Chapter 39
WINNIE
“Ugh, Fitz. He’s so obnoxious,” I mutter.
“No!” Kathy swoons. “He’s amazing, Winnie.”
My dinner is threatening to come back up.
Who cares if Fitz and my sister like each other and get together and get married and have the perfect family? It’s not like I haven’t survived that before. If Fitz wants to, then let him. I’m living in the present.
Then why didn’t I want to go home with him?
“That’s a true alpha right there.” Gran is whooping as she relays what happened to Brinley.
“It’s so romantic.” Knox’s girlfriend swoons.
“So romantic,” Kathy squeals. “You should have been there.”
“I wish a man would act that way about me,” Brinley says longingly.
They all troop up after me into the bedroom, where Fidget is on my bed slurping up a carton of ice cream.
“Fidget, don’t hide that behind the pillow!” I chase the dog. “Those are freshly washed sheets.”
“I mean, do you think Knox is cheating on me, Winnie?” Brinley asks anxiously.
I unfasten the necklace.
The smart thing to do would be to say, Of course not. He loves you and your unborn child, and you should go home to him. Right now. And tell him how much you want to be with him. And did I stress all this needs to happen right now, and I will help you pack your bags?
“To be honest”—I grab a towel to set the dog-slobber ice cream on—“men aren’t shit. And Knox is absolutely cheating on you. Shit, that’s how you got with him—he was cheating on Kathy with you.”
And that’s how he got with Kathy, by cheating on me. But I don’t say it. It was high school. It was embarrassing.
I’m over it.
Completely over it.
“He’s using you. He doesn’t respect you.
He’s using you for sex and free babies, and he’s back in the locker room, bragging to all of his boys how he’s got a dumb little sex doll waiting for him at home while he bounces around town with a damp dick looking for any puck bunny who wants to park his weiner for free. ”
“Why don’t we have some wine?” Kathy says. She looks a little shaken as she opens the bottle.
“Aren’t you glad you didn’t have a baby with that joker?” I tell her.
“Oh!” Brinley gives a hiccup of a sob. “He told me he was at dinner with his mom, but…” She holds out her phone with a text message from Kathy. “He’s with other girls.”
“See? Trash.” I give her a hug. “I know several good lawyers here,” I promise her.
“I’ll make sure you take him to court for child support.
Also, I advise that you move back to your home state so that you can get the max amount of money from him and don’t have to share custody.
While I do support men being involved in their children’s lives, Knox is not one of those men. ”
“But I want to stay here with you.”
Fuck me.
A masked figure all in black stands in the doorway.
Thunder claps.
We scream.
“Girls!” Gran pulls the mask off. “This isn’t the ’70s. You’re not just going to sit around having a sleepover and crying over your boyfriend. We’re going to get proof, then we’re going to smear his name all over the internet of the unholy.”
“Is this a bad time to tell you that I’m not actually pregnant?” Brinley grimaces.
“You’re not what?” I holler.
In the dark, a dog barks.
“Shh!” Kathy hisses. “Someone’s going to call the police.”
When I agreed to go break into Knox’s house to find evidence of an affair, I was thinking some distraction from Fitz wouldn’t be bad. Also, I might have overdone it on the wine and probably shouldn’t go straight to sleep.
Physical exertion is healthy.
Now, in the chilly misty rain, I’m regretting my decision.
I wish I was snuggled in bed.
Carolina hoists her boobs in the sexy police uniform costume. “I don’t know. I think these uniforms look pretty legit.”
“You look good in that hat,” Kathy coos.
I stumble. Probably should have foregone the sunglasses. “Okay, do you have the key, Brinley?”
“No,” she sniffs. “He didn’t give me one.”
“For fuck’s—”
“Bet he gave his mom one,” Kathy says darkly.
“Yeah, bet.”
“We’ll break a window.” Gran holds up a hatchet.
“There’s one of those electronic keypad lock things.” Kathy waves us to the side door.
“Try 36-34-38.”
The light flashes red.
“I bet it’s his birthday.”
“Try his jersey number three times?”
Nothing.
“Hammer time!”
“Gran, just hold on—” I have a sinking feeling.
I type in my birthday.
The door swings open.
We creep into the dark house.
Carolina flips on the lights.
“We’re trying to go incognito here, girly. Turn that shit off,” Gran hisses. “Now, flashlights out, ladies. We’re looking for incriminating evidence to hang a cheater.”
I meander into what’s supposed to be the office but looks more like a junk pile. I sift through the heap of bills haphazardly piled on his desk.
“If he’s cheating, he’s sending money to someone.” I sort through, looking for bills or credit card statements.
Late notices?
Debt collection?
I frown, opening up one credit card statement. “Jeez, Knox. You make five million a year and you can’t pay your—what is that?—eighty thousand dollar credit card bill. What is he even spending it on?” My hands itch to sit down and do his accounting for him.
No. Man wants to set himself on fire? Let him.
I open his other drawers. “For someone who just moved in, his stuff is not well organized.”
“The movers probably just packed up everything in his house as is and emptied the garbage truck here,” Kathy whispers as I dig through the messy drawers.
“He never let me in his office at home,” Kathy adds as she uses her fake police flashlight to pan around the room. “One time, I went in to try to clean up, and he flipped out and told me it was his house and I didn’t get to go anywhere he didn’t expressly give me permission to be.”
“Dickhead,” I mutter as I open the bottom drawer.
I see a corner of shiny paper. Something about the color of it makes my chest tight.
It can’t be.
I carefully slide them out.
Nudes.
A teenage girl stares longingly at the camera in a red skirt that’s too small for her, her boobs out, with lipstick that’s the wrong shade.
Another of her on her hands and knees. Notice me, love me practically screams from the photo.
Trying to put on a titillating show for a boy who sees her as nothing more than an easy lay.
It’s funny. You think when you’re a teenage girl that you’re so ugly and so overweight. But I was actually kind of pretty. And definitely not a whale like Knox liked to call me.
I’m furious he still has the photos and even angrier at myself for sending them to him in the first place. He doesn’t deserve these. I didn’t even send nudes to Fitz, and he’s done more for me than Knox ever did.
Do I take them? Do I leave them? If I leave them, then he’s got my nudes. But if I take them, he knows someone was in here.
“Find anything?” Kathy’s voice is practically over my shoulder.
“Nope,” I squawk. “Just bills. Tell me,” I turn, trying to block the open drawer. I shove it with my foot. “Did Knox have money troubles when you and he were together?”
“I, um, I don’t know. I mean, it’s not like I ever asked him for stuff to buy, you know. He didn’t even buy food. He said models don’t eat much so I could buy my own food. I’d live off of scraps or parcel out leftovers that Mom and Dad would send home with me.”
“Kathy.” I give her a tight hug. I hate Knox now even more than I already did.
“And I couldn’t even get a high credit limit because I didn’t have any real income. I bet you think I’m stupid,” Kathy says sadly, looking at the ground. “You’re right. I should have gotten a job, had some savings. Something. Not just wasted my life waiting for him to finally propose.”
“You’re not stupid. Knox is a narcissist and a liar and an asshole. He’s manipulative. It could have happened to anyone.”
“You wouldn’t fall for his shit, though. You’re smarter than that. You’re the smart one.”
Now would be a great time to come clean, confess about me and Knox.
But I’m a chicken. I grab my sister’s hands. “I’m going to make sure Knox pays.”
“Are you going to sic your hot billionaire boyfriend after him?” She gives me a wan smile.
“No,” I tell her. “I don’t need a man to enact revenge. A man is not a plan.”
I take photos of his past-due bill statements.
“Girls, leave it! We’ve been compromised! Abort mission!” Gran rushes past.
“Did you find anything?” Brinley asks. “I found a dildo.”
“Okay, why are you touching it? Leave it,” I hiss.
“What part of ‘abort mission’ do you not get?” Gran hollers.
Lights flash outside.
“Shit, is that the police?”
“Po-po! Run!”
We scramble out of the house, hop the fence into the neighbor’s yard, and rush down the alley to the road where my car is parked.
“There’s women’s panties in the house too,” Brinley calls as we stumble through the dark.
In the passing brightness from a security light, I see them.
My panties.
Fuck.
“Toss ’em!” I yell. “It’s evidence. Get rid of it!”
“The dildo too?”
“Hey, that looks kinda like the one I got you for Christmas,” Gran says.
I snatch it from Brinley, haul back, and throw it.
There’s a pained scream in the dark and the thud of something falling.
“Officer down!”
“Shit!”
“Girls, I got this. Follow along.” Gran puffs up her chest. “We are fellow officers of the law,” Gran announces when police descend on the scene.
In the distance, a police chopper sounds and sirens wail.
“The intruder went thataway!” She gestures off into the distance.
“You heard ’em.” One of the heavyset male officers wheezes. “Maybe we could call the dogs in.”
“We can run after the perp,” Kathy offers.
The rest of us nod. “Yeah, we got it.”
“Great, thanks.” The guy sits down heavily. “How’s Hank?”
Hank has a big welt on his forehead from the dildo but is otherwise okay.
“We’ll make him pay,” Gran promises.
“Wait a minute. You don’t look like cops.” A female officer peers at us.
“Oh no,” Gran says, “we are definitely the police—”
“We’re strippers,” Carolina says at the same time.
“I don’t care who you are, but you’re getting arrested.”
“Run!” Gran hollers. “I’ll hold ’em off!”
I turn to run and immediately trip over a garden gnome.
The female officer pounces on me. “You are under arrest!”