by Geneva Lee
He nods grimly. He might want to believe the investigators are going after me to rattle him, but we both know I had just as much opportunity that evening. Plus, given my family’s history with the Wests, nearly as much motive as well.
“You weren’t with me the whole night,” I repeat, latching on to that fact. If he thinks I’m going to let him play the martyr, he can climb right back off that cross. “Which means I was alone, too. If they’re going to make you a suspect, they might as well make me one as well. Besides that, you’re not going to be able to find who did this by yourself. Not if you’re constantly being dragged in for questioning.”
“You think they’re going to give you an extra recess while I stay in the principal’s office?” he points out dryly.
I don’t admit that he’s right. Not when I need to sound confident about what’s at stake. Instead I fall back on classic diversionary tactics. “Why are they so focused on you anyway? You weren’t the only one there with motive. I think they’re just being lazy.”
Judging from how his fingers tighten on the steering wheel, I’ve hit a nerve. “It’s more than that. Mackey has a vendetta. My lawyers say she wants to see me burn for this.”
“Why?”
“I don’t have an answer for you, but I’m going to find out the reason she has it in for me.”
“Sounds like step one of a plan.” Mission accomplished. If he’s going after the real murderer, he’ll need my help—especially since the cops already think he’s guilty. We can’t rely on justice being done.
“You should stay,” Jameson says as though he can read my mind. There’s a firmness in his words that dares me to question him.
“Too bad I’m not the type to take orders,” I inform him. “I’m coming back.”
“Emma, I thought I needed you to come back with me and even though I miss you, I’ll never forgive myself if something happens to you again. We don’t know who murdered my father, but we also don’t know who pushed you through the glass that night.”
“Considering you live in a casino, there’s a distinct lack of surveillance cameras in your house.”
He blows out a hollow laugh before reaching over to clutch my hand. “Dad called that penthouse his oasis. He said nowhere was safer than at the very top of what he had built. I guess he never considered how far he had to fall.
“Whoever did this came into my home invited because there’s no other way they could’ve gotten past the security team. One of us opened the door to his murderer and let them walk right in.”
“It’s not your fault,” I say in a soft voice. He won’t believe it, but he needs to hear it.
“Maybe not,” he admits. “My relationship with my dad was complicated, but I owe him justice.”
The sun fading swiftly behind the mountains casts a purple haze across the horizon. As the blazing orb disappears from view and the moon takes up its watch, I get out of the car and go to the driver’s side. Before he can protest, I climb in and straddle him. Wrapping my arms around his neck, I gaze into his eyes.
“I want to come back with you.” I cut him off before he can respond. “I’m pretty damn good at taking care of myself in case you failed to notice.”
“I didn’t,” he says, a wry smile playing at his lips. “Sometimes I think that scares me more than anything.”
I raise an eyebrow at this revelation. “Strong women scare you?”
“No,” he assures me in a gruff voice as his hands dig into my hips, urging me closer. “I like strong women; I just don’t want you to do anything stupid to protect me. Whoever did this, Duchess, isn’t going to confess if we find them.”
“I don’t want them to confess,” I say in measured tones. “I want them to pay.”
“My father wasn’t a good man, but he was my father. I can’t help but think that whoever did this probably had a good reason.” His words send a chill rippling up my spine. It settles in the roots of my hair until I feel the coldness of it all over.
If the murderer had a reason, what would stop him from piling up more collateral damage? Because in order to get past the lies, we’d have to get closer to the truth—and the person who killed Nathaniel West.
Chapter 6
The house is dark when I tiptoe through the foyer. I refused Jameson’s request for me to stay with him at Levi’s house. I wouldn’t put it past my mother to file a missing person’s report. After all, as she recently reminded me, I’m only seventeen. The last thing I need is to get Jameson any more police face time. Given the traumatic dinner earlier, my guess is that mom popped a few Xanax and drifted into the Valley of the Dolls.
But light catches my attention as I make my way to my bedroom. It seeps through a crack in Hans’s office door. I hesitate while considering my options. I can go on having a detached relationship with my stepfather or I can call him out on his plans to make a movie based on my boyfriend’s life. Neither seem like very appealing options, but I can’t go on living under this roof if he plans to use me as a source of information about Jameson.
I creep toward the open door, then knock softly. When there’s no answer, I push it open to discover the room is empty. A few scripts are strewn across the desk and curiosity gets the better of me. Wandering over, I sift through the pages and head shots left out until a photo of a familiar face slips out of a file folder marked “Jameson.” My heart sinks when I see the notes scribbled on the bottom of the photo of Levi Row. I wonder how much they offered him to sell out his old college buddy. He mentioned that he was about to take on a serious role, and the Academy loves biopics. I stuff him and his traitorous smile back into the folder and sit down not certain what will be worse: if I tell Jameson or if he hears it from Entertainment Weekly.
After shuffling through a few more piles, I find a script titled Wild West.
Cringe.
I can only hope that’s a working title. Flipping through the pages, I discover how thoroughly Hans has researched the situation. He might have played dumb about Jameson being my boyfriend at dinner. But unless he hasn’t read his own script, he had no problem agreeing to direct a sex scene that hadn’t happened between our characters. With my luck, they’ll get some blonde bombshell like Blake Lively for me and I’d get to spend the rest of my life feeling inferior to my fictional counterpart and her fictional sex life. I know better, but I keep reading. It turns out that fictional me is a bit of a slut. My stomach turns over and I rip the page in half, crumple the pieces into balls and throw them into the trash can. If I had matches, the script would already be on fire. Picking up the rest, I dump it on top of the torn pieces. I’m not wasting my time ripping up one-hundred pages sensationalized lies about myself and my boyfriend. Opening the desk drawer, I search for matches. Instead under a pile of office supplies, I find a file marked Becca. My hands tremble as I flip it open to find a police report detailing the accident that killed her. I can’t bring myself to read about the crash. I lived through it. No amount of clinical objectivity and police lingo could erase those memories. For just a moment, the smell of burnt rubber wafts around me and the rolling sensation in my stomach gets worst. I shake my head until the memories fade. The file doesn’t contain much else: an insurance policy, obituary, and the death certificate. I suppose someone had to care enough to keep these things, but it surprises me that it’s Hans. I trace her name. That’s all she is now, words on paper. Becca is a collection of memories and facts-date of birth, time of death, mother, father. The tip of my index finger stops on the word typed under name of father.
Unknown.
Why would Becca’s death certificate list her father as unknown? Mom and Dad had been divorced before the accident but that didn’t mean he wasn’t her father. It didn’t make any sense unless...
I continue to stare at it as if it will start to make sense or forge a new meaning, but I’m no closer to making sense out of it when Hans clears his throat from the doorway. I slam the folder shut hurriedly.
“Can I help you, Emma?” His large
body fills the door frame and I shake my head. “I see you’ve been reading my script.”
“You’ve got a few details wrong,” I inform him in a cold voice. I shove Becca’s file underneath the ones containing head shots before I lounge back in his office chair and grip the arms until my hands hurt.
“I’d be more than happy to consult with you and Jameson on the project.”
“I doubt he’s interested in helping make a movie that claims he’s guilty of murdering his father.”
“Don’t you know that fame is the new jury of your peers?”
“Jameson isn’t on trial for his father’s murder.” My protest sounds weak, even to me.
“He will be,” Hans assures me. “Let me help him.”
“And you making a movie saying he did it is going to get him off. Pardon me, but I call bullshit.” Hans doesn’t balk like my mother at my use of curse words. Instead, he walks inside the office and takes the seat across from me.
“He’s young, good looking. He had to have a reason to do it. If the audience likes him it won’t matter if he’s guilty.”
“He didn’t do it,” I repeat myself, but Hans either doesn’t hear me or doesn’t care.
“Perhaps there’s a tragic story. His father hit him or molested him.”
“Oh my God. Do you hear yourself?” I stand up knocking a few pieces of paper to the floor. “You can’t just make things up.”
“Of course I can. I work in Hollywood,” Hans chuckles derisively.
“Does mom know that you put a sex scene featuring her daughter in this movie?”
“She already knows that you’re his alibi,” he says meaningfully.
“That doesn’t mean we have sex.”
“You’re really so winningly innocent.” He pauses and looks me up and down. “It’s going to be hard to cast you. I need an actress that can play naive but fuckable.”
“I need to go throw up now.” My hand flies to cover my mouth as I try to keep the churning at bay. But as I round the corner of the desk, he stands and steps in front of me.
“Aren’t you going to ask me about the other thing?”
I swallow and try to channel some of that winning innocence. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“It’s part of the charm,” he says, “how terrible of a liar you are.”
I try to push past him but he holds me in place. “Ask me.”
There’s a threat running through he’s words now.
“Why do you have that file on Becca?” My voice is small, because I don’t want to know the answer. Not while I’m still trying to wrap my head around that one word: unknown. I knew my sister. She’d been there every day of my life. I’d been born into a world that was already hers and nothing has felt right since she left it. The idea that her existence—and my life—are comprised of lies is too much to bear.
“Becca was very special to me,” Hans says. His grip on my arm loosens but he doesn’t let me go.
“I know.” As much as I don’t want to fill in that unknown with his name, it can’t be helped.
“You do?” he asks in surprise.
“I saw…” What exactly did I see? The certificate itself proves nothing, which means I’m about to take a big leap without a safety net.
“Saw what, Emma?” he demands. He presses his palms flat on the desk and leans in to catch my eye. “How long have you known?”
“A few minutes,” I answer in confusion.
He bristles as if my lack of long-term study of the subject affronts him. “You never suspected?”
“Why would I suspect that?”
“She didn’t tell you?”
“She knew?” If Becca had known that we had different fathers, she’d taken that secret to the grave. If that’s true, she’d been my best friend and I hadn’t known her at all.
“You gathered the truth from that stack of papers. You’re very intuitive.” His fingers slide up my bare arm. It takes a second to process the meaning behind his touch but my body backs away before my mind catches up.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“I miss your sister,” he says. “You look like her, you know?”
My mouth goes dry. “We were sisters.”
“You remind me of your sister. You’re as beautiful as she was, maybe even prettier.” He moves toward me and I scramble to think of a way out. “I used to screw her on that desk.”
“You were her father.” The accusation spills out of me and stops him in his tracks.
“What?”
“That’s the secret. The one that you were hiding.” Even as I say it, the truth forms with startling clarity, but now I want it to be something that’s as benign as my mother lying about an old fling and then marrying him later. Because the new picture in my head can’t be erased.
“I’m afraid only he and your mother know who her father is. Although I suspect your dad knows as well. Your sister was ambitious,” he continues, and I want to scream at him to stop talking about her because I don’t want his memories of her. I want mine. I want to believe I was her best friend. I want to believe that the furthest she ever got was with a Topher Drake at his Halloween party her junior year. “I loved your sister.”
“No, you didn’t,” I correct him.
“That’s not fair. I love you both.”
“I didn’t ask for your love.” I rush toward the other end of the desk but my foot catches on the rug and I tumble down into the chair.
“Becca had dreams,” Hans tells me, “and dreams take money.”
“Do you even know the difference between the truth and lies anymore?” I start to push myself up but he leans over me.
“That pretty little mouth of yours will get you into trouble.” His hot breath, still stinking of tonight’s shrimp entree, makes me gag. “I’m a reasonable man. For instance, take this sex scene that’s bothering you. Maybe you didn’t sleep with him.” He stands up and his fingers find his belt buckle.
NO. NO. NO.
It’s the only word I can process but I can’t get it out of my mouth. My heart pounds against my rib cage like a trapped animal trying to break free. I want to run, but I’m frozen in place, afraid that the slightest movement will encourage my predator to lunge.
“Maybe you gave him head,” he suggests. “I can see you doing that.”
I struggle to find my voice and when I do questions flood from me.“Is this how it was with you two? You forced her into doing what you wanted?”
“Becca liked to please me. Maybe you should be a little more like your sister.” He unbuttons his trousers. “Why don’t you show me what happened that night? Show me how I need to rewrite the scene.”
Sensing my opportunity, I find the courage to stand up. I’m careful to push the chair back to give myself more room. Hans mistakes that for acquiescence.
“That’s good,” he coaxes. His hands reach to rest on my shoulders so that he can gently urge me to my knees.
“I think the whole scene needs a rewrite,” I tell him before I swiftly introduce his groin to my kneecap. He’s down long enough for me to get out of the room and into the hall. I pull my cell phone out of my pocket and dial 911. When he stumbles to the doorway and starts to lunge, I hold up the screen. “One more step and all they hear is me yelling for help.”
“You’re nothing like your sister.” He spits at my feet.
“No, I guess I’m not.”
* * *
In my room, I lock the door and shove a few things in a bag, makeup, a couple T-shirts, my swimsuit, and grab my laptop. There’s a 10% chance I can convince my mom to mail me the rest, but I can’t tell her what happened, so she’ll probably hold it hostage until I’m brave enough to show up at her door again.
You remind me of your sister. Hans words swim in my head until I’m dizzy trying to forget them. It’s not like the first time I’ve been compared to Becca, but this was different. I resist the urge to walk into the shower, fully clothed, and turn th
e water to the melt-your-skin off setting. Nothing can wash this away.
I send two text messages, the first to Jameson. I didn’t bother to type more than SOS. Not while my fingers are still shaking. To Josie, I managed to get out two words: Coming home.
Now I just have to wait and not go crazy, which feels impossible. I want to get away from here and pretend this never happened.
Instead, I stare in the mirror for a moment trying to find Becca hiding in my green eyes. I’m having a hard time picturing her. I can recall all the facts: strawberry blonde hair instead of my sandy blonde, more freckles, particularly on her nose. She never tanned if she could help it. I have all the pieces of the puzzle but it’s getting harder to figure out how to put them together. That’s the real cost of grief. People you lose slowly slip away until they’re nothing more than a list of memories you can’t recall.
“Get yourself together,” I command the girl in the mirror, but she looks scared and small. I don’t want to hug her, though, I want to slap her. Instead I wander back into my bedroom. I could pack another suitcase, but somehow I don’t want any of these things anymore, not if they were bought with Hans’s money. My eyes fall on a framed picture from last summer. Becca and I are laughing as mom and Hans try to look serious in the background. We need a family picture, mom had said. This was as close as we’d gotten. Now it’s all we have. I grab it off the desk and fling it to the ground.
You break it, you buy it, right?
I’d been bought with private school tuition, a new car, and my mother’s happiness. What had he bought her with?
Bending down, I pick up the frame, shaking the rest of the broken glass free so that I can pluck the photo out. It should be comforting to see my sister staring back at me given literally only moments ago I couldn’t conjure up her face, but it’s the exact opposite. I’ve looked at this picture every day this summer, but today Becca seems different. Is her smile forced? Is she really laughing? Did he assault her and she covered up for him, thinking no one would believe her, not even me? Hans wants me to believe the worst, but what if he’s telling the truth? What happened between Hans and Becca?