by S. Massery
I dig my wallet and phone out of the bag and zip it back up, then stuff the whole thing into the ceiling. The boards hold its weight, and I carefully replace the last one. Hopping down, I brush off my hands and wash them again for good measure.
I’ll regroup when I know I’m safe—and when the governor’s wife pays up. But until then… I have to disappear. Again.
28
Lux
Two years gone
“All rise,” the bailiff instructs.
We do, the rustle of fabric and creaks of the wooden benches the only sounds in the courtroom. The jury files back in, one at a time, and takes their seats. We sit. We wait.
The judge asks for their verdict, and I hold my breath.
I shouldn’t be here, but I can’t resist. My hair is darker, longer. It hangs in loose curls around my face, falling over my shoulders. My clothing screams courtroom reporter—you know, proper. I scored a fake pearl necklace from a costume shop, rubbed some oil on it to make it shine, and added it around the outside of my collared blouse.
“On one count of first-degree murder, we find Mr. Alan Whitmore… guilty.”
The courtroom breaks out into murmurs, but me? A weight simultaneously lifts off my chest and presses on my shoulders. How can I be relieved and guilty at the same time? Because he’s taking the fall for my crime.
An innocent man going to prison for my mistake.
Right. That’s why.
“You’re free,” someone says behind me.
The jury is still reading their verdicts—there were a slew of charges filed against the man, I guess. I didn’t follow the trial any more than I had to, but my curiosity pushed me here.
I twist around and meet Jameson DeSantis’s gaze.
“What are you going to do now, Lucy Page?”
I sigh. “I don’t know.”
He nods like he understands, then extends an envelope toward me. “We’d been keeping your name active with minimal activity.”
I take it and tuck it into my purse. “I was under the impression that you guys had wiped your hands clean of me.”
His eyes glitter. “Amelie is still my daughter-in-law, so the protection given to your parents extends to you—whether they wanted it to or not.”
I stiffen. “Let me guess, if it were up to them, I’d stay away forever?”
He leans back and doesn’t answer. He doesn’t have to—I know that’s exactly what they’d think, and probably even say out loud.
I have shitty parents. They weren’t the best to Amelie, but at least they liked her. They didn’t kick her to the curb the first chance they got. There’s only one person besides my sister that I ached to see.
And only his picture kept me sane for the past two years as I went to school and built my private investigation company. I mean, I’m a solo worker, but it’s still technically a company. Sort of.
“The governor.” Jameson motions for me to follow him.
I tense. It’s been too long since I had to actually talk to someone who knew me. The real me, not the girl I am now. This person I’ve become over the last two years—Amy Prague—is an upstanding citizen, and Lucy Page is so far from that mark.
Hell, Lucy Page just sentenced someone to life in prison for her crimes.
“What’s wrong with you?” His question snaps me from my thoughts.
I can’t meet his gaze. He leads me down the hall and outside. I bundle deeper into my jacket. Winter hit the city full force in the past week, dumping snow on us. The only reason I felt comfortable showing my face was because the trial was held at the district court in Stone Ridge. Much less chance of seeing anyone I know here. Rose Hill, or even Beacon Hill, would’ve been a gamble.
Same county, much different attitude.
“Alan Whitmore was incarcerated a year and a half ago on six counts of premeditated murder,” he informs me. “He pleaded guilty. He was in the middle of a burglary when the house’s occupants returned home, and he tied them all up and set the house on fire.”
I stare at him. That sort of thing would’ve made the news.
He lifts one shoulder. “I’m not particularly fond of sending innocent people to prison, Ms. Page. I can assume you feel the same.”
I shudder.
“He was already serving three consecutive life sentences. One more charge slapped on him wouldn’t have changed anything.”
“He wasn’t in custody when…?”
Jameson shakes his head. “Not yet arrested, actually. That happened a few weeks later. The prosecutor spun it that Whitmore was looking for another house to hit, but his timing was off. He was caught by one of the men we had hired as security, and he killed the man so he could escape.”
I twitch. It’s a good story, one I could see police latching on to if the right evidence was displayed.
“How’s my sister?” I ask.
I’ve barely had any contact with her—just a few texts here and there after her insane wedding day. Sometimes when I’m sleeping, I can still hear the echo of gunshots. She’s living in Italy now, well away from the spotlight the Mafia brings.
His lips quirk. “You can talk to her now, if you’d like.”
I shake my head. “Maybe.”
Two years is a long time to go.
“You can’t speak of this,” he adds. “Of what happened. You’re not free and clear—but no one is searching anymore.”
I sigh. “I’m starting to think no one was searching for me in the first place. It was a good ploy to get me out of the state, though.”
He guides me to a black car idling at the curb. He opens the back door, and I pause before I slide in. He joins me and glances my way. The driver meets his gaze in the rearview mirror, nods once, and sweeps us back into the throng of traffic.
“The governor, I believe we were discussing.”
“The new one?” I keep my expression blank.
“The one you framed.”
I snort. “Please.”
He eyes me curiously. “Who hired you to take those photos? His wife?”
This was months ago—although, the photos only came out to the media recently. Within the last six weeks. They were everywhere, incriminating the man.
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying, you’re welcome.” He leans back and glances out the window. “Who do you think made sure you had some way to survive?”
He can’t be implying what I think he’s implying—that my whole job is a fraud. That I’m a fraud, because he tossed things into my lap. No. I couldn’t have been under the DeSantis thumb for two fucking years.
Just another chess piece Jameson moves across the board, but I’m nothing special. The sacrificial pawn, I suppose.
“What did you do?” I ask.
Still smug, he doesn’t belie any sort of discomfort. He doesn’t shift. No guilt.
Not like me, rotting from the inside out in guilt and shame.
“The wife needed someone reliable, and I needed her husband out of the office.”
“Why?”
He smiles. “That’s for me to know, and you to find out… Or, maybe not.”
“It was your job,” I whisper. More shame, crashing over me. I hate the grimy feeling under my skin, the knowledge that he used me and I didn’t even realize it. “And, what, did you hire the mistress, too?”
“A call girl. Easily persuaded by cash.”
“Untraceable cash.”
Jameson twists toward me. “You’re a good investigator,” he says. “Very green, reckless, but you have the sort of brazen to make it. But I’ve got to ask you something.”
I sigh. “You may as well just spit it out, then.”
“Do you want to be Lucy Page again?”
Do I?
I haven’t been her in a while. I’ve been everything I think my parents would’ve been proud of: calm and restrained and quiet.
The opposite of who I think I used to be.
But which skin is more comfortable? The camoufl
age I’ve been hiding in, or…
My own?
“I miss it,” I admit. There’s a lot of things I miss, although my heart aches because I don’t know if they missed me.
“Take your true passport,” he says. “Get on a plane. Go visit your sister in Italy.”
I nod slowly. “Because my parents don’t give a shit.”
“They don’t.”
“And—” No, don’t ask about Theo. Don’t make the pain in my chest worse.
The car pulls up in front of my hotel. I’ve been living off the money the governor’s wife gave me, which now feels like DeSantis blood money.
I wrap my fingers around the handle, ready to spring out, but something stops me. Another question, one that might drive me crazy if I don’t find the answer.
“Was there another reason for wanting me gone?”
He watches me for a beat, then slowly inclines his chin. “You were against the wedding. We didn’t want your opinions tainting Amelie’s views.”
I flinch.
“We let you come to the wedding because I doubt she would’ve walked down the aisle otherwise,” he continues.
“So… everything was a manipulation. Getting me out of the way, then bringing me back in. How far would you go?” I consider him. “How far did you go?”
He chuckles. “What are you implying, Lucy? That I hired someone with a history of sexual harassment to work the party? That it wasn’t a coincidence you were left alone to be herded away?”
I stumble back. “He was going to hurt me.”
“You seemed proficient at keeping yourself safe. The burning, though…”
I turn away before I can reveal anything else. That it wasn’t me, but my silent protector. Theo managed to escape without a scratch on him. I thought I might’ve shown my hand by using him as my alibi, then asking Wilder to keep him out of it. But from Jameson’s words, they might not have put it together.
The lengths he’s willing to go…
“Goodbye, Lucille. Good luck with your future. You have at least one person eager for your return.”
I shiver, but I can’t look back now. I can’t go back. Not to Rose Hill, not to my parents. I can’t just hop on a plane and go see my sister. I can’t face Theo after what I’ve done. My heart aches at that, but I shove it down. The girl I was felt too much, all the time. This new version of me has kept her focus—and I can’t afford to lose it.
If Theo is still waiting on me, I need to make him stop.
Lucy Page is dead and gone. For good, this time.
29
Theo
Liam bursts into my apartment, his head swinging around. There’s Caleb by the window, Eli sitting on the counter next to the sink. The latter peels an orange, dropping chunks into the basin. The citrus is all I can smell, even from my position on the couch.
I’m mortified.
My car was stolen after Liam and Skylar drove it home. I managed to locate it easily enough, parked at the curb of my parents’ house. My childhood home. Like someone was just… returning it.
Not just someone, but Lux. I could almost smell her when I climbed in. It was adjusted for a shorter person, the mirrors angled differently, the seat lifted, and the steering wheel shifted down. I drove it in disbelief back to Boston, leaving it like a beacon outside my new apartment.
Part of me hated moving, loathed the idea that Lux might not be able to find me again if she came searching. But the car… she’ll find that, if anything.
But she won’t.
“What’s the nine-one-one?” Liam demands. “I just left Sky in a café with Masters.”
Caleb straightens. “The detective? Jim Masters?”
I groan. That detective has history with all of us, and it all seems to be bad. The fact that he’s crossed into Massachusetts can’t mean anything good.
“You okay?” Eli asks. “Why did you leave her with him?”
Liam groans. “Because you assholes said there was an emergency.”
“There is an emergency,” I say. “Lux is back. Sort of.”
He scowls. “It’s been two fucking years. I saw your car out front after you said it was stolen—”
“She put it in front of my mom’s house.” I stand and cross to the fridge, grabbing a bottle of water. “She’s back and she’s hiding. I just don’t know where.”
“It’s because of this.” Caleb tosses me his phone.
I look down at the headline. It’s from a small-time newspaper covering a trial. Alan Whitmore, found guilty of murder. The victim was a man found dead on the DeSantis estate. Even with the high-profile names involved, somehow this case never made a splash in the media.
No one seemed to care that a man was killed and burned during an engagement party.
Still, the memory of fire flashes in front of my eyes. I haven’t thought about what we did in too long. What I did to protect her. What I would do to keep her safe, if she gave me a chance. We would’ve been fine—no one was even looking in our direction.
“They probably interfered,” Caleb says. “We figured as much a year ago.”
I grunt and toss his phone back. Someone else taking the fall—a hardened criminal, nonetheless—just illuminates my failures. My mother called me when the police filed charges against the man, even though he was serving time back then. She wasn’t happy, per se. She believed in true justice.
But relief for her son overshadowed that.
“I have to find her.”
“She’s put you through hell,” Eli says quietly. “And you let her go.”
A growl slips past my teeth. “I could’ve said the same about you and Riley. But I kept my mouth shut.”
He lifts his chin. “It’s different. We—”
“Don’t you fucking dare say you have history.” I yank him off the counter, slapping the half-eaten orange out of his hand. “Because that’s just bullshit to compare your—”
“Easy.” Liam seizes my arm and tows me away from Eli. “He’s not saying that.”
“Sure I am,” Eli goads. “Poor little Theo and the girl he refuses to have. At least we all did something about it.” He gestures around the room. “Caleb wasn’t afraid to go after Margo. Riley and I figured our shit out. And Liam’s with Sky. They’re figuring their shit out. But you had her. She was obsessed with you, asshole.”
“And then she fucking left!” I lunge forward, but Liam’s quick hands hold me back.
Eli rolls his eyes, unfazed. “Sure she did. What would’ve happened if you weren’t a bag of dicks the night she disappeared? If she didn’t leave your old place and go back to campus?”
His words stab into me.
Because it’s a scenario I’ve laid awake at night thinking about. What if she had stayed with me? Whichever DeSantis coerced her into leaving would’ve waited all night in an empty room. Maybe, if she thought I could love her, that would’ve been enough to convince her to stay.
Maybe I could’ve been enough.
But I was convinced I don’t have love in me.
That I’m fundamentally broken.
“Do you get it?” Eli says, stepping in close to me. “Do you get that this whole thing is your fault?”
My face flames, and I’ve never wanted to hit someone so much as my best friend. Smash his face into the side of the counter until he was bloody and fucking silent. I can see how I’d do it, how I’d shake Liam loose and grab Eli.
I stare at him until he can feel the force of my silent threat.
“Stop,” Caleb calls. “Eli, Jesus, just back off.”
I step away, striding down the hall and slamming the door of my bedroom. I feel like screaming. If Lux were here, she’d say to just do it: scream. Let out the anger. The past two years, I’ve kept such a tight hold on it.
She was the only person I trusted to see it and not run for the hills. She pulled it out of me, a magnet to the toxins in my blood. The unfortunate truth is that I’ve been festering in my anger, letting it get the best of me.
/>
No one wants to touch me on the football field.
People give me a wide berth in classes, passing me on the field.
I can’t breathe with how much this sucks.
“Theo.” Caleb cracks the door. “She’s close. If she didn’t come up to Boston, she was at least in Rose Hill. We can find her.”
That wasn’t a come find me like every other time she’s taken my car. She stole it and planted it back at my house for one reason: to say goodbye. To tell me to give up.
“I can’t do this,” I admit. “I can’t just keep existing like this. I’m going fucking crazy.”
He nods and leans against the doorframe. “You’re not alone. When Margo…”
I glance up. His jaw is tight, and he can’t speak for a moment. He very clearly loves her.
“When Margo was taken, I thought I’d find her dead. And… I was convinced I would just die right along with her. My whole world was based on my anger at her, and that shifted to love before I realized it.” He doesn’t move toward me, but his voice drops. “I don’t think Lux is giving up on you. I think she’s scared of all the bullshit surrounding her.”
I shudder. “She’s never been scared.”
“They told her something to keep her away. Threatened that she’d be arrested, maybe, if she didn’t start over as a new person. Maybe they threatened you.” His eyes wander to my dresser.
Damn it if I don’t have her portfolio there. It’s closed. I haven’t flipped through it in a while, and there’s a light layer of dust on top. I scoured every picture for myself. I just wanted to know how she saw me.
But there was nothing but an empty sleeve halfway through.
Whatever it was, she took it with her.
“She doesn’t have anyone.” My gaze lifts. “Everyone she’s ever depended on left her.”
“Not you,” he points out.
I grimace. Even now, two years later, I can still remember our kiss. Sometimes I feel it when I’m half asleep, picturing her weight curled against my side. A pipe dream that will never become my reality.