Chapter Two
Two
SIMI
Some people have trouble with boundaries. They say “no” but often find themselves doing the very thing they didn’t want to do. They set rules and allow people to break them. They have a moral code but will throw it out the window when their best friend, Chloe, is being framed for a crime she didn’t commit. They say they need to take a relationship break but then they agree to meet their ex at a department store just because he said it was a matter of life and death.
My name is Simi Chopra, and I’m one of those people.
“You know it is likely not ‘life or death,’?” Olivia said as we walked down the sidewalk toward Bloomingdale’s. “He just wants to see you again.” Chloe’s fifteen-year-old daughter was nothing if not practical. Even though Chloe had raised Olivia on her own after getting out of an abusive relationship and had read her countless fairy tales with happily-ever-after endings, Olivia didn’t share her mother’s love of romance or her rose-tinted outlook on life.
“Given what Jack does for a living, she can’t take that risk,” Chloe said. “Also, they still love each other. Maybe she wants to give him another chance.”
“I’ve had enough heartbreak and disappointment,” I said, skirting over the whole who-loves-who issue. “I need a man who is going to be there for me. I need someone I can call when my new business is floundering, and my parents are desperately trying to find me a husband because I’m single and—gasp—thirty years old, and the ceiling of my new condo cracked, and water is dripping on the kitchen floor because my upstairs neighbor left the bathtub running, and the condo association now wants everyone to pay $100,000 to have all the plumbing redone because they’ve discovered it’s substandard.”
“You don’t need a man,” Chloe said. “You have me.”
“You have me, too,” Olivia piped up, pushing back the thick blond hair that, along with her gently rounded face and slim build, made her an almost identical copy of her mother.
I shared a look with Chloe. She’d had Olivia when she was in her teens and sometimes Olivia forgot that we weren’t all just friends. “That’s sweet, honey. But you’re too young to understand real-world problems.”
“I know more than you think.”
“What exactly do you know?” Chloe pulled open the door to Bloomingdale’s. “Drugs? Sex? Alcohol? Do you have a boyfriend you didn’t tell me about? Are you being safe?”
“Mom! Cringe.”
Chloe didn’t respond with her usual motherly admonition. She was staring straight ahead, a frown creasing her forehead. “Is that Jack?”
I followed her gaze and recognized Jack right away. I knew every inch of his broad shoulders, his strong back, and the long legs that were always clad in jeans that hugged his muscular thighs. He moved with a fluidity that belied his strength, every motion conveying the message that he was a man who knew what he wanted. And what he wanted in that moment clearly wasn’t me.
“Who is he kissing?” Olivia said. “Why is he kissing someone else? He’s supposed to be Simi’s boyfriend.”
“We broke up two months ago,” I told her. “He can kiss who he wants.”
“But he was supposed to be meeting you,” she said. “I secretly thought you were going to get back together.”
Despite what I’d just told my girls, in my heart of hearts I’d thought that, too. For some reason, I’d convinced myself that Jack was going to beg my forgiveness and give me a legitimate explanation as to why he’d barely stayed in touch for eight months. We would kiss and make up, and then get back to long, hot, sweaty nights between the sheets, and days full of laughter and adventure. With those fantasies in mind, the sight of him kissing another woman was like a punch to the gut. Pain, betrayal, and disbelief hit me all at once.
His absence had been a test of my patience and trust. His infrequent messages as he traveled around the globe on one dangerous job after another were like breadcrumbs, barely enough to keep my hope alive. I’d held on as long as I could, believing in him, in us, until finally I’d called a break. I hadn’t heard from him in the ensuing two months until the message last night. And there he was. In the arms of another woman.
Not just any woman: Clare.
Clare was a personal shopper at Bloomingdale’s. Jack had sent me to see her last year when we were working a heist together. I know. I know. Me? Dutiful daughter? All-round good girl? Owner of an up-and-coming event-planning company? Killer of plants and unwed at thirty? Pulling a heist?
Guilty as charged.
I’d never been the type to engage in law-breaking behavior, but when your best friend is facing jail time for something she didn’t do, you would be amazed at the lines you will cross and the depths to which you will descend, including hooking up with a professional jewel thief slash amateur botanist slash now cheating bastard.
Not being rich, I hadn’t even had Bloomingdale’s on my radar when I realized I needed a ball gown for a charity event, but Jack had whipped Clare’s card out of his wallet and sent me to see her for the full Pretty Woman experience. Chloe and Olivia had come with me for moral support.
Clare had started off snooty but turned on the charm when she found out Jack was paying the tab. Then it was all fawn, fawn, “let me bring you a rack of five-figure dresses,” and “go with the Louboutins and not the Chanel,” and “who would like a glass of champagne?” It had been a fun afternoon. So fun, I’d tucked away the inkling of suspicion I’d had about Clare’s past relationship with Jack. Yet another mistake come back to haunt me like a late-night curry.
Or a kiss on the pouty red lips…
“OMG!” Olivia’s gaze stayed off her phone for a full twenty seconds. “What a freaking bastard.”
“Language,” Choe warned.
“Language?” Olivia gave an exasperated groan. “Mom, there are bigger issues here than words. This is yet another example of the insidious systemic misogyny that permeates our world. But what do you expect in a patriarchal society? Men can do whatever they want and they aren’t judged, but women are constantly subjected to sexual double standards.”
“How do you know what men are like?” Chloe asked, missing Olivia’s point entirely.
Usually, I would have been down for one of Olivia’s lectures about the evils of patriarchy, but I was distracted by the evils of one man in particular—a man who had his hands on Clare’s ass. More importantly, they were still kissing, and he wasn’t throwing up in disgust, which told me everything I needed to know.
“Why would he arrange to meet me here and then do this?” I winced as Clare twined herself around Jack like the silent killer kudzu. And damn Jack for filling my head with useless facts about invasive vines. “Is he trying to punish me for breaking up with him? Is he showing me he’s moved on? It’s not like him.”
“Maybe Janice told him that Detective Garcia kissed you after you and Jack broke up.”
Ah. The kiss.
When I’d first started my new event-planning business, I had naively hired Janice, a fifty-eight-year-old receptionist who had worked for a big event-planning company in New York. I thought I could benefit from her experience. I hadn’t realized her experience was primarily gossip related. When I found out she’d warned prospective clients that my business was struggling, I had to let her go.
On her way out, Janice casually dropped the bombshell that Jack had called several times after our breakup and she’d told him I was out with my new man, Detective Garcia.
I first met Garcia when he arrested me in connection with the theft of the Wild Heart necklace. We spent a lot of time together during his investigation, mainly because I was his prime suspect. After the dust had settled and I’d been cleared of any crimes, he asked me out, but by then I’d hooked up with Jack, and Garcia had to settle for being friends. At least until the breakup.
“It’s still no excuse to throw his new relationship in my face…if it is even new.” My chest tightened. “Maybe he’s been seeing her all this time.”
“Can we throw something at them?” Olivia asked, reaching for a glass vase on the counter beside her.
“We can’t afford to pay for anything we break,” Chloe said gently. “We’ve got a mortgage now and an education savings account. I wouldn’t want your future to be compromised because some fricking deadbeat son of a bitch can’t keep his dick in his pants.”
I tuned them out, still trying to process what I was seeing. This wasn’t the Jack I knew. Had I really hurt him so badly that he felt the need for revenge?
“I say march on over there and give him a piece of your mind,” Chloe said firmly. “If you want to rough him up a bit, I’ll back you up.”
“Can I back her up, too?” Olivia asked. “I want to take a blow at the patriarchy.”
“Absolutely not,” Chloe said. “I need you outside waiting for our getaway Uber.” She turned her attention to me. “How are we handling this? Evisceration, obviously, but do you want it to be physical or verbal?”
Chloe was my ride-or-die. One time, when I mistakenly thought I’d killed a man, she showed up with a bottle of bleach and a tarp.
“I’m a professional now,” I said. “I have my own failing business. I’ve resisted all my parents’ attempts to get me married. I’ve pulled off a heist. I’ve gone to therapy to deal with my abandonment issues. I was even able to tell Garcia after he kissed me that I wasn’t ready to jump into anything new.”
“So…physical,” she said, understanding.
“What’s the heaviest thing you’ve got?”
Chloe pulled opened her giant tote bag and displayed a cornucopia of patriarchy-pandering beauty supplies, her laptop, a pair of flip-flops, a change of clothes, baby wipes, assorted snacks, and three library books. I’d given her the bag, embroidered with a giant sun, when she graduated from college with a computer science degree because she was the sunshine of my life.
“What’s that one?” I pointed to the largest book.
“ War and Peace. Olivia just took it out of the library for a school project. They’re having a competition to find out who can make the tallest tower using the least number of books. It’s got 1,225 pages.”
“Too bad it’s not the hardcover copy.” I hefted the book in my hand. My mother had made me read War and Peace when I was sixteen. An English professor at Northwestern University, she had made it her mission in life to ensure that at least one of her four children was well versed in the classics before leaving high school.
“Olivia, go outside.” Chloe pointed to the door as I wound up for the pitch. “I don’t want you to be part of this. I don’t condone this kind of activity and I never want to hear that you’ve resorted to violence after your ex-boyfriend sets you up to see him with his new girlfriend in a high-end department store.”
“No.” Olivia folded her arms. “I’m not leaving you.”
“No?” Chloe’s angry voice rose to a high pitch, attracting the attention of the people around us. “Did you just say ‘no’ to me?”
Jack stiffened and pulled away from Clare, turning to the sound of Chloe’s voice. Clare looked over his shoulder and met my gaze. Her sly smile told me she’d known we were here all along.
I knew the exact moment Jack saw me because his jaw tightened and his face smoothed into an expressionless mask. Or maybe it was a mask of shame. I didn’t care. The moment our gazes locked, I threw the book as hard and fast as I could. Then I pushed my girls toward the door and shouted, “Run!”
Detective Garcia had a funny way of showing up whenever I was in trouble, so I wasn’t surprised when he walked in the door of the Bloomingdale’s security office a mere fifteen minutes after I’d been caught by the security guard. Chloe and Olivia had been weighed down with shopping bags, and when I realized all three of us were in danger, I’d slowed down and volunteered myself as tribute so they could get away.
“Garcia.” I had to fight back a smile, especially since the security guard who was holding me prisoner was already frowning at my less-than-respectful greeting. “Fancy meeting you here. Did you just happen to be in the neighborhood, maybe looking for a shirt, having coffee, or buying gifts for your nieces?”
“Actually, I was a few blocks away when dispatch called out a disturbance at Bloomingdale’s. You mentioned you were coming here with Chloe when I stopped by the other day. It was only logical to assume you’d be involved.”
“I’m both hurt that you think so little of me and happy that you think of me at all.”
“So, what happened this time?” Garcia leaned against the doorframe, arms folded over his thick, muscular chest. He was a looker, and he knew it. With those big blue eyes, square jaw, and broad shoulders, he was quite the catch, and I could easily have fallen for him if I wasn’t still hung up on Jack.
“She threw a book at one of our customers and then attempted to flee the scene.” The guard who had caught me on my way out was one of those officious types, pleased as punch he’d seen some action and likely salivating at the possibility of testifying in court and sending me to jail.
Garcia laughed as I knew he would. “You threw the book at someone?”
“I knew you’d like it.”
“What does the other party to this alleged crime have to say?”
“The victim has disappeared,” the security officer said. “There was a woman with him, but she also left before I could speak to her.”
Garcia lifted an eyebrow at me. “Do you know this person?”
“If I was involved in this incident, which I can neither confirm nor deny, it is possible that an individual who may or may not have been my ex-boyfriend was kissing another woman.” My voice wavered the tiniest bit as I relived that terrible moment all over again. “And if that were the case, which again I can neither confirm nor deny, I may have suffered a shock, and my copy of War and Peace , which I carry around for light reading, may have slipped out of my hand.” Chloe and Olivia had made it out safely. No way was I getting them involved.
“It’s a big book,” the security guard said. “I’d call it a weapon.”
Garcia wasn’t interested in the book; he was more interested in Jack’s reappearance in my life. I knew this because he said, “Ah, the boyfriend you broke up with because his itinerant lifestyle triggered your abandonment issues,” and not something like, “Let me see the alleged weapon.” Garcia had never met Jack and sometimes I wondered if he thought I’d made Jack up as an excuse not to go out with him.
“He’s back in town and…” I waved my hand vaguely in the air, unable to put the scene into words again.
“Well, since we’ve got no victim…” Garcia’s hands dropped to his hips, where he kept his police belt. It was filled with dangerous and exciting things like the handcuffs he’d already used to arrest me three times—including once at my parents’ house after I begged him to help me convince my parents’ friends that I wasn’t marriage material. “…I think we can let this one slide. Unless, of course, any store property was damaged.”
“She had good aim,” the guard said. “Got him smack on the side of the head.”
Garcia waved me up, and a ghost of a smile appeared on his face. “I’ll walk you out just in case you happen to lose control of something else.”
“I’ll need my copy of War and Peace .” I held out my hand to the security guard. “It’s a long train ride back to Evanston.”
Garcia walked me out of the store and down the street. “So…he’s back?” I knew what he meant, but I didn’t know how to answer. Clearly, Jack hadn’t come back for me.
“He’s in Chicago. That’s all I know. He messaged me yesterday and asked to meet up. He also said I should spend the night at Chloe’s house because I was in danger. She’s seeing this ex-military guy who installed a kick-ass security system for her after she was threatened by her abusive ex, Kyle…” I trailed off only seconds before revealing what had happened when Gage finally got his hands on Kyle. Crimes had definitely been committed in the service of justice—and not just by Gage. Chloe had finally had her revenge.
“Do I need to track down Chloe’s ex?” Garcia’s face had gone all serious. I liked him better when he was smiling.
“No. That problem has…uh…gone away.”
“And what about your problem?” he asked softly.
I looked back over my shoulder at the department store where my fleeting hope of getting back together with Jack had just been dashed to pieces. “I guess he’s gone away, too.”