Chapter 4 #2
There was a sudden edge to his voice, some frustration. It had me turning to face him, because he only ever sounded like that when he got well and truly pissed off—and that was rare. Bennett usually had a good hold of his anger.
“Yeah?” I mumbled.
“Who was she?” he asked. “You know her. I could tell that you knew her, but I don’t know how and you’ve never mentioned her before. If you had told me that you knew her, I never would have picked her house. We could have avoided her place.”
We could have. There were a hundred other houses in that town alone we could have hit, but then I never would have stared into those big hazel eyes, because just a second of doing that had been enough to make me feel like I was back in my old world. Before a two year long stint in prison.
Maybe I didn’t want to avoid her place.
“Well, it’s too late for that now, huh?” I said.
“Just tell me who she is.”
“Why do you care so much?”
“I’ve never seen you look at a girl like that.”
Standing up with a hiss, I pulled the cigarette from between my lips.
My feet carried me over to the window as I eyed the street below me.
Chicago was always too busy, too confined, too loud.
Once upon a time, Juliette used to be the only good thing about this place. The only thing that tied me to it.
“Are you gonna tell me about this new job or what?” I asked.
“There’s another house in Montclair that I’ve had my eye on for the past month.
I was thinking we could hit it on the weekend.
The husband is a big-time tech guy. He should have a nice stash for us.
I know he has a nice watch collection from all the ones I’ve seen him wear online.
Maybe in a few nights we can hit their house.
But… you’re kinda a flight risk now,” Bennett said, a tiny bit of hesitation in his voice.
My head turned fast to face him. “I’m a what?”
He shrugged, looking every bit the innocent little church boy that I knew he wasn’t. “Are you going to do what you did the other night? Get all caught up in some pretty girl and stop in your tracks?”
“I was not fucking caught up in her. I was just…” Fuck, I had been caught up.
We both knew that, but no one could blame me.
I hadn’t been expecting to see Juliette Ashford when I walked into that house.
She usually stayed there in my head, in my mind, where my thoughts of her were safe and at a distance, where I could just remember her and not truly feel her.
“We have… history. That’s all you need to know. ”
“No, no.” His head shook as he stepped over to me. “I need to know more than that, because if she knows you, then she can identify you, and that means—”
“If she was gonna rat, she would have told the cops by now.” I cut him off. “And you know they’d be here fast.”
He exhaled sharply. “How do you know her?”
Cigarette between two fingers, I used my free hand to rub at my forehead. “My ex-girl.”
Bennett hummed disapprovingly. “Since when?”
“Long time ago.”
“How did some pretty little rich girl get mixed up with you?”
“It’s a long story. Doesn’t matter, okay? It’s over and done with. She’s not gonna rat if that’s what you’re concerned about.”
“How am I supposed to know that? I don’t know the girl. But she knows you, Bridger. Damn it, I knew something weird was going on with you that night,” he hissed out sharply. “You wouldn’t stop staring at her.”
“Well, the last thing I fucking expected was to see the girl I was in…” I stopped myself there, not able to say the word even though it was right there on the tip of my tongue. The girl I was in love with, the girl I had wanted to spend every last one of my days with.
Bennett’s head shook slowly. “I’m sorry. If I knew she meant something to you, I would have avoided that house. I would have avoided that whole street and just picked a different part of the city. I didn’t know she was your girl.”
“Ex. Ex-girl. She’s not mine anymore. She hasn’t been for a long time. Not since we were eighteen.”
Throat clearing, he stared at me. “Why’d you two…?”
“Just didn’t work out,” was my answer, the words all sharp and curt.
“If you say so…” His brows pulled together for a moment. “Her husband’s some fancy lawyer if you care at all.”
Curiosity got the better of me at the mention of his occupation. Of course she ended up with some old money lawyer asshole. Made sense.
“What’s his deal?” I asked. It was better to not know anything about her and him at all, but I couldn’t help myself.
Bennett pulled his phone out and brought up Gordon’s photo.
I had already seen his face, but that night had been rushed and all of my focus had been on Juliette.
Bennett gave me a chance to see the man the girl of my dreams had married in complete high resolution.
Thin hair, gray eyes, old as fuck. I wanted to kill him.
“Defense lawyer. Forty-nine years old. Guy is old, old, old money,” explained Bennett. “He’s worked with a lot of high-end clients. If you’re in trouble, this is the guy to go to. Maybe we should have him on retainer.”
“Would rather go to fucking prison again,” I said, but then I found myself spilling out my next words before I could control myself. “And her?”
Bennett’s eyes flickered over to my face. “You mean Juliette Cavendish?”
I huffed at the name. She had been Juliette Ashford when I knew her. Juliette Cavendish sounded so wrong for so many reasons. Juliette Underwood, though? That sounded a hell of a lot better.
“That’s a dumb fucking name,” I muttered.
Bennett chuckled softly. “You know, I looked her up a couple days ago and I couldn’t really find anything about her.”
I eyed him closely. “Why the hell did you look her up?”
“Because I knew there was something you weren’t telling me, and I was clearly right. I guess it doesn’t matter, because I couldn’t find out much about her, anyway.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, brows furrowing.
“Well, as you know, there’s usually a pattern with these places we visit,” Bennett said. “The husband has some rich cushy job. The wife almost always doesn’t work at all.”
I shrugged. “Yeah, so?”
“Those women might not work, but they still go out. I see it when I stake out the houses. They go out nearly every day. Brunch, something at the country club, some hair or nail appointment. But Juliette barely left. I assumed she had some kinda work from home job, maybe a freelance thing that kept her busy at the house.”
“She used to paint,” I said. “That was her thing,”
“You sure? Because I couldn’t find anything on her besides a couple of articles about her husband that briefly mentioned her name. If she’s an artist, she doesn’t have a website. Most of them have one these days.”
“I’m positive…” I said. Juliette would paint at my house a lot. Her parents didn’t like it, so she always kept her stuff stashed at my place. Her paint set, all the brushes. I used to have a lot of fun watching her get lost in whatever she was making. “That was all she ever wanted to do.”
“Maybe she’s not into that anymore, because there’s next to nothing about her online.
I don’t think she does anything at all, really.
I staked out that house for a month straight.
That’s why I assumed she just worked from home.
Her husband would leave for work and would go into the city, and there were a couple nights where she left with him all dressed up—probably for some fancy event—but other than that, she never really went anywhere. ”
My eyes narrowed a little, watching as he turned his phone screen my way.
He had searched her name up, scrolling away, but there was nothing about her looking back at me.
No photos of paintings she had made after we parted ways.
No mention of her art at all. No updates on her current life that I really shouldn’t have cared about.
I dragged Bennett’s phone over to me, eager to see something. Anything. Maybe a photo of her. The vision of her from the other night was crisp and clear in my head, but I needed more.
“Weird, right?” Bennett said.
“She painted every day,” I said. “Wanted to do that when she finished school.”
“Well, maybe she changed her mind.” He snatched his phone back from me. “She’s not online. No social media whatsoever. And if what you’re saying about her being an artist is true, then that’s kinda strange. Are you sure that’s your girl?” He coughed. “Ex-girl.”
I felt my whole body tense up. “Certain.”
“Well, I don’t know what to tell you. All I need to know is that she’s not gonna snitch.” Bennett slowly tilted his head at me. “I don’t want to deal with that. I worked too hard to lose everything just because we bumped into your ex-girlfriend.”
“She won’t snitch.”
“How do you know?”
“I’ll talk to her,” I offered, because honestly, I was looking for a good excuse to see her again.
“How do you plan on doing that? You can’t go back there.” His eyes widened when I said nothing in response. “Okay, I know you’re in love with her and everything—”
“I’m not fucking in love with her,” I snapped. “Not anymore and I haven’t been for a long time.”
“Whatever. Maybe you’re just obsessed—”
“I am not—”
“You can’t go back there.”
“I’ll find out for you and make sure she’s not ratting. That’s what you want, right? A little certainty?”
“Yeah, but…” A pale hand pushed through his blond locks, frustration and concern clear as day on his face.
“I’ll make sure you get it then,” I assured him.
“You just wanna see her again,” he said, voice low. “Have you even taken the watches down to Cecil yet?”
I cleared my throat. Cecil was our go to guy for selling all the watches and jewelry we had stolen. “I haven’t had the chance yet…”
“It’s been days. You know better than to keep that stuff longer than twenty-four hours. What have you been doing?”