“Not sure,” Nick says. “Toro texted me. Said it’s the feds. Where’s Naomi?”
“No clue. Where’s Dad?”
“I don’t know. Gonna go find them,” Nick yells, running down the stairs. I’m about to do the same when a group of men come up, preventing me from moving. They show me their badges and read me my rights, and before I have a chance to process what the hell is going on, I’m being shuffled out of my own goddamn club in handcuffs.
Part 2
One forgives to the degree that one loves.
—François de La Rochefoucauld
Chapter 7
April
PRESENT
“Shit, Dean. Shit. Shit. Shit!” I’m pacing the apartment, and Dean is typing something on his laptop. He’s in a plain white T-shirt that makes his black skin look even darker. I’m not used to seeing him with a shaved head, but that’s the first thing he did this morning. A fresh look—that’s what he called it.
I start picking out the pins in my hair and yanking the long red wig off my head. “He saw me. He knew who I was. I should’ve stayed in L.A.”
“Of course he did,” Dean says without looking at me. “Told you to put colored contacts in, but you didn’t listen.”
“You know I can’t see shit with contacts.”
“And you know that not a lot of people have eyes that shade of blue. Might as well have a tattoo on your face, honey. It’s an identifier.”
“I didn’t think I’d see him again. Not so soon, at least.”
“I kept you in L.A. as long as I could, but you knew the case would lead back here. Well, look at the bright side—the case is wrapped up. Trial is on Monday, and this shit will be officially over. Hang in there for a few more days.”
“Matt’s never going to forgive me.”
“He will.”
“He won’t, Dean. He hired a PI, for chrissake.”
“Doesn’t matter. He will,” Dean says, shutting down the laptop. “And if he doesn’t, it’s his loss.”
I slump down on the shitty full-size bed in the shitty apartment in the shitty building I’ve been living in since coming back to Miami three weeks ago. “I need to pack.”
“Yep,” he agrees, pulling off his T-shirt and throwing it aside. He walks to the bathroom, and I can hear him getting ready for bed. With a deep breath I haul my ass up from the bed, grab my suitcase, and start throwing all my clothes inside. This hell is almost over, thank God. By the time Dean comes back into the room, I’m nearly done, since I don’t have many personal belongings in the apartment, and whatever I don’t pack I’ll just leave.
Dean pulls downs the covers and slides into bed. “I cannot fucking wait to talk to Lori.”
“Few days, right?”
“Few more days,” he echoes.
I crawl into bed next to him, turn my back, and say over my shoulder, “G’night, Dean.”
“G’night, honey.”
—
A few days later, crews from every local television station and a few national ones are parked outside the Miami courthouse waiting for a statement. I’m not the one giving the statement, but I’m standing right next to Captain Rainier as he answers questions. Dean is on his other side. I’m not really listening to the words—I’m just rejoicing that everyone’s been arrested and is now safely behind bars awaiting trial. Thanks in part to my confidential informant, Rangel Morris and seven lower-ranking thugs are now behind bars, hopefully permanently. Their charges range from attempted murder to racketeering, human trafficking, and drug trafficking. It was all worth it to see these scumbags rot in jail. The raid at Panic, which was already a big win, had led to an even bigger case in L.A., all interconnected.
“…none of this would be possible without Detective April White and Detective Dean Scott. Their sacrifice is the reason the city of Miami will sleep safer tonight….”
My mind drifts again as cameras click all around me and Captain Rainier continues talking and answering questions. To say that the last year has been rough is an understatement. Actually, the last eighteen months have been shitty; living a double and sometimes triple life among the dregs of society has been hell on me. Other than capturing the gang of criminals, Dean has been the only silver lining. He’s become more than a friend—he’s family now. I guess being forced to pretend we’re a couple for the better part of a year will bring two people together. And, of course, there’s Matt. But that’s a bittersweet thought. He’s the worst and best thing that’s ever happened to me. The lies I had to tell him, the way he was always so honest…I never expected to fall in love while on the job. But that’s exactly what happened.
Glancing over at Dean, I see his thumb tapping his thigh, a telltale sign that he’s anxious, and I know it’s because he’s dying to meet up with Lori, his girlfriend. Spending a year and a half apart has been rough on their relationship, but I know they’ll find their way. They’ve talked on the phone almost daily, since seeing her would’ve been too risky.
I, on the other hand, have no one waiting for me. No one to argue with, no one who misses me, no one who’ll be happy to hear that I’m finished with the assignment and ready to get on with my life.
Matt’s surely moved on. For the last year the poor man didn’t even know if I was alive. But seeing him on Lincoln Road…all the feelings I had stored deep in a locked box came rushing back in. The hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, by far, was walk away from Matt. Lying to him was a close second. But for his safety, I had no other choice.
After the press conference, I head to the hotel I’m staying at until I sort out my housing situation. When I agreed to this assignment—an assignment that was supposed to last only a few months—instead of signing a new lease on my apartment and having to leave the place vacant, I put all my things in storage.
Feeling as though the world has moved on while I’m stuck in the same place, I sit in the massive tub in my hotel room with a glass of wine, trying to hold back the depressing feeling that has gathered in my gut.
The night I met Matt is always on constant loop in my mind. I drain the wineglass and then take a swig directly from the bottle, my head resting on the back of the tub as the water starts to get cold.
“That was Matt Moreno,” Dean announces as we round the corner and Panic disappears from view.
“Yeah, I know.”
“I know you know,” Noah says with a chuckle. Noah is only here for a few days to help us set up the bugs and surveillance. “Did you pay attention to anything he said, or were you just drooling? ‘You are a breath of fresh air,’ ” he says, mocking Matt, and it annoys me that they heard all of that.
“Wasn’t I supposed to play the role of a sex bomb, or siren, or whatever the hell it is you guys said I needed to do?”
“Damn, I didn’t realize you were such a great actress,” Dean goads me, also laughing. “So much so, you had everyone fooled. Me, Noah, Matt…shit, I think you’re so good you had yourself fooled.” He reaches up and pretends to wipe drool from my chin. I swat his hand away.
“Shut up.” I roll my eyes as I continue to walk to our car.
“I think you should play up the flirtation,” Dean says. “Let me rephrase. You need to snap out of it and flirt back, not just stare at him like a lovesick puppy.”
“What? We’ve been planning this for months. How about Victor?”
“Victor’s older. Tougher. This guy, his son, is thinking with his dick. Might be easier. I don’t know why we didn’t think of that before,” Noah muses. “You wanted a big case? Well, here you are. Forget the dad—let’s use the son. You’ve already snagged him, so you might as well reel him in.”
“We saw what you call flirting tonight,” Dean adds with a grin. “Victor will eat you alive. But maybe Matt will buy it.”
I reach into my cleavage and tap the mic hard, causing the men to flinch from the feedback squealing into their earpieces. They both yelp.
“I can flirt,” I retort, slapping the small mic into Noa
h’s palm. “Did you get what you needed?” I say, changing the subject as I hop into the van.
Suddenly they are all business, which is exactly what I want. “There’s a shit ton of security on the second floor, which is where the offices are. I can’t get in without a fingerprint scan,” Dean says, looking at me from the driver’s seat. “Let’s work on that flirting and then get you to the second floor. I need access to the upstairs to plant some more eyes and ears.”
I roll my eyes and buckle up. I’ve always wanted to be a cop like my father, and being assigned to undercover was a huge promotion. This particular job is important and exciting, and being out in the field gets my blood pumping. It has absolutely nothing to do with the green eyes and dimples that will likely haunt my dreams tonight.
I stumble out of the tub and I see my reflection in the mirror. I look terrible. Tomorrow I’m going to get my hair cut and dyed back to blond, my natural color. It’s time April came back to life and June, Zara, and all my other aliases be put to rest.
And Matt?
At some point soon I need to confront that problem. I probably should just disappear (again) and let him move on, meet someone else (if he hasn’t already), but I don’t know if I can.
Would he understand why I lied? Why I had to leave? But most important, would he ever forgive me?
Matt
“A hand would be nice, you know, if you’re not too busy with that beer,” I yell over to Nick while balancing two unopened cases of rum in my hands. He’s sitting on a chair, his legs propped up on a table, crossed at the ankle, watching a baseball game with a beer in hand, as if this is a fucking sports bar. I’m still not used to this new Nick. Last year he was the high-strung control-freak slave-driving partner here at Panic. I guess being in love has made him a total slacker.
Last week, after seeing June, I hired a new PI—it’s the third PI I’ve hired since June went missing about a year ago. But it’s been nothing but dead ends again. I’m frustrated and exhausted. I’ve gone through a spectrum of emotions since June walked out of my life, almost falling into a depression of drugs and alcohol after getting arrested, losing my job, and losing my girl.
But I dug my way out of it, was getting healthy and strong again. I did it alone, never wanting to burden my brother with my problems. And now, seeing her—or thinking that I saw her—has brought all those emotions back. I feel like a ticking time bomb, ready to explode at the smallest thing. There are days I just want to scream and hit something.
Looking over his shoulder, Nick puts the bottle down and drops his legs. “Oh, sorry. Why didn’t you say something?” He grabs one of the boxes and places it on the counter.
“It’s Wednesday at five, it’s been the same delivery time since forever. I didn’t know you suddenly needed a reminder,” I grumble, grabbing a box cutter and opening the case. I take out one of the bottles, open it, pour some into a shot glass, and down it, then start putting the rest of the bottles away.
“What’s up your ass?” he asks. Rather ironic, considering I asked him this very same question months ago. He looks at the open bottle and winces. “Rum? You’re drinking rum?”
“Fuck off,” I bite out, unpacking the bottles and taking inventory. “How’s Katie?” Katie is Nick’s fiancée and the reason he’s become this whole new pleasant person. She’s like a sister to me, and she’s a good distraction to get him to talk about something else. After Naomi cheated on him last year, he went from grumpy to a downright prick. But then Katie changed it all. I’ve never seen him so happy.
“Katherine’s perfect. Training for the Corporate Run. I can’t keep up.”
“Good for her.” Katie is the sweetest woman I’ve ever met, but she suffers from severe PTSD and because of that she became agoraphobic. Now with lots of therapy and my brother’s support, she’s been getting out of her house and has started living her life again. I couldn’t be happier for the two of them.
“Ugh, come on!” Nick yells at the television. “They interrupted the game.”
I look up to see some sort of press conference. “Wonder what happened,” I muse, downing another shot. Ack…rum. I hate it.
Nick shrugs, then takes the other case and starts putting the bottles away. We listen to the police’s statement about some big criminal ring bust while we work. “Sounds like MDPD’s been busy,” Nick says. I happen to glance up at the television, my eyes open wide, and I stop dead.
“What is it?” Nick asks from behind me.
Squinting at the screen, I say, “That looks like June.”
“Everyone looks like June to you.”
Ignoring the comment, I grab the remote and increase the volume. They say her name is April White, and apparently she was undercover.
“It looks like her, but not really,” Nick muses.
I didn’t tell him about my encounter with the woman last week on Lincoln Road. He’s already been up my ass about my obsession with finding June for the last year, and I don’t want to hear it. If he knew I hired a PI again, he’d have an attack.
My eyes are glued to the television, and when the press conference is over, the baseball game resumes. “Do you think…,” I begin, my thoughts suddenly running rampant and my heart accelerating. “No…” I shake my head and take a swig straight from the bottle. “No, it can’t be.”
“What are you babbling about?”
“Do you think she was undercover? I mean, it looks so much like her, could that…could she be June?” I plop down on the nearest chair.
Nick pulls the bottle of rum away from me and hands me a glass of water. I down it while staring off into space, replaying the press conference in my head and focusing on April White.
Who is apparently June Simpson.
—
It’s been a week since the press conference, and I’m obsessed with the notion that June might be April. I’ve Googled it and watched video of the press conference over and over again. But the more I think about it, the more sense it makes.
April is June. And I can’t help but wonder if she was the reason we were arrested last year, which cost me my job with the law firm. The reason my dad’s rotting in prison. The reason we’re trying to save Panic. I down a shot of tequila and again start watching the video of the press conference. My mind wanders….
“I didn’t realize pharmaceutical reps worked so many hours. Is there a particular drug you push?”
“Uh…yeah, a type of blood pressure medication.”
“And you need to travel that much?”
“Yep. When new offices open, we have to go sell our product. Boring stuff.” She tucks her hair behind her ear. “So, you must have a lot of downtime at Panic during the week.”
The change of subject is jarring, but she’s already told me how intrigued she is with Panic. “We have a lot of private events during the week.”
“Really? That’s cool. Anyone famous?”
“Sometimes. I don’t work those because I’m at the firm during the week, but I do review the contracts.”
“Really? Contracts? How formal.”
“Yeah, it’s a real business, with contracts and deposits and everything,” I tease, but she seems distracted.
Pharmaceutical rep? How could I have been so stupid? She used me. She disappeared because her case was over and I wasn’t needed anymore.
Discarded.
Abandoned.
Played.
I don’t completely understand, and I’m not sure if I can deal with the feeling of betrayal that is sitting heavily on my shoulders. And a ticking time bomb inside me has been lit.
My brother sent me home two days ago, after the press conference. I was hitting the bottle heavily, and he forbade me to come back to Panic until I was sober. He’s never seen me this way, and it’s getting harder and harder to pretend everything is okay when it’s clearly not.
But fuck that. It’s my bar too, and I’m not drunk. I’m drinking, but I’m not drunk…I think, I tell myself as I crack open a beer.
Sitting at the bar with my back to the door, signing a stack of invoices, I hear the beep from the alarm, signaling that someone is coming inside. It’s eerily quiet at this time of day, since we don’t open until night. I set the pen down and look over my shoulder…and see the one face that I don’t want to see.
I turn around again, so that my back is to her, and bark out, “What the fuck are you doing here?” I can see her reflection clearly in the glass behind the bar.
Fidgeting in a pair of jeans and a loose flowery blouse, she has blond hair that falls right over her shoulders, and if it wasn’t for the blue eyes, I wouldn’t even know it’s her. Until she speaks. Because that fucking voice gets under my skin and into my bones every single fucking time. “You saw the press conference.”
I don’t even bother to reply.
“Can we talk?”
“So it is you, June.”
She looks down at her hands, and I swivel my chair back around in order to look at her, my elbows back and resting on the bar. If she’s going to stand here and lie, I want her to look me in the fucking eyes as she does so. Except she doesn’t answer and she doesn’t look up. And I realize one thing at that moment: I hate her.
“Saw the news,” I say, my voice gravelly and leaving no room for misunderstanding. I know she’s a liar, and now she knows that I know.
She looks up at me, and I remember why this is so hard. Those fucking eyes cut deep. Those sad blues pleading for me to understand make me feel as if someone is squeezing my heart. “Please, Matt. Let me explain.”
I swivel the chair back and continue to work, hoping she walks away. I don’t want to risk looking into the eyes of the person I once thought I loved but who instead betrayed me.
“I’m not leaving until you talk to me, Matt.” I can sense she’s a few inches away from me. I can smell her; that perfume she wears is ingrained into my very marrow. I shift a little to get away. “Matt, please.”
Make Me Stay: The Panic Series Page 10
