Chapter Twelve
IF SOMEONE HAD TOLD me three days ago that I'd be crawling through a vent that connects my apartment to a neighbor's, I would've thought they had completely lost their minds.
But if someone had told me this, like, yesterday? After learning the man I married eighteen years ago isn't actually Nate the I.T. guy but Nicolo, the once-missing Sestini heir who has more written about him than half the men I've transcribed in court?
Absolutely. Totally. Believable.
I push myself another foot forward on my elbows.
The metal's cold against my forearms even through the long sleeves of the dark sweater Elliot made me change into, and somewhere ahead of me, a small light's bobbing.
It's Elliot's phone flashlight, which is the only reason I haven't cried yet from the dark.
Don't think about it, June. Just keep moving.
It's not even that long a crawl. Forty feet, maybe fifty.
The shaft connects my unit to Fred's unit directly across the hall.
Earlier in the kitchen, Elliot showed me the building's HVAC blueprints on his phone, and told me, in his courtroom voice, that this was the only way to get me out without anyone seeing.
And that matters...since apparently it’s not enough for Nicolo Sestini to handpick the tenants. If Elliot’s to be believed (and the jury’s still out on that), he also has cameras installed in my apartment, and so the only “safe” place in this whole building is—
Oh, finally!
I’ve been feeling claustrophobic and suffocated since we started crawling, but now that the grates are off, cool air reaches my sweat-drenched body, and Elliot pulls me through the last few feet.
Oof.
I drop into a stranger’s hallway on my hands and knees. Not the most graceful landing, but that’s the best I can do. I’m not just forty-plus, but it’s also been forty-plus months since I last did Pilates, which is the closest experience I have to vent crawling.
“Welcome to 4C, Junebug.”
Elliot says it lightly, like we just walked in through the front door, but I can see the strain at the edge of his smile.
I straighten up, brushing dust off the sweater, and that's when I see the man standing at the end of the hallway with his hands in his pockets.
He's older than Elliot. Late fifties, maybe. Gray hair, tortoiseshell glasses, and a tattooed ring around his left index finger.
“Mrs. Sestini, good evening.”
I barely manage not to flinch. Will I ever get used to having people call me that?
“Fred, isn’t it?”
“Yes, ma’am. Can I get you a glass of water?”
I nod and thank him for the offer, not because I’m particularly thirsty or anything but just so I can buy myself some time. I want to look around and see if there’s anything in this place that would tell me I’ve made a mistake.
So, let’s see...
His apartment...looks normal. The couch, the lamp, even the stuff inside his kitchen cabinets. It’s all normal. But whether it’s normal normal or fake normal? I just don’t know. I’m not sure about anyone or anything right now. I don’t even know if I can really trust Elliot, much less Fred.
“I have something to show you,” Elliot says as he leads me to the living room, and...oh.
Six monitors on a folding table against the far wall, all of them showing my apartment.
There's my living room, my kitchen sink...and just about every room in my apartment, even the bathroom, but with the cameras angled away from the shower. I guess I should be thankful for small mercies?
“Sestini has you under surveillance, twenty-four seven,” Elliot goes on. “But don’t worry, I got Fred to do his magic, and he won’t be able to watch you now in real-time.”
I feel like I should be mad now. Or disgusted. But I can’t even manage to think. I never thought someone like me would be in a situation like this.
Fred reappears with two glasses of water, sets them down on the coffee table next to Elliot's elbow, and discreetly walks back into the kitchen. I hear him put coffee on as I sit down on the edge of his couch.
How...very normal, which makes me feel the opposite.
“I know all about Sestini,” Elliot says abruptly. “His deal with the Feds. That mess with Pascual.”
“And?” Because I can sense that there’s more he isn’t saying...
“I also know what he had to do to put him back when Pascual escaped on your wedding day.”
And I’m right.
“He...he told me he had no other choice.”
“And you believe him?”
I know Elliot doesn’t mean to make me feel like an idiot, but that’s exactly how he’s making me feel right now. “Are you saying he lied to me?”
“I’m saying you can know if he lied or not...right now. But it has to be your choice.”
W-What is he saying?
“How much do you want to know the truth, Junebug? Because sometimes, the truth isn’t what you want it to be.”
“I d-don’t understand.”
“I’m offering you a choice. Red pill or blue pill.”
I’ve seen the movies that line’s from, so I get it. He wants me to choose between knowing the truth...and turning my back on it because I’ve chosen to continue living safely in my little bubble of safety.
“One pill lets you go back to your apartment, no question asked. It’s as if you were never here, and Fred will act like he’s never met you. You can just go back to Sestini and live happily ever after.”
“And the other pill—”
“—is for him,” Elliot finishes coolly, “because you believe he deserves a dose of his own medicine. And there’s nothing for you to feel guilty about because that man.
..nearly destroyed you. So why not let him suffer the same way he made you suffer?
Eighteen minutes...for eighteen years.” He’s still using his attorney voice.
The kind that makes you believe you have all the good reasons to avenge yourself, and even though I’ve heard him speak like this in countless times. ..
This is my first time to hear it as his target recipient, and it’s very, very effective.
“It's a good trade-off. More than he deserves, if you ask me.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, but it’s no use. I see him in bed with another woman on our wedding night. I see him with Francine with the long legs. I see him walking away from me for the first time, one Tuesday afternoon in a cemetery.
And when I open my eyes and look at the screen—
I suddenly find myself thinking of Mr. Diaz and Morris and all the other people in this building...
All of them are on his payroll, even Fred himself, and it’s only because Elliot vouches for him that I’m here. But honestly, at this point, how do I even know that Elliot himself is someone I can trust? It’s like everyone has their own agenda—
“What's it going to be, Junebug?”
Elliot’s tone is calm, his words rolling out at a leisurely pace, but that just makes things worse because it tempts me once again, and I just don’t understand why.
Why does it always have to be like this with him? Why is it that whenever and wherever he’s involved, I feel like laughing and crying at the same time, and right now it's because of that.
My apartment on those six screens, now a potential crime scene, and Nicolo, someone I can potentially set up. It’s the kind of diabolical scheme that I only used to type and transcribe for work, but now I've become my work, in the worst way possible.
I know he's hurt me. But if I hurt him like this, how does that make me any different from him?
And what's worse is what I still can't make myself ask out loud, eighteen years later.
Does he love me?
I just...I just don't know if he does.