Close Enough to Hurt, page 21
“Both.” Her smile is mischievous.
It’s so amazing to see, I can’t help but sit in awe for too many beats. She’s gone and become a whole new person when I wasn’t looking, wasn’t paying attention. I wonder how much else I missed when I was busy being a human pinball, ricocheting, never settling long enough to think too hard about what I was doing.
“Well … I guess it was easier to fix other people’s problems than to examine my own,” I say after a while. “So that’s what I did.”
“How do you mean?”
“I mean, that’s what I do for a living. I help people who’ve been wronged. Help them find revenge. Retribution. Justice, when I do my job well.”
Gabrielle’s delicate brows arch. She and Alicia exchange a speaking glance.
“How long?” Gabrielle asks, curiosity seeming to get the better of her.
“Seven years. Ever since I stopped being a nomad and moved back to California.” I shake my head. “Can’t believe it’s already been that long.”
“You must’ve been good at it, to make a living in the city.”
“I am. It’s a weird job, but it’s fulfilling.”
And lonely, as it turns out.
“It’s aboveboard, right?” A bit of elder sister takes over. “You aren’t like an enforcer or something?” She pets Mr. Bingley, gently shushing him.
“No.” I laugh. “My methods can be … ethically dubious, but usually not illegal. Not super, super illegal, anyway.”
Alicia snorts and sips her tea, looking more and more incredulous and amused the longer I keep talking. “Taking gig economy to new heights.”
“It sounds strange, but there are more than enough assholes out there to keep me in business.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Gabrielle says. “And I wish I could say I find any of this surprising, but you’ve always been a fighter.” The corner of her mouth hitches up.
There’s just one person who managed to soften my flint edges. Watson to my high-functioning sociopath Sherlock, my tenuous link to normalcy and respectability.
Too bad my number-one sidekick’s probably on the next flight to Seoul to propose to So Ah and show me the true depth of my idiocy.
“Still,” she continues, looking pensive, “what did you mean earlier? About it being easier to fix other people’s problems?”
“Could you pretend you didn’t hear that?” I hide behind my mug of tea. “I know I should’ve gone to therapy instead.”
She shakes her head, looking like she’s trying not to laugh.
“I mean … it just felt like there was nothing I could do to help you, Ellie.” The despair swamps me, fresh as the years I swam in it junior and senior year. Sharing our room again after she moved back home, her first semester at Cal abruptly cut short. Her anguish was everywhere, filling every space, seeping into the paint, the carpet, the furniture. Enough to suffocate on.
“I didn’t know how to reach you,” I go on, tears welling up. “Nothing I did seemed to help. And after a while … I couldn’t stand it anymore.”
Gabrielle’s face crumples.
Alicia gives me a hard look and reaches over to hold her hand, twining her delicate fingers through my sister’s larger ones.
“I’m so sorry. It’s my fault for not being able to handle it. But I just …” I shake my head. “I wanted to help someone if it wasn’t in my power to help you. Make someone pay for their sins if it couldn’t be Brent.”
“I never suspected.” Her voice croaks. “I just thought you were tired of me.”
“No. God, no.” I can’t let that misunderstanding last a minute longer. I reach across the gap between the love seat and my velvet slipper chair, offering my hand, palm up. “No. I was sick of waiting for karma to take its course. Sick of feeling so fucking helpless. So I left, and tried to believe in my own agency. And I’ve done it, Ellie.” I squeeze her hand. “I have Brent in my sights.”
She blinks, freeing more tears. “What?” She pulls her hand away.
Alicia shoots me another warning glance.
“I won’t talk to you about it if you don’t want, but I’m working to bring him down on behalf of another client, for something unrelated. Only …” I sigh, remembering the thwarted interview with Dr. Chang. Seems like it happened days ago already. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to do it the way I planned.”
“I don’t want you near him,” Gabrielle spits. “Anywhere near that monster. How could you even think of—”
I hold up a hand. “I’m going to find a way.”
Gabrielle and Alicia share another long look.
How I wish I had their easy intimacy. There’s love and trust in their shared glance, visible in mere seconds.
I could’ve had that, too, I think. But I let it all go. Like a fool. I groan and press the heels of my palms to my tired, burning eyes.
“All right. But there’s something else, isn’t there?” Gabrielle asks gently. “What drove you all the way here in the middle of the night, in tears? It wasn’t Brent, was it?” She bites her lip. “Was it?”
“No. It wasn’t him.” I sigh, resigned to ripping off the metaphorical Band-Aid. After all, I have only myself to blame for this sorry fucking predicament.
“I have—had—a friend who helped me with cases from time to time. Daniel Haas.” I force his name out. “A digital PI, if you will.” My smile feels brittle as a sand dollar shell. “He’s the only person who knows me. My best friend, really. But we had a huge falling-out over this case. Among other things.” I pick at the sleeve of my sweater, tearing a loose thread. “We want different things from life, and … I don’t know if we’re friends anymore. I don’t think we’re anything anymore.”
“You love him,” Gabrielle says, after a hefty pause.
“Is it that obvious?” I yank the thread, watching it run in my sweater. Mr. Darcy shifts but stays put, kneading my thighs, claws pressing through my jeans, purring loudly. He’s sweet, really, now I’ve earned his trust. A bit too much like someone else I know.
“Afraid so, Dilly.” She gives me a sad smile. “Your whole aura changed when you brought him up.”
Only my sister could throw that word around and still be taken seriously. I meet Alicia’s gaze, wondering if her thoughts tracked the same direction. Her small, knowing smile tells me they did indeed.
“Your sister’s right, honey.” Alicia strokes Miss Bennett, looking at me with sympathy for the first time since I showed up, brows furrowed over her deep-brown eyes. “You look like someone took your favorite puppy away.”
“Well.” I choke on a laugh, then slurp more tea, letting it burn my tongue, keeping me from airing more of my self-inflicted grievances. “Tell me something I don’t know, I guess.”
CHAPTER
24
I SPEND A RESTLESS night on the small, antique couch with three cats purring on my chest, watching the slow-rolling fire in the wood stove until nothing but embers are left.
When the sun rises, I give up on sleep and wander to the miniscule kitchen.
The espresso maker is nowhere to be found.
Fair. It’d occupy a large chunk of counter real estate, and probably look ridiculous amid the soft taupe-and-teal color scheme, like a time traveler’s misplaced gadget. I open a few cupboards, searching for mugs and some tea, only to find the eyesore collecting dust in a corner of the cabinet.
Grunting, I lift it out and plug it in, then scavenge for beans. The least I can do is put my rusty barista skills to work after crashing here last night.
Gabrielle pads into the kitchen, hair a wild tangle, starting when she sees me.
“Good morning!” I wrap my hair in a knot. “How do you take your lava java?”
“I … I’m sorry. I actually have no idea how to use that monstrosity.” She grimaces, trying to smooth the snarls in her hair. “I sound like an ingrate, but last time I tried, foamed milk went everywhere. It was this whole big thing.”
I laugh and grind the beans. “Well, saddle up, sis. You’re going to learn how to make yourself a fine latte.”
She watches as I pull the shot and froth the milk, getting a nice sheen with the microfoam. Carefully, I add the milk to the mug, pouring from a good height. As the foam rises to the surface, I cut through the center of it with the final pour, creating a heart.
“All yours.” I present my caffeine offerings with a flourish, sliding it toward her on the pretty tiled counter.
She takes the mug, expression soft when she sees the latte art. “Beautifully done.” She looks up. “I guess you learned quite a bit while you were globe-trotting.”
“I did pick up some obscure skills during my wandering days. Master of none, though, I’m afraid.” I muster a wan smile for her. “I know just enough to be dangerous.”
She laughs and takes a sip, eyes widening. “Dang. That’s good stuff.”
Then she lowers the mug, quiet for a long minute. “I’ve been thinking about what you said last night. How you need to find another way to target Brent, in addition to whatever you’d planned.”
I freeze. The only sound is the hiss of the espresso shot hitting my cup. “And?”
“What if I came forward?” she asks. “Shared my story?”
“No.” That’s the last thing I want, to bring her into this.
“It’s not your decision to make, Dilly.” She takes another appreciative sip. “I know you’re used to being the master of your universe, but if I want to come forward, you can’t stop me.”
“It’s out of the question.” Panic curls around my throat. “You already went to hell and back because of this sonofabitch. Don’t put yourself in a vulnerable position to try and save my hide. I got myself into this mess.” I heat and froth the milk for my cappuccino. “I’ll get myself out of it.”
“What does Daniel think?” She drums the countertop, the only sign of her annoyance.
I slosh milk over the rim of my mug, cursing. Gabrielle hands me a towel. I wipe the spill, buying myself time to answer.
“He’s more of the heat-seeking missile sort,” I manage to say. “Rather than messy, hand-to-hand combat. He offered to hack the company, Prometheus, to find whatever we needed to nail him.”
Gabrielle leans a hip on the counter. “I have to say, this PI fella has a good head on his shoulders.”
“He does. The jerk.” I blink hard, looking at the small, framed picture of Gabrielle and Alicia above the breakfast nook. They’re radiant with happiness in the candid shot by the ocean, photographer forgotten. “As opposed to my half-baked, occasionally brilliant schemes.”
“Your words, not mine.” Her eye-crinkling smile soothes the spiny edges of my defeat and humiliation. “Still, I have to think there are other people who’ve been hurt by Brent. We could build a damning case against him.”
“There are,” I acknowledge. “A reporter at the Chronicle I’ve been working with said there are complaints against him going all the way back to his prep school days on the East Coast, as well as more recent allegations from within his company. There are more, too—there’s someone at a restaurant I could contact. Point her in the right direction.” I’d be glad to see my BFF from the steak house again, learn what she knows, hear from the women Brent’s harassed.
Gabrielle’s expression is distant, amber-brown eyes gazing out the window, a thousand miles away. “Hardly surprising.” She looks down at her cup, fingers pressed tight on the off-white stoneware. “Serial offenders don’t stop at one, by definition.”
“Fuck.” I clank my mug on the counter and step into her space with a hug, determined to keep her from sinking back into the minefield of memory. “I’m so sorry, Ellie. I’m sorry I brought all of this up last night.”
“Don’t be sorry.” Her warm hands pat my back. “The trauma will always be there, Dilly. But as time goes by, it defines me less and less.” She pulls away, hands on my shoulders. “I’m not who I was when I was eighteen. And you’re not who you were when you were sixteen.” She brushes my cheek with the back of her hand, smiling. “You’ve become formidable.”
My vision mists, tears at the ready. If only I knew how to shut them off. “That’s what Daniel said.”
How could I have forgotten his soft-spoken praise after we wrapped the case with the Philosopher/Provocateur/Wanker? The words were delivered easily enough, but I pretended not to see the heat and admiration flashing in his dark eyes. I’ve traveled everywhere, but I was still too afraid to wander that thorny, unpaved path with him. He was braver than me, every step of the way. Putting himself on the line again and again and again.
“He’s right, Dilly.” She squeezes my shoulder. “So, what are you going to do about it?”
Mr. Darcy joins us in the kitchen, brushing around my ankles. Looking up adoringly with his handsome face, fur rusting espresso brown in the morning sun.
“Would you really go on the record?” I ask, still looking at my new kitty bestie. My voice sounds small. “Even though you’d be breaking your NDA? You’d have to take a polygraph probably, sign an affidavit, have the journalists interview other people to corroborate your account—”
“Of course I would. I’m not afraid of him. He can’t take anything away from me he hasn’t already. And if it helps even one person not suffer at his hands the way I did, it’d be worth it.”
I blink and Mr. Darcy’s lank form blurs. Tears slide down my face, my neck, wetting my ratty T-shirt.
“What are you thinking?” she asks.
I wipe my eyes and swallow, getting rid of the tears and the tightness in my throat. Forcing steel back into my spine. In the light, the jagged edges of her scar are visible, glowing. Softened by time, in the way of all things.
“I think I could live to be a hundred and still not be as brave or as kind or as good as you. But I swear”—I take her hands—“I swear I’ll make this worth your while. The journalist and I, we’ll talk to everyone. All the women. It can’t be ‘he said, she said’ when all of us will be saying the same goddamn thing, in the twenty-first fucking century. Everyone in the Bay Area, we’ll find them and bring them to my place to make it happen. Bring everyone together under one banner. The people he’s hurt, and the people he will hurt if he pushes his cure-all on the world.”
Not one dark horse but many. Dozens. Enough to cover the horizon. A motherfucking Dothraki raid on an open field. After all, with a company named Prometheus, Brent’s all but asking for a taste of Dracarys.
Even if Daniel isn’t with me anymore for the fight, I can still do it. I can still help these women get what they’re owed, and screw Brent on the clinical trial data too. A fight on all fronts, personal and professional. As if they could ever be separated.
“I have to go. Get back to San Francisco. Start organizing, putting things in motion.” My head is full of bees—must be the rocket fuel—and I can’t be still, foot drumming on the tile floor.
“I understand,” she says.
“Do you think you can take time off soon? Drive down, stay at my place? You and Alicia?”
She smirks. “It’s only fair, after you crashed here.”
“My door’s always open for you, Ellie.” We still have ages of memories to catch up on, but I will never go back to the days of radio silence with her. Not ever again. No one, not Brent, not the shitstorm we’ll weather when her story goes live, will take my sister away from me again. Not when a piece of my soul has been carefully restored, like a fragment of stained glass soldered into its rightful place.
“Well, then.” Gabrielle lifts her mug in a toast, giving me a gimlet smile over the rim. “To overdue justice.”
Her call to arms is poetic, as befits my high angel sister.
Mine? I grip my mug and clank it against hers. “Let’s slump the bastard.”
* * *
Gabrielle leaves for her first appointment of the day at her private practice, and Alicia heads out not long after with a latte to go, driving to the Mad River Fish Hatchery in her beat-up blue Subaru.
I have to charge both of my dead phones before I can start calling or driving. While I wait for them to reanimate, I shower in the claw-foot tub, pulling the shower curtain around it while Mr. Darcy sits on the toilet, licking his leg in a very un-Darcy-like manner. I scrub under the hot spray until I’m red as a lobster, a new person. Then I brew another shot of espresso and get to work while Mr. Darcy keeps my lap warm.
There are several missed texts from Rhys, another tiresome screed from Brent on the burner, and deafening silence from Daniel.
I brush the hurt aside and call Rhys.
“Tell me about the women you found on the East Coast who’ve been harmed by Brent. How many are there? Have you reached out to any of them?”
“Well.” He clears his throat, sounding nervous. “No, I haven’t yet—”
“Do it. Start right now. My older sister has offered to go on the record with Brent.”
There’s a long, freighted pause. “Your sister?”
“Her freshman year at Cal. With Brent. It was all sealed up, but she’s willing to break her NDA, sign an affidavit, take a polygraph, whatever. The full monty. When can you interview her? And are you working with the other colleague of yours, Katie? The one who was ready to interview another employee from Prometheus?”
“Um—”
“Get yourself some coffee, sir, bring Katie into the loop, and make it happen.” I hang up.
With that call out of the way, I move on to Dr. Chang, wondering how I can convince her to press forward with our own aims.
Before I can, Rhys answers with a text.
I don’t work for you, you know.
I could put you on Dark Horse payroll if it makes you feel better, I reply.
Actually, I think the Chronicle should hire you. You’ve got the makings of an excellent journalist.
I blink at his text a few times, moved for reasons I can’t articulate. Then I reply, Trying to lure me away from the dark side?
