Episode 20
EPISODE 20
GHOSTS
River
Once the women have left us alone under the stars, all I can hear is the crashes of the waves and the blood surging through my ears.
“What’d she say to you, Riv?” Seb demands.
“What did who say to you?” From Alex, his gaze never wavering from Sienna and Misty walking away.
When the two women are safely on the concrete, I turn to Alex and Sebastian. “She said?—”
“You were wearing a black shirt, right?” Sebastian interrupts me, looking toward the women.
“Yeah.”
“Sienna just put it on and walked away with it.”
“Who fucking cares?” I shake my head. “We’ve got bigger things to worry about.”
“Yeah, like what Misty said in your ear just now,” Sebastian says once more.
I draw in a breath. Misty didn’t divulge what she thinks she knows about me. She said something completely unexpected.
“You won’t believe this.” I roll my eyes.
“Not unless you tell us,” Sebastian pushes again.
“Would the two of you please clue me in?” Alex leans down and washes the sand from his calves.
“Whoa, Alex.” Seb shields his eyes. “I never wanted that good a look at your ass, man.”
“Eat shit,” Alex retorts. “Now what are the two of you yammering about?”
“It’s Misty,” Seb says. “She knows something. At least that’s what she told Riv.”
Alex’s eyes turn into circles. “ What? ”
“She’s playing games,” Sebastian says. “I’ve seen it a million times with rich kids. But we can’t take any chance.”
“No, we can’t,” Alex agrees. “She said something to you?”
I nod. “She jumped into my arms, and she whispered…” I sigh. “God, this is embarrassing.”
“No more embarrassing than the three of us here in our birthday suits,” Seb says. “Spill it.”
“She said, ‘You’re the hottest man here.’”
Sebastian narrows his eyes. “ That’s her big secret? That you’re the hottest? You wish.”
“Hey, the woman knows what she likes,” I say. “But I don’t buy it. Something else is going on with her.”
“So she didn’t say anything about…” Alex rubs his forehead. “What makes you think she knows something anyway?”
“She told me she knows all my secrets.”
Alex eyes widen even farther, which I didn’t know was possible. “Fuck.”
“Right?” I brush sand off my arms. “What do you think? Do you agree with Seb that she’s playing games?”
“Can we take that chance?” Alex asks.
“That’s the thing,” I say. “We can’t.”
“This can’t be happening.” Alex crosses his arms over his chest, as if to ease a chill, even though the night breeze is still warm.
“I’m pretty sure if she knew anything serious,” Seb says, “we’d have heard from her before now.”
“Wait, wait, wait…” Alex looks to me and then to Seb. “So you two weren’t out here having a threesome with her?”
Sebastian erupts in laughter. Surprising, given the gravity of our situation. “Are you kidding me? Not in this lifetime. If I’m having a threesome, it’ll be with two babes, not with one of you jokers.”
But Seb’s laughter ends nearly as quickly as it begins.
“So how do we handle this?” I ask.
“There’s not much we can do if she won’t talk,” Alex says. “Damn. This was supposed to be fun for us and for the women. A tropical paradise where birds sing, the stars shine, and the waves crash?—”
“And steal your clothes.” Seb ribs him. “It’ll still be fun.”
“How can it be?” I shake my head. “We have this dark cloud hanging over our heads. Then again, it’s been hanging over our heads for two decades.”
“True that.” Alex rubs the back of his neck. “Not a day goes by that I don’t think of it. All of it.”
“I know.” I kick the sand under my feet. “But this was supposed to be a turning point. The twenty-year mark. We head into the next stage of our lives. Wives, families, children. What if, instead, the whole thing is dredged up again?”
“It wasn’t our fault,” Sebastian says.
“You sound like Brett,” Alex retorts.
Brett. The one of our four who I’ve known the longest. The one I’m closest to.
And the one who started this whole damned thing.
“We need to clue him in,” Alex says.
“We do.” From Seb. “Where do you think he is?”
“Probably in bed with one of the women, if I know him,” I say.
Alex nods. “For sure.”
“So…” Sebastian, who’s clearly not as worried as he was an hour ago, gives Alex another nudge to the ribs. “What was going on with you and the attorney?”
“Sienna. She has a name.”
“What was going on with you and Sienna, then?”
“What do you think?”
“I think you were naked, but here on a private island that could mean anything.”
“Let’s just call it coitus interruptus,” Alex says, clearly not amused.
“Cock-blocked by the ocean, huh?” Sebastian chuckles. “I was cock-blocked earlier as well. By our lovely matchmaker. Who, by the way, is a liar.”
“What?” Alex’s eyes go wide once more.
“Yeah. Misty’s here for a reason. I’m thinking she approached Evangeline, not the other way around. But I don’t know for sure. There’s only one way to find out.”
“Hack into Evangeline’s computer?” I ask.
“Brett can do that,” Sebastian says. “But I can’t. I don’t know a gigabyte from an ass bite. But I can seduce it out of her.”
“You think?”
“I know .”
Classic Seb. Always so sure of his sex appeal.
“Wouldn’t it be easier to get Brett to hack her?” Alex asks. “Or even better, we shut this event down and she doesn’t get paid. Whatever Misty’s got on her, we’ve got way more money and power on our side.”
“Let me try first.” Seb looks toward the ocean. “Can’t hurt.”
I nod and follow Seb’s gaze out to sea.
Beautiful. Serene.
Yet images whirl in my mind.
Ghosts.
A hissing cat.
Things I have to live with and can never escape.
Six months earlier…
We walk into the old house, Sebastian in the lead.
Already I feel something. Ghosts live here. I try not to inhale through my nose, but finally I let myself.
I hold back the nausea that threatens to erupt from the stale smoke, the grime and mildew, the sour earthy aroma of decaying wood and crumbling plaster. The lingering foul scent of animal droppings.
I jerk when something brushes my ankles. I look down. A scruffy orange cat hides in the corner of what was once Old Man Larson’s living room.
“Hey,” I say. “You hungry?”
“He’s fat as a beach ball,” Alex says. “There’s got to be an abundance of rodents here. It’s a stray cat’s dream. Plus there’s water out back.”
“You know,” Brett says. “The four of us aren’t going to live forever. We should get our affairs in order.”
“What are you talking about?” Sebastian asks.
“This property. We’ll need to make sure it’s disposed of…carefully.”
Leave it to Brett, the quintessential businessman, to think of that. We’re all young and in excellent health, but he makes a good point. This property can’t fall into the wrong hands.
Still, I’m only half listening. I’m focused on the cat.
I’m a dog person. Old Ernie’s image floats into my mind, as it always does when I remember the days spent with my friends twenty years ago. But I love all animals. I walk to the corner and, against my better judgment, investigate further. The cat hisses at me, but I’ve known the meanest barn cats in my lifetime. They don’t scare me.
I pull out my phone and turn on the flashlight to take a closer look. Movement in the abdomen.
“This cat’s not fat,” I say to the others. “She’s pregnant.”
“Good,” Sebastian says. “She’ll have plenty of rats here to feed her kittens.”
I flick off the phone light. “Are you kidding? We can’t leave her here. She needs medical attention.”
“Riv,” Alex says, “animals have been breeding in the wild forever. You of all people know she’s fine.”
I can’t argue with Alex’s logic. He’s right. I’ve watched cows calve without intervention for all of my thirty-five years. Sometimes we need to call in the vet though. What if this is one of those times? I have a vet on my staff. I can easily take the cat back to my ranch and get her looked at.
I reach toward her, but she hisses again, this time clawing at me and scratching my hand.
“Leave her alone, Riv,” Seb says. “She’s fine. She thinks you’re trying to hurt her. She’s protecting herself and her babies.”
“I’ve been scratched by meaner cats than this one.” I try again.
Get scratched again.
Hands grip my shoulders. I turn and look up into Brett’s face.
“Come on, buddy. This is her home. She’s fine.”
Brett’s the only one who gets through to me in times like this. I don’t always agree with him—I sure didn’t twenty years ago—but he and I have known each other the longest, and we understand each other.
I nod, rise, and walk away from the cat.
But a thought lingers.
I can walk away from this cat. I can force myself to do it.
But I can’t walk away from what this place signifies. I can’t walk away from its hissing.
None of us can.
Present Day
“Let’s head back,” Sebastian says. “I’ll get Evangeline to talk.”
“I’ll give you twenty thousand bucks for your underwear,” Alex say to us.
Sebastian throws his boxers at Alex. “No charge. The fact that you’re holding my skivvies is payment enough.”
“Not my best moment.” Alex holds Brett’s drawers in front of his crotch, covering himself.
I pull mine over my thighs, and once we get to the pathway, Sebastian and I put our jeans back on.
I look back out toward the ocean and again take in the sheer beauty of this night.
I can pretend I’m in paradise. I can pretend nothing else exists.
But reality is the hissing cat that weighs me down.
I can’t walk away from it.
None of us can.