Tangled up in Love

by Charlotte Byrd

  Then something else occurs to me. Is he tapping my phone? Does he have listening devices or even cameras in my house? I have no idea.

  “I know that you probably think that this is a big invasion of privacy but it’s all for the general good,” Andrew insists.

  “And who is benefiting from knowing that my unborn child is gone?”

  “Are you seriously asking me this?” He looks at me as if I have lost my mind. “Minetta, of course.”

  I shake my head.

  “Everyone feels bad for you now. It helps a lot that you two make quite a beautiful couple.”

  I clench my jaw.

  “Anyway, everyone is really sad for you now, as you can imagine, and many are now looking into what the hell is Minetta anyway? Our page views are up twenty percent. The podcast subscription rates are up almost thirty.”

  “This is not how you do business,” I say.

  “This is precisely how you do business,” he snaps. “The CEO is the public face of the company. Especially if he is attractive and has a story of his own to tell. This is going to make a lot more people interested in our public offering and make the offer a lot more lucrative.”

  I stare at him, not saying a word.

  “Look, I know that you’re not a fan of any of this. I know that you hate your job right now.”

  “If you know that, then why don’t you let me go?”

  “I was thinking about that. Of course, I don’t want you to work where you don’t want to. But I just can’t. You are too important. Without you, there’s no Minetta.”

  “So, I will have to work here indefinitely?” I ask.

  “I wouldn’t say that.”

  I feel my body perk up.

  “Listen, I want to let you go, I do. I don’t enjoy forcing anyone to do anything against their will, but I also need to think about my goals. Especially for Minetta.”

  I don’t say anything, instead I wait for him to explain where I come in.

  “I need the company to go public so that I can cash out of it and let the investors take over. But as you know it’s not doing too well. So, we first need to raise its profile and its subscribers and unique page clicks.”

  “I know all of this already,” I point out. I have no idea why he’s repeating himself as if I am not clued in.

  “Don’t be rude,” he snaps at me. I don’t apologize. “You want me to get to the point?”

  “Yes, please,” I say.

  “Fine. The point is that I need you to ask Harley to marry you.”

  This takes me by complete surprise. I sit back in my seat and stare at him.

  “C’mon, don’t pretend you didn’t want to.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I insist.

  “My investigators have informed me that you actually got her a ring already. Three carats, was it? That’s nice! You were going to propose.”

  The one thing that I find particularly shocking is how nonchalant he is being with the fact that he has had his CEO under surveillance this whole time. It’s as if it’s a normal thing to do.

  “What does my engagement have to do with anything?”

  “Oh, I thought you didn’t want me to explain?” he mocks me. “I thought that you knew everything already.”

  “Please explain,” I say through my teeth.

  “You and Harley have both been through so much recently. The public knows that and they are sympathetic. But now we have to give them something to root for. A beautiful engagement sounds like the perfect way to go.”

  I shake my head.

  “Listen, if you want, I can put you with an event planner who will arrange everything. Or you can do it yourself. But what we mostly care about is to be there to capture the moment with our photographers and videographers. Minetta blogs and online magazines will be the first ones to report on the story and after that it will be everywhere.”

  “But what’s the point?” I ask.

  “This is a feel-good story that will go a long way to raising Minetta’s profile through you, its charismatic CEO. Maybe we can even arrange for some interviews on the morning talk shows and evening cable news shows.”

  I shake my head.

  “C’mon, Jackson.” Andrew puts his hand on my arm as if we are close friends. I recoil from his touch. “You were going to ask her to marry you anyway. This way, we’ll just be there to capture the moment and share the good news with the world.”

  26

  Harley

  When I start to take the initiative…

  Jackson doesn’t want me to go on the offensive but it’s not really up to him.

  If he doesn’t want to help me, that’s one thing.

  I don’t need his help.

  I can do all of this on my own.

  We leave things off on a standstill.

  Neither of us are happy but neither of us are willing to budge in one direction or another. While he goes to lunch with Andrew Lindell, I sit down at my work desk and instead of writing, I start researching.

  It’s hard to know where to start since I don’t have much experience with this. But I have watched plenty of episodes of Catfish so I start with social media. He must have some sort of social media presence, right?

  I search for his name.

  There are more than twenty different Parker Huntingtons on Facebook.

  I search for his name in connection to my kidnapping on Google and find out from the online magazine stories that he is from Missoula, Montana.

  Montana, really?

  That can’t be a coincidence, right? What is it that the cops say, there are no coincidences?

  How could I not have known this before? He is from my hometown and I never connected the dots until right now?

  I hate myself for procrastinating on this for so long.

  I know exactly why I did it, but it still feels like shit. It’s hard to know what every little piece of information would add up to and, on the surface, it doesn’t feel like it’s a big deal that he’s from Missoula.

  But the more I think about it, the angrier I get.

  Mainly, at myself. If I had just looked into this before.

  If I had just not averted my eyes from the truth, who knows what I could’ve prevented.

  I feel sick to my stomach thinking that I could’ve saved our baby’s life and didn’t.

  I’m tempted to distract myself and do something else instead. But I force myself to keep going. You have to find out more. You have to work until you hit a dead end and then work even harder, I say to myself.

  I search for Parker’s name on Facebook and find one from Missoula. It’s all set to private so I make a fake account with a fake name and find a picture of a pretty girl with long blonde hair online.

  This girl will be my stand-in.

  As soon as I make a few posts and friend a few people, I friend Parker and wait.

  In the meantime, I try to look him up on other social media. I look up on Google whether I can find his Instagram from his Facebook profile and it says that I can, but only if we are friends.

  I wonder if he’s on Twitter but read that it’s even harder to look that up if I just know his Facebook. While I wait, I turn my attention to Sam.

  I friend him, too, and he accepts my request almost simultaneously. My heart skips a beat as I start to look at his profile.

  He doesn’t update much but he does have his Instagram listed and I hope there are more pictures on there. His pictures are organized into albums and as I scroll through them, I spot one called Montana.

  I inhale deeply before clicking on it.

  In the middle of all the pictures of pines reaching toward the bright blue sky and lakes with water like glass, I see one of him and Parker, standing on a rock, with their arms wrapped around each other’s shoulders. It’s from a number of years ago.

  They both look rather young, maybe high school age? Maybe just out of their teens.

  “So, they have known each other all of this time,” I wh
isper to myself in disbelief.

  “How did you know each other?” I look through the other pictures, but there’s nothing else there that would give me a clue as to the answer.

  I check back with my profile and see that Parker has actually friended me. Score! I search through his albums, eventually finding a similar picture of the two of them. However, his has a caption.

  * * *

  My friend Sam visiting from New York!

  * * *

  I return to the Google results of Sam, and after all of the various arrests and court documents that I have to pay to access, I find something unexpected. It’s a newspaper article from his high school.

  Luckily, they scanned all of their articles and made them available online.

  Reading through the article, I learn that Sam won an essay contest for the National Park Service and won a six-week internship that was based out of Missoula. I am not sure if Parker participated in the same internship or not, but that’s probably how they met.

  I continue my search for close to two hours, seeking every article that I find at all relevant to their lives.

  I read each one and then carefully write down notes on relevant pieces of information.

  Well, relevant isn’t exactly the right word. I have no idea what would be relevant to where they are now.

  But I do know that I need to know more. I need to know who they really are.

  When I click back to the front of Parker’s account, I notice something that I hadn’t noticed before. It’s right there and yet, I somehow overlooked it. Under education, he lists Aspen Valley High School.

  That’s where I went. Is this for real?

  According to this, he graduated two years behind me.

  But this can’t be real, right?

  I went to a large suburban school with a graduating class of close to four hundred students. I didn’t even know many in my own class, let alone those two years behind me. But he must’ve known me, right?

  Hey there.

  A message pops up at the bottom of my computer screen. It’s from Parker. My heart skips a beat. He is actually messaging me.

  Hey, I message him back.

  27

  Harley

  When we talk…

  My fingers turn to ice as I wait for him to reply, eager to get the conversation started.

  I never message strangers on here, but you’re so pretty…I couldn’t help myself.

  Thanks, I never message strangers either, I write.

  Yeah, right. :-) You did friend a stranger.

  I send a shrug emoji.

  As we can continue to banter back and forth, I quickly make Instagram and Twitter accounts.

  I populate the Instagram with some pictures of the girl I used for my Facebook and also a bunch of pictures of appetizing looking salads and wildlife shots.

  I write short captions and follow over a hundred people who use pretty generic tags, hoping that they will follow me back.

  I probably need at least twenty followers to make the account look somewhat legitimate.

  So where are you from, Dani?

  I freeze. What do I say? I want to make up a completely different location, but I’m pretty sure that my location is geotagged with Instagram. Plus, the best lies are those that are closest to the truth.

  Tristate area, I write.

  Which one?

  New York, New Jersey?

  Yep.

  Which one?

  Sorry, I can’t be more specific right now. I don’t even know you.

  I get it, he writes.

  When I ask him where he is right now, he is just as opaque. His answer is just two words: New England.

  That’s even less specific than what I said.

  Well, I don’t really know you.

  I don’t push it. I keep the conversation friendly.

  We talk about movies and music and the weather. It’s nothing in particular, but it’s important. We are building a rapport and maybe that can lead to something else.

  While we talk, I try to look him up on Twitter. But I don’t know his handle and it’s not under his Facebook name.

  So, I Google how to find Facebook friends on Twitter and one of the first search results takes me to the step by step instructions.

  It’s a bit more of a complicated process. First, I have to make a Yahoo Mail account. I make it to match my fake Facebook name and then log in and click on Contact at the top left.

  Then I import contacts and get the option to import contacts from Facebook and other platforms.

  Then, I log into Twitter, click on ‘Discover’ and then Find Friends at the top left. I click on the ‘Search Contacts’ button and a few seconds later, his name appears.

  The website says this only works if his privacy is set up in a particular way, and luckily it is. I start scrolling through his Twitter.

  Unlike the friendly images that populate his Facebook, his Twitter account is another beast altogether.

  There are retweets from various white nationalist pages as well as many misogynist, xenophobic, and homophobic tweets.

  He calls many women politicians the c-word and many African American actors the n-word. His page is populated with so many f-word homophobic slurs that it makes my skin crawl.

  Why didn’t I take a few minutes to look him up?

  How did I not know this before?

  As I read through all of his garbage, I discover that he lost his job a few years ago at a big box store for cursing at his boss, whom he referred to by both the c-word and the n-word, and then posted tweets about stockpiling guns and ammunition.

  So, what do you do for a living? Parker messages.

  I think about it for a moment and then decide to give us something to connect over.

  Work at Bed Bath & Beyond, I write.

  Fucking hate those stores, no offense.

  Why?

  Used to work at Walmart.

  What happened?

  My boss was a total bitch, to say the least. I was late only a few times and she wouldn’t let me slide at all. Just only got her job because of affirmative action anyway.

  He doesn’t know me so I get the feeling that he’s more polite than usual. But I egg him on saying that my boss is the same way.

  Once I give him permission and he sees that I’m on his side, he lets all of his feelings out.

  He calls his boss every slur he can think of, but I don’t even blink. My goal is to make him my friend. I have to make him comfortable with me. I want him to be real. Maybe then I can connect with him.

  You know I’m really surprised, most girls would be offended by what I just said, he points out.

  I’m not like most girls.

  I’m getting that sense.

  When I send him a smiling face emoji, he asks,

  Want to video chat?

  Shit. This is what I’ve been afraid of. I can’t video chat because he knows what I look like. But I have to finesse this situation.

  I could lie and tell him that my camera doesn’t work or something lame like that but I don’t want to put him on alert. Maybe being vulnerable is the way to go for now. That way I can buy myself some time.

  No, I don’t feel comfortable yet.

  I totally understand. Sorry, didn’t mean to make you feel that way.

  I’m surprised by his statement. He is much more receptive than I thought he would be.

  When he takes the conversation back to my work, I decide that the best way to part is to leave him wanting more. I have to be the first to say good-bye.

  Speaking of work, I actually have to get back now. I’ll talk to you later.

  Oh…okay. Really, I didn’t mean to offend you, he writes.

  I feel the desperation in his voice and it makes me smile.

  I have the upper hand.

  No worries. It was nice talking with you.

  Yeah, same here.

  I consider writing something else, but instead I close the window. That’s enough for now.r />
  The wave of nausea comes over me all of a sudden like a tornado. I barely make it to the toilet to throw up.

  28

  Jackson

  When he makes another offer…

  It has been a few weeks since Andrew Lindell asked me to propose to Harley. I know that doing this will go a long way to getting him off my back, but I don’t want to.

  At first, he calls me a few times, reminding me of the request in a polite tone. But after a while, his requests turn more into demands. I avoid a few of his calls while I try to figure out what to do.

  On one hand, he is right.

  I already have the ring and I do want to propose to Harley. I’ve been waiting for the right moment and perhaps doing it in a public way isn’t the worst idea.

  On the other hand, however, I don’t want her to think that the only reason I proposed was to raise Minetta’s profile.

  I could try to keep it a secret, but not only would that make me feel like a total asshole, it would also be something that would mar our engagement and marriage.

  There have been enough lies and secrets in our relationship, and I don’t want to lie to her ever again.

  “I’m glad you finally answered me,” Andrew Lindell says on the other end of the phone.

  “Listen, I know what you want, but I can’t do it,” I say. I only picked up the phone because I didn’t recognize the number and I’m surprised to hear his voice.

  “I know that I probably haven’t given you enough of the right kind of incentive,” he says smugly. “I can see that the stick doesn’t work on you, so why don’t we try a carrot then?”

  “What are you talking about?” I ask, pacing around the room.

  “Well, what if I were to tell you where you could find Parker Huntington?”

  I stop mid-step, nearly tripping over my foot.

  “I thought that would get your attention,” he says. I wait for him to continue. “Hello? Are you there?” he asks after a moment.