Ruining Hattie, page 4
He understands what it feels like to be alone too. My chest squeezes.
We’re in public at a coffee shop. It’s not as though he’s asking me to meet him in his hotel room. There’s no danger here. What’s the harm in enjoying this small amount of spontaneous adventure life has thrown my way?
I can meet him again, enjoy his company, and once he’s left for good, it will just be a nice memory for me to revisit from time to time. It’s not even like he’s asked me on an official date or anything. It would just be two people meeting to share some platonic time together.
My mom has long been encouraging me to date. A handful of eligible men at church have made their interest known, but none of them are very interesting to me. After what happened in college with my one and only boyfriend, I haven’t been able to work up the nerve. I don’t ever want to feel that way again. My parents don’t understand my hesitance, but I’m too ashamed to explain to them what happened all those years ago.
“Okay, we can meet again.”
Bastion gives me a pleased grin. It’s the first time I’ve seen a full smile on his face, and the effect is overwhelming. A set of perfectly white teeth lights up his entire face, more beautiful than I thought possible since he’s very much the best-looking guy I’ve ever seen in person.
“Wonderful. Same time, same place?” He arches an eyebrow.
I nod. “Sure.” My voice comes out reedy and thin.
He stands from the chair and towers over me, looking down at me. “I’ll see you then.”
Without another word, he turns on his heel and leaves without a backward glance, which disappoints me more than it should.
No matter, I’m excited to have news to tell Taylor. Bit by bit, I just need to put myself out there a little more.
5
BASTION
Iwake up and roll onto my back, whipping the scratchy sheets off my body. I might be staying at the best hotel in town, but it’s a far cry from what I’m used to these days. There was a time in my life when I would’ve thought this place was the Four Seasons, but those days are long behind me, and I swore to myself that I’d never go back.
Getting out of bed, I walk the short distance to the bathroom and turn on the shower. It takes a whole ten minutes for the damn thing to warm up before I step under the spray. Tilting my head back, I close my eyes as the warm water washes over my face and picture Hattie sitting on the couch in that café last night.
She has the street smarts of a baby kitten. She didn’t even know a predator was in her midst. The woman is naïve at best, stupid at worst.
Just the thought of her is triggering, though. Being in her company, it was a struggle to keep myself together. Every glance at her healthy demeanor, clean clothes, and the way she presents herself to the world—it all screams well-adjusted. A typical, normal upbringing. Something I was never afforded.
My hand grips the wet strands of my hair until my skull aches. It took everything in me not to unleash the toxic fury brewing inside me when I was around her last night.
One thing about Hattie—she’s lonely. It was obvious in the way she sucked up my attention. Sure, she was fidgety at first, but she reminded me of a helpless puppy, panting with its tongue hanging out, sitting at your feet just begging for attention. And every time I gave it to her, she lapped it up, wanting more.
The best thing, though, is I’m pretty sure she’s attracted to me, which makes all of this easier.
You don’t spend twenty-plus years scamming people and not get good at reading them. Reading the subtext of their words, their body language, and the things they’re not saying but wish they could ask for.
My laugh echoes off the shower tiles around me. What a stupid cunt. This con will surely be the easiest I’ve ever encountered.
After my shower, I get dressed and grab something to eat at a shitty diner down the street. I glance at my phone as I’m leaving, satisfied with my perfect timing.
When I pull up to the curb in front of the triplex where Hattie rents an apartment, she’s leaving the building and heading to her car. She’s wearing a pair of billowy white dress pants and a light blue blouse that’s practically buttoned up to her neck and covers her arms.
I wait twenty minutes before I approach the building.
Mr. Smith’s report let me know that she lives on the ground floor of her building—never a good idea for a single woman. Derelicts like me will only use it to their advantage, and that’s exactly what I’m doing with a reflective vest and baseball cap on. With my blue pants and matching polo, I look official, as though I’m here to take a meter reading or check out the building’s landscaping. I even have a clipboard and pen in hand as I round the back of the building to figure out what my best point of entry will be.
It doesn’t take long for me to figure out that the west side of the building is where I need to be. It separates the building from the house on the street behind it, and lucky me, there’s a fence and tall cedars that run along it. Unless someone comes around the corner, I’m practically undetectable.
With one final check that no one is around, I toss the clipboard and pen on the small round table Hattie’s set up on her back patio.
These sliding glass doors will do just fine. Pulling the screwdriver I brought with me from my back pocket, I approach the door, then get down on my haunches in front of it. It takes me longer than I’d like to get the door to jump its tracks—which I attribute to how long it’s been since I had to do something like this. I’m out of practice. But when I’m finally successful, the blast of adrenaline that pours through my veins is the rush I forgot. God, I’ve missed it.
It’s not like I’ve been a saint for the past decade, but I haven’t had to resort to doing shit like this.
I make my way into Hattie’s apartment and secure the door behind me, then I take a moment to look around. It’s pretty much what I expected—clean and tidy without a whole lot of stuff lying around. The furniture looks as though it may have been passed down to her. Though it’s dated, it’s been taken care of, and there’s a crochet blanket folded neatly and draped across the armrest of the couch. Her TV isn’t oversized, and in the corner of the room is a large basket.
Slipping the latex gloves from my pocket, I slide them on as I step over to the basket and look inside. It holds a bunch of yarn.
I thumb through a few books stacked on the coffee table. The first two don’t elicit much interest from me, but when I leaf through the last one, the word cock jumps out at me. I start reading, the grin on my face growing with every sentence I finish.
So little Miss Perfect isn’t as perfect as she appears. She likes her smut. Noted.
Maybe there’s more to Hattie than meets the eye. I dislike the way that thought intrigues me, so I set the books back down as I found them and continue.
The kitchen doesn’t hold anything of interest, unless you consider that she appears to eat like a college student based on the amount of mac and cheese and ramen noodles in her cupboard.
A quick search through the bathroom tells me she owns little, if any, makeup, but she has a whole skin routine she must follow. There’s a plethora of lotions and scrubs and serums littering the counter. The medicine cabinet yields nothing, so finally I make my way into her bedroom.
If there’s anything interesting to be found, I’m sure this is where I’ll find it.
The first thing I notice is how different the space feels from the rest of her apartment. It’s not as well-kept and put together. Whereas the rest of the apartment holds very few personal mementos, this room is filled with them.
Pictures of Hattie and another woman her age make up a collage on a bulletin board. Some are from when they’re very young and others from their teen and college years. In one, the girls are in what I’d guess is their early twenties, and they’re standing on the end of a dock with their arms wrapped around each other’s shoulders, big grins on their faces.
My gaze snags on the swell of Hattie’s breasts under her one-piece swimsuit.
She’s got a banging little body under those baggy clothes she wears, that’s for sure. Maybe I’ll be able to convince her to get on stage. I laugh at the thought.
Perhaps she’ll actually enjoy male attention at some point, and I can use that to my advantage. Imagine what Mommy Dearest would think if her precious little girl danced on stage and let men slide dollar bills into her G-string.
A feral smile spreads across my face.
There’s nothing interesting hiding under the clothes in her dresser, and when I open the top drawer of her nightstand, I half expect to find her sex toy collection, but all I discover is her sock drawer. Maybe she is as repressed as I thought. What single twenty-something woman doesn’t have at least one sex toy?
But then I open the next drawer to find her bras and underwear and am surprised they’re all made with lace. I figured Hattie for a white cotton panty kind of girl, but under those oversized clothes, she wears pretty, if not sexy, lingerie.
The dichotomy of this woman grows more interesting every minute.
I continue to her closet, taking a picture of how it’s arranged before I search through it. There are a couple of fancy boxes on the shelf at the top, and I pull those out to go through them.
The first one seems to be a memory box of sorts. It’s filled with old movie stubs and concert tickets, greeting cards, most of which are dated from a few years ago. When I get further down in the box, I find some pictures of her and a guy with blond hair and bright blue eyes—Mr. All American himself. Go figure. It’s clear they were in a relationship. Though there are no intimate pictures of the two of them, they’re holding hands in one, and in another, he has his arm draped around her shoulders as he kisses her cheek.
Based on the dates on the things in the box and the fact that his picture is nowhere on display in the apartment, I’m going to assume the relationship is long over. Is this what women do? They hold on to all this shit? To what? Feel the heartbreak all over again? I’ll never understand them.
I put the lid back on the box and look into the next box. It’s filled with mementos from school—report cards, awards, participation ribbons. I’m not surprised that little Hattie was quite the student.
I put the boxes back where I found them and search the bottom of the closet, where I find several photo albums. I still for a moment with my hand on them before I pull them out.
My chest is tight as I slowly pull back the cover of the first one and am greeted with a picture of Hattie—probably ten years old or so—and her parents at an amusement park. All three of them have the kinds of smiles that would let anyone looking at them know that they’ve never been happier. This is a family who truly loves each other and looks out for each other.
My eyes focus on my mother as I flip through each page, the rest of the people in the photos becoming a blur. I don’t remember ever seeing her smile like that. Not once in my eleven years with her. All I remember is the dead look in her eyes or the disappointment and regret she always had when she looked at me. Whether it was about our situation or directed at me specifically, I could never tell.
Fuck this.
I slam the front of the photo album closed and shove them all back in the bottom of the closet. I’ve seen enough to know who Hattie is and how I might manipulate her for my gain.
Pulling my phone from my pocket, I check how the closet looks compared to the image on my screen and find they look nearly identical.
I don’t know why, but before I put my phone away, I snap a photo of Hattie’s collage board with all the photos of her over the years.
After one final check that everything appears to be how it should be, I make my way to the sliding glass door. I plan to leave it unlocked and hope that Hattie thinks she forgot to lock it before she went to work. Either way, she’ll never suspect me.
I suppress the urge to hurry away from the building. That’s the kind of thing that gets people’s attention. Instead, I leisurely walk back to my car, my mind spinning with all the images of my mother in those pictures.
My phone vibrates in my pocket as I approach my vehicle, and Steph’s name lights up the screen. Once I’m seated inside the vehicle, I accept her call, putting it on speakerphone as I start the car.
“What’s up?” My voice is clipped.
“Well, good morning to you too.”
I roll my eyes and start the car. “What do you need, Steph?”
The call clicks over to the Bluetooth in the car as I pull away from the curb.
“Who pissed in your Corn Flakes this morning?”
Granted, I’m being a prick, which I rarely am. I’ve always found it’s easier to get people onside with honey rather than vinegar, but after that trip down memory lane, I can’t put on a front.
“I’m going to hang up now.” My hand moves toward the screen on the dash to end the call.
“Wait! I wanted to let you know that Sean was in here last night looking for you. Ray just told me.”
Ray is the head of security at our Seattle club. Since I’m away, I asked Steph to have a bigger presence at the main club and told the rest of the staff to go to her for anything that came up. But since I’m the only one who deals with Sean directly, I understand why she’s calling me.
“It will have to wait until I get back.” I turn right off Hattie’s street and find myself heading in the direction of Carla’s hair salon.
“Where are you anyway?”
“None of your business.”
“Whatever.” Steph’s voice sours at my tone. “When can we expect you back?”
“Friday. Not sure what time, though. Tell Sean to come to the club on Saturday night, and we can talk.”
“Fine. I’m going to be at the Sacramento club this weekend, so I’ll see you next week I guess.”
I make another turn that brings me closer to the salon. “We may have to do our check-in on a video call. I have to be back here next week too.”
There’s a slight pause. “Bastion, what’s going on?”
“If there’s something you need to know, I’ll tell you.” I press End on the call.
I consider Steph a friend, and yeah, we’re fuck buddies, but I’m still her boss. We’re not in a relationship, nor does she know anything about my upbringing. So she needs to back off when I tell her to.
I’m curious what the hell Sean wants. I allow his gang, the Reavers, to run drugs through my club in exchange for a cut. We’ve had an arrangement for the past few years, and it’s been lucrative for the both of us.
Whatever. He can wait.
I pull into a parking spot on Main Street directly adjacent to the hair salon. There’s a large window at the front so I can see inside, no problem. And there’s Carla, working on a client—all smiles as though she doesn’t have a worry in the world. As though she doesn’t have a son she abandoned sitting right outside her window. A son who has bided his time until he can ruin her perfect snow globe life.
I unclench my hands off the steering wheel, freeing the tension ache.
“Fuck this.” I put the vehicle in drive and pull out of the spot.
A horn honks and tires screech on the pavement. I flip them off in the rearview mirror, getting the hell of Dodge, before my patience dies.
6
BASTION
I’ve been back in Seattle for a day, and already the urge to return to Wisconsin presses against me. I’m anxious to get my plan underway. I’ve always been this way. Trent would calm me, tell me not to rush. To always be prepared. Every time I think of the photo albums I found at the bottom of Hattie’s closet, it’s as if my insides turn to oil, and I want to punish someone.
Sure, I could show up on Carla’s doorstep and give her a piece of my mind, but the satisfaction I’ll gain from that will only be temporary. Slowly deconstructing her pride and joy, peeling away the layers of naïveté and innocence that cocoon Hattie, will be much more satisfying. Carla will never be able to look at her little angel the same, and for the rest of her life, she’ll know it’s her fault that I went after her precious daughter. She’ll have no one to blame but herself. Let her live with the shame of ruining her daughter since she seems to feel nothing for ruining her son.
There’s a knock on my office door, and I sigh. “What?”
Ray pops his head in. “Sean is here to see you, boss.”
I nod. “Any of the VIP rooms free?”
I’ve never invited Sean into my office. The last thing I need is someone like him snooping around in here. We may have a mutually beneficial business relationship, but he’s not to be trusted.
The only person I truly trust in this world is my sister, Ariana. I can’t even say that I wholly trust Trent. Sure, he raised me as his own, but he loves nothing more than a con, and I’ve never felt entirely confident that he wouldn’t throw me to the wolves if it benefited him in some way. Everyone has their price—except my sister. She never has.
“Yeah, one of them is open,” Ray says.
“Put him in there. I’ll be out in a few minutes.”
Ray nods and closes the door behind him.
There’s nothing I can’t get up and walk away from right now, but I’m not going to let it appear that I’m at Sean’s beck and call. He’s in my place of business, not the other way around. So I take a few minutes to check Hattie’s social media profiles to see if she’s posted anything today—she hasn’t. In fact, her profiles are boring as shit. The last time she even posted was six months ago, and it was a picture of her and some other church members at a soup kitchen.
Finally, I stand from my desk and throw on my suit jacket before leaving my office, locking it, and heading toward the front of the house. It’s Saturday night, so the place is packed. Music pumps through the large room, and the men seated at the stage’s edge wave dollar bills, desperate for the attention of the girl dancing on stage.
