“Ya. I will leave alone.”
“Because if you don’t, I’ll dig your eyeballs out with my fingers. And I’m dead serious. I know exactly how to do it.” I put all my weight onto his hand. “Want a demonstration?”
He tries to open his eyes to look up at me, but he can’t open them wide enough to do it. “I promise, little whore. I promise.”
I rip open the lining of my purse, a thin cut just below the pocket. I take one of the two stacks. “Ten grand is the best I can do.” I drop the cash and it lands right on his face. He wipes away some of the pepper spray and moans. He gropes for the money. His eyes are swelling shut and the snot is running down over his lips. He looks like he’s been the victim of about twelve million bee-stings or a very amateur Botox party.
I grind my toes on his pinkie just a little, and say, “Are we clear? Come after him again, and I’ll put your balls on a barbeque.”
He takes a swipe for my ankle and grabs it, his big hand tightening hard. I’ll give him this much: He’s persistent.
But so am I. So I spray him again in the face.
“Motherbitch!” he screams into the carpet.
Vince’s duffel and my purse in hand, I bolt out the door. I hustle down the stairs, and I almost miss the last step, but I catch myself at the last moment.
I launch myself into the BMW and lock the doors. Then I start the engine, head for the road, and tap my phone.
“Siri!” I say.
“Hello, Lucy,” Siri says.
I take a left out of town. I need a shower, a Turkish robe, and a bed with sheets that have a respectably high thread count. I need room service. I need to feel human again. “Take me to the nearest five-star hotel.”
Siri makes her thinking beep. “There is a no five-star hotel…within…fifty miles. There is a… La Quinta… three miles…away. Two-point-four stars. Do you want me to take you to that one?”
It’s not the Ritz. But it’ll be just fine.
17
The next morning, I put a cigarette into my mouth just as I leave the jail. I find her waiting for me out in the parking lot, leaning on the Beemer and looking at her phone. She drops it into her purse as soon as she sees me. She’s in black leggings and a tank top with flowers on it. The way she’s standing, and the way the sunshine is on her, I can just see the rise of her pelvis through the fabric. Just like that, my face stops aching. The cigarette hangs from my mouth. I haven’t even grabbed my lighter. Verdict confirmed. I’m a goner. The need to kiss her is stronger than the need to light up after a night in the drunk tank.
She puts her sunglasses on top of her head, pulling her hair back from her neck in gentle sweeps with her fingers.
“Hey beautiful.” I slip my arm around the small of her back and pull her hips to my leg.
“Are you okay?” she says, looking worriedly at my nose.
“Just fine now.”
“We should get you some ice.”
“Will you stop fucking worrying about me?” I say, pushing against her harder.
She parts her legs around my knee and shields her eyes from the sun with her hand. Something about the fact that she doesn’t put her glasses down—which would be logical—is just too fucking cute. “How’d you get in this bind, anyway?” she asks.
I don’t want to tell her. I just want to know what color panties she’s wearing and take them off of her with my teeth. “Defending your honor.”
“You’re just saying that.”
I lean into her. “Whatever you say.”
But she teases me, pulls away, searching my face. “Unless the other guy ended up in the ICU, I’d say my honor remains decidedly undefended.”
I grip her harder. “You’re a piece of work. You bail me out and then you might as well punch me in the nuts.”
“Yin and Yang,” she answers, pressing the Beemer key and making a beep-beep fill the air, but she’s still got those honey eyes on me. She drives her pelvis into my leg, and I feel her bones grind along my quad. I kiss her, hard. She pulls in a breath and presses her hands to my chest. She tastes like orange juice and a cinnamon roll.
My fingers find their way to her ass, and I start to put her up on the fender. I don’t give a shit that I’m in front of a county jail. I need her. That bad.
But she’s got her head on straighter than I do today. She presses hard into my chest, Stop. I let her mouth go, and she says, “If you’re going to fuck me on the fender, let’s find somewhere that I can scream your name.”
Christ.
She winks, and just like that, she slips from my grasp.
As she goes, I see the fine line of a thong, making a ridge under the fabric of her leggings. Once I lose sight of her thighs, I snap out of it and go around to the passenger’s side and get in. She presses the ignition button and the engine purrs to life. She hits LOCK before I can. We’re inside, alone, under the cover of the extra-dark tint. The radio is playing some monster ballads so softly that Aerosmith almost gets lost in the noise of the air conditioning.
I lean over the console and take her face in my palm. “You make me feel fucking dope-sick, you know that? Twelve hours without touching you and I felt like I was trying to kick heroin.”
“And you’d know?”
“What do you think?” I run my thumb along the edge of her ear, and she shudders. I like that out there in the world. She’s fucking sassy. But alone with me, she melts a little. It’s so fucking addictive, that feeling of her falling apart.
“Where should we go?” she murmurs.
I press my lips to hers. I lose track a little. She’s as cool as the air conditioning on my arms. She’s smooth where I’m rough. So fucking good. So fucking sweet. We moan together, I think. Fuck knows what I taste like, but she seems to be good with it.
Bracing her neck with my fingers, I shift my body over the console to get closer to her. I lower my chest down onto her, pressing her towards the window. Her hand makes its way up my bicep. Her other hand finds its way to my back pocket, and she squeezes my ass under my wallet.
“We can’t,” she pants, laughing into my cheek. “Not here. There are cops everywhere.”
“Front seats are no place for fucking,” I say. “Not the way we do it.” Through the fabric of her leggings, I press my first two fingers to feel her wetness. “I’m just getting my fix.”
She whines and leans her head back against the window, letting me get a good lick along the length of her neck. I start at the base and work upwards. I catch the peanut charm on my tongue and pull up, feeling her neck pull against the fine chain. I taste her there, the lingering taste of perfume on that metal so used to being next to her skin. I want to be that metal. I want to be covered in that scent.
Anchoring myself with my boot by the door, I climb on top of her. I feel her breasts compress against me. She grabs my shirt and starts to pull me onto her body. There’s that hunger and that fire.
“Yeah. Show me,” I say. “Let me feel you.”
“You’ll feel me.” Her hand comes to my cock, already hard for her.
“I’m an animal in the mornings. You should know that.”
“I’m getting the idea.”
I begin to slide my hand under those leggings. I shift my body farther over the console, almost on top of her now. My knee crunches a bottle of water in the cup holder. This car might be massive, but I’m even more massive, and I feel the radio dials against my back. I reach down beside her and push the button to lower the seat. She giggles a little, saying, “You’re going to get us both arrested.”
I take her face in my hands and kiss her. Suddenly the volume goes up and then the station changes, away from monster ballads to the tinny noise of a news station: “And returning to our top story, lunchmeat tycoon Charles Burchett’s daughter…”
I pull away from the kiss. Her eyes are just inches from mine. Neither one of us blinks.
“…Lucy Burchett, the heiress to the Burchett Meats empire, is wanted on charges of embezzlement aft
er the SEC revealed that the money siphoned from the company had been laundered through her accounts. Police have issued a warrant for Miss Burchett’s arrest and are asking anybody who has any information about her whereabouts to contact the New York State federal prosecutor. Now, onto the weather…”
18
“Kill your phone,” Vince says, pushing his body off mine and slipping back into the passenger’s seat. I don’t answer. I just stare at the radio, like I must have heard that wrong. My dad, the Ham King? Laundering money through my accounts? How is that even possible? The man only manages to add 3 and 7 correctly 50% of the time. Once, we went to France and he tipped the bellhop $300 because the exchange rate completely mystified him.
That man? Laundering money?
“Phone, Lucy. Give me your fucking phone,” Vince says.
Literally, all I can do is stare at the radio.
Vince grabs my purse from the back seat.
“I cannot believe him!” I say at the dashboard. I smack my face with my palms.
Vince looks inside my purse. “Where’s the rest of the cash?” he says, holding up the single stack of money, thinned even more by the bail I just paid.
I stare at the bills. “I needed it last night.” I grab Vince’s arm. “Did I hear that right? The New York State prosecutor’s office is after me?”
“Needed it for what?”
“Vince. They’re after me. Me!”
He starts digging. “I’m aware of that, Peaches. So where’s your fucking phone?”
A tangerine flies out of my purse and lands in my lap, followed by a whole tangle of earbuds that I never took the time to undo. “Jesus Christ, this purse, Lucy. We’re going to have to talk about this.” He puts my birth control on my leg. “And that. Stay on schedule.”
I pull my phone out from under my leg and hand it over, still with my eyes locked on the radio. He stuffs my purse down by his feet. I’m having one of those out-of-body moments, where I think if I try really, really hard, I’ll be able to yank myself out of this nightmare. It’s most definitely not working. Mindlessly, I take one of my pills. I think it’s Wednesday today, but I take a Friday.
I watch him press the power button and then swipe the confirmation toggle thing. He drops my phone back in my bag. “There. At least they can’t track you now. Don’t turn it on, for any reason. Got that?”
I think back to Dad saying, “We’re going to have to get our story straight.” This is what he meant. This was it. It feels like the time I got T-boned at an intersection in Greenwich, that sort of sideways whooshing feeling. This isn’t just my dad’s problem anymore. Suddenly, I’m not just related to the Ham King. I’m embezzling funds for him. At least that’s how it seems.
“I need to make a call,” I say, trying to pry the phone from Vince’s fingers.
“Pretty sure we’ve covered that. No calls.”
I throw myself at him, but he keeps it just out of reach. “Lucy. Stop.”
And then stare at the dash.
With a quick thrust of my finger, I press the little blue CALL button on the dashboard, and then number 5.
A ringing fills the cab.
Vince shakes his head. He stares up through the sunroof. “You’re a real handful.”
“Thanks. Shhhh.”
Another ring, and then, “What?” In the background is the noise of a paper shredder going at full tilt.
“You are a horrible father,” I say. “The absolute worst. Embezzlement? Are you joking? May your improperly processed meats rain down on your head.”
“Good morning, Ms. Burchett,” says the voice. That’s not my dad. It takes me one second to place it. Wilbur Pickering, Certified Public Accountant. Greasy, always wears both a belt and suspenders, and smells vaguely like chicken salad.
“Listen, Mr. Pickering. This is a huge misunderstanding. You know I didn’t do it. My dad knows I didn’t do it. All we have to do is call the SEC and…”
The shredder is working so hard, it sounds like a chainsaw. It shrieks maniacally and then the line goes quiet. “But you did do it, Ms. Burchett. The government already has the papers. The case is in progress. Your signature is everywhere.”
The papers. What papers? I rack my brain. What papers?
Vince makes a slicing motion across his throat at me, and reaches to end the call but I stop him.
“Mr. Pickering, for God’s sake…Where’s my dad?”
Chicken Salad coughs. “Under a gag order.”
“Jesus,” Vince whispers into his palm.
Then it hits me. The trust fund, of course. Dad and this shyster. They cooked this up. But is a trust fund laundering? Or just sheltering? Is there a difference? I have no idea whatsoever. One class that wasn’t offered at Yale was Hide Your Cash: A Survey on Corporate Wrongdoings.
“Sorry, Ms. Burchett. I've got a flight to catch,” Chicken Salad says. I hear my dad’s chair squeak. “My professional advice? Run like hell.”
And the line goes dead.
“Fuuuuuuuck,” Vince says.
I’m stunned. Absolutely freaking stunned. Not surprised, mind you. This is what happens when you put your money in the hands of a guy who drives a yellow Miata convertible with sheep-skin covered seats. But still, I am astonished. Frozen stiff.
Vince takes me by the shoulders. I swallow and notice for the first time a dried smudge of blood along one nostril. I reach for a Handi Wipe and start to blot at his face. He bats my hand away. “This isn’t time to play nurse.”
I focus hard on his eyes. A cop walks past the window. “We have to get out of this parking lot,” I say.
“No shit.” He reaches over and unbuckles my seatbelt, adding, “I’m driving. You’re bad enough when you’re thinking straight,” then he gets out and comes over to my side. He guides me out of the seat and walks me around to the passenger’s door.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m an excellent driver. Is embezzlement a first degree felony?”
“Just get in the damned car.”
I remember signing those papers for the trust fund. So many signatures my hand started to cramp. And Chicken Salad, CPA, hovering over my shoulder the entire damned time. “Sign there, Miss Burchett. Initial there, print your name there. Nice and clear…”
Vince’s fingers dig into my biceps, and it helps me come back to earth a little. “The question you’ve got to ask yourself,” he says, buckling me up in the passenger’s seat like I’m a little girl. “Is what do you want to do?”
I clench my nails into my palms. “Light my father on fire, for one. Bash him over the head with his #1 Dad mug.”
“I’d advise against that, purely for legal reasons,” he says, sounding awfully lawyerly. He puts one hand on the roof and kind of leans in towards me. “You don’t have to answer this. But did you do it? Did you move your dad’s dough?”
My mouth drops open. He asks it like he’s asking me if I happened to get a chance to stop by the grocery for eggs, or if I remembered to fill up on wiper fluid. Totally ordinary. Did you move your dad’s dough? “Of course I didn’t.” I drag my fingers down my cheeks. I hold them there for so long, the air feels like it’s drying out my lower lids.
Vince gives me the eyebrows. “No need to lie to me, Peaches.”
I shove him. “I wouldn’t even know how! He had me sign some stuff a few months ago. It all looked legit.”
“I’m sure it did,” Vince says. “But it wasn’t.”
“Oh. My. God.”
He slams my door and comes around the front of the car, watching me all the time. Then he gets in the driver’s seat. He buckles up and quiets the radio.
The memory of being in the accountant’s office rushes back to me. Shiny cherry veneer and fake ficus plants, and dad saying, “Just sign these documents, sweetheart, nothing to worry about. Just doing some tax restructuring. Very complicated, something to do with an S-corp…” Idiot, Lucy. Idiot. I’d been busy doing something on my phone, not paying attention, not carin
g a bit. It never, not once, occurred to me that he was having me partake in a felony.
Unless dad didn’t even know. Unless Chicken Salad is behind it all. Now, I know how to handle a variety of difficult situations, but this one is way, way out of my normal routine. What am I going to do? Call 411, talk to the SEC and say, “Honest, guys! Wasn’t me!”
“Vince. What the hell do I do now?”
“When the shit hits the fan, there are two options,” Vince says, holding up a finger. “One, go back and face the music. Turn yourself in.”
I think that through. I have flashes of myself holding my purse over my face as someone leads me to a late-model Lincoln town car outside a federal courthouse. My mom is with me with a tissue to her sunglasses. In my imagination, I hear Nancy Grace saying my name in that irritating twang of hers.
“What’s behind door number two?”
He looks at me over his shoulder, calm and collected. “Disappear.” He snaps his big fingers in the air with an authoritative click.
The noise hangs between us.
Snap. Disappear.
I look at Vince. After paying off the Russian and Vince’s bail (did I just say that? Whose life has this become?), we’ve got a little shy of eight grand left. I’ve got a car. I can start over and find my way. Somehow. Someway.
I want to do it…but…
“Come with me,” I blurt out at the windshield. “Disappear with me.”
He turns to me, this guy who makes me make bad decisions, this guy who makes me feel like I need to get my eyes re-checked.
His smile is slow in coming. “You and me?” He turns his eyes back to the curving road.
I squeeze his leg. “You and me. Why not?”
I see his dimples now. “A million reasons, Peaches.”
“I mean, a lot of crazy ideas ended up being brilliant ones. Just think, Crocs and the space shuttle and the internet.”
His laugh comes out of his nose, and I can see him swallow it down and grimace.
“Oh God, I’m sorry,” I say. “I've got Advil.” I begin a purse rummage of my own.
Confessed Page 14
