The Messenger (Professionals Book 3)

by Jessica Gadziala

  "Yeah."

  There was defeat and resignation in his tone.

  Paired with the depth of sadness in his eyes, it pierced her. Made her feel like the lowest of lows. Made her second-guess coming in, speaking the words that had been stuck in her throat for months.

  "I'm sorry, Kai," she told him, reaching across the desk to wrap an arm around his shoulders.

  "You have nothing to be sorry about, Miller. You're right. I need to give her space."

  And so he did.

  THREE

  Kai

  That bastard.

  There was nothing else able to penetrate my head as I moved toward Jules' front door, turning back at the last moment to watch the way she hunched over the island, letting out a shuddering breath that I could practically feel.

  I forced myself into the hall, closing the door with a quiet click before reaching for my phone.

  I had to take a few breaths, schooling the tension out of my voice, knowing Miller would pick up on it, read into it.

  I wasn't going to break my promise to Jules. Even if the team would be an asset, would make this faster. If she wanted this just between the two of us, that was what it was going to be. And I would just have to step up my game.

  I couldn't let her down.

  We had to find the bastard.

  And then I would hold him back while she beat the shit out of him.

  "Christ, Kai. Could you take any longer? People are all assuming Gary got cold feet."

  Cold feet.

  More like a cold heart.

  How the hell else could you explain his willingness to do something like that to Jules?

  At least I could do her one small favor. Save her pride to her family and friends. Until she figured out how she wanted to handle it all herself.

  "Jules called it off," I told Miller, the lie tripping off my tongue easily. I had needed to bend the truth more than a few times in my line of work. Not usually to co-workers, but with her not here to see me, I pulled it off.

  "What? Why would she do that? Just minutes before the ceremony?"

  "Turns out Gary was lying to her about some things. You know how Jules feels about that."

  "Wow. So she just... cut him off? Just like that. I know Jules can run a bit cool, but that is ice cold. Well, at least he doesn't seem to have a big crowd here to be embarrassed for him. Where is Jules now?"

  "Getting changed. Then catching a plane."

  "She's still going on the honeymoon? Alone? Damn. She's my new hero. I bet she meets some hot Balinese man, and elopes on the beach."

  "Yeah, that sounds like Jules," I drawled, rolling my eyes even as the familiar twinge of jealousy pierced my chest.

  "Hey, you know what?" she asked, sounding pleased.

  "What?"

  "Maybe this means you get a second chance. But you have to nut-up this time."

  "Believe me, that's the last thing on my mind right now."

  "Hm."

  "Hm, what?"

  "Nothing. I just... I don't know. I figured you had just been putting on a show since we had that talk, that you didn't really move on. Just pretended to. I guess I was wrong."

  She wasn't wrong.

  She couldn't have been more right.

  I had simply played a part since that night with Miller in my office.

  I created a wide berth around Jules. I stopped organizing her desk stuff. I stopped hanging with her when I could have been in my own office. Since I couldn't just suddenly stop ordering from her favorite lunch places, I just started to go out right before like I had work to do, sitting down at the local sub shop all by myself like a loser instead.

  I stopped talking about her.

  I attempted to look like I noticed her less.

  I played a part.

  Apparently, convincingly enough.

  "Jules wanted to know if there was any way someone could tell everyone to go ahead and have a nice meal on her. Maybe have Gunner spread the news. He likes being the bearer of bad news."

  "Yeah, no worries. Will we be seeing you at the party?"

  "I'm gonna give Jules a ride to the airport. But if I get back in time..."

  "Sounds good. I'll save you some not-wedding cake."

  "Thanks, Miller."

  With that, I made my way to the office, throwing myself into research on the guy who broke Jules' heart - even if she was too focused on the money to realize it yet.

  Gary Truman.

  Thirty-two.

  And, well, to his conman credit, just enough came up.

  Just enough to convince any girl who searched his name that he was legit. And unmarried.

  He had all the right social media accounts - Facebook, Instagram, a Twitter that he never posted on.

  The right stuff with some pictures, some shared posts.

  Not a lot, but passable.

  Women accepted that most guys didn't update as often as they did, didn't do selfies, didn't add in all the work and life information.

  Nothing about this Gary Truman would set up red flags unless you knew to look for them.

  Because his oldest post was about two and a half years before. Likely around the time he met Jules. He'd uploaded, shared, and posted a lot those first two weeks, giving the appearance of a longer period of time if someone wasn't investigating enough to look at the dates.

  And outside of social media, there was nothing. No old defunct LinkedIn pages; no links to old blogs or newspaper articles about how he hit the home run in a game in high school.

  In fact, the only other posts about Gary Truman, aged thirty-two, belonged to someone in jail for armed robbery.

  He was a ghost in a day and age when it was impossible to be a ghost.

  I took a picture off his account, uploading it to a friend who had done some work for me in the past, grabbed my laptop, stuffed it into my backpack, and headed back to my car, grabbing salads on the way - hers with romaine, spinach, carrots, cucumbers, almonds, and honey mustard dressing, mine with iceberg, croutons, and ranch because salads were, well, tasteless and pointless without some bread and fat.

  I got there about half an hour after I left, hoping she'd taken the time to maybe cry it out in the shower in private, but hadn't fallen into some kind of depression over the whole thing.

  The sooner we got to work on this, the better the chances of finding Gary before the money was all gone.

  I let myself back in, closing the door quietly.

  "Jules?" I called, putting the salads down on the island beside her half-drank, now cold coffee. "I'm back," I added when I got no response, waiting for her, not wanting to go in search of her only to find her in a weak moment she might not want me to share.

  I could hear movement a moment later, footsteps coming closer. Not heels, as was her usual, but I figured maybe she just hadn't slipped them on yet.

  I couldn't have expected sneakers.

  Or, well, any other part of the Jules that came around the bend of the kitchen, and into my line of sight.

  Because Jules, well, Jules liked her image. She put time and thought into her outfits, her hair, her makeup, her jewelry selection. There was never a day when she showed up to work after too-little sleep with a look that clearly said 'screw it.'

  She always had on work attire - dresses or slacks with blouses or blazers.

  Even when she was called in at two a.m. when there was an emergency client, she somehow managed to slip into a dress, pull her hair back, put on heels, and fix her makeup, and still be there in under twenty minutes.

  That was just how she was.

  Or so I thought.

  Had I not been so distracted by her on her knees in her wedding dress, I might have noticed that her closet did boast things that others might consider daily outfits, but Jules would likely call leisure wear.

  Because, apparently, it was there.

  I knew that because Jules was wearing it.

  Light wash jean capris - neither tight nor loose, just skimming the gentle curves
of her body, the cuff falling just below her knee, exposing a few inches of her lower leg and ankle before you found pure white - so white she either never wore them before, or was obsessive about bleaching them - low sneakers.

  For a shirt, she had on a simple v-neck white tee that, like her pants, framed her body without hugging it the way her usual clothes were known to do.

  She had on her cross, but nothing else. Nothing at her ears or wrists. Or, well, fingers. Since her fake engagement ring was floating in a glass on the kitchen counter.

  Perhaps the most shocking, though, wasn't the clothes at all.

  But what was above her neck.

  Her hair, normally pulled back for convenience during her long work shifts, was left loose around her shoulders, the gleaming red waves framing a face made younger and more vulnerable without any mascara to darken her naturally light lashes, or filler in her brows, or liner on her water line, or color to her lips.

  This wasn't Jules the executive assistant slash office manager slash personal assistant slash zoo keeper that she was when we always got to see her.

  This was simply Jules.

  And, amazingly enough, because I didn't think such a thing was possible, she was even more beautiful than usual.

  "You got me a salad?" she asked, brows drawing together.

  "You keep next to nothing in your fridge," I informed her, something new I had learned about her while making her coffee.

  "I would claim it was because I was planning to leave for vacation, so I had emptied out. But I honestly don't keep much more than that in there on a regular basis."

  "You're always at work," I said, understanding. My fridge was usually only full of takeout containers, condiments, and drinks.

  "Exactly," she agreed, moving past me toward the kitchen, taking a drink of her cold coffee. "Maybe we should put it in the fridge," she suggested, reaching into the bag to pull out the containers, going into mine to pick the croutons out, placing them in a baggie before putting the salads themselves into the fridge. "I think it would be smart to get to Gary's place sooner rather than later. It's a long shot, but maybe we would catch him even. Before he skips town."

  Not wanting to crush her hopes, I said nothing even though I knew there was no way he had taken the money then stuck around. Not when she was expecting him at an altar. Knowing she would come looking for him. If I knew anything about this - and I did - he had likely already hit the road. Not even stopping back at his apartment for whatever he had left behind.

  "Alright," I agreed. "Let's go check it out."

  "I've never been in your car before," she commented, tone a little hollow as we rode the elevator down.

  "I've never been in yours either."

  "Is it like your office?" she asked, choosing the words carefully.

  "You mean a wreck?"

  "That's what I meant," she agreed, giving me a small smile. It didn't come close to meeting her eyes.

  "See for yourself," I invited as we walked up next to my tan Jeep, something I had chosen because it was roomy if I needed to catch a nap while on the road.

  A glamorous life it was not, but I had always been able to sleep anywhere.

  I bleeped the locks, and Jules went for her door, but not quite before my hand got there first, making her jump back.

  She'd gotten too used to that fake fiancé of hers not opening things for her.

  "Well, this is surprising," she decided, looking around inside before pulling herself up.

  When on a long job, my car was every bit as hectic as my office. But once a job was over, it got cleared out, hit the wash for an exterior and interior detailing.

  It was less because I was obsessive about it and more because old food wrappers brought bugs. And, while I could sleep a lot of ways, with things crawling on me was a hard no.

  "Point me in a direction," I demanded as I turned the car over, stifling the inappropriate surging of happiness inside at seeing her in my car. Such a small thing, but also something like a milestone as well.

  Jules, for me, had invaded one part of my life in a physical way.

  Work.

  That was it.

  She had never been in my car, my place, had never come out to eat with me, for drinks, movies, nothing. She was the only person in the office I hadn't spent time with outside of work. And, of course, the one I wanted to with most.

  That being said, I didn't like the circumstances. I didn't like that she sort of had to be in my car, that she was here because she needed my help, not because she actually wanted to be.

  She steered me straight out of Navesink Bank, twenty minutes south to Eastontown to a large, winding complex of red brick apartment buildings of simple up or down units, not full floors. The grounds were bright green even during a crippling heat wave and subsequent drought. A set of little girls were riding baby bikes down one of the many paths as their mother watered her window boxes.

  It was straight out of a movie.

  My closest thing to a next door neighbor were the opossums that hung out in the woods behind my place.

  "Nice place," I said because, well, it was.

  "Yeah," she agreed, but it was clear she was seeing it through a different lens than I was, probably over-analyzing every interaction she and Gary had shared at this location.

  "It's like a labyrinth in here," I mumbled, having somehow made a wrong turn, ending up in yet another section of buildings.

  "Take the next left. And park. We have to walk around to the front," she explained, already reaching to un-click her belt. "Top floor," she told me, reaching for her set of keys, producing one with a dark blue rubber cover around it, differentiating it from the white one for her place, the black one for work, and - if I had to guess - green for her mom and pink for her sister - their favorite colors.

  "Oh, heya there, Jules," a woman's voice called, making us both turn to finding her standing in the screen cutout of her door. "You making sure he got everything?"

  "Hey, Jean. Got what?"

  "The rest of his things," Jean specified, giving the two of us a smile, making her wrinkled face go warm and grandmotherly. "He was moving most of it out earlier. I'm sorry to see him go, but so happy for you two. The wedding is soon, right?" she went on, oblivious to the tension overtaking Jules' body. "Who is this?"

  "Yes, soon," Jules composed herself enough to say. "And this is Kai. My..."

  "Stylist," I interjected. "We are going for her last fitting after we make sure Gary got all his things. He said something about thinking he left a box in his closet."

  "Okay. I won't keep you. I remember how hectic things were around my big day to Luis. And that was many years ago, you know," she went on, giving me a knowing look. "I bet things are even more demanding now. Send me pictures, will you?"

  "Sure thing, Jean." Jules made the fake promise with genuine pain in her eyes. Not for her, it didn't seem. But for Jean. For her grandmotherly enthusiasm for her happily ever after. The one that would not take place.

  With that, Jules stuck the key in the lock, and moved inside to the small landing, barely big enough to turn around in, making my body almost press into hers before she took off up the staircase, footsteps muffled by the pretty hideous brown carpeting covering the steps.

  I moved into a somewhat cramped space - at least in comparison to my own and Jules'. A living room was to the left, melting into a dining space that appeared to curve into a kitchen. To the right, you could see the white tile of a bathroom, then doors at the end of the hall. One open, one closed.

  "Jules," I hissed under my breath, closing my hand around her upper arm, trying to pull her to a stop as she went to charge off toward the rooms. "He could be here," I told her, urging her to realize that a cornered man was a dangerous one.

  "Good. I won't have to travel far to whip his ass," she told me, yanking her arm away, and charging down the hall, turning into the open door with reckless abandon.

  I was right at her six, moving into what was the master bedroom. Not
empty, but bare.

  The king-sized bed was still there, held by the ugly black metal frame with attached headboard. There were sheets on the bed, but no comforter or pillows.

  Two medium-wood nightstands flanked the sides, each with a matching lamp, but nothing else.

  I'd bet all the drawers were empty.

  As was the dresser that Jules was searching through a bit frantically, pulling one completely out, dropping it carelessly on the brown carpet that seemed to cover all the floors in the space save for the bathroom and, I imagined, the kitchen.

  Finding nothing, she went into the closet, seeing nothing but wire and plastic hangers, something that seemed to make her growl before she turned back to me, a look of hopelessness in her eyes.

  "What about the spare room?"

  "He always said it was where he stored all his extra boxes."

  "You've never been in there?" I asked, surprised. Who had entire rooms that you had never at least seen?

  "No," she said, shoulders falling a bit, seeming to finally see the oddness of that. Especially after dating for well over a year, closing in on two.

  "Alright, let's check it out," I offered, moving into the hall, letting her go before me, throwing open the door, and fumbling around on the wall to find the switch to the darkened room.

  I had a feeling that as soon as the bright light flicked on, she regretted finding the switch in the first place.

  Because it was one thing to know you had been tricked by a conman.

  It was a complete other to see it all mapped out in front of you in stark, undeniable detail.

  Not only had she been conned, this had been a long game.

  He hadn't just met her, gotten to know she made good money, that she had a lot stashed away, and then decided to use that.

  No.

  From the looks of things, he had clocked her a good long while before they had ever actually officially met, that he had watched her, studied her.

  Hell, he had seen her in jeans and a tee years before I had - someone who spent every long workday with her for years.

  Jules moved a few feet in, walking over toward a wall, giving me her profile, her hair tucked behind her ear, showing me her parted lips, her wide eyes.