32 - Peyton
PEYTON
There were perfect things and quiet things, but it wasn’t often that you got to experience both. When you did, I decided, you really needed to enjoy it.
“My mother would kill me if she could see me right now.”
I leaned back against the railing, pulling my borrowed baseball cap low. The still morning was a blessing in contrast to the chaos and tension of the evening before. I had silence. Fresh air. The soft light from a newly-born, Caribbean sun.
“What do you think she’d say?”
Colson asked the question while cutting and eating a pineapple. He was meticulous about the way he sliced the fruit, but that didn’t make me feel any less uneasy every time he ate a piece straight off the long, gleaming knife.
“She might not even be with us any longer,” I joked. “The wedding might’ve killed her.”
“Lack of wedding,” Ripley corrected me. He was leaning against the transom, chin against his chest. His own hat was pulled way down, over both his eyes.
“Right.”
Our fishing boat cut a clean, white line through the morning waters, launching us into the unknown. The brightening horizon was a still unblemished line, with not a wave in sight. The water itself might’ve well have been turquoise-colored glass.
“My mother introduced us, actually,” I sighed. “Of course, Donovan took an instant liking to her. The two of them talked so often it was annoying, but I grew to accept it. I mean, it’s usually the opposite, right?”
“There is no ‘usual’ when it comes to that prick,” Ripley muttered from beneath his hat.
The captain weaved his way past us, grabbed some rope, then disappeared again. But not before beaming his lighthouse beacon of a smile my way.
“He’s actually still fishing?” I chuckled.
“It’s better if he has the drag nets out,” Colson explained. “Less conspicuous.”
“We make worse time though.”
“True enough,” he allowed. “But right now it’s more important that we don’t stick out.”
I thought about my family, maybe for the first time since this whole thing began. Would Donovan use them against me, the way he had with Theo? Of course he would. It wasn’t even a question.
“I should probably call my mother, at some point,” I sighed. “She’s probably worried I’m in a ditch or something.”
“Oh… I don’t know about that,” Theo stumbled, awkwardly.
I looked back at him curiously. The expression on his face told me he knew something I didn’t. Likewise, the others had grown suspiciously quiet.
“Now’s the time to tell her,” muttered Colson.
The morning silence deepened. An icy unease stole over me.
“Tell me what?”
“Your mother was in the files,” Theo began awkwardly. “On the locket.”
I blinked. “My… mother?”
“Yes.”
“What do you mean she was in them?”
“Emails tied to her consulting firm,” Theo went on. “There were… conversations about compensation. Agreements made, in regards to—”
“Donovan was paying her.”
Colson said the words plainly, as he slid another piece of pineapple into his mouth. My hair spun as my head whipped toward Theo.
“Was he?”
Theo shrugged and nodded sheepishly. “Seems that way.”
I closed my eyes and inhaled a deep breath, taking a moment. When I let it out, it was a long stream of swear words.
“I should’ve known,” I eventually sighed. “They were too close, too soon. I always felt left out of their little loop. Like the two of them were in cahoots.”
“Peyton—”
“And my mother, starting it all. Inviting me to come with her to certain galas. Pressuring me to accept Donovan’s first invitation, when I wasn’t sure I wanted to.” I gnashed my teeth. “And fuck, he always knew what to say to me. Like he’d known me all my life. Because—”
“Your mother was spoon-feeding him everything he needed,” Ripley finished.
Backstabbing witch!
I balled my hand into a fist, and almost pounded it into the outside cabin wall.
I’d been so blind, so willfully stupid! All those times I’d gone to her with problems, she had me doubting my instincts.
She’d take his side, every time, no matter what happened between us.
Shit, I couldn’t count the number of times she made excuses for Donovan.
Assured me he ‘only wanted what was right’ for me.
My own mother…
Theo’s hand touched my shoulder. Slowly, gently, he began massaging my aching neck.
“Don’t be too hard on yourself,” he murmured. “Donovan can’t even seduce women on his own, he has to hire the job out like everything else. I don’t think he’s capable of love. He just collects assets.”
“So I was an asset,” I grumbled. “Doesn’t make me feel any better.”
“We were all assets,” Colson pointed out. “Each of us. For different reasons.”
“Your mother isn’t worrying too much about your location anyway,” Theo went on.
“Donovan’s pushing a victimhood narrative now.
You were mentally unstable; that’s why you fled the wedding.
He’s been putting up with it silently for months, trying to keep his personal life separate from his professional. ”
“How very fucking brave of him,” snarled Ripley.
“So where does my mother think I am?”
Theo paused for a moment. Colson nodded, giving him the go-ahead.
“At the moment, rumor has it you’re at an undisclosed mental health crises center. Getting ‘the help you need.’”
I was stunned. Angry. Totally blown away.
“Look on the bright side,” Ripley elbowed me. “If you ask me, you’re looking better already.”
I curled my lip in disgust. My mother had put her own interests well before mine, but that was to be expected. It was on brand for her.
But now she’d taken money to betray me, and that part hurt more than anything.
“I knew her consulting firm was hurting,” I said flatly. “Even on the brink of bankruptcy. But I never thought she’d sell me out. Her own daughter.”
“Maybe you should call her,” Ripley theorized. “Give her a piece of your mind.”
“With Donovan controlling the narrative on my ‘mental health crisis?’” I laughed, bitterly. “She wouldn’t listen to a single thing I had to say.”
The boat continued slicing through the water, propelling us in the direction of our inevitable fate.
I started feeling numb to what came next.
My past life was gone, which I was more than fine with, but my future was still a hazy, shape-shifting mass of uncertainty. All courtesy of Donovan Prescott.
“We do have some good news,” Colson announced.
Uncrossing my arms, I tilted my cap back. “And what’s that?”
“Turns out we can’t go inland. Donovan’s influence is making it too hot to stay down here.”
I huffed. “And that’s good news?”
“The good news is Theo’s computer friends came through,” Ripley added. “They’ve cleared a new place for us; one tucked so far away from civilization, we won’t ever be looked at—”
“They’re not my ‘computer friends’” Theo objected.
“—but still within striking distance of New York, when we’re ready to play that card.”
I turned to Colson, who was in the process of throwing the pineapple’s core over his shoulder. It arced high before plunking into the ocean, as he folded his knife away.
“They even secured us a ride,” he smiled.
“A ride?” I set my hands on my hips. A ride where?”
He nodded to Theo, who opened his laptop. He punched a few keys, then turned the screen my way.
My mouth dropped open.
“Let’s just say you won’t need any more of those bikinis,” he lamented sadly.