“Come on, Sib. Cut the shit.”
“Roger told you guys already?” I act surprised. “And here I signed an NDA.”
“I ran into Leslie in the hallway after I passed you.” He sighs. “This is just a sorry excuse for them to push you out.”
I don’t point out Leslie wasn’t in the office before I left.
“I’ll do my penance,” I say. “Maybe it’ll be a good disconnect from the world.”
“If you say so, but I don’t think you’ve done anything wrong,” he says nimbly. “As long as we’ve been friends, I’d tell you the truth.”
“Thanks for suggesting I take the stairs today.”
“No problem, Sib.” He softens his tone. “It wasn’t fair for you to run into the other attorneys like that.”
We end our call, and between the sun and the liquor, I end up shutting my eyes, forgetting about my mission. A full-on throttle startles me from my hours-long nap, and I see five missed calls from Chuck. The roaring engine is a dead giveaway for the homeowner’s Porsche 911 Turbo. I would know, considering I’ve been in that very vehicle more times than I can count.
With mounting apprehension, I watch as the gate slowly opens, and the sports car is carefully finessed up the small incline to avoid a collision with the concrete underneath the low chassis.
Hurt by his actions and feeling careless, I try the alleyway, thinking I might get a different vantage point of the two of them. I’m fuming and want nothing more than to catch them in the act.
It’s a tight fit, and when I make it through the narrow entrance, a block wall prevents me from viewing anything on the premises, him or her. It’s pointless to climb the concrete, since it’s so smooth I wouldn’t be able to find a foothold.
Disappointed, I gun the engine, and in my haste, I take the corner too fast. Instead of making a smooth entrance onto the road, I end up on the sidewalk, clipping a bright-yellow fire hydrant. As I swerve to avoid more damage, the nose of my Tesla slams into a retaining wall behind it. The hood crumples instantly, and smoke fills the air as the sound of metal scrapes into the unforgiving cement.
Startled by both the impact and my airbag deploying, I manage to toss the bottle in the back seat before I lose consciousness.
CHAPTER 9
Sibley
When my eyes flicker open, it takes a moment to convince myself there’s not a football helmet situated on my head. An excruciating pain squeezes like a tight fist around my skull. My hand moves to my forehead, where I connect with gauze instead of my skin.
My throat is parched, as if coated in a solid layer of cotton.
Troubled, I stare down at the watercolor-print duvet covering me. “How did I wind up in my bed?” I murmur, bewildered at the pain that radiates from my clavicle. It feels like I sat in the sun for too long and burned one particular area of my body to a crisp.
Coughing, I struggle to sit up and adjust my position comfortably—it’s made difficult by the razor-sharp pain searing from my left side when I twist toward the bottled water on the nightstand.
What in the world happened to me?
“Holden,” I call out hoarsely, my voice barely making a dent in the cavernous master.
My eyes dart around the room for my purse, but I don’t see the tan leather in its usual spot on the dresser.
“Holden,” I try with more emphasis, wanting my phone.
I hear a door slam downstairs and sudden heavy footsteps on the stairs. The door whips open, but instead of Holden, it’s Chuck. His longish graying hair is in a ponytail, and his shirt is covered in red splotches.
Puzzled, I ask, “What’re you doing here?”
He fixes me with a peculiar gaze.
“And you’ve got Kool-Aid or something on your shirt.”
“You had an accident.” He leans against the wall with his arms crossed. “This is your blood.”
“An accident?”
“You totaled your car.”
“That’s impossible.” I squint my eyes at him. “What day is it?”
He appears unfazed.
“I was at work,” I say stubbornly.
“Except you weren’t. You were spying on—”
Before he can finish, Holden stalks into the room, and his blue eyes, his best feature, widen as they spot me seated upright against the headboard, multiple pillows behind my back.
“Thank God.” He hurries to my side, his tall frame leaning down as he kisses my cheek gently. “You scared the hell out of me.” His soft beard rubs against my skin, annoying me. It’s a source of contention between us. I keep asking him to shave the damn thing; he keeps resisting.
Groaning at the pain, I admit, “I’m still not sure what happened.”
“You hit a fire hydrant,” Chuck offers from across the room. “Followed by a concrete wall.”
Holden’s relief is short lived after hearing this, his mouth twisting into a frown. He steps back from my side to sag onto the mattress near the foot of the bed.
“Your colleague here”—Holden waves toward Chuck and directs an accusatory glance at me—“whom I’ve never met, brought you home.”
I concentrate on the mirrored dresser behind his head, incapable of returning his silent but deadly stare. He removes his glasses and cleans the lenses on his T-shirt, a habit that buys him time to calm down.
Chuck cuts in. “Your wife and I have done work together for the past five or six years. She hired me for a case, and I was in the neighborhood.”
“You just happened to be in the ‘neighborhood’ where Sib was when she had a car accident?” Replacing his glasses on his face, Holden looks incredulous. “What exactly were you two doing?”
“You can’t accuse me of sleeping with everyone,” I snap.
Holden glowers at me, again removing his glasses for a second cleaning.
“I’m not sure what’s going on, Holden,” I say weakly. “But from your tone, I can tell you’re upset. Is this about my car?”
His voice is laced with contempt. “Do you remember what happened today, Sibley?”
I close my eyes against the pounding in my head that strikes me like a hammer, blow by blow. “I’m in a lot of pain. Can I please have something?”
“With your history,” Holden says briskly, “there’s no way I’m giving you any type of opioid.”
“Then maybe I need to go to the hospital and have a real doctor check me out.”
“A doctor already did that as a favor to me,” Chuck snaps. To Holden, he grunts, “He left something comparable for her to take. I’ll go get it.”
“Who left what?” I screech. “Can I have some water, please?”
Neither one acknowledges my questions, and when I hear Chuck’s footsteps pounding down the stairs, I’m forced to open my eyes.
The bed squeaks underneath Holden’s weight as he shifts to hand me the bottle. A coolness hits my palm when he thrusts it into my hand.
“Thank you,” I murmur. After unscrewing the cap, I tilt my head back and take a couple of long swigs. “I feel like I was in a car accident.”
“Well, you look like it. You gave me quite the scare.” Holden’s warm hand settles on my shoulder. “I heard a knock on the door, and then Chuck was carrying you in the house. I had no idea who he was and thought he had hurt you and was trying to extort us or something.”
“Extort us?” I moan. “For what?”
“I don’t know. I hadn’t thought it through.” He sighs. “You were bruised and bleeding, and it’s the first thing that came to mind. And then I thought about the conversation earlier. Between your pictures and the dating profile, it became an amalgam of uncertainty.”
“What pictures?”
He squints at me. “Don’t you remember talking to me this morning?”
I stutter, “I know I got up this morning and went to the gym . . .” A block of time has been erased, as if the day’s been split into two parts. “You were still in bed when I left this morning.” Then, accidentally moving my body
too fast, I grimace.
“We talked this morning, fought, actually, about you dating other people.”
My eyes widen. “What’re you talking about?”
“You don’t recall your dating profile? The provocative photos I saw?”
I want to furiously shake my head, but slowly is all I can manage, the throbbing making my movements jerky and sluggish.
“Never mind.” He squeezes my hand in his. “It’s not important right now.”
“What happened to me?” My free hand drifts over my throat and collarbone area.
“The airbag deployed, thank God, especially since you weren’t wearing your seat belt. You’ve got some burns and lacerations from the airbag and shattered glass.”
“Where was I?”
“Chuck said near your office.” His voice is resigned. “You’re lucky you weren’t arrested and charged with multiple infractions.”
“What do you mean?”
“You were drunk.”
“No way.”
“Yes way.”
“Holden,” I protest. “I was at work.”
“Until you lost your job.”
My mind spins out of control when he says this. Suddenly, tears burn my eyelids. “What happened to my job?”
“Answer me this.” Holden curls his hands into fists. “Why were you over by his place?”
“Whose place?”
“Sib . . .”
“I don’t know what’s going on right now.”
“How convenient.”
I withdraw into the sheets. “What happened at the firm? What happened to my job?”
“They asked you to take a leave of absence.”
Suspicious, I ask, “How do you know?”
As much as I hate lying to Holden about what I remember, I have to play dumb. I might not remember the accident, but I do remember everything before the crash. Unable to fold my cards yet, I find it easier to claim temporary amnesia at this point.
“Because they told me they were going to,” he confesses. “They asked my opinion first. We discussed an intervention. Luckily, Chuck brought the envelope with him from your vehicle that contains the disciplinary measures taken against you, which frankly couldn’t have come at a better time.”
Curious, I ask, “And you think they’re fair?”
“I think asking you to go to rehab is more than reasonable.” He huffs. “They could’ve just as easily fired you.”
“Rehab!” I yell in outrage. “Come on, Holden, you’re crazy.” I expect him to crack a smile and tell me he’s joking, but his mouth remains in a tight line. “You have to be kidding me.”
“My wife is all banged up, lucky she didn’t kill herself or someone else in a drunk driving accident, and this is what you want to say to me?”
“Holden,” I plead, “I’ll quit drinking. But rehab? That’s ludicrous.”
“You’ve said that before.”
“But I mean it this time.”
“Sibley . . .”
“This is a wake-up call.”
“It should be, but I fear it’s not.” He throws his hands in the air. “We’re out of options.”
I don’t know what to say, so I stare down at my hands, observing small cuts on both knuckles. Before I can think of an answer, a loud tap on the doorframe causes me to look past Holden at Chuck’s sun-wrinkled face.
His loud baritone carries across the room. “You don’t have a choice in the matter, Sibley.”
“What’re you talking about, Chuck?”
Without breaking eye contact, he crosses the room and hands me a pill. “Here’s something for the pain.”
I put it on the tip of my tongue and swallow it with the rest of the water.
“What don’t I have a choice about?” I finish.
“I’ll make you a deal.”
“Charles,” I sigh, using his real name. The name he hates to be called.
“It’s straightforward. You should’ve been arrested and charged with a DUI.”
I give him my best, albeit pained, smile. “You called your cop buddies, and I appreciate the favor; I really do . . .”
“And took you to my doctor friend. And got your car towed to the junkyard. And brought you home.” His brief glance nails me to the headboard. “Let me be clear. There is no second chance. Or fourth. Or seventh. You have a drinking problem, Sibley. Your work has asked you—no, instructed you—to go to a clinic. If I tell them what happened or breathe a word of this to them, they’ll fire you in a heartbeat, whether you’re charged with driving under the influence or not.”
“Why would you do that?” I grit my teeth. “Are you threatening me?”
“No.” His voice softens. “You remind me of my own children, and I’m not going to let you just trash your life. You’ve worked hard, and I know you’ve had a hard go of it, losing your father, having an absentee mother . . .”
Taking a quick peek at Holden, I can tell he’s hurt this strange man he’s never met knows about my past when it’s hard for us to discuss.
“How did you know about . . .” I hold up a hand. “Who told you?”
“I’m a PI. You don’t think I investigate colleagues I work with too?”
“Don’t you dare bring my parents into this,” I say, but without conviction.
Chuck points at Holden. “Your husband loves and cares about you. The firm cares about you. We want you to get better. We’re rooting for you. All of us. But we can’t do the work for you; you got to take ownership of that part.”
I sniffle loudly. “You would never do this to your own kid.”
“I absolutely would, and I did. My son, Joseph.” He motions for Holden to switch spots with him. As he settles next to me on the bed, his eyes drill into my tearful ones. “Joe got in trouble for theft and drugs and was going down a nasty path. I put him behind bars when I was an officer. Hardest damn arrest I’ve ever made.”
“You put your own son in jail?”
He nods. “And I don’t regret it one bit. He needed that to straighten out. And now I’m going to serve you up some tough love as well.” His hand swipes a tear from my cheek. “You could have been killed today.”
“But I was just trying to help,” I whisper.
“I told you nothing good would come of it.”
Since I don’t remember, I don’t bother to argue, but that doesn’t mean I can’t search my memory for a reason I would go against Chuck’s advice.
“Sib.” Chuck cuts into my pensive thoughts. “I’ve known you for a long time. Go to rehab. Get your head right. I’m going to keep after the other case we were working on, but I’m calling a time-out on the Marconas.”
“But what about . . .”
“No rebuttals.”
Glancing between Holden and me, he adds, “I have a letter from my cop friend. Your license is automatically suspended for ninety days, but if you go to rehab and complete the program successfully, you won’t be charged with driving under the influence.”
“I don’t think that’s legal.”
“Sibley.” Holden stomps his foot. “You will sign off on this, or we will have other matters to discuss.”
Chuck shakes his head at him, as if in warning. “You don’t have anything to discuss right now except Sibley’s health and mental wellness.”
“Oh, really?” I challenge Holden. “Like what?”
Blushing crimson, Holden doesn’t engage, likely realizing he’s about to unleash our own marital problems on someone he doesn’t know. “The firm was making you sign off on rehab, anyway,” Holden says pointedly. “To keep your job.”
Chuck’s eyes look troubled at this declaration, but he says nothing. Instead, he leans forward and grips my hand in his large one. “I’ll talk to you soon, okay? Papers are downstairs.” Chuck nods at Holden. “You have my cell, right?”
“I do now.”
I motion to where my handbag usually rests on the dresser. “Speaking of that, I need mine. Did you happen to bring my purse home
?”
“I did.” Chuck beckons to Holden. “I gave it to your husband.”
“Good. Call me if you need anything.”
“Let me walk you out,” Holden offers, following him out of the room.
“Bye, Chuck,” I sputter, scared I’m going to drown in a puddle of tears.
I hear the two of them talking downstairs, but I can’t make out the words. I wait for my husband to come back and unleash a violent maelstrom of words on me, but the controlled disappointment in his voice is worse.
“We leave next week for the . . .” His voice cracks. “For the facility. That’ll give you some time to rest and heal.”
I stare at the ceiling, unable to meet the aqua pools of chagrin in his eyes. After a light stroke to my wrist, he disappears from the room.
Smashing the pillows beneath my head, I restlessly wait for sleep to come. Since I can’t move to my usual side position, I lie still on my back, my groggy eyes flickering open and shut as the whir of the fan lures me to sleep.
CHAPTER 10
Sibley
Dreading rehab, I alternate between sleep, depression, and frazzled nerves. Recovering from a car accident is one goal. Surviving the shadow of my husband is another. Holden’s been overbearing, leaving the house only for work and the gym.
Before Holden goes to the university to teach his night class, my best friend from college shows up wearing a guilty smile, as if hiding a secret from me.
I know Holden asked Adrienne to keep an eye on me. They’ve become friends over the years, so he implicitly trusts her. It helps she’s a counselor at a high school and can put anyone at ease with her warmth and snorting laughter. She’s a lot more soft spoken than I am, but she strengthens her tone when she needs to get her point across. It can be razor sharp and deadly when she’s pissed. I’ve always told her she’d make a good trial lawyer.
Adrienne and I bonded in undergrad over family tragedies and our love of Sex and the City. Looks-wise, we’re complete opposites. Adrienne’s curvy, long legged, and tall; I’m thin and of average height. I’m blonde, blue eyed, and fair skinned. She’s African American and has the most incredible, one-of-a-kind brown eyes with gold flecks in them.
Because of my soreness, we embrace in an awkward hug before I lead her to the living room to watch—what else?—reruns of Sex and the City. Making small talk, we settle in on the couch, half watching the show.
The Imposter Page 9