by JA Huss
“Hmm. Tara kinda looked at me like that last night.”
“What little bit of truth did you reveal?”
I pan both hands down my shirtless chest. “Just… me. This. All the ink.”
“How long have you known her?”
“Two years.”
“What? And she’s just now deciding she doesn’t like your ink?”
“See… that’s the problem. I’ve been hiding it from her.”
He laughs. “How the hell do you hide that?” He nods his head towards my arms and chest.
“Very carefully.”
“I don’t understand. You aren’t… having sex?”
“Well…” I sigh. “It’s kinda complicated.”
“I’ve got time. If you want to tell me the backstory. I think I can help you. I’m pretty good at coming up with solutions to PR problems.”
Now I laugh. “You did manage to hook my sister.”
“I did, didn’t I?”
“Come on in then. It’s a really long story. And I don’t want to lose this girl. I don’t think I could bear to lose this girl. She’s so…” I have to stop to think of the right word. I could say perfect. She is. But that’s not right. “She’s so… she’s like… she’s…”
“The love of your life?”
I stare at him. “Maybe?”
“Yeah. She is. Even when you answer maybe to that question, it’s pretty much a done deal.”
“That’s what I was afraid of.”
He looks around at my place as he walks into the living room. It’s not much, but it’s mine. I know people think our family is weird because all of us but Emma live here on the same street as our parents, but I bought this cottage from my parents for market value six years ago when the deep-sea fishing started to really take off. And it’s paid for now. Why wouldn’t I want to live on the same street as my family?
But even though the outside of the cottage gets lots of attention—we all use the same landscapers, the exterior paint colors are all very Key West, and so on—the inside is…
“Wow. This place is super boring, Alonzo.”
Yeah. Boring.
“You don’t even have pictures on the walls.”
“That plaster is almost brand new. Why would I make holes in it?”
“Your furniture doesn’t match.”
“I’m eclectic.”
“Not a single freaking knick-knack. Not even a ship in a bottle?”
“Minimalism is in.”
“If you say so.”
He flops down into a chair I stole from my parents when they redecorated a few years ago. “OK. So tell me. What’s going on with this girl?”
There is really no good way to tell this story. And certain parts he can’t know about—he might be my brother-in-law, but Luke is my real brother and even he doesn’t know what’s really going on behind the scenes with me, Tony, and Dad.
But the Boston family has their own family secrets. So I tell what I can. Starting with, “I can’t tell you why I needed to do this, so don’t ask. But the problem is I’ve been lying to her about who I am and what I really do.”
He nods and rolls his hand at me, like I should keep going.
So I do. I tell him all about how I met Tara Tanner and fed her this lie that I’m a low-level accountant. How we hit it off virtually. How this casual thing turned into serious fun. How much I like her and want more. And my fatal mistake last night when I showed my hand.
“She hung up on you?”
“She did one of those someone’s-at-my-door things.”
“Got it. Yeah. She ditched you. And you called her back last night?”
“No. This morning. I didn’t want to be needy.”
“Hmm. Understandable. There’s a fine line between needy and persistent. And persistent is almost always better. Call her right now. See if she picks up.”
I deflate a little. Because if I call her, and she doesn’t pick up, then I have to face reality. She’s mad, or she’s disappointed, or she’s just over it.
“Go on. Get it over with. At least we’ll know and we can start to make a plan.”
I grab my phone from the side table next to me and press her contact. “Ringing. And… voicemail.”
“Hang up. You never want to leave a voicemail without thoroughly planning it ahead of time.”
I end the call and tilt my head back to stare at the ceiling. “Why? Why did I fuck things up?”
“Because you’re ready for the next step, dude. This is the natural progression in a ‘like’ relationship.”
“But I don’t just ‘like’ her.” I look Jesse in the eyes. “I fucking love her. She’s all pencil skirts and crisp white shirts, Jesse. Her hair is pulled up onto her head all tight. She’s like this severe, sexy version of a librarian. I just… dig it. And I’m never, not in a million years, gonna find another girl like her out there in the sea. There is no second-best Tara Tanner. She’s the real deal. The genuine article. I need to make this work. I need her to call me back so I can explain.” I pause. “Well, I can’t explain everything. There are things about me she can’t ever know. But I can explain some of it.”
Jesse goes quiet for a moment. “OK. Listen. And you have to trust me on this, OK? Because when I took Emma up to the Bossy that day and showed her the real me, she got way more than she bargained for.”
“What do you mean?”
He winces a little. “Well… I can’t tell you that, Alonzo. And trust me when I say this, you don’t really want to know our secrets. OK?”
“But you told Emma?”
“Not really. But she found out. She’s bossy like that. She bossed her way into the Bossy penthouse, right up to the top floor of Johnny’s office, and she told him what was what. I was there. It was…” His face goes a little dreamy as he recalls this day. “It was pretty fucking spectacular. But then Johnny called her bluff, showed her how we make the sausage, and then…”
“Then what?”
“Then she was in whether she wanted to be or not.”
“Hold on.” I put up a hand. “Did you just admit that you got my baby sister involved in something… sketchy?”
“I’m afraid that’s all need-to-know kind of shit. But if you’re really interested, you’re free to go up to the city and ask Johnny about it yourself. If Emma can boss it out of him, I’m sure you can too.”
For a moment I’m thinking I might beat the shit out of Jesse Boston.
But then he leans forward and places his elbows on his knees. Folds his hands together and rests his chin on his thumbs. “OK. Here’s what you’re gonna do. You’re gonna call back and this time you’re gonna leave a voicemail. And here’s what you’re gonna say…”
CHAPTER TWLEVE - TARA
“Who wants Waffle House?”
I’m in the back cab of Vann’s super-sized truck and we’re—I look out the window and catch a freeway sign blurring by—just passing the town limits of a place called Warrenton, Missouri.
Belinda yawns. “I could eat.”
I am not proud of what I’m doing. Something about me is changing inside now that we’re on the road. I’m about to go from sexy pencil-skirt librarian to creepy jilted stalker and that bothers me. It feels like I’m turning some kind of corner and the minute I’m on that new direction I’ll be a new person and that’s not necessarily a good thing.
Vann looks over his shoulder at me. “Tara?”
“Whatever.”
There was a pretty long heated discussion in Vann’s truck out behind his family mansion last night, but I ticked off all my points in one lucid, salient argument and Belinda and Vann really didn’t have a better alternative. So… he packed up a few bags with enough jeans and t-shirts for all of us and now we’re headed to Key West so I can look Lonnie Derringer in the eyes and make him own up to his lies. All those lies. Two years of lies.
I get a little flutter of anticipation in my stomach whenever I picture this meeting. Our first in-real-life face-to-face
. I’m just having a hard time deciding if that flutter is anticipation or disgust.
I’ve seen the TV show. I know how stupid everyone looks. No one ever comes off that show looking like they’re in control of their life. They all look like morons. But if the last two years of my life were nothing but a lie, then I’m gonna turn over this new leaf with a bang.
Vann deleted all the apps on my phone, erased my passwords, gave my phone a new password, and then put it inside a Ziploc bag and tossed it into the back of some random student’s truck on the CSU campus as we were leaving town. If anyone is tracking it they’ll think I’m in that dorm.
But I learned my lesson the last time my life was thrown out and I had to start over with nothing. I backed all my shit up in a private cloud and had my phone calls forwarded to a virtual number. So when Vann handed me the new phone all I had to do was download my cloud app and presto—everything was there and I won’t even miss a call.
I didn’t contact Lonnie. I won’t contact Lonnie. But I am gonna stare at that screenshot I accidentally took and I will listen to the message he sent this morning. Over and over again. For the next thousand miles.
He said:
“Tara, I just want to check in with you. Make sure you’re OK and see if you need anything. I didn’t mean to scare you off last night. And if you’re not interested in making this thing we have into something more, I’m totally fine with that. But I’m worried. So you need to call me back. No pressure or anything like that. Just call me back and let me know you’re OK or I’m not going to be able to let this go.”
I’m already thinking of him differently. Like a stranger. Which makes me equal parts sad and angry.
Two days ago Lonnie and I were real. He was a dirty-talking nerdy accountant and I was an undersexed sexy librarian. And now… now he’s a hot-as-fuck fisherman with mermaid tattoos and I’m… I look down at my outfit. Still the same one I bought from the thrift store yesterday. What am I? Who am I?
I’m definitely not a sexy librarian anymore. But I’m not quite Phoebe, either. Maybe this is a new version of me?
Phoebe 3.0?
Or Tara 2.0?
Or neither?
Our second day on the road starts just outside Nashville. There’s a thick, foreboding fog in the air as we continue our journey south and I get this sudden overwhelming feeling that I’m at a crossroads. That the next few days might determine how things play out for the rest of my life.
This is how I felt before I testified against Diablo. I knew everything was going to change. I thought it would get better. It did get better, I guess. I got out of LA. Saw the Rocky Mountains. I got a new job. New look. New friends.
And even after I found out that Diablo got off, I was still holding firm to the belief that I was out. I got out. This was a good thing.
The FBI had me in their special protective custody, I had a new name, a genuine fake background that included a college degree in library science, a new apartment, a job, and eighteen hundred dollars a month for five years.
I clung to these things. They soothed my damaged soul like clear, cool water in the midday heat of the desert sun. I believed in the power and might of the FBI.
That’s the worst part, I think.
Diablo scares me. But he is literally the devil I know.
If Vann is right and the FBI in Fort Collins are dirty, then… I don’t know what to do about that. I can’t just get a new fake identity. Not one as legit as what I have now. So I have decided to leave the country. I’m going to confront Lonnie, show him what he fucked up, what he’ll be missing out on, and then I’m gone. I’m going somewhere so far away no one will ever find me again.
I zone out for almost a day as we make our way south. The weather clears up late in the afternoon, then we stop for the night in Orlando.
Everyone is quiet in the truck when we head out for the final day of our road trip.
If I said I wasn’t excited to finally have a chance to meet Lonnie face to face I’d be lying. But… what is the point? I cannot start my new life with a man who reminds me of the one I’m running away from. I will not do it.
And by that I not only mean a man with tattoos, and muscles, and a Spanish name—but a liar. I don’t know why Lonnie chose to lie to me. But unless it’s because he’s in the witness protection program, chances are it doesn’t matter.
A lie is a lie.
And if he’ll lie to me once, he’ll lie to me over and over again.
I cannot deal with liars.
And I get it. I’m a liar too. So that just makes it all worse because he probably hates liars as well. Everyone hates liars. No one has ever said, “Boy, I really wish you would lie to me a little more.”
So… what is the point of this again?
This defeatist attitude follows me all the way down into southern Florida. But then the temperature warms up, I can see the ocean again (first time in two years). The freeways are lined with flowering shrubs, and there are palm trees everywhere, and…
I relax. It’s not even conscious. It’s not like I said to myself, Calm down, Tara. Everything’s gonna be OK. But the closer we get to the Keys, the easier it becomes to forget why we’re here.
Vann and Belinda fight like they’re a couple. I know they’re not. She, like me, feels like Vann is too young. But it’s that good-natured jibing you see among siblings or best friends turned lovers.
And then we’re on the Overseas Highway and before I know it—the panic is back.
Because we are here.
And it’s all so beautiful. So clean, and sunny, and warm, and everything that life in wintery Colorado was not. It’s almost like I’m going back home to Long Beach.
Only better.
Because this isn’t Long Beach.
It’s nothing at all like Long Beach.
This place is paradise.
Vann and Belinda feel it too. Because Vann presses a button on the ceiling and the sunroof slides open. Belinda climbs in the back of the cab with me and stands up to poke her head out. “Hell yeah! I’m home, bitches!”
“What?” Vann and I both say this at the same time.
I look up at her smiling face. “What do you mean, you’re home?”
Belinda lowers down into the seat next to me, giggling. “I never thought I’d see this place again! Holy fucking shit! I’m back!” She stands up and screams, “I missed you, Key West!”
I yank her back inside. “Belinda! What the fuck? You didn’t say anything about being from Key West! You can’t come home from the witness protection program!”
She furrows her brow at me. “Look, this was all your idea, Tara. Not mine. I tried to talk you out of it, remember? I told you we should just beg the Vaughn brothers for help and let them handle things, but you said, ‘Nooooo. I need to make that asshole pay.’ Right? Remember that?”`
Van interrupts before I can answer. “What do you mean, Vaughn brothers? I am a Vaughn brother.”
Belinda tsks her tongue. “You are the baby Vaughn, Vann. I’m not knocking it, just stating the obvious.” Then she looks at me. “My point is none of this was my idea. It’s like… fate.”
“I get that, kinda—but you never said you were from here, Belinda! You can’t just go home from the witness protection program!”
She stands back up, pokes her head out the sun roof, and yells, “I can. And I will. And I am!”
Vann pulls over.
Belinda bends down and grabs his shoulder. “What the hell are you doing?”
“She’s right, B. This is… nope. This isn’t happening. If I had known—”
“If you had known you’d have never have brought me, right? Well, that’s why I didn’t tell you! I can’t do it, Vann. I just can’t do it. I miss my friends, I miss my family—”
“Belinda.” I shake her by the arm. “You cannot go visit your friends and family! I don’t know who you’re running from, but—”
“You wanna know who I’m running from, Tara?” She glares at me.
And she says my name like it’s not my name. Because of course, it isn’t. But I’m not expecting her next few words to come out in a growl. “I’ll tell you who.” She grabs my new phone, finds the photo of Lonnie I’ve been staring at for the past three days, and then flashes his hot tattooed body at me. “Him. He did this to me! He stole my life! And the way I see it—this is fate! I know exactly who Lonnie Derringer is. And I know what those Dumas boys do in the middle of the night!”
“What?”
“That’s right! Him. Alonzo Dumas and his crooked brother Tony.” She’s fierce. And defiant. And angry. But then she softens a little. “Tony. I dated him for two years when we were kids.”
“What?” Vann has turned all the way around in his seat.
“Explain,” I say. “I don’t understand. These words coming out of your mouth aren’t making any sense! Do you know Lonnie?”
“Lonnie.” She snarls his name. “I told you he was bad news. I kept warning you, and warning you—”
“You never said, ‘Hey, Tara. I know that asshole you’re dating! Let me tell you why you shouldn’t anymore!’”
“I didn’t know it was him until I saw the tattoos. Tony and I broke up a long time ago. I’ve been in the protection program for eight years, Tara! You’ve been in two and you’re already going stir crazy! Eight! Eight fucking years!”
“What happened?” Vann asks.
“What happened? I’ll tell you what happened. Eight years ago I was in the wrong place at the wrong time and I lost everything because of it! I was just minding my own business down at the docks one night after a big party and I saw them.”
“Who?” I ask.
“Those smugglers. I saw them. And then the FBI was there, and the next thing I knew I was in some… facility. Being questioned. And the FBI told me that I needed to shut my fucking mouth and not say a word. That I had fallen into some long-game secret shit. But then they made me leave! They made me, you guys. No one asked me if I wanted a brand-new life. They said I had to get the fuck out of Key West and never come back!”
“OK.” I pause to think about this. Because… hmm. Why would the FBI make such a big deal about a secret operation? You’d think they’d just be calm and say, “This is a matter of national security,” or some shit like that. Threaten her a little if she tells anyone. But that doesn’t explain how Lonnie is involved. “OK. Weird. But what does this have to do with Lonnie?”
