Chapter Sixteen #3
Kourtney takes my free hand with hers. “Did he introduce himself as Adam?”
“I—” I frown. He hadn’t introduced himself at all.
“No. My boss said his name was Ashton when she told me about the meeting. But he could have easily changed his name because he didn’t want to be associated with what he did.
People do that all the time to save themselves from the problems they created. ”
My big sister nods, even though it’s obvious, she’s still not sold on this. “I’ll do some digging. Did he approach you at work? Is he a client? Give me something to work with so I have better context. Can you do that for me?”
She’s using her motherly tone. The one she uses on Luca and her students. Hell, I’ve heard her use it on her husband a time or two before.
So, I explain the very short story leading up to my absolute freak out that made me ditch work in the middle of the day.
My phone went off at least three times before an onslaught of text messages poured in.
All Janel being concerned about me. Not mad at how I ran out.
Not judgmental for being unprofessional.
Just worried.
I groan, realizing how I must look to Janel now.
She’s been trusting me to handle the Moskins case, and all I’ve done is cross every line possible.
“I’m probably going to lose my job,” I mumble, drying my face off once the tears stop flowing.
“First, I let a client give me an orgasm, and then I ran out of a meeting with his manager like a scared little girl.”
“Whoa,” Kourtney drawls, gripping my hand tighter. “Did you just say you let someone…?”
I sniff again. “Yeah,” I murmur, not even caring that I’m admitting it. There are worse things going on in my life, so who gives me an orgasm isn’t the first thing on my mind right now. “Not my finest moment. Neither is the whole running away thing.”
She waves that off. “I don’t care about the second part at all. Not when you drop a massive bomb like this. You had sex with your client? The asshole who you said you couldn’t kill with kindness? When I told you to show him who is boss, I didn’t mean Venus flytrap him with your vagina.”
I really hope there aren’t cameras in here because I do not need anyone she works with to hear this conversation.
“I didn’t have sex with him,” I whisper-hiss.
“Things just got a little heated. And is that all you can focus on right now? Mom and Dad’s killer could very well be at my office as we speak! ”
Kourtney pinches the bridge of her nose. “I have so many thoughts right now, but I don’t know where to begin.”
I blow my nose obnoxiously loud. “Can we begin with you referencing my vagina as a Venus flytrap?”
She snorts. “It sounded like the perfect analogy at the time. I kind of want the details, but I also don’t.
Am I going to be grossed out if I ask how he got you off?
Was he good? Is his dick big? Men who are assholes usually know how to use their dicks.
It’s how women look past their bad personality.
How the hell did things go from you loathing each other to him giving you the big O? ”
This is not the reason I came here. “We’re getting way off track, considering the monumental event that brought me here.”
To her credit, she tries to let it go. “I’m going to reach out to our lawyer and see if he heard anything about Adam.
But he knows better than to track us down.
Think about it, Win. He’s not going to come after the people he’s screwed over.
If anything, he’ll try starting over somewhere far, far away from Fairbanks. ”
That’s what I would have thought, until he got arrested in the town over for that bar fight. “He was only thirty minutes away when he hurt that bartender. We don’t know what he’s capable of if he’s angry enough.”
She points out something very poignant. “We didn’t do anything for him to be angry about.
It wasn’t us who convicted him. We were the ones who were hurt the most by his actions.
I don’t want you to live in fear that he could come after you.
I don’t want Mom and Dad’s deaths to be the reason you stop living.
You’ve got so much potential, Winnie. You deserve the world, and they would have wanted you to be happy. ”
I close my eyes, trying to refrain from letting more tears fall. “It’s not that I think he’ll hurt me. It’s just that…” How do I explain this? “Up until today, I haven’t let myself think about him. But when I saw his face, it all came rushing back.”
The trial. The pictures they showed. The way his lawyer tried to blame our parents for driving recklessly to get his client off easier.
I understood why Kourtney told me not to go.
Seeing the images on the screen of their mangled car, the very car I rode in only hours before the accident, ripped my heart apart.
But nothing, nothing could have prepared me for the pictures of Mom and Dad.
I held on to Kourtney’s hand so tightly, I heard her joints crack from the pressure.
She stands and gives me a tight hug. It’s only when she squeezes me that I let myself relax against her and take a deep breath of her favorite lotion that smells like summer and cotton candy.
Luca picks it out for her every year for Mother’s Day, and even though I’m not sure she likes it, she wears it for him.
“Babes,” she says softly, brushing my hair. “I’m sorry you went through that. I really am. And I wish I could have been there to tell you if it was him or not. I’m sad that I wasn’t around to give you that confirmation.”
I frown against her shoulder. “You can’t always be there for me.”
“I know. But I want to be,” she says, pulling away and swiping her thumbs over my cheeks. “And I’m glad you came here to talk to me about it. Although, how did you get here? Did you Uber? Please tell me you didn’t walk.”
A laugh bubbles out of me. “I took the bus. The driver kept staring at me like I was about to have a breakdown. I waited until I saw you for that.”
She smiles, playing with the tips of my dyed hair. “That’s probably for the better. You’re not a pretty crier, sis.”
I roll my eyes that feel sore from wiping them. “Nobody is. Let’s not forget when we watched Marley and Me, and you sobbed so hard you had snot coming out of your nose. I watched it slither out like a snake.”
She gasps dramatically. “That is totally justifiable! And you were crying too, you little bitch.”
We both start laughing, which lightens the weight resting on my chest. Then Kourtney’s smile wavers, and I can tell she wants to say something but isn’t sure if she should.
I tap my foot against hers. “What?”
She wets her lips. “Adam had a brother,” she says carefully, gauging my reaction. “I remember him at the trial. Their parents were there too.”
Why don’t I remember them? I’d studied his side of the courtroom to see who was there to support him—somebody so blatantly guilty of taking my mother and father away from me.
I wanted to know how they felt. If they were going to argue for their son’s innocence.
But I couldn’t bear to look at the people whom I wanted so badly to blame.
Their images always blurred, and fury would take over until Kourtney forced me to switch sides with her to block my view.
She hadn’t let me memorize them.
But she did.
“A brother,” I slowly repeat.
She nods gently. “I don’t know his name. I wouldn’t allow myself to learn it. Why should I burden my mind with useless information? But what I do remember is that they looked a lot alike. I think they may have been twins. So, you may not have seen Adam today. Maybe you saw his twin brother.”
Hadn’t Bodhi asked me if I knew his manager? He’d said his name was Ashton Dessen. And he seemed strange about it. But…
“They don’t have the same last names,” I realize aloud. Am I losing my mind? Has my lack of sleep finally caught up to me? I bury my face in my palms and groan loudly into them. “I don’t know what’s happening to me.”
Kourtney rubs my arms in comfort. “You’ve been working a lot, and it’s close to their anniversary.
It could be triggering things. I think about them a lot this time of year.
I wonder what they would have been like as grandparents.
If they would like Brad. Don’t give me that look.
I know you hate him. But he’s been good to me. ”
I refrain from rolling my eyes because that won’t end well. I didn’t come here to fight with her.
“The point is,” she says gingerly, “I think about them nonstop. I miss them. Sometimes, I think I see Mom when I’m shopping. Especially when I pass by the yarn aisle.”
Our mother wanted to be a knitter so badly, but she was terrible at it. She’d make us scarves and hats, but they’d have holes in them and fall apart after one wash.
“I didn’t hallucinate him, Kourt,” I defend.
She frowns. “I’m not saying you did.”
“You’re totally saying that!”
She sighs. “Okay, maybe I’m insinuating that it’s a possibility.
But maybe you also saw his brother or a close relative.
Fairbanks isn’t that big. Everybody knows everybody.
We’re infamous around here, just like the Burgess family is for all the wrong reasons.
If he did change his name, I can’t say I blame the guy.
I wouldn’t want people to know who my brother is.
There was a lot of media coverage on the trial.
They televised it for the local news channels. ”
I stare down at our conjoined hands and swallow past the lump in my throat.
I’d forgotten about the cameras inside the courtroom.
There were always reporters outside hoping to speak to us as we’d walk to our car.
People would shout questions at us about how we were feeling.
I’m pretty sure Kourtney told them to fuck off with their ridiculous questions once.
There had been an article in the paper a day later with a picture of her flipping off the camera and a headline about her rather than the man who’d taken two lives.
“They would have been obsessed with Luca,” I finally tell her, swiping the back of my wrist along my cheek. “Mom always talked about having a grandbaby to spoil.”
Kourtney nods, a nostalgic, sad smile on her face. “She always wanted a boy to break up the estrogen fest.”
I giggle, remembering her saying that to us. Dad was always quick to agree, adding that he didn’t want a grandbaby anytime soon though. If he were still alive, he’d choose to believe we were both virgins. Even if one of us had a baby.
“Sorry for coming here and blubbering,” I apologize, frowning. I look around her classroom. “Everything looks cute so far.”
She stands, pulling me up. “Since you’re here and probably not showing up to work looking like that anytime soon, I’ll take advantage of the extra set of hands. Come on.”
I ignore the backhanded comment about my disheveled appearance and spend the next two hours being blissfully distracted by boring science facts while being directed in a million different directions until Adam, Ashton, and work are the last things on my mind.
Even if there’s still a tug that pulls at my gut that says there’s so much more to this story that I don’t know.