Get You Good

by Rhonda Bowen

  Sydney walked slowly up the driveway toward the house, taking in all two stories spread out across what had to be at least half an acre of land. She stopped halfway and took off her sunglasses.

  “So this is what she did with all that money,” JJ said, giving voice to the exact thought in Sydney’s head.

  Lissandra sucked on her teeth. “I don’t understand this trick. What does she alone need so much house for anyway?”

  Sydney replaced her sunglasses. “Who said she’s alone?”

  Without waiting for her sisters’ response, Sydney headed up to the front door, ringing the doorbell. She wasn’t surprised when she didn’t get a response. After trying the door and finding it locked, she turned to Lissandra.

  “It’s locked.”

  “What you telling me that for?” Lissandra asked with a touch of annoyance.

  “You know I don’t agree with all of this,” JJ said, folding her arms. “But we’re here, so we might as well go in. And since we don’t have a key . . .”

  JJ and Sydney looked at Lissandra expectantly. Lissandra cursed under her breath.

  “Fine. But can you at least back up and give me some space?” she asked, stepping toward the door. “And make sure we don’t have an audience.”

  Sydney turned her back to Lissandra, glancing out across the front yard and the driveway. As the sounds of metal against metal clinked behind her, she felt grateful for the tall shrubs that created a bit of a barrier around the front door. A few moments later, the door clicked open and Lissandra stood up, slipping a couple pieces of metal back into her purse even as she used the edge of her coat to wipe off the doorknob.

  They all paused at the slightly ajar door. Lissandra and Sydney glanced at each other. This would be the second house they had broken into in less than a week. This was becoming a disturbing habit.

  Sydney began to step forward, but for a brief moment it felt like something held her back. Quick images of Hayden, Jackie, even her father flashed across her mind. It was almost enough to make her change her mind. But then she thought of Dean lying in the hospital bed at Toronto Western Hospital and everything else seemed minor in comparison. She had to do this. For her brother.

  She slipped on her winter gloves and stepped forward. “So what are we waiting for?”

  Dark-stained hardwood floors covered the wide foyer and the even wider living room that it opened up into. Sydney walked through the space carefully, touching the brand-new, cream-colored, three-piece living-room suite, the glass end tables, the matching Tiffany lamps, and the 72-inch LED TV. The cash register in her mind kept ringing as she calculated the cost of the items, many of which were the same as the ones in the house she had shared with Dean.

  “Syd, get in here. You will not believe this!”

  After what she had seen so far, nothing could surprise her. But what could anger her were the three chandeliers hanging over the ten-seater dining table in the dining room.

  “Do you believe this?” Lissandra asked, adding a few more colorful words for emphasis.

  Before Sydney could respond, JJ came flying down the stairs.

  “She has four bedrooms, Syd. Four.” JJ’s eyes were wide in shock. “All completely outfitted from Pottery Barn! I know ’cause I was just in there looking at everything I couldn’t afford! Those are five-thousand-dollar rooms.”

  “You’re talking about rooms? Look at these chandeliers, JJ? We could feed our family for a whole year on one of these—”

  Her sisters’ voices faded out for Sydney as she looked around and continued calculating the cost of everything. Between the house and the furniture, Sheree had already spent a chunk of their money. It wasn’t half, but if she had done all this damage in the two weeks since she had been MIA, who knows what else she could do? If she was buying up assets this fast, how long would it last? Would they ever get any of it back?

  The air left her lungs at that thought, and visions of the future began to materialize in her mind’s eye. Visions of them going into debt over the cost of Dean’s care; having to sell Leroy’s house to cover the bills; having to move back in with Jackie. In an instant, she would go from being a young woman with a business, a home, and a budding career, to a thirty-year-old spinster living with her mother. She sank down into one of the plush dining chairs to catch her breath.

  “Sydney, this ain’t no time to be chillin’, girl. What we gonna do?”

  “Yeah, Syd, this woman is burning through our money. By the time we finally get to her, there may be nothing to get back.” JJ added the wringing of her hands to her pacing. “We have to do something.”

  Sydney didn’t know why they were both looking at her. She was tired of people looking to her for answers. This whole thing had begun with Lissandra’s investigation into Sheree. But without Sydney and her connection to Hayden, it would have never come this far. And somewhere along the way, Sydney had taken the lead in this dangerous operation.

  The feeling of apprehension she had felt at the door came back to her again. She should end this here. They had found Sheree. If they had been unsure about it before, they were even more certain when they walked into the kitchen and saw a picture of her and an older woman with similar features tacked up on the fridge door. They could go back outside, get in their cars, and call the police. Let the officials handle it. But Sydney didn’t trust the officials. They had told them before that because Dean was legally married to Sheree, whatever was his was hers—especially now that he was in the hospital and she would have power of attorney over his assets. Never mind that Sheree was the reason her brother was in the hospital; the law was on her side.

  But even though the law was on Sheree’s side, the Isaacs girls were on Dean’s side. And sometimes, that was all you needed.

  Sydney stood up.

  “OK, ladies, it’s time to get down to business.”

  JJ and Lissandra looked at each other, then back at Sydney.

  “And what business do you have in mind exactly?” Lissandra asked.

  “The business of finding out everything we can about Sheree Vern.” Sydney pulled her hair up into a ponytail. “Search every room, every closet, every drawer, and every loose floorboard. There’s got to be something here that will tell us exactly who she is and what she did with our money. And you can bet your life we’re going to find it.”

  Chapter 28

  “Sydney, are you sure this is a good idea?”

  It had been a little over an hour since Sydney and her sisters had begun to turn Sheree’s house upside down. Since then, they had discovered that Sheree liked to collect expensive things. And not everything they found had been from Dean’s house, which meant that at some time in the past Sheree had been involved in some other profitable scam. Just as Sydney had suspected, this wasn’t Sheree’s first time around the block.

  She was about to go through the slide-away cupboards under the bookshelf when JJ posed her worry-ridden question.

  “Good idea or not, it’s what’s happening.” Sydney barely paused to address her sister. “We don’t have many other options left.”

  “What if we just call the police? Or even Essie? Maybe she could give us another way to find out what we need to without the risk of a breaking-and-entering charge.” JJ’s copper eyes were wide, and her butterscotch skin flushed as she pleaded with Sydney. Sydney paused to consider her sister and couldn’t help but feel sympathy. She knew the whole situation must be excruciating for JJ, who wouldn’t even burn a CD for anyone because she thought it was wrong.

  Sydney turned to face her sister fully.

  “JJ, I appreciate all you’ve done for me up to this point,” Sydney said. “But you don’t have to do this. If you need to leave, then go. You don’t need to get caught up in all of this.”

  And Sydney didn’t need to have JJ’s conscience dulled, either. Sydney needed to know that in the future, she could count on JJ to pull her back from the edge when she was about to dive over a precipice. If JJ became like Sydney and Lissandra
, then there would be no one to do that.

  “You don’t need to get caught up in this either, Sydney,” JJ said, grabbing her older sister’s hand. “We can stop this right now. Let’s just go.”

  Sydney shook her head. “I can’t. I have to see this through.”

  Turning back now would make everything she had done before all for nothing.

  JJ’s eyes pleaded with Sydney before the words even came.

  “Syd, please. Stop this. . . .”

  “Ladies, we talking or we working?” Lissandra called out from the doorway. She had ditched her shirt and was wearing an Angry Birds tank top that matched the scowl on her face.

  “I’m working,” Sydney said, standing up. “JJ was just leaving.”

  “Sydney . . .”

  “JJ, go.” Sydney pulled out her car keys and handed them to JJ. “Take my car. I’ll get a ride with Lissandra.”

  Lissandra snorted. “I knew you would chicken out eventually.”

  “It’s not about chickening out, Lissandra,” JJ said. “This . . . all of this . . . is a really bad idea. What if Sheree comes back?”

  “Then I can flatten her face with my new Louis Vuitton boots.”

  “What Louis Vuitton boots?” JJ asked.

  “The ones I found in her closet that happen to be my size.”

  Sydney grabbed JJ’s hands and put the keys in them, folding her sister’s reluctant fingers around them.

  “Go,” Sydney urged. “You shouldn’t be here.”

  “Neither should you,” JJ tried one last time.

  Sydney shrugged. “That’s debatable.”

  JJ gave her sisters one last look before heading toward the front door.

  “You call me if anything happens,” JJ said as she held on to the open door. “Anything.”

  Sydney nodded.

  “You OK?” Lissandra asked after the door closed behind JJ.

  Sydney turned and went back to the cupboards. “I’m fine. Let’s just get this done.”

  And get it done was exactly what they did. The minutes flew by as they pored over every room, coming up with more expensive but virtually useless things. Sydney was about to hit what looked like an office upstairs when her cell phone rang. She assumed it would be JJ, trying to talk her into leaving again. She assumed wrong.

  Hayden.

  She stared at the name on the display and considered not answering. But it had been days since they had spoken to each other directly. His next move might be to visit her house and then, finding it empty, her mother’s house. That would be bad. The last thing she needed was Jackie figuring out that her three oldest daughters were MIA. She would sniff out trouble faster than a drug dealer could sniff out a cop.

  She sighed before pressing the green phone symbol.

  “Hey!” She hoped he bought her enthusiasm.

  “Hey, yourself. I’ve been trying to reach you all week,” he said. The concern in his deep husky voice tightened her stomach into knots.

  “Yeah, it’s been really busy,” Sydney said, pacing the hallway upstairs. She hated lying to Hayden. And she hated that it was starting to become a regular occurrence.

  “Yeah? What’s been going on?”

  “You know, the usual drama with my sisters,” she said, adding more layers to the deceit.

  “Sydney, come help me move this couch. There’s something underneath it. . . .”

  Sydney scrambled to cover the mouthpiece of the phone.

  “Is that Lissandra?” Hayden asked. “You guys are moving? How come you didn’t tell me?”

  “Umm, yeah—no . . .” Sydney bit her lip. “I mean, yes, it’s Lissandra, but no, we’re not moving. One of my other sisters is.”

  “So that’s why you’ve been so busy,” Hayden said, understanding flowing through his voice. “You’ve been helping your sister move. Baby, you could have told me. You want me to come over and give you a hand? The guys are off today, so I have time.”

  “No!” Sydney squeezed her eyes shut. “No, babe, you don’t need to do that. We already have a lot of people over here. You know all the sisters have to show up for everything.”

  “Oh.” He tried to hide it, but Sydney heard the disappointment in his voice. She knew he thought she had left him out of a family thing, and she couldn’t explain otherwise without lying to him or hurting him. She held back a sigh. This was why she hadn’t wanted to answer the phone in the first place. No matter what she said, it would be the wrong thing.

  “Babe, I wanted to ask you, but I knew you were out of town for most of the week for games. I figured you’d be tired like you usually are when you do a string of away games,” Sydney said. “I didn’t want to bother you. . . .”

  “Spending time with you is not a bother, Syd,” he said. “As it is, I feel like we’ve been playing phone tag since the day you picked up the watch from my place. Are you mad that I didn’t get to see you before I went on the road?”

  “No, of course not,” Sydney said, her heart constricting from the tight layers of guilt around it. Her initial anger at Hayden for hiding his knowledge of Sheree’s whereabouts had kept her from worrying about what Hayden might think about her avoiding his calls. But JJ’s well-placed words had helped to wear away some of that anger, leaving just enough space for her guilt to creep in.

  “Sydney!”

  Sydney turned her back to the stairs, where Lissandra’s voice was coming from, and ducked into one of the bedrooms, closing the door quietly.

  “But you’re right,” Sydney said with a sigh. “We haven’t seen much of each other lately.”

  “How about I come over tonight?” he offered. “You can relax, I can cook you and your sisters some dinner, and we can just chill for a while.”

  He had no idea how good that sounded and how much it would kill her to say no. But apart from the obvious fact that she didn’t even know when she would be home, there was no way she wanted Hayden anywhere around the likes of Lissandra and JJ. Especially Lissandra.

  “Sorry, babe. Tonight’s no good,” Sydney said. “I don’t even know when we’ll be done here. But how about we meet up tomorrow night?”

  There was a pause on the line and for a moment Sydney wondered if Hayden suspected she was lying to him. But if he did, he didn’t let on.

  “OK, baby, I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

  Sydney swallowed another sigh. “OK. Have a good night.”

  “You, too,” he said tiredly. “Love you. Bye.”

  Sydney’s mouth fell open.

  “What!” she squeaked.

  “Huh?” Hayden asked, suddenly alert.

  “What did you just say?”

  “Uh, nothing, I just said good night. Bye.”

  “No, no. You said something else.”

  “I did?”

  “You did.”

  “I did, didn’t I,” he said.

  Sydney smiled. She could envision the sheepish look on his face. “Yes, babe, you did.”

  She heard him let out a deep breath on the other end. “So.”

  “So?”

  Another deep breath. “So how do you feel about that?”

  At any other time, from any other man with whom Sydney felt the same way she did with Hayden, it would have been great. But Hayden wasn’t any other man. He was Sheree’s brother.

  It was her turn to let out a deep sigh.

  “Hayden . . .”

  “You know what, you don’t need to answer,” he said quickly. “Just . . . just think about it. And know . . . that I meant it. OK?”

  “OK.”

  “Good night, Syd.”

  “Good night, Dub.”

  She ended the call and slid down the wall until she was sitting on the ground. Hayden had said he loved her. What was she going to do?

  The door burst open.

  “Sydney . . .”

  “Just give me a minute and I’ll help you with the sofa,” Sydney said, closing her eyes.

  “This isn’t about the sofa.”

>   Sydney opened her eyes to look up at Lissandra.

  “You need to see this.”

  Without another word, Sydney followed her sister downstairs, through the living room, and into the kitchen. The cupboard of the island was open and pots and pans were strewn all over the floor. Lissandra kicked a few of them to the side in order to get to the flashlight, which was on the counter. She flicked it on and handed it to Sydney.

  She nodded toward the open cupboard. “Go ahead. Take a look.”

  Sydney crouched down and shone the flashlight into the now-empty cupboard. She soon discovered that it wasn’t as empty as she thought.

  There was a square-shaped hole in the floor of the cupboard. She noticed a flat piece of wood that had concealed it from view before Lissandra uncovered it. What was more interesting, however, was what was in the hole.

  Money.

  And lots of it. Bundled in stacks and wrapped in bags of clear plastic for purposes of preservation.

  “Oh my God,” Sydney breathed. “How much do you think is in here?”

  Lissandra stopped down beside Sydney. “Only one way to find out.”

  They began pulling out the bags with the bundles. Most of them were stacks of fifties and hundreds, with a couple stacks of twenties thrown in for good measure. Sydney assumed those allowed Sheree easy access when she needed to use some of the money in a hurry. By the time they had pulled all of it out, Sydney estimated it to be about fifty thousand dollars.

  Three-hundred-thousand-dollar house. Thousands of dollars in clothes and furniture, and now fifty thousand dollars in cash. Her father’s twenty years of hard work; of denying himself and his children; of long hours and low pay; her ten years of struggling to prove herself to him, to everyone. Here it all sat, in houses and cars and furniture. In fur coats and designer clothes that Sydney had found in closets upstairs. In bundles of fifties under the kitchen floorboards. All in the possession of a woman who probably didn’t know the value of an honest day’s work.

  Sheree had taken everything from Sydney. Her livelihood, her family’s money, her security, and her brother. And because of Sheree, she would probably lose the first man who had loved her without making her prove herself.