by Linda Kage
“Umm, no.” I crossed my arms over my chest, ready for an apology. “I really didn’t. And I’m sure I couldn’t even afford one even if I did want to scare you off.”
“No,” he said slowly before his eyes widened. “Maybe you couldn’t. But I’m sure that fancy, rich boyfriend of yours could.”
“Hayden?” I blurted.
Then I froze because, oh wow, why had his been the first face to flash through my head when someone said the word boyfriend to me? I was going to have to start checking myself. Hayden and I were, by no means—well, I didn’t know what we were, but we certainly weren’t that. I mean, not yet.
Were we?
I’d made sure Diego thought we were though, so I didn’t try to correct him as he lifted his eyebrows knowingly, fully believing Hayden had hired some guy to scare him away from me.
Just the idea had me throwing my head back and laughing, though. “No,” I told the spooked, bruised man. “Hayden wouldn’t—just, no. Okay?”
Eyes flashing with fervor, Diego stepped in close and lowered his voice. “Then who the fuck was it? Mad Manny got right in my face and said, ‘leave her alone or the next time I come back, this’ll be your neck,’ as he slowly snapped my arm like a twig. A twig, Gabby!” He lifted his cast and shook it meaningfully. “Someone fucking hired him to keep me away from you.”
“Well…” I frowned at his arm, not sure what to say. So I just shook my head. “I don’t know what to tell you. Maybe you misunderstood him. I mean, you’re a freaking pickpocket. Did you lift money from the wrong purse or something?”
He blinked and took a step back as if that idea had never occurred to him. Then he frowned and shook his head. “I don’t know,” he murmured, racking his brain over such a possibility, trying to remember everyone he’d ever robbed. A moment later, he glanced up and scowled. “I just know I’m done with you. Not even sleeping with that old bitch could make you jealous. You are one cold-hearted woman.”
“Right…” I said slowly. He’d fucked someone else in an attempt to upset me, but I was the cold-hearted one. Such logic. Made a girl just sigh hopelessly and shake her head.
Narrowing his eyes at me one last time, he spun away and stalked off, pushing his bellman cart full of luggage in front of him. “Have a nice life,” he called back scornfully.
“Sure thing, Diego. You too.” I gazed after him a moment before shaking my head again and letting out a low whistle.
Because that had been weird. Way weird.
Chapter 23
Hayden
“This all you have for me?”
I glanced incredulously at the file spread open before me and then up at Detective Gutierrez, who sat on the other side of his desk, looking unimpressed by all the material my private investigator had assembled on Finley.
Was he fucking serious? What the hell more did he want? I’d done all the investigative work for him.
“It’s proof that he faked his own death!” I answered as if that should be enough. “What else do you need?”
Gutierrez shrugged. “Pseudocide isn’t a crime. The guy’s an adult; he can check himself off the grid if he wants to.”
I sniffed. “So you don’t think there’s any misconduct afoot here?”
“Oh, I’m sure there’s been plenty of misconduct happening all over this, Mr. Carmichael. It’s as suspicious as hell. I figure it was damn near impossible for this guy to do what he did without breaking some law or another. But what laws are we talking about? Do you have any idea?”
“Plenty,” I said dryly, unable to stop glaring at him.
I couldn’t believe this. I’d done all the footwork for him; and he expected more?
“Well, now we’re getting somewhere.” The detective sat back in his seat as if to get comfortable. “So? What else you got for me, then?”
“Unfortunately,” I started with a grimace. “Just a lot of presumptions. No concrete evidence.”
“Well, evidence starts from gut-instinct guesses, so come on…” He waved his hand. “Lay ’em on me. Give me a direction to go. What do you think he’s done to merit faking his own death?”
“Finley was the lawyer of Arthur Judge,” I started, taking out the copy of Arthur’s will I had tucked in the inside pocket of my suit jacket and beginning to open it. “Are you aware who Judge was?”
Gutierrez shook his head as he picked up a bag of peanuts and sprinkled some into his palm. “Not a clue.”
“Okay. Judge was the proprietor for JFI, a fashion company here in town. Worth millions. Barely a month after he died, his lawyer—Finley—was reported as dead as well, while Judge’s widow cleaned house at the will reading. Look here...”
I turned to the page to point out what everyone received. “This is what went to his second wife, while his own daughter only received this.”
After shelling the peanut, he popped the nuts into his mouth and leaned forward to scan what I was showing him.
With a low whistle, he shook his head and glanced at me. “A thousand a month doesn't sound like nothing to me, pal. I’d say this daughter got off pretty sweet. Hell, my old lady’s dad kicked it last year, and you know what we got from it? A bill for twelve grand in funeral expenses, that’s what.”
I lifted an eyebrow. “Was your old lady’s father worth sixty-five million?”
He paused, then shrugged. “Fair point. So you think what? The widow and lawyer—”
“Were working together, yes.” Nodding, I leaned forward and explained. “In the past month, two different people at two different times in two different places have overheard her on the phone with this man who faked his own death. They’re in league together somehow. And from one conversation, it sounds like he’s currently trying to get more money from her.” I tapped my finger against the will. “I think she paid Finley to alter the will either before or after Arthur died so she could inherit basically everything.”
Gutierrez nodded slowly. “Okay. Makes sense. It’s something worth checking into anyway. But quick question. Who was this Judge guy to you?”
I sat up respectfully straighter. “He was my stepfather.”
The detective paused. Then shook his head. “So the widow you think stole all her husband’s money is your…?”
“Biological mother,” I answered, scowling at him for making me admit it. “Yes.”
“Ahh.” He nodded as if he had everything figured out now. “So you and your mom don’t get along, eh?”
Fury bubbled inside me. Did he really think I was doing this merely to hurt Lana? “This isn’t about revenge, detective. She stole millions from my stepsister.”
He squinted as if trying to understand. “You got a thing for the stepsister, then?”
“What?” I blinked at him, unable to believe such a ridiculous suggestion. “No! I have a thing for justice, you moron. What Lana Judge did was wrong on so many levels. How can I just stand aside and let her get away with hurting all those people? And she just keeps doing it, too. It needs to stop. She needs to stop.”
He studied me for a long moment before finally nodding. “All right. I can respect a hankering for justice. I’ll do some digging on my end, see what I can dig up. You’ll update me if you come across anything else that might be useful here, though, right?”
“Of course.” I stood and held out a hand. “Thank you for your time, detective.”
He shook with me, answering, “Thanks for coming to me with your suspicions, even if it might end up with your own mother landing in jail.”
I glanced away, ignoring the guilt that slashed through my gut. “Yes, well, good day.”
I strode from the precinct, feeling shaken.
I’d done it. I’d told the authorities about my suspicions concerning Lana. Even if I did nothing now, it was too late to take back. Other people would be looking into her, maybe even finding her guilty. And that would be on me, because I’d pointed it out.
Suddenly, I realized why I’d never shared my theories with anyone e
lse before. Not even Brick or Kaitlynn. It was because in my own head, it didn’t have to be real. It was just a thought. A what-if. But now that I’d involved others, Lana could actually end up punished, hurt. Despite the fact that she deserved it, I was the one who’d put it all into motion and basically delivered her sentence.
I didn’t love her, I knew that, but—I don’t know. Hurting her seemed like a taboo line I shouldn’t cross, like crossing it would doom my own soul.
Because what kind of monster brought down his own mother?
At my car, I paused and blew out a breath, glancing down the street. Deep down, my darkest fear was that I’d turn out like her. Some of the biggest decisions I’d made in life were chosen to avoid that very possibility. But what if doing this didn’t make me any better? What if it made me worse than her?
Then again, what would happen if I didn’t do it?
Unsettled to the core, I climbed into my car and thought about Gabby. I wished I could’ve been able to pick her up from work. But she’d be home now, and thus, I had no legitimate reason to see her. To talk to her.
She might’ve actually understood what I was going through too. She was the only person I’d ever confided in about any of this shit. And yesterday, she’d helped me work through these very concerns. I had a feeling she could help me through them now as well.
But I wouldn’t get to see her again until Monday.
Jesus, that felt like eons away.
Shaking my head over this strange dependency I’d developed for a woman I’d only recently met, I started the car and pulled out onto the street, realizing I wasn’t far from Mooney’s, an auto repair shop I visited from time to time, since it was where Isaac worked.
Wondering if he’d still be there this late on a Friday, I found myself turning that way and pulling into the parking lot in front of the garage minutes later. The large bay doors were open and a light was on inside. I could see someone bent over the engine of a truck with the hood popped.
Stepping from my car, I shut the door behind me and started that way, sliding my hands into the pockets of my slacks as I went.
“Just a sec,” a familiar voice called from under the hood as he heard my approach. “I’ll be right with you.”
I waited patiently as he tightened a bolt with a wrench and then set it aside before climbing from the mouth of the pickup and yanking up a blue rag from his back pocket as he turned to face me. But he barely took two steps in my direction before recognizing me and falling to a disappointed stop.
“Oh.” His voice was flat and hard, just like his expression. “It’s you.”
When he spun away and returned to the truck as if to ignore me entirely, I followed in order to watch him work. I said nothing, just stood there patiently.
Finally growing fed up with my presence, he slammed his tool back down and glared at me. “I thought I told you the last time you came by here—and every other fucking time before that—to leave me alone. I don’t want anything from you, and you’re certainly not getting shit from me. So why do you keep coming back?”
I shrugged casually and glanced around the grease-coated garage. “Just checking in,” I answered before returning my gaze to him. “Making sure you haven’t changed your mind.”
He snorted. “Don’t worry. I haven’t. Hell will freeze over before I take a cent of that goddamn inheritance you keep trying to shove down my throat, all right? If our old man wanted to leave everything to you, your brother, and that bitch you call mother, it’s no skin off my nose. And there shouldn’t be any off yours either. Jesus, you act like you got a guilty conscience or something, always trying to pay your sins off by heaping that cash on me. But that’s bullshit. Most the crap that went down between Dad and me and her happened before you were even born. So just let it go already.”
But I couldn’t. Because he was right. I did feel guilty. None of it was fair, though. He wouldn’t be working here, barely making ends meet, if Lana hadn’t come along and fucked him over, cheating him from his birthright. While here I was, breezing through each day in my nice suits and perfect life for the very same reason, because Lana had married his father and caused the irreparable rift between them until he’d left everything to his two younger sons.
It was all too eerily similar to what had happened to Kaitlynn, and I hated it.
It didn’t matter if I was an innocent party or not; I’d come from Lana’s rotten ovaries. I couldn’t help but feel responsible for the way she’d treated him, and Kaitlynn, and everyone else. Besides, Isaac was my half brother. That seemed like it should mean something.
The very sight of me disgusted him, though. I could tell he saw her every time he looked at me. He saw the woman who’d wanted him and pursued him, the woman he’d rejected, and the same spiteful, malicious woman who’d married his father to get back at him for scorning her. And as long as he saw all that when he looked at me, then I was going to keep feeling guilty for it.
So I just kept coming back and torturing both of us, hoping one day he’d—hell, I wasn’t even sure what I wanted him to do. I wasn’t exactly the chummy, pal type that guys offered to go grab a beer with after work. It wasn’t like we’d ever become friends. I should stop trying to get him to not hate me.
Except I couldn’t.
“Jesus Christ!” he burst out, unable to look at me as he lifted his hand and shooed me along. “I told you I haven’t changed my mind. Can you stop creeping me out, just standing there, staring at me, and go already?”
I nodded and dug a business card from my pocket. I left one every time I stopped by, because I had a feeling he threw them away as soon as I left and he’d need a new one if he ever changed his mind.
Setting this one on the lip of the hood next to his wrench, I stepped back and said, “You know where to reach me if you need anything.”
He snorted as I turned away. “Don’t hold your breath, kid.”
I wouldn’t. But I wouldn’t stop hoping either. Even if that ended up being the very thing that doomed me.
Sighing as I climbed back into my car, I started the engine and glanced out the window at the darkening night. I had so many hopes. Hope that Isaac would finally accept me as a brother. Hope that Lana would stop being evil and actually want to be a true mother. Hope that Brick didn’t end up with some venereal disease. Hope that Kaitlynn got out of the slump her life had become. Hope that JFI would grow into the company Arthur had built it up to be.
Wish after wish seemed to pile on top of me until I felt like I was drowning in them. And even though I knew it was probably far safer to just stop wishing altogether, I kept on, even stacking more on top of long-buried, dust-coated ones. Meeting Gabriella had just inflamed the desire too.
Because now, along with everything else, I hoped for a chance to be with her as well.
And what was more troubling, I wanted to become the kind of man who deserved her.
But monsters who put down their own mother didn’t deserve angels, did they?
Meaning, all my hope was probably useless.
Chapter 24
Gabby
Something felt off.
It wasn’t the fact that Lana had been particularly disgruntled when she’d come home from work this evening either. That happy little nugget had actually been pretty awesome. It told me Hayden had most likely succeeded in not letting her sabotage Kaitlynn’s and his brother’s portfolio presentation earlier that day.
And things didn’t feel off because Papá had messaged me, saying he’d pick up Miguel from school. That was just another awesome detail. I think he was really going to pull himself out of this slump he’d been in since becoming an amputee.
I guess I could blame my antsy, restless anxiety on my failure to find any proof to doom Lana. I really wanted to help Hayden with his investigation on his mother. But I hadn’t found anything on any other day I’d worked there, and I hadn’t experienced this lacking something that left me feeling so desolate and unfulfilled now. So that probably wasn�
��t the source either.
I glanced out the window as I put away the last plate from the supper dishes, and when I realized what I was looking for, or rather who I’d been seeking, I quickly tore my attention away from the window.
Shit.
This was about Hayden. A little, hopeful place inside me had wanted him to stop by after his meeting with the detective and update me with his day, tell me how his big departmental presentations had gone, let me know what had happened during his conference at the police station, and hell, just be there to irritate me with his very presence.
Since he hadn’t picked me up from work, his absence had been so freaking noticeable it’d left a big gaping hole in everything.
How the hell was that possible, though? I hadn’t known him that long. We weren’t even—you know—together, or anything like that. How had he become so integral, something that belonged, that fit and felt missing when he wasn’t there?
I restlessly chewed on my thumbnail, tempted to call him, just to hear his voice. All I had to do was listen to some pretentious, asshole comment he had to deliver and I’d be cured of this stupid craving I was having.
Yeah. I didn’t miss him. There was no possible way. He just hadn’t pissed me off recently enough. That was it.
Except the jittery yearning spiking through my bloodstream said I was a liar.
I fled the kitchen, because that room was no help. It just reminded me of Hayden helping Miguel with his homework at the table, or all of us sitting around, eating scones and laughing over stories Papá had told us about some of the crazy woodcutters he’d worked with.
In the living room, however, my bed was taken over by my brother and father sitting on the couch together and watching something on the television.
Thinking a show might help distract me, I plopped down next to Miguel and reached for some of the popcorn he had sitting in a bowl on his lap.
