Close Enough to Hurt, page 4
“Without that job, that income, I don’t know how I’ll provide for my family. We can’t get by on only my husband’s salary. I’ve applied to a dozen different jobs, and everything has turned up empty.” She holds her head in her hands and cries.
“You’ve been blacklisted.” I blink hard and rise to meet her.
She inhales, quick, like she’s fallen. “You think so?”
“I know so.”
“What more does he want from me? I left already!”
“It’s exactly as you thought when you confronted him,” I say, matter-of-fact. “He wants you dead.”
She looks up, eyes wide with surprise. Women learn to ignore their instincts, the ones warning them of disaster. They learn to be polite at all costs. To never be angry, nor anger others. It takes time to unlearn, to tease out the inner voice. To learn how to roar.
“Dr. Chang, you did the right thing. The person threatening you, falsifying data, and defrauding investors is at fault. Don’t forget it for a second.” I offer her the box of tissues and place my hand on her shoulder. Grounding her into the earth. “You graduated magna cum laude from one of the world’s best universities and, by God, we will find another job for you somewhere. Someplace deserving of your ability and your integrity.”
She wipes her face with the back of her hands. “Okay. But someone has to find the real data. If I had to guess, I’d say he’s keeping it at his home now—he wouldn’t risk keeping it at the Prometheus offices.” She bites her lip.
I let my hand slip away. We’re quiet again and I clench and relax, letting my frustration and anger seep out one breath at a time. So much of my work is patience. As much as I’d like to press a knife to Brent’s neck and watch blood trickle—for Gabrielle, for Dr. Chang, for everyone he’s ever hurt along the way—I’d also like to not go to jail. Ergo, patience. Waiting for her to verbalize the nebulous goal she might have, then plotting to make it happen.
“What do you envision, Dr. Chang?” I ask. “If I find the data, if you had your heart’s desire? We can go as big as you want. Or as limited and specific and incisive. Regardless of what you choose, I’m here to make it happen.”
She looks up from her lap. There’s fire in her eyes, and damn, I already know she’s chosen the nuclear route. My heart beats faster and faster, waiting on her words.
“I want Brent to be so radioactive, he’ll never do business again. He’ll never again be able to do what he’s done to me. Threatening me, my family.” She inhales, shaky. “This bastard’s career ends with me. That’s what I want.”
I lean forward on my elbows. “Some men can’t handle their polonium, hmm?” I smile wide.
“Maybe not so literal,” she says, a little alarmed.
“I know.” I try to reassure her. “So, what I hear you saying is you’d like to make sure he’s never in a position of power again. He’ll lose his job, his standing, his wealth, his freedom. He’ll lose everything he values, with no chance of ever being redeemed.”
“Is that …” She looks skeptical, one brow scrunched. “I mean, that sounds like a lot. Can you actually do all of that?”
“Yes,” I say. “Consider it done.” My three favorite words, and why shouldn’t they be? So few outcomes in life arrive with a guarantee, but that’s what I promise my clientele, and I’m not about to stop now.
“As far as pricing,” she says, sounding nervous. “My friend, she said your asking fee is expensive. I know I asked for a Mars landing with Brent, but is it possible to pay on a sliding scale? Or some other payment plan?”
“I’m glad you asked.” I smile. “I offer a thirty percent discount for minorities and LGBTQIA-plus.” I tap out a few lines into my iPad, a basic agreement, and hold it out to her. “However, your case will be pro bono.”
“What?” She gapes. “Free?”
“One hundred percent.”
“Why?” She views me with suspicion for the first time, eyes narrowed.
“My sister,” I say, throat tight. “It so happens Brent hurt her too, when they were freshmen at Cal.”
As she hears my subtext, comprehension lights her face, slowly, then all at once. “The worst kind of small world. I’m so sorry.” She signs her name on the dotted line and returns the iPad.
I roll my shoulders and unclench my fists. “So, I have a personal interest in taking this bastard down too.” I offer her my hand, to press some conviction to her palm. “Everything is going to be all right, Dr. Chang. I promise.”
After a second, Evelyn takes it, her grip firm and determined.
“The arc of the moral universe may well be long,” I tell her. “But before the year is through, Brent Wilder’s life as he knows it will be over.”
CHAPTER
4
DESPITE MY ASSURANCES to Evelyn, I don’t know how I’ll ruin Brent’s whole life. Ordinarily, my subjects are more pedestrian and easier to target. Not so for the CEO. The hunt for ideas consumes me after our meeting, consumes my commute home, and substitutes for my dinner, at least until Daniel texts me.
Be sure to eat something, he says. You can’t take him down if you’re hangry.
I smile at my phone, then catch sight of my expression in the long hallway mirror. I look like a dog lover who’s received surprise puppies. This isn’t good.
I shouldn’t think about him like that, but I haven’t gotten Friday out of my head either. Specifically, the moment when our shoulders brushed and something passed from his body into mine, amperage flowing. Disorienting and … amazing, but so quick I might’ve imagined it. I must have.
With a hard mental slap—he’s dating someone or will be soon enough!—I don’t reply. Immature, maybe, but I can’t imagine any future where Daniel and I could be together. Not when I do what I do, not when he does what he does, with family expecting him to settle down. Better to disentwine. Maybe it won’t hurt as much, then, when I inevitably see him with a wife and children.
“Well, that’s fucking depressing.”
I sulk to the kitchen, uncork a bottle of Chardonnay, and rummage through my fridge for anything edible, but all my leftover bulgogi is gone, damn it all. I settle on cheese and crackers and grapes and chew, feeling sorry for myself. Gross. I switch to research mode, reading every article I can find about Brent. Trying to imagine the best way to insert myself into his world.
When it’s late and I’m blinking tired tears at my computer, I crawl into bed and hope my subconscious will keep working.
My sister visits me when I dream. Gabrielle’s hair is long, like mine, only with more wave to it, and redder, especially under sun. We kayak on the ocean back in Eureka, next to each other at first. She’s so fast, though, slicing through the water. It’s what makes her an unbelievable swimmer too—our dad’s height, and her effortless upper body strength. I hurry and hurry, but I can’t catch up.
“Hold on,” I tell her, shouting over the roaring wind. “Wait for me!” Like I always said when we were young and her long legs carried her everywhere she wanted, while I grew tired and whined and no doubt drove her crazy. To her credit, she always slowed down for me.
Not this time. Either she doesn’t hear me or she chooses not to, disappearing around a cliff jutting into the ocean.
Too tired to fight, crying like a little kid, I let the waves roll me, one after another. Let them carry me toward the shore, toward the place where ocean and rock meet, a ceaseless boxing ring.
A breaker flips my kayak, plunging me into frigid water. It’s a cold, alternate universe with different physics, different organisms, different rules. I don’t try to flip myself upright with a sweep roll but hold my breath and stay under, observing the mysterious and dangerous upside-down world. If I had gills and cold blood, I could stay. Shapeshift into a creature at home in the dark, whirling chaos.
I could meet Brent where he’s at.
I wake with a gasp.
Eureka indeed!
I have found it. A plan so good and insane it makes my hands shake and my heart beat fast. A plan so good, I won’t need to create alternatives for Evelyn.
If I want to see the apex predators—the human ones—I need to go where they live. Not out into the Red Triangle with the great white sharks, but Pacific Heights. The wealthiest neighborhood in the United States.
I’ll be Dylan next door. Only, not Dylan. I’ll need a throwaway identity, but those are easily fabricated. I close my eyes, imagining. Sugar, spice, and everything nice. Little will Brent know I’m a rat, crawling through the walls of his house, devouring everything in my path. Finding the clinical trial’s data and shouting it from his rooftop.
My phone says three AM, but I launch out of bed, wrap myself in my silk robe, and plop my butt at my laptop desk, searching for an article I read earlier, a feature in an architecture magazine about Brent’s new home in Pac Heights—the place for the nouveau riche. He’s been throwing his money around with extensive renovations at the top of the Lyon Street Steps, infuriating his neighbors.
Feverish, hands shaking, I search the real estate listings surrounding his home. I bite my fist and squeal at my unbelievable luck when I scroll in and see a property for rent right next to his. The perfect entre to preneur. Four bedrooms, furnished, ungodly beautiful, and on the market for far longer than property in Pac Heights ever stays. The noise and construction next door must’ve discouraged prospective buyers from moving into the townhome.
As predicted, the monthly rent is enough to make me choke on my tongue. I calculate the amount I’d need to pay and figure I could swing it for three months, max. And that’s with wiping out my savings. Anything more and I’ll be out of business.
My stomach hollows out with dread as my rational brain pooh-poohs this dicey, all-or-nothing plan. As a rule, I don’t get close to my victims—or anyone, really, but that’s beside the point. Too messy. Too much room for mistakes.
I stand, walk out on my deck, and look south.
Across the water, a reflected glow on the clouds from the city lights, San Francisco rises on the hills, so much power and money in such a condensed space that its GDP surpasses that of small countries.
How else would I enter his world? Get close enough to hurt? Cold mist envelops me, and I wish I could float on it, wraithlike, and slip into his home, slither into his ear like a parasitic worm.
Does he ever see Gabrielle when he dreams? Or has narcissism granted him a spotless conscience, wiped clean of every sin? It’s worse, in all probability. In his inverse world, he’s recast as the victim of a witch hunt.
I close my eyes. Hatred spews from my pores, burning around me like a scarlet cloud. You’ve never seen a witch, Brent, but you will.
I’ll make myself conspicuous, so even a self-absorbed turd like him will notice. Piece by piece by piece, I’ll strip Brent of everything he has, until there’s nothing left. He’ll fight a war on all fronts, starting with his ostentatious, Edwardian home—the place he thinks of as safe—and extending ever outward. Much the way violence travels beyond the intended recipient, waves of hurt rippling over and under and straight through, stealing breath.
Love comes with such a high price sometimes.
I hold on to the rail of my deck, feeling the smooth, damp wood beneath my palms, and let the tears run down my face.
“I love you, Gabrielle,” I say to the dark.
It’s a long way to Eureka, but I hope she’ll hear me picking up a sword anyway.
* * *
I brew coffee that could strip the paint from the hull of my home and send Dr. Chang an email from my VPN letting her know I’ve arrived at a plan and offering to set up a time to call to discuss. I have no sense of whether she’ll be cool with my hand-to-hand-combat plan for revenge—and I suppose I can’t blame her if she’s not on board. Truthfully, even I have my doubts I can pull off this bird-brained scheme. I don’t normally get so close to my targets, preferring to keep several degrees of separation, but Brent’s case is unique: he already has too many layers of protective privilege around him. Still, I hope I can convince her—and myself.
A knock on my door around sunrise makes me jump out of my skin. Who’s here at this hour? If Rhys has gotten his nosy, grubby paws on my address, I’ll have him disappeared, free press or no.
I wrap my robe tighter around my waist. Daniel is always trying to set me up with a home camera system. There are good reasons for my being a Luddite—leave no incriminating digital trail that’ll wind up in a hearing, am I right? That’s how they get you. But times like this, it’d be nice to know who’s darkening my door.
Through the peephole, I spy a black waistcoat and a familiar lean torso.
I throw open the door. “Haas? What are you doing here?”
“Breakfast?” He holds out two boxes of pastries. “If you brew coffee?”
He’s so … shiny, in the morning sun. His crisp white button-up is blinding. As is his wide smile. He could wear shorts and flip-flops pretty much anywhere in the Bay Area, but I love the fact he doesn’t. Lingerie is to men what suits are to women, is it not?
For a few dumb seconds, I can’t wrap my brain around him, standing on my front step. He’s been to my home before, but usually I know when he’s stopping by. It’s also never so early—my night owl and his occasional insomnia commune in the wee hours, not when the sun is shining.
He seems to realize he’s made a miscalculation. What a morning-person move. He ought to know I don’t get up before eight AM. Not unless I’m struck by creative brilliance and up to no good.
“This little place opened around the corner from me, so I stopped in. You didn’t answer last night, and I wondered if you were all right.” He clears his throat. “But if this isn’t a good time …” He looks everywhere except at my bare calves or sleep-mussed hair. I’m sure I paint a medusan picture.
I can’t help my smile. “If you wanted to play hooky from work, all you had to do was say so.” I step aside and gesture for him to come in.
“Wish I could.” He returns my smile. “But I’m just here for more java. Do you still have the stuff from Costa Rica?” He settles in at my breakfast bar and rolls his sleeves back. I look away before I can make too close an inspection of the muscle and veins.
“I do, lucky dog.” I pour him a mug from my still-warm stainless carafe. “But you sure didn’t have to come all the way here to feed my sugar dragon. Especially if you’re heading to Apple Park?” I nod to his sharp getup.
He shrugs and doesn’t say one way or the other, which means he’s due to show his face in person. “Like I said, you didn’t answer last night. Just wanted to make sure you were doing okay after talking to Dr. Chang.”
I investigate my mug, coffee swirled with heavy cream, buying myself time to be chill about his offhand concern.
“It was hard—like you said, she’s pretty demoralized and frightened—but I’m used to it.” I turn and face him. “How’s your mom, by the way?”
“Doing okay. She has physical therapy today, so I’m going to drop by later and check on her.”
“Well, give her a hug for me.” Even though she doesn’t know me.
Embarrassed, I open the box, grab a blueberry muffin, and devour it. Lavender, lemon, and juicy berries burst over my tongue. Daniel has an uncanny knack for finding the best places, little holes-in-the-wall others overlook. The introvert’s superpower: keen observation. “Gosh, you’re right. This revenge stuff does make me hungry. Also, this muffin is crazy good.”
“Yeah? Good to know.” He sips his coffee, closing his eyes with a small groan of appreciation.
That sound. Christ. How I’d love to hear it in a different context.
“Aren’t you going to have something to eat too?” I do my darnedest to rally and stop being a lecher.
“It’s all yours.” He shakes his head. “I already brushed my teeth.”
“I don’t see how that factors in.”
“Fair point.” He laughs and noses in the box, grabs a cinnamon roll, and takes a careful bite. “It sounds like you’ve arrived at a plan for Brent?” he asks casually, but his alert gaze belies his interest.
“I have.” I lean on the counter across from him and smile. “I’m going to be the girl next door. Literally.”
Daniel pauses midbite, then swallows hard. “You’re going to move in next to him?”
“And from there, worm my way into his home in Pac Heights and get proof of his wrongdoing. If I damage his stupid house along the way, ten bonus points.” I sip my coffee, pleased with myself.
I expected Daniel’s version of excitement—tempered enthusiasm by way of a small smile and bright eyes—but his stone-cold expression slows my roll. “You’re going to move in next door?” he asks again. “Next to the same man who hurt your sister?”
“I know exactly who I’m dealing with.” I ply him with my best Cheshire cat grin. “Sadly for him, he won’t have a clue who I am. Or why the universe has conspired against him.”
Daniel hasn’t eaten anything else. “I don’t like it.” He finally looks up. “Besides the obvious risk to your safety, what if he figures out who you are and what’s going on? And it won’t be inexpensive, trying to get a home in that neighborhood. How will you afford it?”
“Let me worry about the risk. And finances.”
“Is it possible you’re letting your sister’s history overrule your common sense?” His voice is tentative, halting. Stepping from one rock to another, trying to meet me on the other side of a growing divide.
“Fuck yes, it’s personal, Haas.” I clank my mug down hard, surprising us both. The anger scorches up out of nowhere, lava breaking through a cooled crust. “When else will I have an opportunity to avenge my sister and Dr. Chang? Take this guy out for good?” I smack my hands together. “Now’s the time to strike and make sure he can’t hurt anyone ever again. And half measures aren’t going to cut it.”
Daniel just looks at me, steady and imperturbable.
