29. Jareth
“Why is Jess taking me out shopping?” Hazel asked.
I looked up from my computer screen to see her standing in my office doorway, her brow furrowed in confusion. “I wanted to do something nice for you.”
She strode through the door, stood by my desk, and popped a hand on her hip. The expression on her face never changed. Hazel was not good with surprises. Which is why I didn’t say anything yet about today. Jess must have messaged her.
I sunk my fingers into the curve of her hips and pulled her forward until she rested in between my legs. She bit her lip and ran her hands up my biceps. Her pupils dilated, and a hungry look entered her eyes. “Sunshine,” I growled.
She snapped her gaze up to meet mine. “Sorry. I can’t help it if you’re super hot and can’t keep my eyes off you.”
My throat bobbed up and down before I groaned. “I’m taking you out tonight.”
“Really? I hadn’t guessed.”
I raised an eyebrow at her sass and slid a hand around to her backside, rubbing one cheek in warning.
She giggled and pressed herself closer to me. If she kept this up, I wouldn’t get anything done today, except for using this desk as our personal playground and recreating the other night.
“I’m sure I have something to wear in that cavern you call a closet,” she teased. “Besides, we have so much work to catch up on since we were gone. I shouldn’t leave early.”
“Work can wait.” Her startled gasp had me chuckling.
“Where is my boss and what have you done with him?” She shrieked as I tickled her waist.
“You’re funny,” I said wryly.
“I love that you’re finally realizing that.” She’d had an arsenal of bad jokes yesterday that she’d come across on the flight home. It was hard to believe, but they were even worse than the ones she usually picked.
She slid her hands up my arms to curl around my neck. Her tits were right in front of my face, tempting me. The little shimmy she did told me she knew exactly what she was doing. “Hazel,” I rasped as my dick sprang to attention, loving the direction this was going. Thank God we had this floor to ourselves since she hadn’t shut my office door behind her.
Her fingertips rubbed up and down my neck.
The feathery sensation was at once relaxing and fucking sexy as I imagined her hands on other places of my body. I needed to pull myself together. “Sunshine, I want you to buy something special. Something you love,” he replied.
“And you can’t give me a teensy tiny clue?”
“Not if I want to keep it a surprise.” Her fingers were like magic. With each swipe, I wanted to confess what was happening tonight more and more.
She harrumphed. “This had better be good. You know how I feel about surprises.”
“I do. And you’ll love this one. I’ll be gone this afternoon too. Can you message the staff that we’ll be unavailable?”
“Sure. Where are you going?” She slid onto my lap, never once stopping her ministrations.
I groaned and dropped my head down, letting my chin hit my chest. “The long-term storage unit called. They can fit me in this morning.” After I paid a hefty fee to get the owners there on such short notice.
“That’s a good thing, right?” Her voice sounded hesitant.
“It is,” I reassured her, knowing she was likely picking up on my pensive feelings.
“Then why don’t you sound happy about it?”
I lifted my head and tried to describe what had been eating at me. The guilt that I’d let my father down was a crushing weight against my chest. “I’ve been searching for answers for such a long time. What if they were right under my nose all along, buried in a storage unit I’ve had for twenty years? I could have found justice for my father… ”
“Oh, Jareth.” Her voice dropped so low her whisper was almost hard to hear. She ran her fingers up to the back of my head, massaging away the tension brewing. “I know it’s easy for me to tell you not to dwell on the past and I don’t want to minimize what’s happened, but the reality is you don’t know what you’ll find there.”
“You’re right. It might be nothing.” I closed my eyes knowing the failure etched into my soul was shining like a beacon across my face. “There was no way to know I had anything before I found the key.” I’d never doubted myself before.
“Maybe your dad felt it was time for you to find out the truth and that’s why he led you to the key.”
I forced my lids open and gave her a half-smile. My beautiful little optimist. “Perhaps.”
“Do you want me to go with you?” Her hands left my head to once again loop around my neck.
“No, stay here. Jess will pick you up soon.” I placed a light kiss on her lips. “And I need to get going so I can get home and be ready for tonight too. Be ready by 6:30.”
She slid off my lap, and we headed to the door.
I pulled on my coat. “And no pressing Jess for details.”
Her guilty expression told me the minute she got to her desk that was exactly what she had planned to do. I pulled her to me once again and buried my nose in the curve of her neck. The familiar scent of honeysuckle soothed the beast pacing inside me—the one demanding answers and was sure this key was significant.
“Call me if you need me,” She said softly in my ear.
I nodded. Reluctantly, I released Hazel and returned the smile she gave me. “I’ll see you tonight when I pick you up.”
I wiped a sweaty hand across my brow no doubt leaving behind a streak of dust. This place hadn’t been touched in years and it showed. I’d been digging through this mess for the past few hours and needed to leave soon if I was going to make it to The Wooden Nickel on time.
With a sigh I checked my watch and then double-tapped my Airpods. “Call Jess.”
“What are you doing calling me? Shouldn’t you be getting ready?”
“A slight change in plans. Can you pick Hazel up? I’m running behind.”
“Do not tell me you’re not going to make it,” she hissed into the phone. “I will cut off your balls and your dick and feed them to my cat.”
“Jess, fuck. I lost track of time.” I hurriedly replaced a box from where I’d moved it from. “I’m going to get ready at the office. I’ll be there before she starts.”
“Where. Are. You?” Jess demanded, still not happy with my decision to cut my time so short. Neither was I. This obsession with my father’s death and the fucking key we found had almost made me miss this critical night.
I realized one thing as I scoured through the stuff in this unit, seeing the pictures of my life with Dad before he died, Hazel deserved more. My attention should be solely hers, not split between her and my revenge, but after all this time, I wasn’t sure I could give it up, and in the end, she’d suffer from that neglect. And if this lead didn’t contain any new information I’d follow the next until I found what I needed to end this.
“In my old storage unit.”
“And why is that important?”
“Hazel and I found a key in the spine of one of my dad’s books. I remembered what it went to and the damn thing was in storage. I thought it was only going to take a minute.”
On the way to the unit, I’d stopped to buy Hazel flowers and noticed a glass display with various arrangements inside a decorative wooden box. The lid hung open, but the carved flowers on the front had seemed eerily familiar.
When I saw the key dangling from the lock, it hit me. Dad had one, just like it. It was one of the few things I’d kept.
“Jareth. I understand your desire for justice. I do, but tonight is huge. You could’ve waited.” Jess wasn’t typically this understanding.
I let out a grunt of frustration. “I know. I’m a fucking idiot.” I went to the other side of this metal box, working to get myself around this mess. I needed to remove most of this stuff, but not until I found Dad’s box.
“Tick tock, dude. Get out of there and get ready.”
“I’m leaving now. Message me when you get there.”
I hung up and shifted further towards the front of the cluttered space. There was no way I could be late. Killian said they’d play for an hour as a favor to me. He hadn’t been sold on singing with Hazel, even with my assurance that she was good.
As I hurried to the exit, my hip bumped into a box that fell to the floor. When I bent down to pick it up, my hand grazed a larger box underneath the one that fell and hadn’t been shut tight. I ripped the top open when a flash of walnut brown between the openings caught my eye.
Holy shit.
Inside was my father’s wooden chest.
My breath rushed out of me, as badly as I wanted to know what was inside, I needed to get ready. No amount of groveling would make my absence right. I grabbed the box.
“Thank you,” I said to the owner, who locked up the unit as I headed to the car.
I opened the back door to Elias’s disapproving stare. “I know. Take me to the office. I’ll get ready there and will just make it on time.”
As Elias peeled out, my phone rang.
“Ready for Hazel’s performance tonight?” Terri asked.
I rubbed my forehead. “Almost. I was able to get into an old storage unit of mine, and I’m running late. If you get to The Wooden Nickel before me, can you make sure Hazel’s okay?”
“Of course.” He paused. “This isn’t like you. Everything alright?”
I groaned. “I figured out what the key I found went to and thought I’d have enough time to comb through the boxes to find it.” I was such a fucking moron. I wasn’t late to anything unless it was done on purpose as a power move. Today though, my obsession was overriding my better judgment.
“Did you find whatever it was?” he asked, a strange flatness to his tone.
“A box. I vaguely remember Dad using it. It’s been in storage for close to twenty years.”
“Did you look inside yet?”
“I have a few minutes before I get to the office. I’ll try to go through what I can before then. Otherwise, it’ll have to wait until tonight.” I popped open the lid. The faint squeak echoed through the car. “It looks like some paperwork, mail, and notebooks.”
Silence fell over the line.
“Bill mentioned this brown notebook when we met.” I lifted out the notebook and started flipping through the pages.
“Listen, Jareth, I should run. I want to be sure I make it on time tonight. Text me if you find anything.”
“Thanks, Terri. Maybe we can get together tomorrow and go through these. I don’t want to take up any more time that should go to Hazel tonight.”
“You got it.” We hung up and I scrubbed at the back of my neck. It took everything in me to place the notebook back inside the box.
“How much more time, Elias?” I asked, noticing the cars around us slowing down.
“Not more than a few minutes. The traffic looks worse than it is.”
That gave me enough time to call Hazel.
“Jareth, where are you? You made a big deal out of tonight and you’re late.” Her usually bright voice was marked with disappointment.
“Sunshine, I screwed up. I’m sorry. Jess will pick you up and I’ll meet you there.”
“I was worried about you, not knowing what you’d find. I hated that you were alone.” A quick stab in my chest reminded me I should’ve been messaging her about my progress throughout the day. Of course, this amazing woman would immediately think of me even when she was clearly not happy about how late I was.
“You’re right. I should’ve contacted you. Sometimes I can be an idiot.”
“Sometimes?” She chuckled. “Did you find what you were looking for?”
“I think so.” A smile stretched my face.
“Should we just cancel and do this another night?” I imagined her worrying her bottom lip between her teeth.
“Definitely not.” Tonight was a big night for so many reasons. I needed to follow through and ensure that Hazel got her chance in the spotlight. I also needed to decide that if I couldn’t put her first, maybe the best way to protect her was to break things off.
We crawled through traffic. My leg bounced up and down as I tried to release my agitation. I kept glancing over at the box. My fingers itched to tear it open.
“We’ll be pulling up in just a minute,” Elias informed me. I checked my watch. There was still enough time to shower and get to the bar.
The moment Elias stopped the car I grabbed the box. “I’ll text you when I’m done.” I strode to the front doors and hurried upstairs, grateful I had kept extra clothes there for emergencies like this.
I’d just finished getting dressed when my phone rang on the counter in front of me. Bill Jones. With one last swipe at my hair I tapped the button to accept the call.
“Jareth?” he asked.
“Yes, how can I help you, Bill?” It was morning where he was.
“Ever since I saw you something’s been bothering me.”
A chill slithered down my spine.
“You said you hadn’t found your dad’s ring.”
“Correct.” My fingers gripped the edge of the quartz countertop. It would have buckled under my hand’s pressure if it had been made of flimsier material.
“I went back through those photos. You know the ones we looked at?”
“Yes,” I growled, my patience gone.
“It’s hard to tell, but I swear Terri is wearing it in the group photo of us. The one we took after your dad died. Maybe he found it or your dad gave it to him. You should ask if he has it.”
Hazel had been digitizing the loose photos yesterday. I swiped the screen of my phone until I got to the folder that held them. My finger shook as I pulled up and scrolled through each one until I found the one I sought.
“Jareth?”
“I’ll call you back, Bill.” I hung up not caring if I’d been rude.
I tapped on the photo and zoomed in on Terri. It was hard to tell, but there was a glint of gold on his right hand. It could have been Dad’s ring or something else.
My gut said it didn’t believe this was pure coincidence, but I needed more than this to confront Terri. He was going to be there tonight. After I got Hazel safely away I’d make sure I got answers.
On my way out the door, I grabbed the box and brown journal to read on my way to the venue. Rage simmered in my veins, and a calmness washed over me.
Perhaps revenge would be mine tonight.