice.

  I slide down beside him, and he tells me.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  ~HUNTER~

  I tell her everything. I don't see why not. I don’t worry about how it will make her feel, either. This secret, with me for so long, can’t wait to leap out.

  To understand how the FBI knows what they know, she has to understand that Priscilla—or Lockwood, AKA Jim Gunn—found out I spent a year or so talking to Libby back in New Orleans when I was a teenager, and sometime in the last week, the digital file cabinet in Dr. Libby's inbox got hacked. The information was turned over to the FBI, presumably by Priscilla.

  “So if I were to try to pin this all on her, they'd immediately suspect I was just playing tit for tat with the person who turned me in. But even if they didn't think that, I'm going to have a real tough time proving that I'm innocent...when I'm not.”

  I tell her about that day in the basement with Rita. I'm hesitant at first, but then I don't spare her any details. I tell it to her like I told the doctor. And, just like Dr. Libby, my Libby can't believe it.

  “You wouldn't do that. Not without a reason.” And I can see it in her eyes that she knows I had a reason. I know she must, because she listened to my phone call with my dad, and it's not hard to deduce.

  “She treated you badly, didn't she?”

  “She wasn't good to me,” I hedge.

  “She was abusive,” Libby whispers.

  I shrug. “If you ask my father, he'll tell you I antagonized her all the time.”

  “Well that's bullshit!”

  “How can you be so sure?” Even I don't know half of the time. Not after hearing for so long that it was my fault.

  “Because you didn’t mean to kill her, for one!”

  I open my mouth, but I’m not sure what to say.

  A shadow crosses Libby’s face. “You didn’t, did you?”

  The other Libby asked me the same thing, and the answer to that question is what’s tormented me all these years. Did I intend to kill her? Did I think to myself, “Time to kill Rita!”? No. But the relief that I felt… Sometimes it’s easy to forget it was an accident.

  Libby clears her throat, and she has my attention again. I can tell from her face I’ve been silent for too long. “Hunter?”

  I shake my head. “No.” Even with my fucked up point of view, I know that's the appropriate answer. I didn't set out to hurt her.

  “Were you ever charged?”

  I shake my head. “There was no chance. My father kept that shit quiet. Covered it up, even. Bought people off. Tried to get the coroner's report changed. He did get it changed. That’s a big part of the problem. He was in the middle of a tough race, and he thought the truth would be too distracting.” I chuckle sourly as I consider what I’m going to say next. “In the end, Rita’s death and our family’s story of loss is probably what won him the election.”

  “So he never called it what it was? He acted like it was your fault?”

  “He thought it was,” I tell her bitterly.

  “Hunter, that's just not true. You don't have her blood on your hands.” Her voice drops. “She has yours.”

  I shrug. I’ve told myself that before, but to little effect.

  “Here’s something I don’t get,” Libby says. “Those files from your talks with Dr. Bernard should be inadmissible. Right? They were stolen.”

  This is also true, although the files could certainly point the FBI in the direction of the people who were paid. Probably did, if what Dave told Marchant can be believed. The information, which will surely be leaked, will cause a big stink for my family—my father in particular. But, “Even if I don�
�t face any legal consequences from that incident, and from my father's cover-up of it, in the court of public opinion about Sarabelle, I’m pretty fucked.”

  “But there must be some way—”

  I sit up straighter and lean my head back against the foyer wall. “There's too much we don't know. All we have pertaining to Sarabelle is a bunch of phone recordings of our villains talking in code. Lockwood—Gunn—if he has a place down in San Luis, our guy's never seen it. And Sarabelle was found in a damn ditch, not sold into Mexico.

  “I know.” Her eyes glisten with tears. “But Hunter, we have to try.”