by Alina Jacobs
"Why is he yelling like that?"
"I don't want to go!" Henry cried.
"I'm leaving," I told Garrett.
"Leaving where? What are you talking about? Have you finally lost your mind?" he exclaimed.
"I'm done," I said. "I'm just done." I picked up Henry and all his crayons and walked out.
"You forgot your jacket," Garrett called after me. Everything sounded fuzzy, and I didn't feel like I was quite there. I heard Garrett swear.
I was on autopilot on the drive home. I took Henry up to the clubroom with me. I pulled out a bottle of whiskey while he spun the antique globe. I knew he would probably break it, but I didn't care. Part of me wanted him to just destroy the whole house.
Eventually Henry wandered off. I sat in the chair, staring out the window. It grew dark. Josie didn't return. Was she with him? When had she met him?
I was furious and heartbroken. I sat in the pitch-dark room. I saw a dark figure creep across the yard, and the tiny house lights turned on. She must have been with him. That was why she stayed out so late. Was that why she had stayed out late the past few weeks? How long had this been going on?
It was after midnight when the door to the clubroom cracked open and Hunter walked in.
"Henry said you were possessed by a zombie," Hunter said, coming over to me.
"Josie's cheating on me," I rasped.
"Uh-huh." My older brother collected the bottle and the glass.
"She is!" I insisted.
"She doesn't really seem like the type," he said.
"I saw her; she was with another man."
"Is that what this was about?" I heard Garrett snap from the doorway. "You just spiral into the worst possible scenario. Did you see her kiss him, stick her hands down his pants?"
"Don't be crass!" Hunter scolded.
Garrett ignored him and scoffed, "Is this like that time you were convinced you had smallpox but really you were just so stressed you gave yourself hives?"
"She was laughing with him, and he gave her a piece of candy!" I yelled at my brother.
"Candy? Like a euphemism for a sexual favor?" Hunter asked.
"No, he gave her a piece of saltwater taffy," I said.
"Let me get this straight," Garrett said, his mouth quirking. "You saw Josie with a guy on the street, and she was being her usual Josie self, laughing and being friendly and eating candy."
"But she lied and said she was going to the store," I insisted.
"Maybe she went to the store and then met this guy," Hunter said in a patronizing tone. "He could be a friend from work."
"He doesn't work for me!" I yelled at my brother.
"We really don't seem to have a lot of information here," Hunter commented to Garrett.
"We have one piece of information," Garrett retorted. "Mace is well-known for being an overreactive, worst-case-scenario type of person. The canned food always has botulism. It's always about to not just rain but catastrophically flood. You saw something you have no context for, threw away everything you knew about Josie, then refused to act like a grown adult man and instead came in here to drink and sulk."
"I am not sulking," I said, glowering at my brothers. They really were the worst.
"This sounds like a classic case of Mace overreacting," Garrett said, turning to Hunter.
"Except—" We turned to the door. Greg was standing there, a dark look on his face. He walked in. "Except this time, Mace is not overreacting."
"I'm not?" I asked, shocked.
"No," Greg replied, pouring himself a drink. "This time you are actually underreacting." He took a sip of the scotch. "It's worse. It's so much worse than he ever imagined."
61
Josie
I left early the next morning. Mace clearly wanted some space.
I went to a cute little coffee shop and sipped a hot chocolate while I made a few edits to the presentation. I hoped it was enough to convince the property owners to sell to Mace and his brothers. I also tried to do some research into the couple I had seen with Anke but didn't find anything. I had nothing to go off of.
On my way to the PharmaTech offices, I stopped by Ida's General Store to pick up some snacks.
"I have mochi balls," Ida announced when I walked in. "Made locally. It's green tea ice cream wrapped in a Japanese sweet rice paste. Dottie's granddaughter has started making desserts. She's inspired by Chloe and the Grey Dove Bistro."
"Aren't we all?" I replied.
"Great news on the property front," Ida said as I brought my snacks to the register. "I convinced everyone to come to the meeting. Believe it or not, they said they were open to it. I talked you up," she said proudly. "Bert said he wouldn't mind selling if it meant keeping the green space. The rest of those old fools seem to think they're going to take their little dilapidated parcels with them to the great beyond." She snorted. "I know you'll set them straight. Especially my sister."
"Thank you so much," I said to Ida.
"It's next Tuesday," she said, "at the bingo hall. Harrogate is on the rise, but we need to be better. We need more young people here, and they don't want to have a bunch of vacant lots and burned-out buildings around. No one wants to raise their kids in a place like that."
"Harrogate is nice," I protested.
"It could be better," Ida sniffed. "You should have seen it in its heyday. It was something else. I was talking to this couple about it. His father was from Harrogate, worked at the chocolate factory. He and his wife are trying to adopt. They're an older couple."
"Uh-huh." Ida sure did like to talk my ear off.
"I mean, they seemed pretty old to be adopting, just between us," Ida continued, "but they said they had an almost-five-year-old boy they were going to take. So props to them for looking at an older child. They said he was healthy, blond, gray eyed. Said he was real cute. They were so excited! They had a GoFundMe up. They convinced a bunch of people from their church to donate." She pulled up a page on her phone. "Would you look at that?" she exclaimed, shoving the phone in my face. "Eighty thousand dollars over their goal. Isn't that something? I should start a GoFundMe."
"Wait," I said, grabbing the phone. I zoomed into the picture. It was the couple. The ones who had the meeting with Anke and Payslee's lawyer.
"I have to go!" I said, running out of the store.
"But your snacks!" Ida called after me.
"I'll come back for them!"
I ran to the car and texted the Agent Donley the link to the GoFundMe page. Then I raced to PharmaTech. I had to tell Mace about this. Henry could be in danger. I knew exactly what Anke was up to. She was trying to sell Henry to that couple. Somehow she had convinced Payslee that it was a good idea and she could make way more money than Hunter would ever bribe her with. With the GoFundMe plus whatever money the rich couple had, Anke would be walking away with a tidy sum.
I parked crookedly in one of the visitors' spots and sprinted into the building. I was huffing and puffing and sweaty when I stumbled into his office. Mace was sitting at his desk, writing in a notebook.
"There she is," he remarked, not looking up. It was not said in a playful manner. I stopped short.
When he finally raised his head, Mace's expression was menacing. He steepled his hands in front of his face. I looked over at the assistant's office. Anke wasn't there.
"I need to tell you something," I urged.
"I bet you do." His face was cold.
"Where's Henry? It's important!" I pleaded.
Tara walked in. "Good morning," she said brightly. She turned to sneer at me. "Is it that time already?"
"What time?" I asked, confused.
"Time for you to finally be thrown out," she said.
"Mace, listen to me. I have to tell you—"
"Is it about Anke and the fact that she was involved in a plot to sell my little brother to a rich infertile couple? Or was it the fact that she manipulated Adrian into handing over hundreds of thousands of dollars to her. Or was it the fact that you
knew that she was dangerous, knew that she was a scam artist, and let her waltz around here, setting her traps and wreaking havoc on my company and my family."
"I can explain. I just—" I looked wildly around. "She scammed me too—"
"Then why didn't you say anything, Josie?" he asked, his mouth a thin, angry line. "You lied to me."
"I didn't lie," I said in a small voice. "I just didn't tell the truth." I fought back the tears. "Is Henry okay?"
Mace's eyes narrowed. "Henry is safe," he said. "No thanks to you."
"I am so sorry," I cried, the tears spilling down my face.
Tara had a triumphant look on her face. "I told you she was no good," she said to Mace.
"The worst of it is," Mace said to me, "I trusted you. I loved you. I let you around my family. But that's my fault. You told me you were a terrible, no good, untrustworthy person. And you were right."
"I am so sorry," I begged. "I can make it up to you, I—"
"I don't want to hear it," Mace interrupted. "I heard all about how you and Anke were two peas in a pod. It shouldn't surprise anyone why you two got along so well. You're the same conniving, manipulative person."
"I love you," I said. But the words sounded hollow to my ears.
"No, you don't," he sneered.
I sobbed as Tara looked on. Having her witness my fall to rock bottom just made it so much more painful.
"Shall I have security escort her out?" Tara asked, her voice dripping with satisfaction.
"No," Mace barked. "Tara, Josie lied by omission, but you flat-out lied. Why did you recommend Anke come work here?"
"I—" she stammered, and I looked up at her.
"You knew that letter was a forgery," Mace continued.
"No, I didn't—"
"Yes, you did," Garrett said, walking in. "You said that you checked with the Holbrooks. A perusal of your phone records indicated that you did talk to one of the Holbrook secretaries that you knew. However, I talked to her last night. She said she told you she had no idea who Anke was. And you told Mace to hire her anyway."
"You were trying to get me fired!" I screeched at Tara.
"She said she knew Josie," Tara protested. "I was just trying to show everyone the truth."
"By bringing someone who committed multiple felonies into this office?" Garrett scoffed.
"I was trying to save you," she pleaded with Mace. "Josie had you under her spell. I was trying to expose her."
"Well, congratulations, you did," Mace said. Tara seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. But it was short-lived. "You're both fired," Mace said. "Turn in your electronics. Your things have already been packed. The boxes are at the reception desk."
I was numb as I did the walk of shame through the office. It was crawling with FBI agents.
In the lobby, Agent Donley was talking to the receptionist.
"Did you get my message?" I asked tearfully.
He nodded. "We already found the couple last night. They are in custody along with the lawyer. If you hear anything from Anke, or Payslee for that matter, please let us know. They have both disappeared."
Disappeared? That didn't sound good. But I had just been fired and had bigger problems than Anke to consume my thoughts. I needed to figure out where I was going to go.
Tara took her box and stomped out of the office. I followed slowly behind her with my own. The only things it held were the shirt that I had worn on my first day and two jars of candy.
62
Mace
After instructing Remy to hook up Josie's tiny house and pack up her things, I sat back at my chair, feeling numb.
The FBI agent in charge knocked on my door and came into my office. "We have all of the electronics Anke used and the ones your brother used to transfer the money. We have a forensics team looking at where she sent it."
"Thank you," I told him.
I sat at my desk after he left, staring at the opening where the window used to be. Garrett appeared in my field of view, and I shook off the cobweb feeling.
"How was Adrian able to transfer half a million dollars with no oversight?" I asked Garrett, proud of myself for how calm I sounded.
Garrett's jaw popped as he clenched it. "He was a Svensson, and the bank just authorized the payment."
There was a knock on the door. Two men in coveralls stood there.
"We're here to fix that," they said, pointing to the window. I nodded at them.
"Talk in my office?" Garrett asked. I followed him wordlessly across the hall.
I stood at the door, watching as the repairmen carefully lifted the heavy piece of glass and fitted it in the opening.
"I talked to the bank," Garrett said. "Anke sent it to an account in London and had it transferred from there to somewhere in Asia, it seems. Depending on where it is, we should be able to recover some of the funds."
"I don't even care about the money," I said. "I just don't understand why everyone has lost their fucking minds!" I wanted to pick up a chair and throw it, but I knew Garrett would be mad if I broke a window in his office.
"Mace?"
I whirled around. "Adrian," I spat. My younger brother shrank back. He reminded me of me when I was younger and my father would fly into a rage. I didn't want my little brothers to be afraid of me. I went to Adrian and pulled him into a hug. "It's just money," I told him. "I just don't want to lose you. Anke is dangerous. She could have really hurt you. That's why I'm upset. It's not the money."
"I'm upset about the money," Garrett retorted. "What were you thinking, Adrian? Half a million dollars to some random account?"
"I'm sorry! I don't know what's wrong with me." He sat down on the sofa. "You should fire me."
"I'm not firing my little brother," I said, patting his head.
"But you fired Josie," he said sadly. "It wasn't her fault. It was my fault."
"All of this would have been avoided if she had just come clean," I said.
"Yeah, but you don't know what Anke is like," Adrian said. "It was like she had me under a spell."
"You can't just use that as an excuse," Garrett snapped.
"It will never happen again," Adrian promised.
"It better not," Garrett told him. "Whatever the bank doesn't recover, you're going to work to pay back. Blood, sweat, and tears."
"Absolutely," Adrian said.
"You will start by getting lunch," Garrett said.
An hour later, Adrian was organizing the supply closet. He had ordered me a sandwich, but it sat untouched on my desk. The window was fixed. It was like Josie had never been there. I wondered if I had been too harsh. I was willing to give Adrian another chance, after all.
But Adrian is my brother. And he's not even twenty. He's just a kid. Josie should have known better.
I shook off the regret. It was 1:15, and I had a conference call.
I spent the rest of the day distracting myself with work. At 3:20 I left the office. My younger brothers would be back from school, and I wanted to spend time with them. It was unnerving that Anke had so easily found a couple to basically buy one of my brothers. I did have a lot of brothers, but I wouldn't trade a single one away.
I made Adrian come home with me. Payslee and Anke were still at large. The FBI hadn't found them, and Payslee's lawyer didn't know where either of them were. I had the whole house on lockdown. Several of my other brothers had come into town to make sure the kids didn't wander off. They were all cooped up inside and restless.
"Is Josie coming back?" Isaac asked when he saw me.
"No," I told him.
"Seriously? I need her to help me with a presentation!"
"She promised she would help me make a logo for my business," Otto whined.
"What business?" I asked him. "You're twelve."
"I'm making T-shirt designs to sell online," Otto boasted.
"What?"
Weston shrugged from his spot on the couch. "Kid's an entrepreneur."
"What's for dinner?" Theo whined. "I'm hungry."
/>
"Josie was going to make pizza tonight. She promised," Billy said, looking at me, annoyed.
"Well she's not here, is she? And she's not coming back, so find something else to eat," I barked.
"I don't see why," Isaac persisted. "It was Adrian's fault."
"It wasn't Adrian's fault," I said.
"I mean, it kind of was Adrian's fault," Archer said. He was eating a muffin and sharing pieces of it with several of the kids.
"Did you bring that back from Chloe?" I asked.
"No, actually Josie made this," he said. "It's really good. She said they were from some health-food recipe someone had posted online. She modified it because she said applesauce was no substitute for butter. But hey, it's got fiber and like half a zucchini in a single muffin. You can't even taste it. You should try it. It's good," he said, holding out a piece.
I ignored my twin. "I don't want Adrian being blamed," I told my brothers. "Anke is the person at fault."
"Then why isn't Josie here?" Arlo shot back.
"I don't want to hear anything more about it!" I yelled at them. "We'll have baked chicken and steamed vegetables for dinner."
"I want pizza!" Henry screeched.
I left them to their complaining. My suit suddenly felt constricting, and I needed a drink. I looked out of the large windows of the clubroom over to the spot where Josie's tiny house used to be.
"This sucks," I said to the glass.
The door opened, and one of my brothers walked in. "I'll start dinner in a little bit," I said, not turning around.
"I don't see how," Hunter said, taking my glass away from me. "The chicken's all frozen."
"I need that," I said, halfheartedly fighting him for the glass.
"You need to go find Josie," he countered.
"She almost got Henry kidnapped!" I shouted.
"You're the one who said Anke was to blame. Josie's also a victim. She lost eighty thousand dollars to Anke," Hunter said.
"She showed bad judgment," I snarled.
Hunter sighed and took a sip from the glass. "I know she did, but trust me, from someone who's been in her position, she is very, very sorry."