Impressions of You (The Impressions Series Book 1)

by Christopher Harlan

  “You don’t have to be a prick,” Dacia says in my defense. “Along with how many obvious things she says in a month, you also don’t know a lot of other things about her, so just back off.” It’s hard for me to read the expression on Kane’s face when Dacia goes at him like that; a mix of admiration and anger, a look that says, I finally have a worthy opponent.

  “I’m sure you’re right, but in this particular case, hot friend, it’s your girl who’s the ignorant one. But in her defense it’s hardly her fault, my brother is a secretive one—always has been.” Now I was confused. I don’t have the energy for hints and sarcasm; I just want to know what the fuck he’s talking about already.

  “Just say what you mean, already. I don’t have time for your bullshit, Kane.” I shouldn’t lose it with him, this technically isn’t his fault, and we are in his home, but I’m at the end of my patience, and the idea of yet another Wesley secret is driving me out of my mind.

  “Fair enough,” he concedes. “Allow me to relieve you of the stress my brother has clearly caused. I laughed because Wesley isn’t just smart.”

  “What do you mean,” I ask, confused as ever.

  “Wesley’s a genius.”

  His words silence me, and I’m not sure how to respond; it’s about the last thing I expected to be said at that moment. “You’re saying, like, he’s really smart. A genius like that?” Dacia’s question sounds dumb, but it’s exactly what I was thinking. Is he speaking figuratively?

  “No I meant exactly what I said. While I could easily be crowned “King of the Assholes” on any given day of the week, I’m no liar. My brother has an IQ of 155. Our father had him tested repeatedly throughout our childhood after he realized Wesley was . . . special when it came to the way his mind worked. Dear old Dad was a bit obsessed with Wesley’s intelligence.”

  I’m stunned to hear Kane’s words. It’s obvious that Wesley is intelligent, but like everything else about the man, he keeps it quiet. Maybe he feels like referring to himself as a genius sounded pretentious, and I already know how humble he is. Still, I would have liked to have known. “He really hasn’t told you much about himself, has he?” No, apparently he hasn’t.

  I shake my head and look at Kane sadly. I wish Wesley was here, and that I could just talk to him about what’s happened, but instead I’m about to start crying in front of his brother, with my best friend standing next to me wondering what the fuck is happening. I guess I shouldn’t worry about Dacia; she’s used to much weirder situations than this one. I decide to pull myself together, and I take a deep breath to calm my nerves. Letting myself get overcome with emotion is what got me here in the first place, and giving into it some more wasn’t going to resolve anything. I need to understand what was going on with Wesley, and despite his sarcasm, so far Kane has been straight-forward with me. I fight the tears back and slow my breathing.

  The children I work with mostly have IQs below 85, so I have some inkling that Wesley’s IQ is quite high. “It’s genius level, he’s right,” Dacia says, “less than one percent of test takers have that score, according to our friend Google. An average IQ is between 90 and 110.”

  “Quick on the draw, hot friend,” Kane says, smiling at Dacia, “My brother’s mind is . . . unique, to say the very least. He graduated from the best private high school on the East Coast at sixteen, and was accepted to elite STEM programs at all eight of the Ivy Leagues the same year. There was a write-up in all the local newspapers about the Marsden “Boy-Genius” accepted to all the Ivy’s. You should have seen my father’s prideful expression.”

  “That’s amazing. Why wouldn’t he tell me? So, where did he end up going to college?” I ask.

  “I can’t answer the first question, but the answer to your second is a story in itself, one he clearly hasn’t shared with you.” I nod in agreement. “Ah, Wesley, always so guarded. Well my beautiful and unexpected guests, why don’t you sit down and I’ll get you both a drink, there’s a bit to catch up on.” Knowing Wesley, I’m sure that’s an understatement. Kane is being kind with me. Maybe I’m wrong about him. Not the sarcastic asshole part, that was very real, but he knows when to turn it off, and when he did he’s actually very engaging. I guess sometimes first impressions can be misleading.

  I listen as he tells us everything. How Wesley settled on Wharton Business School at The University of Pennsylvania, and completed two semesters before having to take a “leave”’ for undisclosed personal issues, which I realize now must have been his panic attacks. Then he tells us how Wesley’s anxiety had been a source or resentment and embarrassment for their father, especially in the son he wanted to take over control of his business empire.

  The more I hear about their father the less I like the man, and the roots of Wesley’s guarded nature are becoming clearer the more I learn about his relationship with his father. “It was after his college debacle that Dad realized that his golden child Wesley was never going to be him, and quite frankly never wanted to be. That’s when Dad started turning over more control to his board of directors, which was staffed with loyal business associates who he knew would be his puppets.” When Kane speaks about his father it’s with unmistakable contempt in his voice, as if he deeply resents the man, even years after his death. Wesley had alluded to some of their father’s less than desirable personal qualities, but never with the same tone of naked anger in his voice as Kane has.

  It’s interesting to hear the emotion in Kane’s voice. Wesley’s the alpha of the two, and as strong as any man I had ever met, but he has more restraint, and I know that it would take an awful lot to bring out his inner beast. Kane’s more on the surface, his temperament more obvious than his brothers, but I can tell that he shared Wesley’s inherent goodness. “But you said your dad was obsessed with Wesley’s intelligence? Why not give him a more important position in the company?”

  “Because he knew that Wesley’s tendencies to panic would ruin his ability to make crucial decisions for the business. He didn’t trust Wesley in that role, plus having what was essentially a mentally ill son was simply unacceptable for my father’s public persona.” Kane’s constant reference to their dad as “Father” didn’t escape me; it seems to be his way of detaching from the man. “At home he could keep all this anxiety business a little family secret, but the idea of his oldest, genius son having a panic attack at a stressful board meeting, in front of important business associates, was simply unacceptable, and he would never have allowed it to happen. So instead he decided to . . .” He stops himself short.

  “What? Go on,” I demand. We make eye contact and he looks guilty, as if torn between telling me the truth and telling some sort of secret he was meant to keep.

  “Remind me why I’m even telling you all of this, I must be crazy.”

  “You’re telling me this, Kane, because . . .” It’s my turn to stop. The words have sat on the edge of my tongue for a while, but they’ve never made it out. But I’m done hesitating, and I’m done with all these half-measures, it’s time to go all in. “You’re telling me this because I’m deeply and hopelessly in love with Wesley, and I want to know more about what made him the man he is now.”

  Kane looks at me suspiciously, “You sure about that?” he asks, and suddenly I wonder if I am.

  “I DON’T KNOW IF I should be doing this,” Phil says, sounding shaky for the first time since we started this impromptu back-alley meeting, “Finding these guys is one thing, I got no problem pulling a few strings to help you, but we should let the cops take it from here.”

  “Right,” I say sarcastically, “because the cops have done such a bang-up job to begin with.”

  “Hey, that ain’t fair,” he says, annoyed.

  “No, Phil, it isn’t. It also isn’t fair that the break in my sister’s case had to come from years and years of work that I put in myself at the expense of other things in my life. You think I’m going to start trusting the police to do their jobs now? Absolutely not. It took fifteen years to even get to
where I am now, I don’t have another fifteen to hope that the random cops and lawyers and judges do right by my sister; I’m taking matters into my owns hands like I always have, now hand it over.”

  “No, kid, it’s too risky.” He sounds nervous again, and I don’t blame him. I can hear the anger in my voice, and he knows what my intentions are. This whole meeting has flooded me with emotions that I haven’t felt this intensely since she was taken from us. I hate these men, and there’s only one type of justice my sister deserves.

  “Risk doesn’t matter to me anymore, Phil,” I say. “I probably lost the best person who’s ever come into my life to be here right now, and in many ways my sister lost a part of herself years ago, I’m at least going to follow through with what needs to be done. I promise it won’t get back to you.” He reaches into his bag and pulls out a box. When he opens it I see the gun sitting there.

  “You’d better not,” he says. I give him the money and he grudgingly hands it over to me and gets back in his car. I don’t think he really cares about me or these guys, only that nothing leads back to him. He pulls away without a good-bye or any other word, and I sit by myself in a dark alley with a gun on my passenger seat and my phone in my hand. I’ve missed five texts from Mia! What the hell am I doing? I must be out of my mind. Being angry in a room, looking over old case files is one thing, but now I’m sitting here seriously considering risking my freedom and hurting other people. What the hell is wrong with me? I need to at least text Mia back before I go do what I have to do.

  WHEN KANE FINISHES telling me everything my head is spinning. I’ve been holding my breath through half the story, not recognizing the Wesley that Kane’s been describing to me; the one who’s been playing detective while trying to live out some crazy revenge fantasy. Kane’s shaky on some of the details, and I have a feeling that Wesley has been hiding things from him also, but the basic idea of what’s been going on is clear enough: Wesley has been trying to solve his sister’s case since their father died, and that’s what pulled him away before, he just didn’t want to tell me. That much I’ve got, but the extent of how far he’s taken this whole thing is still a mystery to me.

  “Everything you said sounds crazy, you know that, right?” I say.

  “I couldn’t agree more, he says back. “In fact, if I had a dime for every time I told him that, well I’d be a rich . . . oh, wait, I am.” Kane jokes but it’s not time for sarcasm, I’m legitimately worried about where Wesley is and what he might be doing.

  “Did you ever try to stop him?”

  “Of course I did, but he inherited our father’s obsession along with the family company,” he explains. “It consumes him day and night. There’ s never been anything I could do or say that could pull him away from his little room upstairs. That is, until he met you.” He looks right at me and I finally get it. I really had changed Wesley’s life, or at least I was beginning to, all the time he was spending with me was time he was being a normal man, and time not spent obsessing over Annabelle’s case. Despite how great things have been, something had pulled him back in, but what? I feel a vibration from my phone.

  Wesley: Hey. I’m sorry.

  Mia: Don’t be sorry, just tell me where you are? Where did you go?

  Wesley: It doesn’t matter; I just wanted to tell you how sorry I am for everything.

  He doesn’t sound like himself at all, he’s normally not this sad or apologetic, and even through text I can tell he’s in a bad state.

  Mia: Listen to me, I’m not mad about dinner tonight, I’m just worried about where you are. Can you just please tell me that?

  Wesley: I’m sitting in my car, getting ready to drive off.

  Mia: Drive where?

  Wesley: It doesn’t matter where. All that matters is that you know that I’m sorry, and that I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t have to.

  Mia: What are you talking about? Doing what???

  I wait a minute but there’s no response, he must have started driving. The whole tone of the conversation worries me, and it was a different Wesley on the phone than I was used to. I text him a few more question marks but I know he won’t text me back; he’s on his way somewhere and it seems as though nothing is going to stop him. “What did he say,” Dacia asks me with a worried expression. I don’t have the energy to repeat all of his words without getting upset, so I just hand her my phone to read. “Shit, that doesn’t sound good.”

  “No,” I respond, “it sounds as fucking terrible as terrible gets.” It’s hard not to get too worked up, but I take a deep breath and decide to not give up. “Kane, do you have any idea at all where he might be going?”

  “Your guess would be as good as mine at this point,” he says, and I feel deflated. Kane’s telling me the truth; he really has no idea where his brother is going. I needed to figure this all out, I wasn’t about to let Wesley go over the deep end and do something crazy, which is the feeling I got from his cryptic texts. We could work on us later, but he needed to be around for there to even be an “us.” I didn’t want him to do something he would regret later on.

  “Well at least give me some more details; anything that you may have left out of the story,” I plead with him. “What exactly has he been doing for years, and does anyone else know about it except you?”

  “To answer your first question, he mostly sits in a room on the second floor paging through materials on Annabelle’s case that he’s collected. What exactly he has up there I couldn’t tell you, he keeps the door locked.” So far Kane’s no help at all. “But to answer your second question, there is a guy.”

  “What guy?”

  “Some cop. Phil something-or-other,” Kane says, and I feel hopeful for the first time during this whole discussion. “I forget his full name but Wesley gave me his business card once and made me deliver a package to him. I’m sure I still have it.”

  “Go find it,” Dacia yells before I have the chance to. Kane doesn’t waste any time, he looks as concerned as we are now. I think that he’s starting to get the magnitude of the situation, and how far his brother might actually be willing to go to get his revenge. While Kane’s off looking for the business card I struggle to keep it together. Dacia knows I’m about to cry, and she comes over and wraps her arms around me.

  “We’ll find him, don’t worry, he’s just on the edge of crazy right now, and you’re going to have to pull him back.” She tries to reassure me.

  “I hope I can get in touch with him,” I say. Kane comes back quickly, card in hand.

  “Here he is,” he says, giving it to me, “Phil Zimbrano, PI. I remember him now, shady character, reeked of alcohol and wore really cheap shoes.”

  “And who is he to Wesley?” I ask.

  “Some ex-cop turned private investigator,” he explains. “Wesley never got too far into the details with me, but he mentioned that this guy had connections that could help with the case, and he was paying him handsomely from the amount I remember dropping off that one time.” This all went way deeper than I imagined. This wasn’t just a case of Wesley fixating over his sister’s abduction because of his guilt; he had gone so far as to hire a private investigator. I was starting to get the picture, but I have no idea how far this all goes. I sit down on the couch and rub my fingers over my temple to try to help the headache that’s pounding in my head. Dacia sits down next to me and, to my surprise; Kane sits on my other side.

  “Don’t get upset.” He tries to soothe me with the softest voice he’s used with me the entire night. His voice is naturally deep, like his brothers, and he knows how to make it gentle and comforting in moments like this. “Wesley’s a complicated guy, and he took the whole thing harder than any of us. Even though our sister’s alive, sometimes he acts as though she isn’t, like he needs to go back in time and make up for the mistake he made.”

  “He didn’t make any mistake, Kane, he was a thirteen-year-old boy with an undiagnosed mental illness.”

  “I know that,” he responds. “I don’t
blame him, and I don’t even think our parents blamed him—at least not as much as he blamed himself. It’s no one’s fault but those animals that took Anna. But it doesn’t matter what any of us think. The only thing that matters is that Wesley is trying to right some wrong he believes he’s committed, and we need to stop him.”

  “I feel like if I could just talk to him I could make him see how crazy this all is, but he won’t answer his phone, he said he’s driving somewhere.”

  “So, then, what do we do?” Dacia asks.

  “Well,” Kane interjects, “I think it’s time to give our friend Phil a call.”

  MIA’S TEXTED ME a few times, and every time I hear my phone it’s a reminder of what I’m risking. I want to do the rational thing and just call the police; I could just text Phil and tell him I’ve changed my mind, and tell his friends to go pick these guys up. But I keep thinking of that picture. Those fuckers looked so . . . relaxed. I can’t stop my mind from imagining them right now, and every image of them being free and happy fills me with rage for my sister. Right now she’s surrounded by a full staff of psychologists and nurses, and these bastards are free. The more I think about it the more I imagine the gun in my hand, and the satisfaction of seeing their faces as I get justice for my sister.

  My phone vibrates again! When I see her name across my screen it snaps me back into reality, and the thought that was just running through my mind seems crazy. She’s concerned about me; I know that I must have sounded the same way I felt; sad, dark, and more than a little cryptic. I’ve never been so conflicted in my life. For over a decade finding these guys has been my obsession; the only thing that was consistent in my life, and the only purpose that I’ve ever really had. But Mia’s changed all of that. She’s given me a different purpose besides revenge—she’s given me the hope of a future together with her, and when I close my eyes I can see us together forever. No matter what direction I choose I have to fail one of the women in my life—either Mia or my sister.