3. Her Plan Was the Only Plan
CHAPTER 3
Her Plan Was the Only Plan
Nikki
The world was literally falling apart around me. Henry braced his straining biceps on either side of me. I leaned my head against the brick wall and met his gaze. His strength was familiar and comforting. I’d been on my own for so long I’d forgotten what it was like to feel protected. A warm flutter rushed across my belly. I’d bet my cheeks were bright red too.
He forced out a long breath and winced.
Henry Cavalier.
The name flashed in my mind’s eyes. How could this be?
This close, the familiar serenity of his brown eyes brought back more memories of the summer we’d spent together when I was ten. Right before it had all gone to hell. I’d been so focused on getting to the hotel I hadn’t stopped to really see the man in front of me. But now that we were here, I was sure this was Henry Cavalier, the only boy I’d ever loved.
Of course he didn’t remember me. Why would he? I was nothing back then. Not that any of it mattered. I wasn’t here for some cheesy reunion. I was here for Lisa. I stared at him, still not fully believing he was the boy who broke my heart so long ago.
I glanced away from him and searched for my car. It’d nose-dived into a sinkhole in the middle of the street that was easily six feet deep, half-filled with crumbled asphalt. I pushed Henry away from me and lifted his car key off the inside of his jean pocket. Stealing from him wasn’t the best way to thank him for saving my life, but I’d survived all these years by trusting my instincts and reacting quickly as situations presented themselves. Henry had let his guard down for a second, and I needed a car.
“I always keep my promises,” I answered his question from before.
In all fairness, it’d taken me years to make good on my promise to Lisa. And I wasn’t sure the Cavalier Hotel was the way to deliver on that vow. The place was a wreck, a real, live wreck.
“Okay, Construction Guy, is there anything else that’s going to crap out on us today?”
He furrowed his brows, then faced the massive pothole, which was about the length of the hotel entrance. The narrow sidewalk where he’d dragged me for cover was intact, but beyond that, the street had caved in.
“Can’t really say for sure until we get in there, but it looks like this should be it.” He rubbed the sexy stubble on his jaw and prowled around the wreckage. “And not that it matters, but I’m not a construction worker.”
“Earlier you were in a construction site, holding a stop sign. What does that make you?”
“That makes me the architect the town hired to renovate the old downtown.”
He wrinkled his nose before he dropped into the hole. Or did he fall? Shit. I rushed to the edge, where the asphalt had split in half, creating a sort of ramp. I stepped on it, and it wobbled. A shock of adrenaline made me stumble back.
“Stay where you are.” His voice came from somewhere below.
“How come you get to go down there?” I didn’t like being told what to do.
“Because I know what I’m doing,” he deadpanned.
I rolled my eyes at him.
“I saw that.” His voice rumbled closer to where I was. “You want your stuff or not?”
“Of course I want it.” It was all I had left. “Could you also get my purse?”
A second later, my bag landed a couple of feet away, followed by my luggage. My suitcases weighed more than fifty pounds each, but he threw them over his head as if it were a bag of marshmallows. Show off.
“So, you’re here to restore the town. How are you going to find the time to work on your revenge mission?” I asked.
He probably said it for shock value, but something in his eyes made me wonder if maybe there was more to it. Were we here for the same thing?
He climbed out of the sink hole. The sweat on his tanned skin made him glisten under the sun. I swallowed, crossing my arms. God, he made it hard for me to focus. The bit of chest hair and the curve of a tattoo peeking over the V-neckline of his T-shirt weren’t helping either. I had to call Lisa. This plan of hers had no shot, not with this version of Henry in the way.
“That was meant as a joke.” He dusted his jeans.
“You’re hard to read.” I closed the space between us. “This coming from someone like me, it’s saying something.”
“I know what you are.” He ran a hand through his dark hair, meeting my gaze .
“What did this town do to you? Maybe there’s a way we can help each other.” I braced my hands on my hips.
He clenched his jaw. The effort made him look dangerous. Not at all like the Henry I remembered. His dark gaze darted from the condemned hotel to the broken street before it settled on me.
“I don’t know what brought you here. What I do know is that everything that comes out of that pretty mouth of yours is either a lie or a half truth. I see you. You’re full of tells, and you’re a horrible liar, but somehow people buy your act. My guys certainly did.” He shook his head.
“You see me?” I chuckled. “What do you see?”
“A thief.”
“I prefer con artist.” I rested my hand on his neck.
His pulse throbbed fast and hard against the tips of my fingers. He was affected by my touch, even when his face remained blank.
“Same difference.” He raised an eyebrow. “The question is: what are you here to steal?”
“Nothing.” I jiggled his car keys in front of him.
“What?” He patted his pocket before he snatched the key fob from me.
“Now that we’ve established I have certain skills you could use, tell me. What do you want with this place?”
“We haven’t established anything.” He put his keys back in his front pocket. “I’m just an architect who happens to be good at poker.”
I nodded. That explained a lot—why he could read me like some sort of FBI agent. Whatever he was, I didn’t care. I was done here.
“Fine. Five hundred Gs and the place is all yours.” I smiled at him.
Lisa would have to listen to me. We never should’ve strayed from our original plan of winning her appeal and getting her out of jail. The money from my last con was supposed to pay for that. Instead, Lisa had struck a deal with her lawyer to purchase this place.
“Right. Except that’s not how much you paid for your half of the hotel.” He shook his head, a crooked smile pulling on his lips.
“How can you tell?” I crossed my arms.
“You scratch your nose when you lie.” He tapped my nose.
“No, I don’t.” I slapped his hand away.
“Do too.”
What the hell? Did I scratch my nose?
“Four hundred,” I said with conviction.
“Is it really that hard to tell the truth?” He cocked his head.
“I didn’t touch my nose.” I was sure I hadn’t that time.
“Your hand twitched…because you wanted to touch your nose.” His laugh made me feel warm inside.
“Two hundred fifty,” I sighed.
“Was that so hard?” He smiled, and a tiny wrinkle appeared around his right eye.
“You have no idea.” I grabbed my purse off the ground and took out my phone. “When can I get my money?”
“About that.” He rubbed the back of his neck.
“You don’t have the money, do you?”
“Not with me, no. I need a few days.”
“You have two days to come up with the money, or I’ll find a new buyer.” I tramped away from the wreckage.
“I’ll have your money.” He cursed under his breath when his phone rang. “Yeah.” He answered as he headed in the opposite direction as me.
This day was the worst ever. I strode to the end of the street and leaned on one of the barricades. Closing my eyes, I faced the sky as the sunrays burned my cheeks. I’d forgotten how hot it was here in the summer. My nose itched, and I rubbed it. Henry . Okay, so maybe this day wasn’t the worst ever. Smiling, I tapped on my phone and scrolled to the number of the only man who could help me now.
“How you doin’, doll? How’s Paris?” Dom picked up on the first ring.
“Not there yet. Took a little detour. I need a favor, darling.”
He sighed loudly. Here was a guy who knew how to play the game and enjoyed it. “For you, anything. What is it?”
“My sister’s in jail,” I said bluntly. I’d met Dom on my last con. He was a fancy lawyer from New York, one of the best and our last hope.
“Holy shit. What happened?” He asked.
“She killed a man.” Static filled the air. “Or rather, she’s serving time for a crime she didn’t commit. I promise you she didn’t do it.”
“What do you need, babe?”
Tears welled in my eyes at his words. I missed Lisa. I missed having a family. I missed having someone in my corner, sharing the load with me.
“I need to see my sister. Could you help with that? For some reason, her visitation privileges were revoked or something.”
“You got it, doll. Give me an hour. Just text me her information.”
“Thank you, darling. You’re the best. Ciao.” I hung up.
Three hours later I was at the state penitentiary on the west side of Phoenix, holding a special pass to see Lisa. I’d even had time to stop by a dealership and talk the sales guy into letting me test-drive a Tesla for a few days.
I sat in the beat-up chair facing the glass panel, waiting for Lisa to appear on the other side. The last time I’d visited her was ten years ago. I’d just turned fifteen. After five years of bouncing around in the system, I’d decided to run away to Paris. Lisa had been twenty-three at the time and fully supportive of my crazy decision. She’d been at the peak of her youth, wasting away in a jail cell.
That day she’d asked me to never come back to this place. “Go enjoy life. For the both of us. Write to me every day,” she’d said.
Over the years we wrote letters, but after a while, she stopped writing back. I kept at it for a few more years and eventually gave up too. I swallowed my tears and wiped my nose. We should’ve stuck together. She was the only family I had left. It wasn’t fair that she’d spent fifteen years of her life paying for something she didn’t do.
I glanced up as she appeared on the other side of the glass, looking as if she’d aged thirty years. We burst into tears. Neither one of us had the strength to pretend anymore. We sat there and cried for what felt like hours. I mouthed an “I’m sorry,” as she shook her head.
She pointed at her phone and picked it up. I did the same.
“Please no apologies. And no more tears,” she said.
“Done.” I wiped both cheeks with the back of my hand, forcing a small laugh.
“How’s the hotel? Did you get in the tunnels?”
“Paradise Creek is not what we remembered. It’s not what it was when we were kids. The hotel is in ruins. The door is gone.” I placed a hand over my chest to ease the tightness there.
“What? That can’t be. How is that possible? It’s only been…”
The pain in her eyes cut me. “I know a very good lawyer. Top notch from New York, not the sorry excuse for a man the state appointed you. He can get you out. We can go away together. Remember how we always talked about moving to Paris? We could do it now. I have a place there. ”
Lisa shook her head.
“No,” I continued. “Listen, I have money now. We can go anywhere we want. Be a family.”
I’d spent years doing job after job, saving my money so that one day we could afford a good lawyer to get Lisa out of jail. Then I met Dom Moretti on my last con, and I knew Lisa’s time had come. Of course, she had to beat me to the punch. A few weeks back, she sent me a letter asking for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. I lived well, but I didn’t have that kind of cash just lying around.
Loans were out of the question. Con artist wasn’t really a profession banks were impressed with. To say I’d had to lie, steal, and cheat to get the money we needed was an understatement. I’d been pissed when Lisa finally told me what the money was really for. She hadn’t used the money to hire a lawyer but to buy a boutique hotel in our hometown. I’d always thought that once we had money, all our problems would be solved. But I was wrong. I had money, influential friends, but nothing had changed. My only family was still in this hellhole.
Lisa shook her head again, lips pursed, and her eyes full of longing. “I’ve wasted my life in here. When I leave, I want everyone to know that I was innocent. I don’t want some fancy lawyer to prove I’ve done my time. I want to prove my innocence. I want to go home with my head held high. I want Mrs. Blaine to bring me a casserole and tell me how sorry she is for what happened to us. For how mean she was to us. I don’t want Paris. I want Paradise Creek. Please. The proof we need is in that tunnel. Find it. Tell me you’ll do it.”
My heart sank. I hadn’t considered what all this meant for Lisa. She hadn’t spent the last fifteen years wondering what it’d be like to be out in the world. Her entire plan wasn’t to leave this place. She wanted true freedom, the freedom to go home and be accepted again. The way we’d been when our parents were still alive. The Morrow girls weren’t bad seeds. We were dealt pretty fucked-up cards when we were young. The town had to know that. Lisa was right. Her plan was the only plan. Fuck her parole hearing.
“I will do this for you.” I nodded, leaning forward in my seat. “I will find the tunnel again and get the evidence you need. I promise.”
“We’re going home, sister.” Her eyes filled with tears.
We were two women on a mission. Yeah, it had taken us a long-ass time to get here, but we were ready to get our lives back.
Henry would have to agree to let me stay at the hotel. The Cavalier Hotel belonged to me as much as it belonged to him. Though now I had to deal with the small issue of me agreeing to sell him my half of the property. Even though we didn’t sign any agreement papers or even shake on it, I couldn’t back out on my word. There was an unspoken code amongst thieves—or thief and poker player. I needed Henry on my side. He was the only one who could help me with my tunnel situation.
To earn his trust, I had to honor our deal. According to said deal, he had to deliver his portion of the money in two days. All I had to do was make sure he didn’t get the cash he needed.