by Hadley Quinn
She kissed me on the cheek and thanked me for the lift, and I waited until she was safely inside.
I wanted to reevaluate my life, and I believed Natalie was right about going back to my roots.
***
I got a call from Sinclair the next morning. I was in my office working on a design but answered the blocked number on my cell phone. I knew it was her, but even though I’d decided to drop my interest in her, I still couldn’t suppress my curiosity.
“Dane, I’m truly sorry about last night. You must think I’m a complete bitch for standing you up.”
Hmm, so she really didn’t show? Made me feel a tiny victory for leaving when I did, but it hadn’t resolve anything. Also, she didn’t speak as calm and collect as she normally did. Maybe there was a bit of panic on her part.
“I left at ten-after anyway, so no big deal,” I replied, choosing not to explain any further than that.
She paused. “Oh. Okay. So…did you decide not to meet with me or…?”
She was referring to me leaving so quickly. I had no other answer except, “Yeah, that was kind of the case. I mean you’ve got a good thing going for you and I don’t want you to ruin that. As for the flowers, I’m just going to chalk it up to some random fluke. I don’t know. There’s nothing I can do about it right now.”
“Well… I appreciate your consideration about my job. And… I kind of chickened out. I’m really sorry. I know you didn’t wait long but…I’m sorry.”
I only nodded my response, even though I knew she couldn’t see it. Wasn’t sure how to reply. Finally I said, “Well no harm done. Let’s just move on our separate ways and call it good, okay? I really need to reset my priorities right now. I wish you the best and…yeah.”
She paused briefly. I thought she’d agree and be out of my life, but instead she replied, “Dane, I’m here at your architecture firm. Are you sure we can’t meet?”
My blood froze for a second but my heart hammered aggressively. It was the strangest feeling. She was here? To meet with me?
“White Malibu in the parking lot,” she added.
My office didn’t overlook the parking lot, but Madden’s did. I got up from my desk and walked across the hall two doors down. His door was open and he was nose deep in a design on the table, but I walked right over to the windows.
After a quick scan, sure enough I spotted an unfamiliar white car down there.
“Hello? Dane?”
“Uh, yeah, I’m here. Um… sure, come on up. Third floor.”
I hung up without hearing a response. I guess it was just sheer lack of self-control, but that’s what I did.
Madden was standing there studying me.
“Sinclair is here,” I told him.
His eyes went huge. “Here? As in…here in the building?”
Well shit, guess I couldn’t be sure of that. I looked out the window at the car again and saw no movement. I couldn’t even be certain if anyone was in it, but there seemed to be. I thought that was a dark colored shirt or something. At least she hadn’t driven off after I hung up, but maybe that would have been better.
“What are we stalking?” Madden appeared next to me, stroking his beard in concentration.
“The white car,” I pointed. I realized she could probably lean forward enough to look up and see us, and for that reason, I took a step back. “Long story, but I was supposed to meet up with her last night and we didn’t. Then she just called and said she was here.”
He grabbed my shoulder and practically shoved my face to the glass. “She’s getting out of the car.”
I pulled myself back again but so I could still see. “I don’t exactly want her to see us gawking.”
He didn’t reply, because both of us really were gawking as a woman stepped out of the car and shut the door. She had blonde hair. Why that seemed weird I’m not sure, but when Madden opened his mouth I realized why.
“No, she can’t be blonde,” he groaned. “Long, thick, wavy red hair. That’s what’s been in my head this entire time. Full lips, big eyes, and a nice ass that’s worth grabbing. That broad looks way too skinny.”
I hadn’t even noticed much of her, but yes, she did look pretty petite from where we stood three stories up. Her blonde hair was shoulder-length that I could tell, and the only other thing that was obvious was her gray top and black pants as she disappeared into the building.
30
I walked past Madden’s desk in somewhat of a daze. This was it. I was going to meet Sinclair. The Sinclair that everyone was dying to attach an identity to but had failed.
But why was she willing to make me an exception?
Madden shoved me forward. “Well go. Meet her. Fill me in, okay? Wait, can I come in and act like I’m your assistant or something? I’ll fucking bring you coffee and donuts, Dane. Please?”
I chuckled, but only out of nervousness. “Let’s just, uh, see what we’re dealing with here. Okay?”
I’m not sure if he answered me or not, but I started walking down the hall. I wondered if I should wait in my office until reception hollered, or just meet her in the lobby.
I headed for the lobby. At least I could grant her a bit of anonymity that way and she wouldn’t have to give her name. But as soon as I made it to the front desk, a platinum blonde was already standing there and said, “Jessica Sinclair to see Dane Thomas, please.”
I cleared my throat and she looked up. At the same time, Becker & Lewis’s brilliant front desk attendant said, “Mr. Thomas, there’s someone here to see you.”
I nodded. “Mmhmm thanks, Angie.” I faced Sinclair for the first time and tried not to stare. She was soooo not what I pictured, but that was Madden’s doing. But even thinking back to the first time I heard her voice, I knew I never pictured her super blonde with green eyes. She did have a nice ass, though. I only looked because of Madden. Well okay, maybe that’s why I looked.
I motioned her to walk with me and held out my hand to shake at the same time. “Well, I’m Dane. It’s nice to finally meet you.” Maybe, I wanted to add but didn’t.
I was still superficially trying to measure her up out of the corner of my eye as we walked side-by-side. Her hair really was shoulder length, but I could now see it was just the front portion. The back went shorter with some darker tones. She was about five-foot-four with a slender figure. Not at all busty like I kind of imagined, and not sex-on-heels like Madden had dreamt of. I mean she was a nice looking female, just not what we’d both envisioned. And it was weird I couldn’t even guess an age on her. Somewhere between twenty and thirty, I suppose.
I rated her a 7.5 (Hey, she was shorter than I preferred, height and hair).
“My first name is Jessica,” she informed me, eyeing me carefully. She seemed more nervous than I was.
“Jessica,” I repeated. “All right, I’ll do my best.”
She smiled as we entered my office. I noticed Madden peeking out of his but I didn’t have time to silently communicate and just closed my door for privacy.
“I actually go by either name if it matters,” she said. “Sinclair is my middle name and it’s fine if that’s what you’re comfortable with.”
I was used to the name Sinclair in regards to her, but the more I studied her, the more she looked like a Jessica. And then I recalled my Jessica Rabbit comment a while back and it made me roll my eyes to myself. The name was a coincidence, but her appearance was completely off.
I offered her a seat and then sat across from her. “I’ll have to see how the names fit you,” I remarked. I asked if she wanted something to drink but she declined. “As for everything else though… You really are the voice on the radio, correct? I mean you aren’t some fill-in for her to keep her identity a secret, right?”
She gave me a patient smile. I’m not sure if I was cool with that or not, being that it felt so weird having to ask someone that. I mean her voice sounded just like the radio voice but…
“You’re listening to Slice of the City with Sinclair�
�your city of roses and so much more,” she said, repeating a traditional ending to her segment. Her voice was a bit gruff yet sultry.
Yep, sounded exactly the same.
“Okay,” I nodded. “I’m just making sure.”
“I totally understand.”
We were both silent for an awkward amount of time. I was waiting for her to speak, but she appeared to be waiting for me to go first.
“So… Why are you here?” I finally asked. “I mean your job depends on concealment so…?”
She nodded slightly, but the way she was looking at me made me uncomfortable. And she seemed extremely nervous right now, more so than I noticed in the hall. I mean she exhaled and I could hear how shaky it was.
She swallowed. “You don’t know who I am, do you,” she stated softly as she glanced away.
Okay, that was not a sentence I expected to come out of her mouth, and I was immediately scrambling through names and faces. My history with women was a bit obscure in some ways. Yes I’d been out with a lot of women, and I’d spoken to and possibly flirted with a trazillion more… But I didn’t believe I’d ever seen this woman before.
“I’m drawing a blank,” I admitted. “No, I don’t know who you are. Am I supposed to? Have we met?”
“No, we’ve never actually met…”
Thank fuck. I mean not that it couldn’t have been a good meeting or whatever, but still, it was better that I hadn’t done some dumb ass hump-and-dump with a woman I couldn’t remember.
“I’m Hailey’s sister,” she added hesitantly. “Hailey Holt?”
And right then was when the wind was knocked out of me. I stared at her, and suddenly I was back in my life seven years ago, sitting in a courtroom. Jessica had different hair now and she wasn’t a teenager anymore, but the name hit me physically this time.
“Hailey?” I repeated, although I wasn’t sure if the sound actually came out of my mouth.
“I’m Jessica Holt. …I’m sorry for doing things this way, but it was the only way I could think of when the chance came…”
Her mouth kept making sound but I wasn’t listening. This was just a joke, right? Of all the paths to cross and all the people in the world, this coincidence wasn’t happening.
I stood, and my action of walking across the room made her stop talking. Helping myself to some water, I kept my back to her.
“I’ll leave if you need me to,” she said from somewhere behind me. Her voice seemed far away. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
It was automatic, but I shook my head in response. I could picture her in the courtroom, sitting on the stand. She’d seemed so young then—my sister’s age at the time, seventeen. She didn’t have blonde hair back then. It’d been brown and a lot longer. And her voice… All I could remember were the lies coming out of her mouth back then. I didn’t recall it sounding like it did now, but that was probably due to seven years passing by.
I took another drink of water and turned around, letting all the pieces fall into place. My memories flashed from the courtroom to my office, picturing this person in the past and now the present. I just couldn’t believe how all of this had evolved.
“So our emails back and forth,” I began. “That was just to work your way.... What? Into my life? To talk to me? I mean your family was told not to contact—”
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. The expression on her face seemed sincere, but I was the one being blindsided right now. How dare she fucking act like this was hard for her! She knew all along who she’d been talking to in our emails and I had no damn clue.
“I can’t believe you never said anything,” I scoffed.
“I can’t believe you emailed me,” she countered, her eyebrows furrowed. “I thought it was a joke.”
“No, joke’s on me, apparently.”
“That’s not what I intended at all. I swear to you, Dane. When you emailed me, I just thought the name was a coincidence. And then I saw the name of your firm on your email, looked up your picture on the website, saw it was you and got scared. I thought maybe you knew the identity of Sinclair from Slice of the City and I thought you were subtly letting me know. I thought you were going to expose my name. But then I realized you didn’t know and it was just…it was all just a crazy twist of fate.”
“Twist of fate,” I mimicked sarcastically. “So you just kept emailing me anyway? Under the ruse that you were just some radio talk show person? That your family didn’t change my fucking life in a matter of seconds?”
She lowered her head. “I swear to you, I did not mean any harm while emailing y—”
“Oh, that’s rich!” I raised my voice. “I’m guessing that was the case seven years ago, right?” I laughed, but it was bitter and I pointed to the door. “Get out of my office.”
She didn’t move, and for a brief second I tried to reconsider. I tried to breathe in some sort of compassion and understanding, but I just couldn’t. I felt like a fucking idiot. I felt humiliated for being duped. But most of all, it hit me so hard with hurt it made me angry instead.
“I said get the fuck out of my office,” I repeated.
She nodded that time and stood. I stared at a wall as she walked across the room, but in my peripheral I saw her stop at the door. “If you change your mind… Well, you can email me, I guess.”
I grunted my disgust and completely turned my back so I didn’t have to watch her leave.
31
Meeting with Sinclair left me wanting to puke. I was sitting at my desk in silence when Madden entered, and I just wasn’t in the mood for any of his questions.
“I’ll talk to you about it later,” was all I said. Maybe I would. I mean I wasn’t sure if I would tell him everything, but I’d probably mention something at some point.
“Okay,” he answered, and he shut the door behind him.
I felt bad but I just didn’t know how to proceed. I needed time to process things first.
I closed up my work and left the building. I headed straight for the precinct and asked to see Emmet. There was something that clicked into place and I needed answers. He wasn’t in but I was told he’d be returning from lunch in a bit.
I waited.
“Dane Thomas, what a surprise,” a drab voice muttered. I was sitting on a chair in the corner of the busy room, and even though I knew several of the cops in there, no one had spoken to me yet.
Looking up, I recognized the face in front of me. I’m sure I’d seen him at a police fundraiser or somewhere, but I had to look at his patrol uniform for a name.
Jewitt.
“Hi,” I forced myself to reply. Seriously, wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone. I wanted to speak to Emmet, get some answers, and go home for the rest of the day. If anyone brought up how much they missed my dad, how much I reminded them of him, the case, or how tragic his death was… I was going to lose it.
“You don’t remember me,” Jewitt decided, his eyes turning a bit cold. “Yeah, you were a bit young when I first met you. Way too young, given the circumstances.” He looked angry now.
That look on his face kind of rang a bell, and even though I really was not in the mood to play another ‘guess who I am?’ game, I exhaled impatiently and replied, “Well I recognize you, but no, I’m not sure when or where we’ve met.”
He bobbed his head in agreement, eyeing me with obvious disdain. “You were just in middle school. I’m Jennifer Jewitt’s dad.”
Okay, that name I knew. Jennifer Jewitt. The girl I lost my virginity to when I was fourteen. Yep, eight grade. Didn’t know what all I could do with my pecker at that age, but I somehow managed.
And her father had pretty much threatened to kill me.
I only nodded. What was I supposed to say? She was a year older than me. She’d been the one who talked me into having sex while her parents were gone, and she was the one who made it sound like it’d been my idea so she wouldn’t get in trouble by her parents when they came home early.
Well that wasn’t the case. “
Ah, yeah. Jennifer. Definitely remember her.”
“Do you? One of how many?” He narrowed his eyes at me.
It was true I’d been sort of a player. But that was after Jennifer Jewitt. She dumped me that same night. I still remember how shitty that felt. Truthfully, I think it’s what turned me a bit cold when it came to girls back then. I got my heart broken early on.
I wasn’t man enough to stand up for myself back then, but I sure the fuck was man enough now. I rose from my seat, not sure if I could wait for Emmet any longer but ready to give this man the cold truth about his precious little girl.
We faced each other eye-to-eye when I said, “I happened to be the ‘one of many’,” I informed him smugly. “Your daughter screwed half the football team and all of the baseball team. I’d say she had a productive four years in high school. They didn’t call her Doorknob for nothing. More turns than a doorknob—”
“Dane.”
My arm was grabbed and someone yanked me back. It was Emmet, and he stepped between the two of us. Jewitt looked livid and ready to blow. I was glad; that was my intention.
Emmet told him to fuck off and dragged me to his office. He shut the door behind us and said, “I hate that jerkoff, but don’t mess with him.”
I sat in a chair without being invited to. “He picked the wrong time to bring up his slutty daughter.”
He chuckled. “Jenni? Ah, yes, I remember that mess. Him and your father butted heads quite a bit because of that.”
That was news to me. I cocked an eyebrow at him. “What do you mean?”
Emmet waved it off. “Oh, you know. Parents. Defending their kids. No kid can do wrong. Jewitt told your dad he needed to leash his son; your dad told him some shit in return. It all boiled over and was done, though.” He paused and looked me over. “So? What’s up? Why you here? Not that I’m not happy to see you, but you haven’t stopped in here for…years.”
He spoke that last part reverently. He meant since my father had died, but we left it at that.
