28
Constant State
Amanda
The envelope is small. Another round of photographs. And Manny has it. How? Why? Please tell me he didn’t look at them.
“What are you doing?” My eyes move from him to my open mailbox and back.
“Nothing,” he says with wide eyes. “I just saw this sticking out.”
He’s sweating. I know he’s lying.
“Ok. Can you help me? I cut myself.” I lie back with a grimace.
“S-sure,” he says with a lot of enthusiasm.
“Thanks.”
He walks ahead of me with the envelope in his hand. In his rush, he forgot to close the mailbox. He knows what it is, alright. The faker! I thought we were friends.
“Can I have my letter?” I ask pleasantly as I unlock the door.
“Oh. Yeah. Right,” he looks down at the envelope sadly. Yup, he’s a liar. Now I’m going to corner him, beat the crap out of him with some photos, and get some answers.
“Thanks,” I fake a smile and open the door for him.
The idiot walks right inside.
“I think my first aid kit has what I need. In the bathroom, under the sink.” As if I have one. I’m never prepared.
He walks into the bathroom after he hands me the letter.
Big mistake.
I wait until he’s inside and then slide the deadbolt home with enough force the sound of the lock clicking is loud. I lean back on the door and pull out the new pictures. I thought I would be numb over this by now. I’m so wrong.
I recognize that face instantly. Disgust bubbles up in my stomach as I sneer at the picture.
Judge Gloria Fullerton. I wish I hadn’t seen your naked body. Is that what’s going to happen to me when I get older? I seriously need to get on exercising more.
The sound of the deadbolt brings Manny out with a panicked expression.
“What’s going on?” He asks warily, eyeing the door to freedom and then the pictures in my hands.
“I don’t know, Manny. What’s going on?” I wave the photos in front of me with a lot more violence than necessary.
The sweating increases as he gives a strained laugh. “What?”
It isn’t until I start advancing on him that he breaks.
“I can explain! Jeff, wait!”
I smack him on the top of the head with the pictures, sending them scattering everywhere. It feels so good I pick one up to keep hitting him as he tries to get away from me.
“Why are you giving me these? What’s with the names? And the photos? Disgusting! How could you give these to me? Where did they come from?”
“Mrs. Danvers!” He shrieks as if calling for a savior.
“Oh, please. She’s downstairs watching soap operas,” I huff and lower my arm. Seeing him cower away from me makes me scowl.
“No, it was Mrs. Danvers! She gives me the envelopes, a hundred bucks, and tells me to put them in your box. I never looked inside! I just delivered.”
“Wow, you’re so innocent,” I deadpan and hit him again.
“I needed the money!” He yells, suddenly straightening. He’s never seemed so tall before. Or so rage-filled.
“For what?” I snap back.
“My girlfriend! Her mom is sick.”
God damn it. The pity card gets tossed into my face without mercy. I’m not heartless.
“You asshole,” I snap, enraged that he’s won the argument. I hit him in the head again, hopping to reach it. He slouches a lot, and I never noticed. The best I do is reach his forehead.
“Fine. We’re going to see Mrs. Danvers right now, and you’re leading the way, traitor .”
The march down the stairs is a silent affair. Manny seems to be losing his rage while mine is revving up. His shoulders are slumping back into his normal slouch. He seems pitiful. It does nothing to make me feel better.
When Manny knocks on her door, it’s nice and gentle.
I shove him out of the way and start hammering on the door with both fists nonstop. I can barely hear her yelling over the noise. Let her be pissed. That makes two of us.
When she yanks the door open, I almost fall inside. Trying to regain my balance, I lose my grip on the photo, and it ends up poking her in the face.
Good enough.
“ What the fuck, lady! ” I scream at the top of my lungs.
She’s stunned by the picture’s corner stabbing her cheek. I brush past her uninvited and throw myself on her couch to be a real ass. I’m not leaving unless I get arrested or she tries to blow me up with her oxygen tank.
Manny shifts around in the doorway, suddenly timid again.
“Get your ass in here, Manny,” I snarl.
“Who do you think you are, young lady?” Mrs. Danvers uses her stern lecturing tone as she spins on me. She’s pretty agile when she’s pissed.
“I’m the person you’ve been tormenting, and I want to know why!” I brush off her rage as mine mounts unbearably. The root of this mystery was living on the first floor all along. If I pinch her cheeks, will a mask come off?
“You know why ,” she intones wrathfully. “Don’t pretend you’re innocent.”
“Innocent of what? Trying to divorce the asshole in these disgusting pictures?” I fling a hand out to point at the photo. “And you touched those! You looked at them and said you know who deserves to see this shit? Amanda.”
“As if you didn’t already know,” her chin tips up as she stalks to me in her uneven gait.
“That Loser is a raging nymphomaniac? No. I didn’t know. His bedroom performance would never have led me in that direction,” I sneer at her. “These damn things freaked me out enough that I got every single STD test imaginable! Twice! ”
“Damn,” Manny mutters, eyeing the picture curiously. Luckily, it landed face down, so he doesn’t see anything.
“Don’t you dare,” I shake a finger at him. “Trust me when I say what has been seen can’t be unseen.”
“And that was a ton of envelopes,” his stare turns horrified as he looks at the back of Mrs. Danvers's head.
“No. Really?” I ask sweetly with a bitter tinge. “What the fuck is going on?”
Mrs. Danvers scoffs bitterly. “Stop playing innocent.”
I stand to lean into her face. She isn’t expecting the threatening move. I can tell by how her eyes widen in sudden fear. She doesn’t back down, though.
“Why am I getting these? And the names. Who are these people? And what’s it to you?”
Her eyes dart between mine, sudden confusion swamping her.
“You really don’t know?”
“ Duh ,” I say mockingly.
“How stupid are you?”
I blink at that. Thanks so much for calling me out, Mrs. Danvers. “I married him. I’d say that’s pretty fucking stupid, wouldn’t you?”
Her shoulders slump in sudden defeat. She’s aged ten years right in front of me. I rear back in unwilling concern.
“Sit down,” she snaps at me and then turns a baleful eye on Manny. “I want my hundred back.”
Manny winces, but I hold out a staying hand. “He delivered. I got it. No refunds. Get the fuck out of here, Manny.”
He doesn’t need to be told twice.
She huffs while I flop myself back on her couch. When the door closes, she glares at me and shuffles to take another cushion.
“That is my spot.”
“Good,” I snap back and wiggle my butt. “ You suffer for once.”
Her shoulders stiffen as her lips flatten.
“Elizabeth Sutton.”
My brows furrow at the name. Like all the rest of them, it means nothing to me.
She glares at me while I ponder. “My daughter, you idiot!”
“Well, I hope she’s nicer than you!” I snap back without thinking.
“Mr. Blake swindled her out of her house and left her penniless. She had nothing! And you think that isn’t suffering enough? Watching her go through depression. The divorce because her husband couldn’t understand how she could be so foolish. She lost her children in the custody battle. Is that enough now?”
“What?” I ask weakly. “What the hell.”
I didn’t pay much attention to how Loser got the properties. I knew it seemed shady, but not that shady. What did he do?
“Yeah. What. The. Hell,” she grits back. “We tried to get her home back. We did everything we could think of. And somehow, everything got brushed aside by the court system. All of it. Even some of the others. The rest gave up pretty quickly. I didn’t.”
“Ok,” I lean forward to level with her. “I found some of the names in some paperwork at Matthias. He’s looking into all of it.”
Her sneer of disgust halts the rest of my words. “Another one. Just like Blake. You really are stupid.”
“He’s investigating ,” I insist. “He isn’t like Loser.”
Her disbelief is palpable.
“I’m serious! I started highlighting the names and Loser’s name on all the purchases. It got Matthias’ attention. I’ve been working on it for the last two weeks. All the judges involved. Lawyers. Everything. I had no idea what was going on until I saw those files.”
“It’s too late now. He’s demolished all the houses. For nothing! He claims he was building a golf course, and there’s nothing to see. Six years and nothing but dirt and broken dreams.”
My heart squeezes in pain for her. I don’t like this woman at all, but that doesn’t mean I want to sit here and watch her defeated slump.
“Is she okay?” I ask warily. I doubt she’ll believe my concern, but that's too bad.
“She left town and got an apartment. She had to start over.”
“Jesus,” I wipe a hand over my face. My eyes catch on the envelope, bringing me right back around. “Where did you get those?”
“A PI,” she spits back weakly. All the fight has drained out of her. “Not that the pictures helped me.”
“A private investigator turned into a porn photographer?” I give her a flat look.
“He found them, idiot,” she rallies.
“Where?” I ask, aghast at the knowledge these have probably made a circuit I don’t know about.
“I didn’t ask. It’s disgusting.”
“No kidding,” I agree and try to shake off the images plaguing me.
“The shoe box of pictures was the last thing he gave me.” Her tone turns soft with regret. “He disappeared after that.”
“Disappeared? Like he quit or what?” I choke out. The feeling of doom pulses in my chest.
She gives me a flat look. “What do you think?”
“And you gave all of it to me,” I stare at her in disbelief. “Why? I’m not some detective.”
“Because I thought you knew. I thought I could get a little revenge driving you crazy.” She shakes her head as if she realizes how dumb that is.
“You drove me crazy, alright,” I mutter. “On the plus side, the pictures made me see how much of an infected pus ball he is.”
She blinks at me in surprise. “I’m stealing that insult.”
“It’s free. Go for it.”
I sit back and try to put all these pieces together. Loser stole a bunch of property. I knew that already. I’m back to where the money is coming from. And then the photos. Something is off about that, too, other than being gross. Now, a missing PI.
This whole thing has gone from a smelly pile of garbage into an entire dumpster of filth.
“I’d like you to leave now,” she says weakly.
“Shut up. I’m thinking. And you sound close to a heart attack,” I glare at her. The flat look she gives me reassures me that the cast iron set to her backbone is slowly returning.
“But he hasn’t done anything with it all,” she says with a sneer
“He built a mansion on one of the sites,” I mutter to her and myself. “No golf course, though. And no idea where the photos came from.”
Her lips tighten even though I didn’t mean it as an accusation.
“Is Loser the only one in them?” I cringe.
“And that judge. Fullerton.”
I turn to her in disgust. “Yeah. Thanks for that.”
“It’s proof that they’re in it together,” she protests.
“Yeah, they are,” I give the picture a horrified glance.
“Once an idiot, always an idiot. Don’t you know what that means?” Her fire comes back with a snap.
“That the lawyers and judges are in on whatever this is,” I sneer.
“And the cops, girly. The cops,” she leans in my face to emphasize.
That assurance builds the unease inside to a breaking point. If all of them band together, there’s nowhere to turn.
No wonder I can’t find a lawyer for the divorce.
We sit in silence while I stew on insults and puzzle pieces. So much for trying to stay off the mystery team.
With a sigh, I stand up. “Give me all the names you have.”
“You have them. Except my daughter.”
“Ok. Maybe Gabriel can take a look and get further than the PI. What’s his name?”
“You’re going to tell him?” She sneers at me.
“He already knows,” I snap back. “He’s the one investigating now. He’s rich, he has bodyguards, and he’s determined. If anyone can do it, it’s him.”
“Stupid girl,” she stares at me sadly. “Whatever you do, don’t trust him. You’ve already done it once and look how that ended up.”
My heart twists at her logic. I’ve had the same thought myself. My head is buried so far in the sand I might see light on the other side soon.
His expression before he left me on that couch makes a very convincing argument.
“Yeah,” I mutter.
I scowl all the way back to my apartment.
My pacing gives me a good workout but no bright ideas. Shit, I’m handing the baton over. They’re better suited to this than I am.
I pull out my phone and hesitate.
Jake has the phones. The only number I have saved is Mikael’s and Ace’s for emergencies. Ace insisted. It’s Saturday and the likelihood of Harriette being able to patch me to Gabriel is at a zero. My cheeks burn as my thoughts go back to yesterday.
I can’t call him. Not yet. Ace will have to do.
It rings a few times and then kicks me to voicemail. I don’t want to leave a vague message about this, so I hang up and try Mikael without thinking.
The number rings once, and then I get a busy tone. Jake may have turned it off.
I’ll have to try again later. Even if it’s Jake that answers it’s good enough. He’s won me over, and I didn’t realize it until now.
In the meantime, I’m stuck going over everything in a useless circle that won’t stop.