Chapter 28
chapter
twenty-eight
When I get home,my mind is still in a tailspin. I caught her red-handed, a hammer grasped tightly in her hand and raised above his head. If not for me calling his name at the last second, Trey would be dead. Journey would have killed him. My friend. She would have killed my fucking friend.
My wine glass rests on the coffee table in the same place it was when I left. When I sit down, I grab it and chug half, then I throw the entire glass across the room. It makes an impact with the TV, ruining the screen and sending red liquid splattering everywhere.
“What the fuck?” I scream to myself as I stand up and begin pacing in complete disbelief. She faked that phone call while I was in the kitchen. Her partner never called her, and if she lied about that, what else has she been keeping from me?
The fucking diner.
I stop pacing and stare at the wall. Is it true? After I let it go and tried to keep my mind on Summers and keeping us safe; could I have been right about the diner the entire time? Why not question it now? She was going to kill Trey, and probably had a plan to lie to me about it. I bet she would have made up some story about a robbery gone wrong or some fucking bullshit like that. I never would have known what happened to my friend. How fucking could she?
As my thoughts fill me with both grief and rage, the sound of the garage raising freezes me. My thoughts focus solely on what I will say to her when I see her. Why is she even getting back so much later than me? You see what happens when you fucking lie? Now I have to question everything.
When she walks in, I see the panic in her face when we make eye contact. She steps over the threshold, lets the door close behind her, and stands in front of it. She waits for me to start, which somehow makes me even more livid.
“What’s the matter?” I start, seething. “Have you run out of lies to tell?”
“Sir,” she starts, but I snap.
“Don”t fucking call me that!” I bark. “All I want to hear from you is why. Why were you going to kill him, Journey? I’ve told you that Trey is the only person I”ve called my friend, and you disregarded that completely. You didn”t even care how much it might hurt me to lose my only friend? You felt that slighted over him asking me to not make fun of Cain?”
“He didn”t ask, S … Evan. He told you. He demanded. He disrespected you.”
“No he fucking did not. What the hell is wrong with you? You think a grown man isn’t allowed to voice his opinion as long as you”re around, and doing so should result in death? Being a grown up and communicating should result in blunt force fucking trauma to the back of the head? You can’t be serious.”
“I didn”t know what else to do,” she says, her eyes filling with tears that gain her no sympathy from me.
“Bullshit,” I say. “I told you what to do. I demanded that you leave it alone and let me handle it. I’m your Dom, and I fucking told you. You just didn”t listen. You made a decision on my behalf and chose to end Trey’s life regardless of how I felt about it. Plus, you made up that bullshit story about your partner calling you, and even put on a fucking skit to carry it out. You made up all that bullshit right in front of me so that you could go kill my friend.”
“I”m sorry,” she cries.
“No you”re fucking not. You”re only saying that because you got caught, just like every other liar and cheater in the world. Even now, you”re still lying and unapologetic about it.”
“What?”
“Don”t play fucking stupid with me, Journey.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The diner!” I bellow, my voice like thunder. “You burned that diner down.”
“No, I didn”t.”
“Yes, you fucking did. I know you did it, so don”t you stand there and keep lying just for the sake of lying. Tell me the truth.”
“Evan, I didn”t burn the diner down.”
“I swear to fucking—” I close the gap between us and stand directly in front of Journey so that she can see my eyes and know I’m not bluffing. “Listen to me carefully. If you don”t tell me the fucking truth right now, and I mean about every lie you have ever told me, I swear I’m walking out of here and never looking back. I have killed for you—risked my life to make sure you were safe and protected. I hung a man from his own ceiling fan to make sure we were both good—to keep us out of prison—and now you can’t even look me in the eye and be honest. Fine. Fucking fine! Say you didn”t burn down the diner one more time. Lie to me about one more thing and watch how fast you”re right back to living by yourself. Go ahead. Tell me you didn”t burn it down.”
Journey’s eyes bounce around the room, looking at everything but me. I hear it when she swallows hard, and see it when she decides to keep the lie up.
“I didn”t burn down—”
Before she can even finish, I walk away.
“Evan,” she says as I walk over to the coffee table and grab my keys.
“Evan,” she repeats as I approach the door and try to move her out of the way.
“Evan!” she yells when I gently push her aside and walk through the door she was blocking.
“Evan, please!” she begs as I open the door to my truck and place one foot inside.
“Okay!”
I stop.
“Okay, I’ll tell you everything. Please don”t leave. I’ll tell you.”
I pause, one foot on the ground, the other in the truck. “I”m listening.”
Journey lets out a long exhale as her tears finally fall from her eyes. I can see how much she doesn”t want to do it, but she has no choice now. If she lies, we’re done, and she knows it.
“Okay,” she repeats. “I burned down the diner. That kid pissed me off, and it was made worse when the manager came out and was upset that the kid quit. He made it sound like I’d cost him a good worker, when Chad was actually an asshole and his business was better off without him. When I felt like he was defending the kid, that was it. I didn”t want to hurt a teenager, so I took it out on the diner.”
Shaking my head, I say, “And you thought framing him for arson wouldn”t hurt him?”
“He’s a minor. He wouldn”t do much time.”
“That’s fucking ridiculous, Journey. You hear me? Ridiculous, just like the fact that you decided to lie to me about it when you and I have committed worse crimes together. Why did you continue to lie when I gave you so many outs?”
“I don”t—” she tries to say, but her words are cut off by sobs. “I don”t know. You asked me to let it go and I knew I couldn”t. Once I lied about it, I just kept it up. I just … kept lying.”
I nod my head, feeling like this is only the beginning. She just kept lying, huh? There isn”t a chance in hell that this is the only thing she has kept from me.
“What else?” I ask.
“Huh?”
“What else have you lied about?”
“Nothi—”
I face the truck and start to sit down.
“I’m the reason Robin quit.”
I freeze again, my eyes wide. “What?”
“It was me. I attacked her,” she continues, her head dropping as she accepts defeat. “I lost it when you told me you had a new girl on your crew. I became enraged the moment I saw her from across the street. She shook your hand and sauntered away like she was begging for you to look at her ass, and I knew I had to get her out of there. So I followed her back to her hotel that night and I attacked her. The marks on my knuckles and arms were from her. I’m so sorry, Sir.”
My head spins, struggling to remain sane as the information hits me.
“Journey, I didn”t even know that girl.”
“I know. I just … lost it.”
My eyes fall to the floor. “That’s why she was afraid when Trey mentioned my name.”
“I told her not to mention you or ever think of you again.”
“Jesus fucking Christ. You connected yourself to me while attacking her? Journey what the fuck?”
“I don”t know,” she bellows, practically bawling now. “I know it was fucking stupid, but I lost it when I saw her, and I thought I was helping.”
“Helping with what?”
“I don”t know. Helping to protect us from people like her. People who swoop into your life and do damage with their flirting. I thought you might be into her.”
“Journey, I couldn”t have possibly given two shits about that girl!”
“I know, but I thought that maybe you could if you continued to spend time with her every day at work. So, to me, I was helping. Just like how I helped with that asshole from the bar. I was taking control of the situation before it could get out of hand. The same way I controlled the Sierra Cross case when it began, even though I already knew she was buried in your backyard.”
The world completely stops spinning as I stare at Journey. Her eyes bulge, like she can’t believe the words that just came out of her mouth. There’s silence for a moment before I”m able to speak.
“What did you just say?”
Journey places a hand over her mouth. “I … you … nothing. I—”
I remove my foot from inside the truck and close the door, walking slowly until I’m only inches from Journey. “You knew?”
Panic floods Journey’s face. “Evan, I—”
“You just said that you already knew she was buried in my backyard when the case began?” I ask, ready to completely implode. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
Journey shakes her head like she’s in disbelief. “I’m sorry, Evan. I knew.”
“How?” I shout. “How is that possible?”
Journey raises her head, looking up at the ceiling as she begins to explain.
“This might be hard to hear,” she says. “But at least when I’m finished telling it, there will be no more lies between us. This is everything.”
“Just fucking tell me.”
More tears fall as she lowers her head and locks eyes with me.
“I saw you in the club,” she says, her eyes never leaving mine. “I saw you at The Black Collar long before you saw me, and I was instantly drawn to you. You were a bright, red hot flame and I was your moth. I think I loved you before I ever knew you, and the same way you had a voice in your head telling you to do things, mine told me that you were meant for me. So, one night I followed you out of the club as you were leaving with some skank. I parked behind your house as you went inside, and I fucked myself to the images playing in my head. I imagined what you were doing to the girl you brought home, and I put myself in her place. Thoughts of you fucking me sent me into the stratosphere, and I came like never before. I was hooked on you.
“Once it happened once, it was like I couldn”t stop. I returned to The Black Collar every weekend looking for you. Sometimes you showed up, sometimes you didn”t, but when you did, I followed you home. I couldn”t get enough of it. The next thing I knew, a year and a half had gone by and I was still following you home after you left the club nearly every weekend.
“One night, the process repeated exactly the same. You left The Black Collar with Sierra and I was right behind you, ready to do what I’d been doing for so long. But this time, the girl didn”t leave, and in all the times I saw you have one night stands, never once did it turn into a sleepover. I knew something was wrong, and it was confirmed when you came out the back door with a large footlocker, dragging it through the yard like it was extremely heavy. I watched you dig the hole, nervously looking around to make sure you were alone. I watched you drop the footlocker inside, and I watched you bury it. When the call came in about a missing person who was last sighted at The Black Collar, I jumped at the case because I knew it was you. It was my chance to stop watching and actually meet you, so I took it. That’s how we met.”
By the time she’s done talking, my jaw is on the floor. A million thoughts form and die in my head, filling my brain with everything and nothing at the same time. I can’t even speak. A year and a half. She was following me to my house for a year and a half. She watched me bury the footlocker and knew about it the entire time. I can”t fathom her meeting me, knocking on my door as a detective, and already knowing I was guilty. From the very beginning, she was lying to me. Journey has been lying to me from the very first moment we met.
“Sir?” she calls to me, her head tilted, surely wondering what I’m thinking right now.
“You knew the entire time,” I say as a statement, not a question. I don”t have any more questions now. The truth to everything has finally been revealed.
“I should”ve told you,” Journey says, but it doesn”t land with me. I don”t even fucking care.
When I look at her again, all I see is her lies. They’re scrawled all over her face and I can’t see past them. Her face is obscured and I can no longer tell who I am looking at. For the first time since we met the day she and Detective Winter arrived on my doorstep, the sight of her sickens me. I can’t stand being in her presence knowing she has been carrying this around the entire time we’ve known each other.
“I have to leave,” I suddenly say.
“What?” she says, having the nerve to sound shocked.
“Don”t touch me,” I bellow when she reaches out to grab my arm. “I don”t even fucking know you, and I think I might do something I’ll regret if I’m in the same house as you. So I’m leaving. Don”t call me. Don”t text me. Just leave me the fuck alone, Journey. I’m not interested in sleeping next to the biggest liar I have ever fucking met.”
“Evan,” she says as I turn around and go back to my truck. She screams it again when I press the button to raise the garage door. “Evan! Please!”
I hear her, but I couldn”t fucking care less. The tires screech when I stomp on the gas, and I keep stepping on it, hoping the roar of the engine will drown out the sound of my own tear-inducing screams.