Strange Secrets

by Lexy Timms

  Had this girl really just said yes to a date? It felt too good to be true. Surely there had to be some sort of mistake, right? But no, we were going to see each other this weekend, and I was going to spend the whole rest of the week counting down the minutes till I got to hang out with her again.

  As I headed down to the office, questions started to pop up in my mind. About just how good an idea this was. There was a reason, after all, that I had held off on asking anyone out since I’d arrived here. Not through the lack of interest, since there had been plenty of that, but because I knew that letting someone get close to me might not end well.

  But maybe it was time to let go of all of that. To let go of the fear that I had been allowing to rule my life for way, way too long now. Yeah, sure, I liked the idea of keeping myself to myself, but there came a point where I needed to actually enjoy the life that I had made. If I kept brushing off every woman who came near me, people were going to get suspicious—and I imagined that being seen as mysterious in a town like this wouldn’t end too well.

  I could tell myself as much as I wanted that asking Sarah out was a good thing for my image, something to make sure that nobody would get suspicious about how much I had been hiding. But I had asked her out because I wanted a chance to get to know her better—because I liked the way she talked to me, and I wanted to find out more about her. I knew that she had to be holding on to some secrets, too, and maybe it was time that I worried about someone else’s for a change.

  I made it into the office with a big-ass smile on my face, and I knew that everyone would notice it, but I didn’t care. Let them. I wanted them to ask me what it was about, because I had a date on Friday, and I was going to spend the whole rest of this week looking forward to it.

  And I was going to keep it quiet from my brother for the time being because I knew that he would freak out if he discovered that I was spending time with someone. He was always the one of us who kept his head down and tried to stay focused on his work—I knew that he could have had his own harem of women if he wanted, but he seemed more cautious than I was when it came to this stuff.

  But the two of us couldn’t live our lives as a pair of fugitives, on the run from what I had done in the past. I had better things to do than try to cloak my history for the rest of my life. I wasn’t going to come out and spill everything on this first date. I didn’t have to tell her anything that I didn’t want to.

  But I got the feeling that a girl like that could have basically gotten anything she wanted out of me if she had tried hard enough. And I wouldn’t have a problem with that. As long as her interrogation techniques were a little more fun than they had been the first time around. I figured that the two of us would make it a night to remember.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Sarah

  I SASHAYED INTO THE office feeling like a rock star, flashing my badge to the receptionist, who barely lifted her head from her phone. I didn’t care. Nothing was going to bring me down today. I had just kicked things off with a stone-cold win, and I intended to enjoy every single moment of it.

  Ever since my conversation with Tiff on Sunday night, I had been thinking of ways to get myself in a room alone with Jesse once more. How was I supposed to meet him without it seeming suspicious? I had no idea how I was supposed to pull that off—but I knew that I had to convince him that the whole thing had been his idea. That was the only place for me to start. And right now, I was pretty sure that I had just succeeded in pulling that the fuck off.

  Not that I wasn’t a little nervous, now, about the thought of going on an actual date with him. An actual date with him! Yeah, that was exactly how he had described it, and I couldn’t believe that it had been that easy.

  I had taken a long route to work, remembering a coffee shop that he said he liked to stop in at every now and then and hoping that I might run into him outside. And sure enough, a few streets away, there he was, walking around in that beautiful jacket and those leather gloves that made his hands look like they were made for me.

  And he had asked me out. Pretty much straight-up. I knew that the chemistry I had felt with him when we had been in that interview together was more than just my nerves or his tension—I knew that there was something real there. Something real enough that he had decided to act on it—and something real enough that I could use it to my advantage, to get a little closer to him and find out just how much of his past was as dark as it seemed to be.

  I wasn’t even certain why I was doing this any longer. I mean, yeah, my natural curiosity had me jonesing to get to the bottom of the story, to find out what he was hiding, but it would have been just as easy to do a deep-dive into his past that had nothing to do with letting him take me out on a date.

  But this way was so much more fun. I had no idea how it was going to go, if I was going to be able to get everything out of him that I wanted to, but shit, it was good to have a side project, wasn’t it? And this was about the best side project that I could think of cultivating...

  I took my coffee to my desk, tossed my hair over one shoulder, and opened up my laptop, unable to keep the smile off my face. It didn’t take long before someone noticed, and Mo slid around from his side of the desk towards me.

  “Something on your mind?”

  I grinned at him. “It might be.”

  “Care to share?”

  “As long as you can keep a secret,” I replied, glancing around to make sure that there was nobody else around to listen in.

  “Of course I can,” he replied, and he pushed down the divider between our desks and leaned in close. I could see his eyes shining with excitement. Shit, was everyone in this place a gossip-hound? Was that a requirement for you to get into the industry? The more time I spent here, the more certain I was that was the case.

  “Okay, so,” I began. “I was thinking about what you told me about Jesse last week, right?”

  “Right...”

  “And I decided that I wanted to go find out just how much of that was true,” I continued. “So I kind of...put myself in his line of fire again.”

  “You asked for another interview with him?” he replied, sounding confused. I shrugged.

  “Sort of,” I replied. “He—he asked me out on a date, actually.”

  His eyes widened so much I thought that they were in danger of falling straight out of his skull.

  “Okay, of everything that I thought you were going to say, that was the bottom of the pile,” he laughed. “He asked you out? Is that part of your master plan to find out what he’s hiding?”

  “It’s not like some big plan,” I replied. “I just want to know exactly how much of what you’ve heard is true. This guy has been in this town for years, and nobody seems to know anything about him. I’m going to put a stop to that.”

  “And then you’re going to write a story about it?” he asked.

  I paused. I didn’t know if I was ready to go that far, not really. I had just agreed to a date with him, but that didn’t mean that I was ready to go spilling the juicy details of anything he decided to share with everyone who asked. I knew that I was going to have to be ruthless if I was going to make it in this industry, but I wasn’t sure that I was quite at that level of ruthlessness. Not yet, at least.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “I just want to find out what he’s hiding, I guess. And then I’ll take it from there.”

  “I’ve got to say, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a rookie jump straight into trying to seduce an interviewee to get what they want out of them,” he remarked.

  I laughed. “Okay, who said anything about seduction?” I replied. “It’s just a date. Could be totally chaste, for all you know.”

  “And if it’s not?” he asked. “Would you go through with it?”

  “Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it, okay?” I replied, and I ducked my head down as soon as I saw the door to Allison’s office open. I knew that she would freak out if she caught on to the fact that I was going out with someone who
she had already warned me not to get too close to. Hell, maybe she wanted him for herself—or maybe, more likely, she just wanted to make sure that he didn’t drop his investment in the business.

  Mo pulled the barrier back up between us and slid back to his desk, and I focused on the news articles that I had to put together for the rest of the day. Okay. Let’s get this done. I was going to need to keep myself busy if I was going to make sure that I didn’t overthink this date to death, that was for sure. I needed to stay focused. And that meant doing exactly what was asked of me.

  I couldn’t believe that I actually had a date this Friday night. If my parents had been in the county, they would have been freaking out about it—not that I would have been in too much of a rush to tell them, to be honest, because I knew just how they would react, and the very last thing I needed was their involvement in anything that I had going on right now. My mother was always getting on me for not having settled down with a boyfriend yet, and I had every intention of keeping her waiting until I found someone who wasn’t going to interfere with the career I had worked so hard to achieve in the first place.

  But someone like him, someone like Jesse—I would have been lying if I’d said that there wasn’t something intriguing about him. Not just what he was hiding, but what he was right now. He was confident, thoughtful, cool—I liked that about him. I was attracted to him, no point in denying that. It didn’t have to get in the way of the story that I was beginning to piece together inside my head, but it would make going on this date with him a whole hell of a lot easier, and I was grateful for that.

  I couldn’t stop wondering what Tiffany was going to say when she found out. She had been the one nudging me in his direction in the first place, but I had never imagined that someone like him would even look twice at a girl like me. He had his pick of women all over this town, and I knew that there were at least a dozen of them I could count off the top of my head who would have bent over backwards—literally—to try and get a little of his attention and hopefully his fortune to boot. But he had asked me out, with little prompting—all I’d had to do was put myself in his line of sight again, and he had been quick to make sure that I knew that he wanted a piece of me.

  And now I had a date with the most desirable man in the whole of Kingston. And yeah, I was starting to feel a little smug about it. There must have been something that he saw in me, even if it was only a worry that I was going to find out stuff about him that he wouldn’t be able to moderate. He thought that I was a big enough deal to actually bother seeing me again, and right now, I would take that as the compliment that it was.

  I was already planning what I was going to wear on Friday night, as though this was a real date. Wasn’t it? I didn’t know if this actually counted or not. I was attracted to him, and I knew that he was attracted to me, but at the same time—but at the same time, I had this fear that things were going to slide out of my control if I let that attraction call the shots. If I really let myself want him, for more than just the sake of the curiosity that needed sating inside of me, then I was going to get myself in some serious trouble.

  And it had been a while since I had let that happen. Sure, I’d had a few flings back in college, but I had never found anyone who really held my attention the way that I was sure that they were supposed to. Nobody I found myself counting down the hours until I could see again. But him? Jesse? I was already wondering how I was going to make it to the end of the week without making it so that we ran into each other once more. I wanted to see the way he smiled at me, and I wanted to confirm to myself that, yes, a guy like that really had asked me out, that he really did want to see more of me, that I wasn’t somehow making this all up in my head for clout.

  But I wasn’t going to let those urges get the better of me. I had to stay focused. I had to make sure that I kept my mind on what mattered, and that was proving myself at this new job, not trying to get under the skin of a man who intrigued me more than anyone had in a long time. Focus, that was what mattered here, and I wasn’t going to forget it.

  No matter how much I might have been looking forward to that date on the weekend. And no matter how much I was wondering if Tiffany would finally book me in for that wax that she had been threatening me with for years. Not that I would need it, but hey—better safe than sorry, right? Come prepared. That was the mantra of any good reporter. And I was determined to be the very best that this town had ever seen.

  No matter how many hot dates I had to go on to prove myself.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Jesse

  I AM OUTSIDE THAT HOUSE again. Outside the car. Walking toward the door. Why does it feel as though the weight of the world is on my shoulders? I am doing a good job, I know that. I am doing what needs to be done, and that’s all that matters. I am taking care of everything I need to, and then all this will be over, and I can go back to reality again. Go back to what I knew before...

  In the doorway, a man is waiting for me. A man that I recognize, even though he is silhouetted by the light from the house, and I can’t see his face.

  “Did you get him?” he calls to me, and I nod.

  “Of course,” I reply. I try to sound confident, but I am not sure that it works. I just want to prove myself. I just want him to know that I am capable of doing this, and then he’ll let me go.

  I open the trunk of the car and heave the man inside out, and a couple of guards rush from inside the house to pick him up and hold him, dragging him to the doorway. I watch as his limp body is pulled away from me, and I try not to think of what I have just sent him to. Easier for me to pretend that I don’t know. Easier for me to pretend that I never did.

  “You did a good job,” the man tells me, and, as he steps forward, he plants his hand on my shoulder and gives me a smile. I can see his face properly now, the wrinkles around his eyes that could pass for kindness if you didn’t look too hard, the dark hair slicked to the side to keep it out of his face. He always told me that he didn’t want anything in his line of sight if he had to pull a trigger, and I tried not to think about what that might have meant for me.

  “Thanks,” I mutter. I don’t feel like I have done a good job. I feel as though I am about to fall apart at the seams. I feel as though everything is going to give in around me—I feel as though this is the last thing that I will see before I blink out of existence for good. I don’t know where my squeamishness has come from, but I don’t like it, and I know that I’m going to have to pull myself together. I can’t show this man weakness. I can’t show him anything. Even an inch of anything other than strength, and I know he will begin to doubt me—I know that he will begin to wonder why he brought he here in the first place.

  “You should get some rest,” he remarks, and he jerks his head towards the house. “Come in. I’ll get the staff to set you up with a bed—”

  “I’m fine,” I reply. “I need to get home to my family.”

  Joe Capullo shrugs. He doesn’t look happy. When he offers someone kindness, he expects them to take it, not to brush it off as though it’s nothing. I try to ignore the way I know he is glaring at me right now, and I hope that he is not going to make me pay for that later.

  “Suit yourself.”

  He turns to head back inside the house, to deal with the prey that I have brought him to toy with for the night. I know that this is the last I’ll see of that man—alive, at least. I know that it’s the last time that he’ll be standing on his two feet in front of me. And I try to push down the horror of knowing everything that I have done, but it is too late. I can feel it rising inside of me. Growing. A sickness that gnaws at my insides, making me ache.

  I get back in the car and drive away from the house once more. I want to be as far from this place as I possibly can be. As far from the memory of that man that I brought down here as is humanly possible. But I can still feel that sickness inside of me. I thought that I could leave it behind, but it’s here again.

  I pull the car over once I am out of the
city—I don’t even recognize where I am, but that doesn’t matter. All that matters is that I am as far from the house as possible. As far from my family as possible. Because the thought, the merest thought that they might ever find out what I have done here on this day...

  I climb out of the car and throw up on the ground, the acrid vomit tearing at my throat and making me cringe. I can’t do this anymore. I can’t live this life anymore. But I don’t know how to get out of it. I have already been trapped here for too long, too long to think for an instant that I am going to be able to escape. This is the world that I have chosen to be a part of, and I am not going to be able to get out of it that easily. I turn, and there it is again, that house, sneering at me on the horizon. No matter how far I run, no matter how hard I try, I know that I am always going to be pulled back there. Pulled back to the start again. Pulled back to the world that I have tried with everything in me to escape, no matter what....

  I came to in my bed, sweating hard, and the memory of the dream was so fresh that it took me a second to convince myself that it wasn’t actually real. Shit. I had just filled out the end of that nightmare I’d been having a few days before. That wasn’t normal. Usually, when I found myself caught up with the memories of what had happened before I had come to Kingston, they would start to leak away after a few days, but if anything, this was even starker, even more blunt than it had been before.

  I climbed out of bed and went over to the window, assuring myself that I was still as far removed from that life as it was humanly possible to be. I never had to go back there, not if I didn’t want to, and I knew that I could keep pushing on to get as far from that world as possible.