Chapter 13
G ray logged into my computer, already knowing the password because we’d had too many of these work sessions to count, then gave me a worrying look. “Remember the way Monroe got all swoony when she started talking about Vance?” When I grunted in acknowledgment, Gray nodded. “It was like that with Chloe, even though she has a lot of resentment toward him. It’s creepy to watch them talk about him. Like he puts them under a spell or something.”
“Details, Gray,” I said, anxious to know what all this guy had done to Chloe.
“Getting there,” he defended. “But that’s important because Chloe said from the first day she met him, she’s had this chill in her spine, like a warning. Every time she sees him, that chill’s there, worse now than before. And even through that, it was like finding out she existed—that she mattered—whenever he so much as looked at her.”
I ground my teeth but didn’t say anything as I forced my head to dip in subtle nods, waiting for him to go on.
“A couple years after first meeting, they started seeing each other, even though Chloe couldn’t seem to understand why this Vance guy would choose ‘someone like her.’” Gray made a face like he was still trying to wrap his head around that comment and what it could mean. “She said they went on dates nearly every night—dates only at first, because it’d been important for her to save herself until she was married.”
My heart missed a beat or two, the feeling excruciating as I rapidly absorbed the use of the past tense and how that small detail had me wanting to destroy a man I’d never met...all because of a girl I hardly knew and didn’t trust.
Not only that, when I’d twisted everything around onto her, I’d made it out to be something more. I’d made her out to be something more—something worse.
“When they eventually started sleeping together, she made it seem like it was her idea,” Gray went on, tone all business because this wasn’t destroying him the way it was me.
Because she was just another girl to flirt with to Gray. She didn’t actually mean anything to him.
I had a feeling if we were talking about Monroe, he wouldn’t be so at ease.
“Was it?” I asked through clenched teeth.
“Not in the least,” Gray said as he took another drink from his beer. “I let her tell me the whole story, then backed her up to when they’d first started seeing each other. Getting every detail I could.”
He gave me a concerned look. “You saw how Monroe reacted to just one encounter with Vance. With that and how Chloe genuinely has no idea this guy assaulted and manipulated her more and more until he fully coerced her into sleeping with him—all while blushing and trying not to smile like she was reliving great memories? Not to mention the way she brushed off his blackmailing as him being romantic . This guy’s dangerous, Thatch.”
I forced myself to release my stylus when I realized I was clenching it, letting it fall and roll across my tablet’s surface.
I knew I needed to ask for the details because that’s what was expected of me for this case—every case. I needed all the information Gray had so I was prepared going into the Donut. But my thoughts were on Chloe.
“Did you tell her what really happened?” I asked.
A flicker of worry for the girl in question marred Gray’s expression. “No,” he said after long seconds of hesitation. “She needs to know—she deserves to know. But it didn’t feel like the right time.” His head slanted. “Honestly, I wasn’t sure she’d hear me with the way she kept getting this dazed expression whenever she talked about him before their fallout.”
Pieces of my short conversations with her both yesterday and today—of her tears and her shame—flashed through my mind. “What was their fallout?”
“Finding out he was married,” Gray said as if he knew he wasn’t informing me.
I barely managed to hold back an eye roll and asked, “How does a marriage go unnoticed?”
Frustration flashed in Gray’s eyes, letting me know he didn’t just have a general idea of what I’d said to Chloe earlier—he knew exactly what I’d said. But he couldn’t make me feel worse than I already did.
“How does this guy make women think sexual assault is something they want?” Gray tossed back. “How does he make them think blackmail is romantic?” When I didn’t respond, Gray released a heavy sigh and said, “He told Chloe he was divorced, which, I already know what you’re gonna say about it, but he was convincing. She also stayed at his house plenty of nights.”
My jaw already ached from how much I’d clenched it today, but it neared the point of painful at that information. Information that shouldn’t matter to me...but it did.
If I wasn’t careful, I was going to fall for a girl I had no right falling for. A girl I didn’t want to fall for.
Scuffing my hand over my face, I tried ignoring the jealousy growing stronger by the minute and forced myself to listen as Gray continued.
“Anyway, the way Chloe found out...well, she didn’t just find out he’s married. Apparently, some teacher got drunk and started bragging that she was seeing Vance at their school’s Christmas party, and it turned into this accusation-and-denial screaming fest before escalating into an all-out brawl between a group of women—all claiming to be seeing Vance.”
When my eyebrows shot up, Gray huffed out, “Yeah. Chloe said she just watched the entire thing unfold, sure they were all lying because she and Vance were in love and spent so much time together. But once the brawl got broken up, the vice principal started reprimanding them for fighting over, and lying about, a married man. Then asked how damaging the scene would’ve been to the principal if she’d been there.”
My head tilted as a whisper of confusion and dread pulsed through me. “Who’s the principal?”
“Vance’s wife ,” Gray said, eyes widening. “She kept her maiden name, so no one connected her to Vance. But this guy isn’t just seeing a bunch of women—he’s so sure he can keep them quiet that he isn’t worried when big groups of them work together and work with his wife .”
I dragged a hand over my face, trying to absorb the audacity this guy had.
“Chloe was heartbroken and horrified, obviously. But he wouldn’t let her go, so she left teaching to get space from him,” he went on. “Now our nerd is somewhere between hating him and worrying over how easy it is to get trapped in his manipulations. Oh, which...” He dug into his pocket before producing a phone that wasn’t his.
“Whose is that?” I asked, feeling like I already knew.
“Chloe’s,” he said as he thought for a second, mumbling to himself, before he entered a passcode. “She has too many messages with him to screenshot, so she let me take it for the weekend.” Gray’s eyes widened meaningfully as he tossed the phone my way. “Guy gaslights like crazy.”
A rumble of acknowledgment climbed up my throat as I righted the phone and stared at the screen for a few moments, feeling like I was getting a look into Chloe’s life that she wouldn’t want me to have.
But she’d given us the phone for this purpose.
Tapping into the messages, I prepared to look for Vance’s name, but paused when I saw the most recent message was from an unknown number.
It’d come through during the party...probably about the time I’d seen her drop Kaia’s bunny as all that joy had vanished from her.
“There’s an unknown number here,” I mumbled as I held my thumb over it.
“That’s him too,” Gray said after taking another long pull from the beer. “He started messaging her from that one not long ago.”
“It’s unknown ,” I told Gray meaningfully. People didn’t just get their numbers blocked.
“Already know what you’re thinking,” Gray said on a sigh, his eyebrows lifting. “Told you the guy’s dangerous. Read. I’ll start looking into the wife and the list of women Chloe gave me from the Christmas party, then try to find what we’ve been missing on Vance.”
I scrolled to the message thread labeled with Vance’s actual name, wanting to start from the beginning and work my way to the end, and hesitated when I realized Chloe only texted a handful of people.
Odd.
But as I finally tapped into their messages and scrolled all the way to the beginning, I quickly stopped thinking about why Chloe might only text so few people because Gray was right.
Vance could make a living out of gaslighting women.
Chloe had actually questioned his marital status in the beginning—multiple times—and he’d very convincingly made her think she was crazy until she’d metaphorically gotten on her knees, begging him to forgive her for not believing him.
She’d been firm in her convictions to remain a virgin until she was married, but he’d convinced her she was the one trying to seduce him . That he’d finally given into her .
He’d even taken revealing pictures of them in bed together, Chloe already asleep, and sent them to her, using them as deliberate blackmail to keep her quiet about their relationship. And in one conversation, he’d shifted Chloe’s fury over finding out Vance had taken unapproved photos of her, to adoring teases as she swore not to let anyone in the district find out. She’d even thanked him for the sweet thought of the photos.
I nearly crushed Chloe’s phone in my hand when I got to the messages of him trying to convince her that she wanted a baby. Now. They could get married later.
Like all the other times, it was frightening how Chloe went from adamant refusals and reminders of the vows she’d already thrown away for him, to apologizing to Vance for pushing him since he hadn’t been sure he was ready for the possibility of kids just yet.
My heart raced this painful, lethal rhythm as I thought about Chloe’s slender waist and flat stomach. But that didn’t mean anything. These messages were from almost a year ago, and anything could’ve happened in that time.
My stare snapped to where Gray’s brow was furrowed as he studied whatever was on the screen of my laptop. “Did she get pregnant?” I asked, feeling sick just at the thought.
His head shifted my way as if surprised to realize I was still there...in my condo. “What? No.”
“Did you read these?” I asked, lifting the phone.
“Guy’s dangerous,” he repeated, his eyes wide in confirmation. “You see why she didn’t think he was married now?”
Guilt ate at me as my gaze fell to the screen of the phone again. A low, “Yeah,” leaving me as I continued reading.
By the time I was finished, I wasn’t sure what I wanted more: to find Chloe and apologize, or to find Vance so I could unleash every ounce of my hatred for someone so sick and manipulative.
“Before they started dating, she told him she didn’t think it was appropriate that he kept coming to see her and that he’d gotten her number through the school,” I mumbled as I stared at the darkened screen of her phone. “She told him she didn’t like the way he touched her.”
A heaving breath left Gray. “I know.”
“And he made her think it was all okay—that she wanted it.”
“I know, man.” When I looked up, Gray was watching me. “Talking to her now, you’d never know she ever had any objections. I don’t think she remembers any of it that way.”
My head shook as my free hand curled into a fist. “Did you see the texts from today? About something she’d do if he kept showing up at her house?”
“Right.” Gray snapped and pointed at me as if just remembering. “She’s been threatening him with a restraining order. Apparently, he showed up at her house again earlier this week,” he tossed out as if the knowledge didn’t make him want to destroy something the same way it did me, “and when she reminded him she’d file one against him, he said something like, ‘You haven’t filed one yet and won’t, but I’d like to see what happens if you try.’ He also pushed his way into the house and kissed her when she tried getting him to leave.”
“What?” The demand snapped from me. “And you left her there?” A harsh sounding laugh tore from my lungs. “Not only did you leave her there, but you left her without a phone.”
Surprised understanding slowly replaced the shock that had settled on Gray’s features. “Think you know I’m not stupid enough to do something like that. She has my phone and the code to get into it. I also waited until Rush arrived to watch the house, since we clearly can’t trust Monroe on this.”
Just as I started relaxing into the chair again, Gray assumed, “This isn’t just a case for you.”
My stare drifted his way, wariness unfurling inside me as I waited for him to continue and hoped he wouldn’t.
“As much as I still wanna punch you for the way you talked to Chloe earlier, I’m starting to understand why you reacted to what she was telling you, just like I’m starting to understand you probably shouldn’t be on this Donut.”
“Gray—”
“Were you just gonna let me keep going after her?” he asked, his eyebrows knitting together.
“It isn’t like that.”
A disbelieving sound left him. “Never seen you react to anyone the way you reacted to her this afternoon. And Briggs already filled me in on you thinking she’s a threat, or whatever—I know you think she’s hiding something. But that’s not what this is, and that’s not what happened earlier.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I claimed, the words sounding more like a lie to my own ears than I would’ve liked.
“Right,” he muttered on a scoff. “Been your best friend for a dozen years and know the idea of falling for anyone is an actual fear for you, but, sure...I have no idea what I’m talking about.” Just as I started denying it, he sat back against the couch, stare lifting toward the ceiling as he pretended to think. “What exactly happens when fears collide with anger? Oh...right...” He gave me a dry look as his gaze fell to me again. “People lash out. Like you did.”
Gray and I stared each other down for nearly a minute as he waited for me to relent, and I silently begged him to drop it.
“There’s something about her I don’t trust,” I finally said. “She is hiding something.”
“Maybe,” he said with a shrug as if he also wasn’t concerned about it. “But I think you don’t wanna trust her because a part of you knows you could easily fall for her, if you haven’t already.”
Just as my head started shaking, he set the laptop aside and lowered his voice. “I get it, Thatch. I know why you’re worried about letting anyone that close to you. But your fear of what could happen only makes the potential of something happening worse.”
I sneered something resembling a laugh as I tossed Chloe’s phone back in his direction, needing to get away from the memories of missions that plagued me at night and the fear that always gripped me when I woke.
I didn’t need Gray repeating words of the doctor Briggs had forced me to see. I hadn’t believed the doctor, and I didn’t believe Gray now. It was just better if my relationships with women remained superficial and didn’t go past what we could offer each other during the hour or so we were together. I wasn’t proud of it, but I couldn’t give them more.
“We’re done with this conversation,” I informed Gray as I scooped up my stylus and tried focusing on my tablet; on the notes I’d taken while reading through Chloe’s messages. “There’s no point in having it because I don’t care about Chloe in that way.”
Weighted silence filled the living room before Gray taunted, “So, if I were to?—”
“Yep,” I said over him, earning a disbelieving hum.
Gray let another minute pass before all-too-casually saying, “So, the fact that Rush is watching her...”
My stylus paused over the screen of the tablet and a muscle in my jaw feathered from the amount of pressure I was putting on it.
Gray burst into laughter, all without me ever saying a word. “Understood, Thatch,” he said after catching his breath. “I’ll back off.”
I didn’t bother telling him it wasn’t necessary. I didn’t say anything at all as I once again found myself wondering why Rush had been watching Chloe so closely this afternoon.
“Thatch.”
Gray’s somber tone had my attention snapping back to him a few minutes later, my head tipping up in question when his gaze finally left the laptop.
With a weighted sigh that had dread crawling through my veins, he turned the laptop around so it was facing me. “Now we know why the wife kept her last name.”
A mumbled curse left me as I hurriedly read through the information Gray pulled up. Within seconds, I had a call going through to Briggs as the clashing storm of emotions I’d been trapped in for days surged to life.