Chapter 39
PEPPER
I turn the corner and a rush of relief coasts over me when I see a familiar face sitting behind the sheet-pane glass.
“Kathy!” I try to rush forward, but trip on my jail-issue orange sliders, stumbling a step before I regain my balance.
Kathy blows wild ginger curls from her face and offers me a smile, but it falls quickly when she takes in the yellowing bruise around my eye and the fresh split on my lip.
I reach the booth and snatch up the phone receiver from the wall, watching her do the same as I take my seat. “It’s so good to see you.”
“What happened to your face?” Kathy cuts right to chase in the way she always does, several creases of concern in her forehead.
“Oh…” I smile, which makes her green eyes flare wide. “There is a woman in my cell block who is a real bitch, so I told her she needs to worry less about me and more about waxing her top lip.”
“Pepper!” she yelps, then looks over her shoulder at the sleepy corrections officer standing by the door. “You’re not supposed to be getting yourself into trouble right now.” she turns back and hisses quietly.
“Says you! I don’t have visitation privileges and they told me that my attorney was here to see me.” I raise my eyebrow, watching a riot of pink charge across her freckled cheekbones.
“Yes, well…I had to speak to you somehow.”
I imagine if I looked at the New York City Bar today, I would find a neat little entry that touted Kathy Evans as a proud member.
“What’s happening?” I’m suddenly serious, my brain marching down a track that has me picturing Sunny in trouble.
The stubs of my nails are already chewed to fuck from the last couple of days. Anything more and I think I’ll destroy them entirely.
“Rosie is missing. She disappeared after we hack—”
“Wait!” I place one hand on the glass in warning, hearing the faint crackle to the line.
I know they aren’t meant to record conversations with my attorney, but what if…
what if they knew that Kathy wasn’t my attorney when she tried to get in, and decided to let her in anyway to see if they could gather any evidence? “I don’t know if it’s safe.”
Perhaps I’m paranoid from the broken sleep, and the complete upheaval of my entire life, but that prickle is back across my neck and I don’t fuck with that.
Kathy sits back in her plastic orange chair and contemplates me. “I went to Rosie’s apartment and she wasn’t there—hadn’t been in days, according to her building manager. The whole place was cleared out.”
“What?” I hiss, leaning in closer, my knuckles clenched tight around the receiver.
In the absence of being able to talk freely, we stare at each other as we silently acknowledge the obvious. If you don’t leave of your own will, typically your apartment and belongings will remain where they are…but it’s worrying all the same.
“I would say keep me updated, but—” I cast my hand at the dull white room. “Have you heard anything about Sunny? My attorney told me that she was taken back into the system and I…”
I choke on air, tears gathering immediately. I’ve barely eaten, worrying about her.
“You don’t know?” Kathy tilts her head and watches me speculatively.
“Know what?” All Landau told me last time we spoke was to sit tight and trust them to work on getting me out of here. As infuriating as that is, what more can I do? I’m useless inside here.
“Chase Walker applied for emergency guardianship of Sunny, and he was granted it yesterday.”
The air freezes inside my lungs, I blink at her once, then twice, willing my brain to comprehend the enormity of this piece of information.
“He did?” I whisper, my hand rising to my mouth.
The tears spill over, something warm and heartachingly tender piercing my heart. Words spoken weeks ago flood to the surface, the deep timbre of his voice echoing in my mind.
“For whatever it’s worth to you, you have my word that I will help you and Sunny in any way that I can—no matter what happens.”
“He’s a good man, Pepper.” Kathy places her hand on the glass and I lower mine to slot over hers on the opposite side.
I can’t believe he did that. Except I can, because underneath the flippant arrogance, the silly jokes, and the hard business exterior he likes to present, he’s got a huge heart and a steadfast loyalty that you don’t find often.
The knowledge that they are together blunts the jagged edges of my heart, offering me vast comfort despite my own dire circumstances.
“I know.” I sniff, harnessing the tender emotion filling every cell in my body to give me a temporary lift. “A really good man.”
Kathy smiles fondly, the corners of her eyes crinkling. “Pepper, when you get out of this mess—”
“If,” I correct, swiping at my eyes.
Kathy glares at me from beneath bleached lashes. “When you get out of here, I think it’s time to let all of this go. Just live your life with Sunny, and Chase, if it ends up that way.”
I nod, casting my eyes away glumly. Truthfully, I’ve been thinking the same thing.
It feels so disheartening that the attack on the Rénir family empire that we had planned for so long went so disastrously wrong.
I gather from the interviews and the charges that Rénir Junior sniffed us out and reported us to the police before we could even find a stitch of evidence against him. And that makes no damn sense.
No part of me wants to risk ending up back here if I somehow do avoid the noose around my neck, which feels pretty inevitable here today. But I keep coming back to one thing.
“I just can’t bear to think he would have gotten away with it, Kathy.” My voice is soft, grazing against my vocal chords.
The curly-haired woman looks fiercely at me, her face completely sober. “I know, Pepper. And we really tried, but he knows you’re after him, and look where it ended up.” She casts her hand at me behind the glass. “There comes a point when the best revenge is living your own life and being happy.”
A sad glaze covers her sea-grass eyes, whisking her far away into her past where I know her own demon to conquer lives.
That’s what bonded us together, right from the moment we connected at a survivor’s support group.
By happenstance, it was our first night attending—Kathy, Rosie, and me.
We took one look at each other and knew that we weren’t interested in sitting around and sharing our stories.
We wanted to do something. We wanted to claim back what was taken from us.
And so we set about building something together, other survivors finding us along the way until we had a network stretching all across the East Coast.
“Besides.” She snaps me back into the room. “It turns out we didn’t walk away completely emptyhanded, so let’s just say not all hope is lost.”
My interest piques, zoning in on her cryptic disclosure.
“Time’s up!” the guard barks at the door before I can question it, flicking a switch that causes a buzzer to erupt on the phone at my ear. When it’s over, the line goes dead and I can no longer hear Kathy.
“Hang in there,” she mouths simply, standing up and walking away without a second glance back.