32. James
32
JAMES
“ Y ou don’t do it like Kaitlyn,” Harper said in a glum voice. She crossed her arms on the table then plopped her head down on top of them.
I hated to admit my daughter was right. I couldn’t measure up to Kaitlyn’s skill and competence—but it wasn’t for lack of trying. I had taken some time off after Kaitlyn left to try to keep life stable and work with Harper while my team went back to the drawing board to find a replacement for her. My mom and I were tag-teaming efforts, and even though I never saw my sister, I know that my mom had Jess helping out as well.
Kaitlyn had compiled a thorough transition document, along with daily plans and milestones to hit, but I wasn’t able to capture the joy of learning she shared with my daughter. It didn’t help that Harper and I were both mourning the loss of Kaitlyn in our own ways.
There was a void in the house. A bleakness that we all refused to talk about. And it killed me that no matter how twisted up I felt about Kaitlyn’s betrayal, poor Harper was dealing with sadness and confusion about her sudden departure.
“Are you sure she can’t come back, Daddy?” Harper asked.
I sighed. “I’m sure. She had other work she needed to do.” I’d explained Kaitlyn’s absence by making vague references to “work,” something that Harper knew firsthand could easily ruin plans.
“Can I see her to say goodbye? I want to hug her one last time.”
Damn, it hurt to see my daughter in pain.
“I don’t think so, sweetheart. Now let’s get back to your workbook, okay?”
She pouted at me. “Can we please be done, Daddy? I’m tired.”
It was obvious just by looking at her. Harper hadn’t been sleeping well and had migrated back to my bed a few nights a week.
“Sure. Let’s clean up.”
“Can we watch The Wizard of Ox ?”
I chuckled. “Oz. Of course we can.”
We’d been watching the movie basically on repeat since Kaitlyn left. I assumed it was a way for Harper to feel close to her. Once we’d packed up for the day, Harper and I headed for the theater room. My phone pinging with an alert from Miguel stopped me.
“Hey, Harp,” I said, scanning it quickly, “Grandy is here. Maybe we should wait for her to watch the movie too?”
“Grandy!” She raced back to the front door.
The more distractions we had, the better we both felt. I still hadn’t worked through whatever I was feeling about what Kaitlyn had done to us. The ache in my heart was at odds with the anger I felt. There were moments when I doubted that she was capable of the betrayal, but I was hard pressed to come up with another explanation for it.
My fury was fading to sadness, and it was a headspace I didn’t like. So I kept busy.
“James!” My mom’s voice echoed through the house.
I walked into the foyer and stopped when I saw Jess in tow.
“Yes, I’m forcing the issue,” she said, pointing at my sister as she explained. “I forced her to come, just like I’m going to force the two of you to sit down and talk through this ridiculousness.”
Jessica was hovering near the door like she was about to make a run for it, though it wouldn’t be easy for her given she was dressed in a tailored navy business suit and heels.
Harper grabbed my mom’s hand and started pulling her. “ Wizard of Oz ! C’mon, let’s go, Grandy!”
“Is that approved by your daddy, or is there a lesson you need to finish first?” Mom glanced at me.
“It’s fine. We’ve been taking it easy lately.”
“Well then, off we go,” she said, shooting a look between me and Jess. “Now, you two figure this out then come join us, but not a moment before!”
Once their chatter faded down the hall, it was just the two of us facing off in silence.
“I didn’t want to come,” Jess crossed her arms and raised her chin defiantly.
I let out a long sigh. Damn, I was so tired of strife in my life. “Well, I’m glad you did. It’s probably time for us to talk. Harper was starting to ask questions about why you weren’t visiting, and it’s tough enough dealing with…other issues.”
“Yeah, we should probably talk about that too,” she said in a softer voice. “Anyway, I brought my latest projections if you’re interested. I now have proof that my idea is solid.”
God, not this again. But I knew I needed to at least hear her out. Otherwise, we’d never be able to get past this. “All right, let’s head down to my office.”
I wanted to make it feel official for her, to show my sister that I was going to try to listen to her. Then maybe we could put this idea to bed once and for all.
We settled in the two chairs in front of my desk, so it wouldn’t be quite so intimidating for Jess, even though I saw no traces of the nerves she’d had the last time she pitched me. But then again, she didn’t really need me at this point. She’d gone out and done it on her own, which was ballsy as hell.
As upset as I was with her, I was a little impressed by her gumption.
“I’d like to lead with my Q1 projections,” she said, opening her tablet and scrolling to a spreadsheet. “I know this is your favorite part of any business transaction, and I’m confident you’re going to like what you see.”
I sat back and let Jess walk me through her presentation while trying to keep my face expressionless. To my surprise, everything from her market analysis to her executive team, to the resort wear launch they’d planned to lead with, was top notch. If she’d been a stranger pitching me, signing on would’ve been a no-brainer, despite my distaste for investing in haute couture.
This was what I could get behind. Hard numbers. Facts. Proof that what she’d put together was more than just another flight of fancy. It wasn’t just viable, it was going to soar. My sister had done the work and then some, and I was proud of her.
As I listened to her effortlessly discuss her business, it dawned on me that I’d been an absolute jerk to my sister. I’d been letting her history dictate her future. And that wasn’t fair.
“Any questions for me?” Jess asked.
I shook my head and I saw her face fall. “But I do have a few comments. I want to apologize for doubting you. I need to let go of the past and start appreciating who you’ve become. Because it’s damn impressive. You’re impressive.”
Her frown transformed into a wide smile. “Really?”
“Hell yes. You’re not the same reckless girl I bailed out a million years ago.”
She frowned at the reminder. “James… I think you forget it was just a moment in time. That’s not the sum total of me, as a person. And I would never go for a man like Lucas now that I’ve figured out who I am.”
I couldn’t help the growly sound I made at the mention of his name. “You know he was behind the leak, right?”
It had taken an entire cybersecurity team to pick up the trail that led directly to Lucas. They’d wanted to be sure there was no way he could talk his way out of the accusation, so they had combed through every file until they had irrefutable evidence against him.
She nodded. “Mom told me.”
“My team can’t figure out how he got in touch with Kaitlyn, but we know they were working together.”
“You know it, or you’re assuming it?” Jess was locked onto me now, studying me in that unnerving way of hers.
“Listen, I don’t want to discuss it with you, okay?” I grabbed the tablet and started scrolling to try to redirect the conversation back to a topic I could handle.
“Nope, sorry, that was the other thing I wanted to talk about with you, and you’re not getting out of it.”
“What’s left to say? Kaitlyn betrayed me, plain and simple. She’s not who I thought she was.”
Her face went hard. “James, come on . You had her vetted like she was applying for the CIA, do you really think you could’ve missed a character defect that glaring? Didn’t you make her take, like, psych tests or something?”
“It was a personality profile,” I scoffed. “And no vetting process is perfect.”
“Okay, then let’s talk about your gut. You never would’ve let her get so close to you if you sensed something was off about her.”
I shrugged, not wanting to admit she was right.
“Have you ever considered that someone realized she could be a way in and hacked her? You did a security sweep, but did anyone check her phone to see if it had been compromised?”
The question hit me with a wallop. “Well, no.”
“Exactly,” she replied, warming to the topic. “And if the quote in the article came from your messages to each other, it’s completely possible that she was the victim of a hack. It happens to people all the time.”
“That’s not possible…” But the denial died on my lips. Even when I was at my most furious with Kaitlyn, there had still been a part of me that had kept insisting her betrayal didn’t make any sense.
Now I considered Jess’s alternate explanation and felt queasy.
I’d been so angry with Kaitlyn, I’d been blind to reason.
How could I have not considered that someone could’ve gotten to her phone? I’d seen her leave it unattended on the table a few times that night we were at Club Obsidian. Perhaps it had happened there?
“I need to connect with my people, to discuss the plausibility of this angle,” I said gruffly, fighting off the hurt, questioning feelings bubbling up inside of me. “Anyway, we’re here to talk about you. Congrats on an excellent proposal. You’re going to do amazing. And if it takes longer to get to profitability than you expected, just let me know and we can transfer some money from your trust fund to stay on top of your loan.”
I expected her to break into a smile again, but she still looked troubled. “James, you need to figure this stuff out, okay? I’ve never seen you and Harper happier than when Kaitlyn was here. The woman I knew wasn’t capable of what you accused her of. And I know you know it too, deep down.”
I ignored the comment and stood up. “Let’s go find Mom and Harper and tell her we’re back to normal. Mom will be pleased her pushing worked.”
Jess huffed but didn’t say anything else. I followed her out of my office, only to be stopped in my tracks by an emergency security text.
“They’re in the theater room, you go ahead,” I said to Jess. “I have to deal with whatever this is.”
The text from Miguel was vague, only asking that I come down to the security outpost ASAP. As I walked down to the building, I imagined what, or who, I was about to face. The Dreshers again? A rogue alligator captured from the bay?
“ Jefe ,” Miguel met me outside the booth, the stress evident on his face. “We have a problem. It’s Frank.”
I barely knew the new hire the security team had brought on. He’d been shadowing Miguel for a few months, learning the ropes so he could be a part of the security booth rotation in addition to ground patrol but since he would never spend any time in the house, I didn’t take any interest in him. The man was surprisingly slight for someone who was supposed to be certified in personal defense, but then again, I knew judo masters who looked frail until you met them on the mat.
“What happened?”
“He’s behind the leak, I’m sure of it,” Miguel said in a quiet voice, looking around him. “He left his phone unlocked, and I happened to see a text come in from someone named Lucas, so of course alarm bells went off. I read it, and he was saying something about a payout, so I scrolled back and saw dozens of messages talking about the whereabouts of everyone in the house. He told Lucas when you and the others left town for Scott’s birthday party and a bunch of other times when you were going somewhere out of the ordinary. He definitely told Lucas about the CPS visits and when the Dreshers came. Most of the text, though, were about ‘K’ leaving the property, like ‘K heading out on north trail,’ and ‘K skipping morning run.’”
“Hold on, hold on… Frank was telling Lucas when Kaitlyn was running? You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. So Kaitlyn knew Lucas and she didn’t say anything to me about meeting him? I mean, she knew I had a major problem with him…”
I clenched my fists, angry all over again at the thought of Kaitlyn spending time with him.
“ Jefe , think about it… I doubt he would’ve used his real name, he’s too smart for that. She doesn’t seem like the type to read tabloids, so she would have had no reason to know what he looked like.”
Of course she didn’t read the tabloids. She hadn’t known who I was, when we’d first met. But if she hadn’t known who Lucas was, and it had been Frank who sold me and Harper out to the tabloids…
I tried to make sense of what Miguel was telling me, getting angrier by the second as everything snapped into focus. “Where is Frank now?”
“I sent him out on a bullshit errand so I could talk to you. He’ll probably be back in fifteen minutes. How do you want to handle this?”
“Police, obviously,” I answered, pacing. “But I want to talk to him first. Do you think he’s a flight risk if I confront him?”
Miguel shook his head and jangled a keychain. “Not without these. I sent him out in the golf cart, and you and I could outrun that thing if we had to.”
I nodded. Despite the fury coursing through me, for the first time, I also felt something else. Something I hadn’t been lucky enough to feel since the day Kaitlyn walked out the door.
Hope .