Chapter 17 #2
“Jesse!” I got up from cleaning the last of the water. “We can’t go through—”
“How could you not tell me?” His head snapped up, a look of pure accusation on his face.
“Tell you what?” I stomped over, reaching for the papers which he pulled away from me. “Give me the papers.”
“She’s—she’s—” Jesse swiveled his head as he looked between me and the papers, playing keep away, and starting to piss me off. “How could you not tell me!?”
“What’s going on?” Wade heard the commotion from the bathroom and popped his head in.
“She’s—she’s A.J. Lane! That’s what’s going on!” Jesse burst out. “The A.J. Lane. I can’t believe—and she’d given me advice!” His eyes ping-ponged as he made connections, leaving me standing there annoyed and confused.
“Who’s A.J. Lane?” Wade made his way over to us.
I went to grab the papers again, done with this, when Jesse suddenly dropped to his knees, abandoning the papers on the floor only to pick up a book. “This is it. The final Cursed Bonds book!”
He started to hyperventilate, his hand shaking as he flipped it open.
I wasn’t sure what was going on here, but I snatched the book out of his hand, closing it. “What is your problem?”
First, he went through Phoebe’s private papers and now he was going to read one of her books? Yes, I was aware my brain was being slow here.
“You know better than to violate a client’s privacy.”
In the end, I’d decided against Wade doing that very thing, so I didn’t count it as the same thing.
Jesse clambered to his feet. “You don’t get it! She’s A.J. Lane!”
“Who the hell is A.J. Lane?” I shouted, feeling anger ignite inside me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Wade reach for the papers Jesse had dropped, and I snarled, “Don’t you fucking dare.”
Wade merely raised an eyebrow at me, picking up the papers anyway.
Jesse, nearly hopping on the spot in his excitement, burst out, “Phoebe! Phoebe is A.J. Lane!”
“What?” What the hell was he talking about? “Phoebe is Phoebe.” I defended her, not really sure what I was defending her against. “You want to explain what the hell you’re going on about?”
“Uh…Ty?” Wade took in the papers in his hand in less than a second, his hawk-like cop eyes absorbing the information. “He’s right.”
I whipped around, ready to blast him. I’d told him we weren’t going to be doing this today.
“No.” He held up a hand. “It’s all right here on the first page.” He shoved the papers at me.
Looking at them, I saw it was a contract for a publishing house in New York City. Without really wanting to, I scanned the document briefly. There were words like pen names, A.J. Lane, the Cursed Bonds series, something about P.J. Alexander, and then there was her name: Phoebe Lebonaire.
Something inside me twisted, forcing me to not really read the words. I didn’t want to do this.
Wade sighed, seeing my indecision. “That’s a publishing contract for Phoebe. Looks like our mystery is solved. Phoebe is keeping secrets, but it’s that she’s the number one New York Times best-selling author of the biggest book series in the world right now.”
“So what does that have to do with A.J. Lane?” I couldn’t keep up, even as I rocked back on my heels. Her words flashed in my head and…yeah, I could see her as a writer.
“Phoebe writes under a pen name. Well, two,” Jesse explained, vibrating with excitement. “She writes under A.J. Lane for The Cursed Bonds, and under P.J. Alexander—” he pointed to the names on the contract “—for her romance series. You know the ones that Mom reads and pretends she doesn’t.”
Jesse shuddered in revulsion and I felt my lip curl in disgust. No man wanted to think about his mom reading stuff like that.
Jesse went on to explain the lore of both authors. How they were unknown in a practical sense. No pictures of either author had ever been released, no identifying information to lead to the person, the woman, behind the words. She was a recluse. A mystery.
Suddenly, a lot of things started to click into place. The packages of books she’d received and the way she kept things under lock and key up here. The secrecy.
Wade pulled his phone out, looking up her work. When Wade showed me the screen, I saw an impressive collection under both authors’ names. When he clicked into a social media app, there were lots of posts from her author account, but not one single photo of her face.
Jesse patted his pants. “Damn it! I left my phone downstairs. My friends are going to lose their minds—Hey!”
Wade and I both grabbed him when he went to race downstairs, hauling him back.
“You’re not going anywhere!” I said forcefully.
“This isn’t information you can share.” Wade backed me up. I knew he’d understand the gravity of our accidental discovery.
“But—” Jesse went to argue only to fall silent at the stern looks on our faces.
He needed to understand. This wasn’t our information to share. Phoebe trusted us, and though we didn’t find out by intentionally violating her privacy—a flood and box breaking were accidental—we owed her our silence.
“So she’s one of the best-selling authors in the world, my favorite author, and I’m just supposed to pretend like I don’t know?”
That was exactly what he was going to do. I laid out the rules for him, maybe a little more sternly than I would have, given he was my kid brother and a good person. Still, the implications of what this meant, what this meant for Phoebe, started to sink in. And I didn’t like it.
Jesse’s shoulders dropped as he reluctantly agreed.
I felt bad about how sharp I was with him, so I promised if Phoebe was ever okay with him knowing, that I’d let him know.
Wade looked at me. “So you’re going to tell her.” It wasn’t a question.
“Do you have any more suspicions about her?” I asked Wade, making sure Jesse was out of hearing, having sent him back downstairs to help my dad, whose truck had just pulled up.
“I wasn’t the only one with questions.”
Shame washed over me. I’d had a lot of time to think since Friday night.
Once the words had been out, I’d wanted to suck them back inside.
By the next morning, I’d realized that yes, I did have questions about Phoebe.
I wanted to know her better. I wanted to know the things she didn’t share with others.
Did that make me think she was guilty of something?
No. I’d been a total prick and fighting for any last crumb of something to keep my feelings for her in check.
Wade was right. I didn’t do messy. I hated messy.
Phoebe was messy. FEMA-level messy now knowing this.
And I couldn’t fight wanting her anymore.
“When are you going to tell her?” Wade asked.
I’d already left her a message about the flood, so she knew we were in here. I couldn’t just leave something like this on her voicemail. And I sure as hell wasn’t going to tell her when I wasn’t there to make sure she was okay, knowing this would make her anything but okay.
“When she comes home. I’ll tell her when she comes home.”