Chapter 10
10
Christa
I t takes a while for the anger to seep out of my system.
And the Hawthorne brothers do a great job of distracting me from the pain. For three nights in a row, I welcome them to my bedroom for fiery lovemaking sessions and lengthy conversations. The hours slip by, but I find comfort and pleasure in their arms, in their company.
But I’m not done revisiting my past yet either.
I decide to Facetime with Sharon, Brett’s mother. “Hey, Sharon,” I say to the screen. “How are you holding up?”
“Christa, honey, you look wonderful!” she exclaims with a warm, radiant smile. “I see Portland is being good to you.”
“Aw, thank you. You think?”
She nods enthusiastically. “Yes. Absolutely. Your skin looks brighter. Your eyes are shining, and I’m loving that teal and cream shirt-and-jacket combo you’ve got going on there. What are those, pearl earrings?”
“They are.” I giggle softly, touching one. “They were a gift.”
From Cassius. He often says I’m a goddess deserving of only pearls and diamonds. I made a point of wearing them at the office, too. It felt nice to see him smile to himself during an earlier meeting. Our little secret.
“Not many women in their twenties can pull off pearls, you know,” Sharon says, tucking a lock of ginger hair behind her ear. She’s wearing concealer and perhaps a little too much powder, which means she’s hiding some dark shadows under her eyes. “You look stunning, Christa. I really hope you’re well.”
“I am, thank you. How about you?” I keep my voice down, worried someone might overhear me, even though the office’s walls are pretty thick. It’s just my post-Perry-Sage paranoia, which is a hard thing to shake. “Have you been getting enough sleep lately?”
“I try. I really do.” She sighs deeply.
“What’s keeping you up?”
Her voice drops by a few noticeable degrees. “You know what…”
Nervously, I look around, though there’s nothing and no one around. Stupid reflexes. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing, and that’s the problem. That Detective Morris, remember him?”
“I do, yes.”
“He hasn’t been returning my calls. It’s been six months since he took over Brett’s case from the other guy. They won’t tell me anything.”
I bite my lower lip, trying hard to ignore the pang in my heart. Brett was a good and decent guy. Not exactly the love of my life, but he was sweet, and he certainly didn’t deserve to die like he did.
“What about that private investigator you told me about? Did you ever reach out to him?” I ask Sharon, carefully analyzing her reaction.
“I did; and thank you for the money you wired for that, by the way,” she says. “He has all the information I had. I guess it’s in his hands now. The cops won’t do anything.”
“Don’t worry about the money. It’s the least I could do.”
“Oh, honey, you and Brett were only together for a few months. I’m genuinely touched that you still reach out, still care. You don’t have to do any of this, though.”
Oh, but I do.
Sharon doesn’t know what I saw. I will never be able to wipe those images from my memory. The look on Brett’s face in his final moments. My stomach flips. I’ve been fighting off nausea the entire morning.
“It’s my pleasure, Sharon. Who’s doing what? Who’s not doing anything? What’s life like these days?”
She takes a deep breath and a long sip of black coffee. “In short? The cops are probably looking at a cold case. Nobody from the precinct has done a follow-up for over two months,” she says. “Like I said, that Morris guy is dodging my calls. I called the precinct a few times, too.”
“And what did they have to say?”
“Nothing. They put me on hold, then told me he’s out in the field, that he’d call back.”
“He never called back.”
Sharon shakes her head. “No. But the PI is working on something. He said he’s got a few leads, but he needs more money to pay off potential informants. He’s got receipts and everything, though, so don’t you worry about that. The guy is legit and dedicated. I’m just waiting for another insurance payoff to cover it.”
“You don’t have to wait for anything,” I reply, my fingers already clicking over the keyboard as I complete a bank transfer from my computer. “You should have the funds in your account in a few minutes tops.”
“Oh, God, Christa, please. Stop it! You’ve already sent thousands my way!”
“You need it more than me,” I say with a warm smile.
It’s dirty money, anyway. It was supposed to keep me quiet, but that didn’t turn out the way they wanted. One way or another, I’ll make sure it never does. Besides, Sharon’s got a mortgage and has had hip surgery, plus this private investigator thing—which I hope will yield results.
“You are too good for this world, honey,” Sharon says.
I’m not as good as she thinks. Maybe Brett would still be alive today if I’d done the right thing sooner. I’m still learning to live with my guilt. It hurts.
“It’s okay,” I tell her.
“I wish I could repay you somehow.”
“Just keep fighting,” I say. “Keep fighting, keep asking questions. Do not let any of them rest until you get to the truth of what happened to Brett. His killer is still out there; I know it.”
I do.
Because he’s not one of the bastards who went down with the Perry-Sage ship. He slipped through the cracks, and that was my fault. I couldn’t expose him without putting myself in the crosshairs. I’ve already got a target on my back. Keeping a low profile has kept me safe up to this point.
I wish I could tell Sharon the truth.
“You keep digging, Sharon,” I reiterate. “You’ll get to the bottom of it. I know you will.”
“I hope so,” she nods slowly. “How are you? How’s Portland?”
“It’s good. I’m keeping my head down and my mind busy with work. I still look over my shoulder, though. Sometimes I feel like they know, like they’re watching me,” I confess with a trembling voice.
Sharon frowns slightly. “I didn’t tell anybody where you are. A few months ago, some people came around asking. They were with the LAPD. But they didn’t have your name or details, just your description from some surveillance photos of Brett.”
“Good,” I say. “It means my little exit strategy worked.”
“You wiped yourself from their system, for sure. Detective Morris didn’t ask about you either, and I didn’t tell him a thing. As far as they’re all concerned, you’re just the mysterious blonde aide who may or may not have worked at Perry-Sage.”
“They think Brett was single, right?”
“Yeah.”
I extracted myself from everything before I dropped a virtual bomb on the entire corporation and let the legal system pick up the pieces. I removed all traces of my existence from Brett’s online history—his social media, his contacts, everything.
“Has anyone else reached out to you lately?” I ask Sharon. I feel tension building in my stomach. I can’t tell if it’s from the coffee or the call.
“Nobody. Nothing from Perry-Sage or their lawyers.”
“No one Mancini-related either?” I inquire.
She shakes her head again. “Nope. I read in the newspaper that two of the Mancinis associated with Perry-Sage who were charged at the time, got a hefty sentence. One of them was a big boss, I think.”
I heave a sigh. “Yeah, he was. At least that went down right.”
What I really mean to say is that Brett didn’t die in vain, and I didn’t blow up my life for no reason.
Sharon gives me a worried look. “You have friends there, right? Close friends? Family?”
“Some, yes. I’m not alone, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“Do they know?”
It’s my turn to shake my head. “No. And they can’t know either. For their own safety.”
“You’re right. But I assume it’s a heavy burden to carry on your shoulders. The secrets…”
“It is. All I can do is hope that someday everything will work out, and we’ll be able to move on without fear of retaliation.”
“I worry about you, Christa.”
“You’re on your own over there. To be honest, I worry more about you than I worry about me,” I reply with a nervous chuckle.
She waves my concern away. “Nah, I’m good. I’m an Inglewood girl, born and bred. Those Italian pricks don’t scare me. I think they know it, too, otherwise they would’ve tried to intimidate me by now. Or worse.”
“You raised quite a noise in the media, which was the smart thing to do,” I remind her. “It made you a public figure. Killing you would’ve led the cops right to them. They couldn’t risk it. And you can’t prove they’re responsible for Brett either, so—”
“Not yet, anyway,” Sharon says.
“Not yet,” I agree. I wish I could comfort her more. I wish I could take her pain away. But I cannot change the past. I cannot bring anyone back. The only thing I can do is move on and make those bastards pay. Some of them I managed to take down on my own. The others… I don’t know, maybe the Feds will catch up on that side.
My phone rings. It’s a string of messages from Colin, probably with an update on the crypto authorizations.
“You have to go,” Sharon concludes with a half-smile.
“Yes. But I’ll call you again on Sunday. We could have coffee via Facetime. You on your porch, me on mine. How does that sound?”
“It sounds wonderful. Let’s do that. In the meantime, I’ll put the money you sent me to good use. This PI wants to pay a forensic accountant to dig through Brett’s hard copies from Perry-Sage.”
“That’s a great idea. Whatever it takes, Sharon. I’ll back you up; I promise.”
“You need to take care of yourself, okay?”
“I will.”
My stomach drops as the call ends. A split second later, I’m diving head-first into the toilet bowl, puking my guts out.
A week later and “better” seems even farther away. Every morning I deal with nausea and dizziness. I need a lot of ice-cold lemon water before I can even walk out the door. Purely as a precaution, I dialed down the coffee and switched to herbal tea.
But each day feels like a challenge.
Keeping up appearances. Doing a great job. Making the most of every sizzling-hot moment I get to spend with the Hawthorne brothers. Hiding it from Teagan. It’s a lot. Maybe the stress of it all is finally getting to me.
“Good morning,” I greet the receptionist one morning as I walk into the building, ready to grab the bull by the horns. “Any mail for me, Anne?”
Anne, the frizzy-haired but super-sweet receptionist, gives me a smile and a stack of envelopes with my name on them. Some brown, some white, some made with fancy paper—probably marketing snail mail from my favorite shops in Portland. They still send this stuff to their loyal customers, but I don’t mind.
“You probably have a couple of discount codes in there from Pink Pearl Lingerie,” Anne says, wiggling her perfectly tweezed eyebrows at me as she points at one of the envelopes. “I recognized the paper and the design. I got one yesterday, too.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yeah, they’re doing a huge mail campaign.”
“That’s nice,” I mutter as I linger by the reception desk, sifting through the mail. “Alright… Let’s see… Bills, bills… Taxes…”
“Who doesn’t love those?”
“Right?” I chuckle lightly, but my humor fades as I see the last envelope and my breath catches.
It’s plain white. My name is written in black ballpoint ink. I don’t see the building’s address on it. No return address either. Something feels wrong with this picture, and the knot in my chest immediately tightens as I rip it open.
“Busy day ahead?” Anne asks.
I look around and realize it’s not that busy around here this morning. Most of the staff are already in their offices, and the lobby area looks mostly empty. Hence why Anne is chattier than usual. Not much for her to do. I give her a smile.
“No busier than usual,” I reply, then slip two fingers inside the envelope. “How about you? Any new or spicy gossip you want to share?”
“Honestly, no. It’s been kind of boring lately,” she says. “The novelty of Alexandra Jones has worn off. You’re so nice and squeaky clean and holed up in your office most of the time. There’s no drama here at Hawthorne Corps, Christa. We need some drama!”
I can’t help but laugh, wondering what she might think if she knew about my steamy encounters with her bosses, who are also my bosses, and still my best friend’s brothers. I shake the thought away and open the letter.
As soon as my eyes land on the handwritten words, I freeze.
The note says: DID YOU REALLY THINK YOU’D GET AWAY?
My blood runs cold.
Anne asks, “Christa, are you okay?”
“Oh, God,” I whisper and hide the letter in my coat pocket.
My mind is racing in every possible direction. Blood pumps through my veins so fast that every pulse drums in my chest and in my ears. I can barely stand as I try to take a deep breath and keep myself upright.
They know where I am.
I covered my tracks. I broke at least a few federal laws to make sure the downfall of Perry-Sage wouldn’t be traced back to me. My employment there was sealed under a nondisclosure agreement since day one because of the sensitive nature of my work for them. I was a little fly on the wall. Nobody ever suspected me.
“Christa?” Anne asks again.
Approaching footsteps cause me to spin around on my heels and I slip. Nathan catches me before I fall, and I hold on to him for dear life.
“Hey, hey,” he gently says, while I dig my fingers into his chiseled arms. I can feel his hard muscles through the fabric of his shirt and jacket. “What’s wrong?”
“What?” I manage, my head swirling in horror.
“You look pale,” he says, subtly pulling me away from the reception desk. “What happened, Christa? Talk to me.”
“I’m… I’m okay. Sorry,” I reply, forcing myself to smile and pretend I didn’t just get a letter from hell. “Sorry,” I say it again. “I think I’m just dehydrated. I tried switching from coffee to herbal tea, but I don’t think it’s helping much.”
His hazel eyes search my face, and I pray to God I can sell this story because I’ve got nothing smarter to say. No better lie. “Are you sure?”
“Yes; I promise.” I laugh lightly. “I think a cherry-glazed bear claw from Frankie’s down the road will help. Maybe it’s a low-blood-sugar thing.”
“Let me take you to your office, at least.”
For a moment or two, I hesitate. Dangerously comfortable in his arms, I’d rather just stay here forever and ignore the note in my coat pocket. But as I glance over his massive shoulder, as I see Anne looking at us with a curious twinkle in her eyes, I quickly remember this isn’t the place for me to find comfort in Nathan’s embrace.
If anything, I need to step away.
I need distance.
“I’m good,” I tell him and back off with a polite smile.
He follows my gaze over to Anne and back, briefly pursing his lips. “You worry me, Christa.”
“Please, don’t worry,” I insist. “I’m fine. I could run a marathon right now, if I wanted. Although I think I’d get winded by the third mile, but I’d finish a decent last, nonetheless.”
The shadow of a smile dances across his face.
It’s a struggle to keep this upbeat mask on mine, though.
“You know what?” I say, coming up with a slightly better idea. “I think I’ll go to Frankie’s first and get that bear claw. I’ll pop by your office later; what do you say?”
“I’m not comfortable with leaving you alone right now.”
“I’m about to get hangry in about…” I pause and jokingly check my watch. “Oh, two and a half minutes, tops. And Frankie’s is five minutes away. That leaves me with two and a half minutes of grumbling like a gremlin until I sink my teeth in a decadently sweet pastry.”
“Christa,” he chuckles softly.
His concern for me is beyond sweet, especially when he’s always so stern and dark and mysterious, always towering over me. Little do people know that behind his ironclad facade is a tender, loving, affectionate man.
I touch his chest briefly. “I’m fine; I promise. I’ll see you upstairs in fifteen minutes.”
“You’d better. I’ll set a timer,” he says and takes his phone out.
As soon as I’m back outside, the sunlight hits my face and I take a deep breath—the river’s whispers quickly reach my ears, and I realize I’m just a few seconds away from breaking down in tears. Nathan is probably still watching me through a window, so I glide down the steps and head toward Frankie’s pastry shop.
I need something to distract me from the anonymous letter in my pocket.