by Katie Cross
The feeling of a stone crushed my heart as I dashed off a quick text telling Antoine to say nothing, then shoved my phone in my pocket. Before I could hurry back into the store, a hand touched my arm. I whipped around with a muffled cry in my throat to find Mark standing there. Concern darkened his features.
“Stell?”
“The bank,” I croaked. “I need to get to the bank right now.”
My hands trembled long after we left the bank. Long after I shoved the $20,456 dollars that constituted everything in my old business and my life into the inside pocket of my jacket. Long after we turned out of the parking lot and I sank lower in my seat to plead quietly, “Please take me back to Adventura.”
Then I rolled down the window when we crossed a bridge and I chucked my phone into it.
Mark asked no questions while we rushed down the winding canyon highway. The farther civilization fell away behind us, the better. My mind moved too fast to be productive. Unable to do anything, I let the thoughts run amok for a while.
Paper trail, I thought. No more phones. Nothing but email now. Could I call the feds back, tell them what happened? No. What would they do?
Besides, I didn't have a phone now. Maybe that had been a bit too rash. What about Grandma?
By the time we made it back to Adventura, the mess that had become my brain had already populated a to-do list. I lacked only post-it notes to make it all very clear. Without a single word of explanation, I jumped out of the Zombie Mobile. Before I sped-walked to the cabin, I skidded to a stop and whirled around.
“Call me Stella now, not Stella Marie? Never Marie.”
Mark blinked, halfway out of the truck. He shrugged.
“Sure.”
“Have you received any phone calls, text messages, or emails from someone unknown? A Joshua?”
He glanced at his phone. “No.”
Relief made me momentarily weak. “Good. If an unknown number calls, don't answer. Don't answer any text messages or emails. Okay?”
He nodded.
I spun around and jogged back to my cabin with the silent promise that I'd explain everything . . . eventually. Once there, I shut myself inside, grabbed my computer, and flung it open.
While it booted up, I let out a long breath and forced myself out of panic. Out of fear. Before anything else could be done, I had to write these emails. They would dictate what I needed to do next. I pulled up Tatum's email, clicked on the new message icon, and started to write.
Two hours later, my brain felt fried.
Forcing a positive, normal tone while writing to my clients, except for Mark, whom I hadn't seen any sign of since the store, had been harder than I expected. Some of them emailed right back and proved my hunch right. Joshua had been innocuous, maybe strange when he spoke with them. Enough for them to want to call me to ask me about him but without saying anything identifiably wrong.
He'd been fishing for information on me, clearly. Perhaps he had gotten my number from one of them. But how had he gotten their information?
He was playing a game. Always a game.
He wanted me to know something was wrong. He might even know already that I'd seen something I shouldn’t. Did he realize I'd turned him in? He had to be suspicious that I was hiding from him, at least. I wasn't on a retreat, and now I'd never return. By now, he probably even knew I'd sold my lease to someone else and moved out. Of course, he could think I was tired of his constant chase and I wanted away from him.
Which would only make him chase harder.
So I shut down everything else.
My old accounting company I'd started after college then stopped growing to work at corporate. The bank accounts. The social media accounts. I wiped out every trace to my company, changed every password I'd ever known. Registered a random PO Box in Texas and routed all my mail there. With tears in my throat, I emailed my clients that I had to take care of a family emergency that would be a while. I referred them to a trusted friend and said goodbye.
These were my first accounting clients from six years ago. Before I'd been lured into a big firm with exciting opportunities and bigger pay. These were the salt-of-the-earth people that I held onto because they were good.
That lump sat in my throat all day.
The hours raced by while I typed away on my computer, peeling sticky notes off the wall as I accomplished each task. 2:00. 3:00. 5:00. When darkness fell and a whistling wind began to pick up, the lump in my throat grew. I shut my laptop on an email that confirmed the bank accounts would close in 72 hours. Heat prickled at the back of my eyes as I stood, unable to dismiss the ugly truth.
My old life was gone.
I had no job, no clients, and no hope of getting one in the future.
What few friends—more like acquaintances—that I'd held onto over the years might not even notice that I'd gone off the radar. Not for a while, or until something big happened. Then they'd remember that they'd forgotten me, which was fine.
Frustrated, I let the tears finally fall. I'd held onto them long enough—for at least three weeks, since the day I first figured out that the companies Joshua had me applying for a government program for wasn't real.
Sniffling, I grabbed a sweater and yanked it on.
Stupid Joshua.
Stupid men.
Stupid corporate greed.
Dadgummit, but I needed those pain relievers and those tampons.
A knock came at my door. It was so tentative at first, I almost didn't hear it. But the door groaned open slightly, and that's when I realized it hadn't totally shut, which explained the whistling wind. That my room felt icy cold because I'd forgotten to attend to the fire.
Mark stood outside, a mug in his hand. He'd frozen as if about to take a step back when our eyes met through the thin crack.
“Stella?” he asked. “Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt. I'm a little early, but I was worried. Are you—”
I reached out and pulled the door open further. Cold wind raced past him, shocking me. He straightened, hot chocolate in hand. His gaze hadn't left my tear-stained cheeks. The fact that I looked like a mess didn't even matter.
“Stella?”
With a wave, I beckoned him inside.
“C'mon.” I folded a jacket more tightly against me. “I have some explaining to do.”
8
Mark
We sat on the floor, our backs braced against the twin bed that Lizbeth had replaced the old metal cot with a few months ago.
The wooden floor was creaky and cold, but the fire I'd prodded back to life was crackling fast now. The heat came with it, filling the small space almost instantly. Stella stared at the flames with the dazed, exhausted expression of someone that had just been through hell. Night had fallen, and with it came a massive drop in temperature. The wind brushed by outside, heralded by rain on her windows. She'd drawn the blinds, but the plunk plunk left no doubt.
“Three weeks ago,” she said suddenly, breaking apart the quiet, “I went to work just like any other day. Sat at my desk and answered some emails. Joshua, one of my supervisors, brought some paperwork by and said some of our smaller companies needed to file for government assistance.” She waved an airy hand. “Nothing massive, but it seemed odd that there were so many to fill out.”
A dark feeling started in my chest then, and I could already see where this went. I stayed silent, however, and listened while we both stared at the fire. Several inches remained between our shoulders, but the cozy cabin felt intimate all the same.
“Anyway, I decided to look into the companies because some of the paperwork didn't quite line up. Eventually, I discovered that the companies weren't real. They were fake. Joshua wanted me to obtain government assistance for businesses that didn't exist.”
“Money laundering,” I murmured.
Dejected, she nodded. When she took a sip of the hot chocolate, her eyes closed briefly while she savored it. I fought back an exultant shout. It had taken me five tries to make a single mug of “real” hot chocola
te off a googled recipe. The previous four had been disgusting. She had another sip before she continued.
“Once I realized that it wasn't some fluke, of course, it wasn't, but I kind of wanted it to be, I wasn't sure what to do. For a few days, I just kept going to work and pretending everything was fine. Joshua checked on me daily but he had always done that. Always been . . . too attentive.”
My body immediately tensed, but she didn't notice. Just kept speaking, every now and then tucking a piece of hair behind her ear in a nervous gesture.
“Joshua didn't seem overly suspicious of my behavior and didn't ask about the applications much. But there was . . . something there. So I just tried to figure out what to do and how to gain the evidence.
“By the end of the week, I felt like I had all the proof I needed. So I stayed late, cleaned out the important things at my desk, erased everything that could show my deep research off my computer, and met with a woman named Anya. A federal investigator. I gave her everything.”
I whistled low. She snorted.
“Yeah,” she muttered. “Real brave, wasn't it? I ditched all the evidence, called in sick the next morning, and requested a three-week sabbatical to go on a retreat to Canada with a friend. Since I'd left a few things there, no one thought anything of it, I would imagine. I didn't have friends at work to notice, anyway. Joshua's attention was an effective isolator. That night, I packed up all the important things at my apartment. An old college friend of mine had been crashing at my place for a few days and wanted the lease. I signed it over and left.”
My eyebrows rose. “Left left?”
“Left left,” she repeated with a little twitch of her lip. Like she wanted to be amused, but the reality was just too ugly. “My furniture was minimal anyway. I didn't really . . . I didn't really live in my place.” She frowned, running the tip of her finger along the top of her mug. “I worked a lot. Shayna bought all my furniture and plates and that stuff for $2,000. I packed up my car and drove away.”
“To here?”
She hesitated, chewing her bottom lip. “To here,” she said without looking at me. “I needed someplace to hide. Eventually, Joshua would figure out I wasn't coming back and maybe even realize I was the whistleblower. I thought about buying an RV and just driving around the country, but . . .”
She trailed off.
I leaned my head back against her mattress as I tried to comprehend all she'd revealed. Of course, she'd been running from something. That much had been obvious from the moment that she showed up. But this wasn't what I had expected.
She sighed heavily.
“Then,” she muttered, “today happened.”
While she explained the text messages she'd received and the calls that dipwad Joshua made to her clients—which call I never got, but calls rarely come through here—my mind raced.
She was good and stuck.
“Joshua is in love with you?” I ventured carefully.
She sighed. “I guess? If that's called love. He's married. But ever since I started the job, he's made it very clear that he's interested in me. At first, it was subtle and not a big deal, but it's grown in the last year. If I hadn't found the fraud, I probably wouldn't have quit. But his attention . . . it's been so slow. So steady. He's . . . possessive of me, in a way.”
My fists clenched. “He's an asshole.”
She laughed mirthlessly. “That too.”
The situation was bleak and infuriating. No job. Just closed her business. No way to venture into the outside world until all of this was set aside. No wonder she came to Adventura. It was out of the way and she had some sort of trust in me. Even if I was likely her most frustrating client, at least she knew me enough to be fairly certain I wasn't a creep. The thought of her on her own, in an RV, sent a shudder through me.
Bad idea.
The silence rode for several minutes once she finished. She sipped the rest of the hot chocolate and didn't seem so bleary afterward. I lifted the fire poker and shoved a teetering log back. As always, I had ideas.
Lots of ideas.
But of all the ideas whirling in my head, filling me with that heady exhilaration that I hadn't felt in a while, was one that really made the most sense—even though it made absolutely no sense at all.
“Well,” I said with a steady breath out. “Sounds like you're here to stay.”
She recoiled. “Mark, did you just hear all that? What if Joshua comes after me? You could be in danger.”
“And since you're here to stay,” I continued as if she hadn't spoken, “I think it's also time that you realize something.”
Wary brown eyes studied me as she drawled, “Yes?”
No doubt she heard my tone. The cheshire cat tone. The tone that said oh yeah, I have ideas and you're about to get all of them. When I smiled, she grew more serious, which is just where I wanted her.
A little shock-and-awe never hurt anybody.
“I think you've got a bunch of time on your hands with nothing to do and the need for free rent. Not to mention someone that can kick Joshua's ass if he comes by. For the record, that’s definitely my job.”
My grin grew even as I felt a shot of trepidation. What was I thinking? I couldn't pitch this. She'd never go for it. I reached into my back pocket anyway and handed over the folded envelope I'd been carrying around for days, waiting for the right moment to give her the $500 rent back without seeming like a weirdo. There had always been a clear line between us. Client. Accountant.
This broke that in a big way.
And, frankly, I couldn't wait for that weirdness to dissolve. So I handed it over to her. The words barreled out of my mouth like they had their own power.
“We're both in a jam right now, and I may have already thought of my way out. Except I'm going to need some help. Lots of help. So you can stay here free, Stella. I'll keep you safe with a roof over your head, and you help me save Adventura.”
Her face dropped into shock when I gave the big finale.
“You save me, I save you?”
9
Stella
For a full fifteen seconds, I tried to comprehend such an offer.
You save me, I save you.
Well, there was a line I hadn't heard before. Did I need saving? My first response was no, I got this. But that wasn't true either. The $20,000 in cash hidden in a small, plastic box I'd dug out of his kitchen and shoved underneath a loose floorboard seemed like a large amount of money, but that kind of cash disappeared quickly on the run. If I tried to buy anything with it—like a crappy RV—I would use a good chunk of it, and the problem of food and gas still existed.
Even that $500 he was trying to give back was precious.
So, yes. I needed help and free rent and big muscles. Desperately.
Did he need saving?
Yes. Desperately.
I licked my lips, locking him in an uneasy stare. “What does that mean, exactly?”
Amusement flickered through his bright eyes, like this sort of trespass into uncertain territory gave him great delight. Knowing Mark, it did delight him.
“I'm not propositioning you, geez. Don't look so scared. Stell, I'm about to lose Adventura. You know that as well as I do. But I may have thought of a way out. I'll just . . . need help getting there.” His gaze darted around. “Turns out I suck at housekeeping and details and we'll need all that and more.”
His casually spoken sentence nearly made me choke as I laughed, half in disbelief, half in confusion. But then I realized he was serious and I sobered quickly.
“What is your idea?”
Fire leaped into his eyes, mimicking a sudden smile. He jumped to his feet and started to pace as if his legs were somehow attached to his vocal cords.
“In order to save Adventura, I have to do more things with the real estate that I already have. Obviously, I have no money to invest in something else. Which means I need to do something to make money with Adventura through the winter. My HomeBnB's rent is pretty steady, as you kn
ow. It will pay for both our food and electricity. But to pay off the monthly mortgage, we need more money.”
“I know all this already.”
He flapped an impatient hand. “I know, but I have a process. Go with it.”
I pulled my legs out of a very cramped place where we'd been together and straightened them out. He didn't seem bothered by being able to pace only two steps at a time. He continued, his face a mask of concentration.
“Not many people would want to come to Adventura in the winter. Unless, like you, they had a reason. Someone . . .”
“Desperate?”
He stopped, thought it over, then shrugged. “Maybe?”
“You're going to put out an ad that says, running from a psycho boss? Stay with us!”
The daft man actually looked like he was considering it.
“Mark . . .” I drawled.
He shook his head, snapping out of it. “No, of course not that. But . . . maybe. I hate throwing away ideas. Anyway, what if we rented out this cabin to people that needed to escape their everyday life.”
“Parents?”
“I was thinking artist, but I can go with that!”
I blinked. Now that had taken me by surprise. Artists? How oddly . . . specific.
“Artists?”
“Yeah. We rent out a cabin or two and prep it for artists.” He gestured around us. “Take this homey little number. We make it cozier if possible, you and Lizbeth have done a great job, and prep it for art. Get a big drafting table—”
“A drafting table?” I cried. “That would take up the whole space here.”
“Okay, so we do that in a different one. Whatever, those are details we'll figure out later. We advertise it as an artist's retreat. Maybe we have the wifi turned off for them during the day, or . . . food!” he exclaimed all of a sudden. “We provide all meals and delicious food. JJ could cater!” His face scrunched. “Those details can come later, too. But we have a winter retreat for the crazy creatives that feel like they can't create in their usual spaces.”