Chapter 19
Chapter
Nineteen
MIRA
“ T his must be serious.” Zara slouches forward, coffee cup still in her hand even though we’re all on our horses.
“I don’t call 911 meetings for nothing,” Elsie says, turning her horse around.
“I think I know what it’s about.” Kat gives up and lets Loki graze even though he has his bit in his mouth and we’re supposed to be walking along the bridle path, warming up the horses before we have a group lesson.
“Fine,” I start, looking around at my little grown up Saddle Club. Taking my feet out of the stirrups, I let Thor grab a few mouthfuls of grass, too. “I’m working with the FBI to try and get some info out of Enzo Moretti that could help link him to the Bow Tie Murders.”
“The fuck?” Zara exclaims. “Since when?”
“Just like the last couple days,” I go on. “And I really shouldn’t tell you any more, but Elsie and I kind of had an incident last night.” We get our lazy horses to go forward, plodding along the path as we talk. “It’s fine. I’m just going to have dinner with him one more time and then I’ll become exactly the type of girl he doesn’t want to date and I’ll get him to break up with me in a sense and then I’ll watch the news and wait for him to get arrested.”
“You really think it’s gonna be that simple?” Zara questions.
“No, because she left out the part where the FBI agent is a total hottie,” Elsie quips. “Think Dean Winchester pretending to be an FBI but he really is in this instance.”
“Okay, but what does the Bow Tie Murderer look like?”
“Not attractive,” I tell Zara and shake my head. “It’s work, guys, that’s all. I go out on fake dates all the time.”
“Yeah, but not with a known criminal,” Kat presses. “I think I speak for us all when I say you need to tread carefully here. I know you know, but I have to say it.”
“Mason seems to really know what he’s doing,” I say, thinking it will help quell their fears, but all it does is make all three of my friends squeal and I roll my eyes.
“Ohhh, first name basis,” Zara teases.
“Does he?” Kat wiggles her eyebrows. “Does he know what he’s doing?”
“You guys are so mature,” I deadpan, fully knowing I’m the ringleader with things like this.
“It’s a shame you didn’t see him,” Elsie goes on. “He showed up in gray sweatpants and I could see the entire outline of his dick.”
“You could not,” I laugh. “I know because I looked.” We laugh and then direct our attention to our horses. Loki and George are happy to just walk around but Thor is a little more energetic, and Elsie’s young horse, Mystery, is in a mood today. It’s a good distraction like always and our little mock show group lesson was so much fun.
“You two are doing well,” Brenda, our trainer, tells me when the lesson ends. “Are you considering going to a show this summer?”
“I am,” I tell her honestly. I will consider it, but if I actually go is a different question. I grew up showing horses with my younger sister, but haven’t been in a show ring in over a decade. I have no doubt Thor and I would do decently enough going over low jumps, and I can go and keep the pressure off myself by having an attitude of just having fun.
But I want to go just to prove to myself that I can do it. Because as much as I hate admitting it, sometimes I hear that little voice of doubt in the back of my mind. I didn’t always have it, but years of being with someone who very carefully crafted each and every mean thing they said messed with me. Complex-PTSD is, well, complex, as the name suggests. I’ve worked with many clients who suffer from it, and I know how truly difficult it can be to tell that little voice to fuck off.
“There’s one in August I want you to go to,” Brenda says. “If you go, I’m sure Kat will go.”
“That might tempt me.” I smile and take Thor back into the barn to untack. I pick up my phone off the saddle rack and see a text from Addison, my secretary-slash-scheduler. She manages my calendar and answers phone calls from clients looking to book appointments.
Addison: I penciled in a session at 2PM. Seemed urgent. New client: Mason H
“This place is pretty nice.” Mason shuts the door behind him. It’s exactly two in the afternoon and Mason was annoyingly on time for his appointment. “I did expect a couch so I could lay down and cry while I talk about my childhood traumas.”
“Hilarious,” I deadpan and lean back, crossing my arms. I’m seated behind my desk, which is in the corner of my high-rise office. I don’t usually sit at the desk while I have sessions, feeling like it’s too formal and not friendly enough, but for whatever the hell this is, I’m staying put.
It’s not because I want to put distance between us or anything. No, that’s not it at all, and Mason doesn’t look good in a suit. So help me god, he doesn’t.
Hah.
“How are you holding up?” He takes a seat in one of the chairs across from me.
“I’m good,” I tell him.
“You sleep okay last night?”
It took me a while to fall asleep last night, and my fear of laying in bed, unable to fall asleep while my mind whirls, is something I’m still working on. “Yeah,” I say. And I did sleep well…once I finally fell asleep. “You?”
“I sleep like a baby. A naked one.”
I just make a face, trying my best not to imagine Mason naked. I fail. “So…why are you here?”
“Ah, straight to the point. I like it.” He gets something from inside his jacket pocket and gets up, coming to my desk. “To give you this, for starters.”
“Uh, thanks?” I take the brand new iPhone from him and cock an eyebrow.
“It’s your new phone,” he starts. “Check it out. Passcode is zero-one-seven-five-five-seven-seven. You can change it to something easier to remember.”
I tap the screen and lean back in surprise when I see a picture of myself on the screen. I’m standing next to Thor…only it’s not us. Because I’ve never taken him trail riding in the woods.
“The fuck?”
“What you said about your social media got me thinking, so I had our tech department set something up. Mya has an Instagram, a Facebook that’s pretty locked down on private, and a TikTok. You’ve only posted a few horse videos and mostly repost things about horses.”
I unlock the phone and open Instagram, ready to tell Mason nice try, but it’ll be really obvious when all my social accounts were started today. But there are two hundred posts on “my” Instagram, dating back years. Most are photos of places I “traveled” to and there are photos of me dating back five years.
“How?” I ask, slowly moving my head back and forth.
“I’m a federal agent.” He says and winks when I look up and meet his eyes. “I can’t give away all our secrets.” He looks down at the phone. “The number you were using is already set. If Enzo texts or calls, it’ll go to that phone.”
“Wow. Okay, I’m starting to think those spy movies aren’t so far off.”
He laughs. “Some of them are, and some are behind in what we can actually do. I actually cannot tell.”
“It’s good to know our national security secrets are safe with you.”
He settles back on the chair and puts his feet on the coffee table.
“What are you doing?”
“I booked a session,” he starts. “Aren’t you going to ask me how I’m feeling?”
I narrow my eyes. “No. I’m busy.”
“I’m a paying customer?”
“Really?” I click over to his file. “Because it says here your insurance is covering this.”
He shrugs. “Good thing the US Government takes mental health seriously.”
I can’t help but laugh. “Fine. You want me to treat you like a real client then I’ll go over an intake form with you.”
Letting out a dramatic sigh he rolls his neck to the side. “You don’t look busy.”
“That’s because I’m sitting here talking to you,” I shoot back and pick up the phone again, scrolling through the rest of the Instagram photos. “The photoshopping is really good.”
“They were done by the same person who puts out all those UFO photos that get “leaked” anytime Big Brother wants to distract the public from what’s really going on.”
I laugh again, looking up for a moment. My eyes meet Mason’s and my smile grows as something rushes through me. I’m starting to like him—as a friend, of course. Nothing more.
“You could have just taken photos from my real profile, but those could be traceable.”
“Exactly. You’re just different enough not even facial recognition software would like you.”
“Ahhh, that’s why I’m wearing sunglasses or have something in front of my face in all these.”
“Yep. And that’s a warmblood, not a thoroughbred in the photos.”
“Small detail I’m surprised you noticed. Most people wouldn’t know the difference.”
“My brother is an equine vet,” he says. “And both my sister-in-laws are crazy horse people like you.” It’s one of the first times he’s offered up personal info like that. “I actually grew up on a farm.”
“Around here?”
“In Michigan. Not too far, though.” He raises his eyebrows. “I’m surprised you don’t know that.”
I chuckle. “You don’t have much info out there. Your sister, Rory, does have photos of you on her Instagram. It’s pretty cool Chloe Fisher is your sister-in-law, too. I love her books.”
“Dammit, Rory,” he huffs, pretending to be annoyed. “Nah, it’s okay. And Chloe is cool and down to earth.”
“Could you get me signed books?”
“If you go on another date with Enzo, I’ll have her personalize her entire collection for you.”
“Ohhh, so now we’re going from blackmail to bribery?”
He smirks. “Is it working?”
“Maybe.” I pretend like I’m considering it. “I do like to read and it’s been a while since I’ve added to my signed book collection. But that’s assuming Enzo is going to text me.” I wrinkle my nose.
“You don’t think he will?”
“He hasn’t yet.”
“Text him.”
I open my mouth to say I would never, ever text a man first like this but then snap it shut, remembering this is fake. I have to put my values aside and do what I can to keep digging.
“He really has a place at the Wrigley Building,” Mason tells me. “Just in case he does try to take you back there.”
“Under his name?”
He shakes his head. “A family member’s name who is not of interest.”
“So that date was helpful?”
“It was.”
I tip my head, looking at Mason. I want to know all the details but understand he can’t give them to me. I probably know more than I should, though I kinda do need to be looped in on most of what’s going on.
“The woman you said hired you to see if Matthew was loyal,” he starts. “What did you end up telling her?”
“I said he hit on me and denied having a girlfriend.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah. No one likes to hear that, though they have to already know. No one hires a PI when you’re happy in your relationship.”
“But you’re not a PI.”
I roll my eyes and let out a breath. “Thanks for reminding me.”
“You could just get your credentials. You already have the background requirements met.”
“I know.” I roll my chair back a bit and open my laptop. I really did need this next hour before I have another therapy session to work. I’m behind on creating content and need to come up with an outline for tomorrow’s podcast. I have a solo episode to record instead of having a guest on, and my plan was to answer some of the most commonly DM’d questions I get. It’s easy and won’t take long to put something together, but I still need to put something together so I can have some flow to my rambling.
“This whole social media stuff,” Mason goes on, getting up and going to the wall next to me to look at the photos and awards I have hanging up. “It’s really quite impressive.”
“Thanks.” Smiling, I look up at him for a second and then open my file for my next session with Courtney. As a therapist, I see all my clients the same and treat everyone equally. But as a person, I can’t stand some of the people who come in. Some are just terrible people and usually I’ll refer them to someone else, saying we’re not a good fit.
Courtney is one of the women I see who just won’t take any accountability, even though we’ve been working together for over a year. She’s not a bad person at her core, but uses her not-so-good childhood as an excuse for all her poor choices. And right now, she’s dating a married man who told her that he’s going to get a lot of money once the divorce is finalized and he gets a settlement. I’ve tried to tell her how unlikely that is, seeing that he won’t get more than fifty percent, but she wants badly to believe him and have an easy sugar-baby lifestyle, she won’t listen to me.
“It took time to build,” I go on. “But I’m honestly really grateful I get to do this as a job. I never imagined growing up and getting paid a pretty decent amount to make minute-long videos on the internet.”
Mason chuckles. “Can you imagine if that was an option on career day?” We both laugh. “You get a lot of negative comments from someone named K-underscore-cats.” He raises an eyebrow. “Your former mother-in-law?”
“Yep.” I roll my eyes. “I used to block her but what’s the point?” I shrug. “I can be the villain in her story. She’s the clown in mine. But really,” I go on, taking a breath. “I understand the need to make me the villain in her mind. We were close before and she and Cory butted heads a lot. I was a buffer between them and losing that as well as facing the public fallout of her son getting divorced was too much. So, she can say and post what she wants and record all the videos of me in public. It’s no skin off my back, and it’s a miserable existence to spend all your energy hating someone else.”
“That’s…that’s very introspective of you.”
I shrug again. “It’s true. Karen has her fair share of issues and came from a whack-a-doo family, but she knows the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree and who wants the world to know their son was not only an abusive asshole, but an abusive asshole who had an affair while pretending to go to anger management to save his family ?”
Shaking my head, I switch over from my client files to my social media. The whole situation really does make me sad. Cory’s had a girlfriend since before we even separated, yet he’s still hanging onto me. It’s not because he’s in love with me; people like him aren’t truly capable of love anyway.
For him, it’s about control and not being able to come to terms with the fact that we only had the comfortable, luxury lifestyle we had because I worked my ass off, refused to give up on my dream of making it big with a blog and a podcast, and got shit done. I sometimes wonder if he realizes that if he puts half the effort he does into bettering himself as he does into trying to bring me down, he could have a comfortable life again without me.
But I guess that’s too much work, and having the common goal of Destroy Mira is uniting. I’ve seen it before where couples—romantic or even platonic—fall apart once the Public Enemy Number One is gone. They have nothing holding them together anymore. Relationships built on hate never stood a chance from the start.
An unfamiliar ringtone sounds, and my first thought is that it’s odd Mason’s has a Taylor Swift song set as his ringtone. Then I realize it’s the phone he just gave me, and a familiar number flashes up on the screen.
It’s Enzo.