35
Harley
When I go to meet him…
I can’t really tell if the detective believes me or not.
I’m not sure what to do and the silence makes me really unconformable so I repeat what I just said.
Meanwhile, my thoughts return to my purse.
If he were to search my bag then he will find an unlicensed, unregistered, and untraceable gun.
Please, please, I say silently to myself. Please don’t let him search my bag.
“So what’s your real name?” he asks, taking out a pen and paper. For a moment I consider telling him the truth but then I lie.
“Susan Shafer,” I say quickly. He asks to see my identification but I tell him that I don’t have it with me. He asks for my number and luckily, I tell him my real one. When he calls it, my phone goes off.
“Okay, Susan Shafer. I’ll be in touch.”
I give him a little unassuming nod.
After we ride down the elevator together in silence, he turns to me and says, “You look like a really pretty girl underneath all of that garbage you have on your face. You deserve someone a lot better than that asshole. I hope you know that.”
“I do,” I whisper.
“If you ever want to get a drink, call me,” he says, handing me his card.
I am so overwhelmed by everything that just happened that the last thing that I expect is a proposition for a date.
“Are you allowed to date ex-girlfriends of people you arrest?”
“Nope.” He winks at me and walks away.
As soon as he disappears out of sight, I run to the nearest trash can and throw up.
I walk a few blocks away from Sam’s house and then call a ride share company. A Prius shows up almost immediately and after checking to see that the driver is who the app says he should be, I get in.
Usually, I make small talk but this time I can’t bring myself to say a word.
The driver doesn’t seem to care and turns up the volume on the radio.
My phone rings in my hand.
It’s Julie.
I actually have to look at the name for a few rings just to believe my eyes. I haven’t talked to her since our fight.
I called and texted her a bunch of times but she never got back to me until today.
I’m tempted to let the call go to voice mail but since I haven’t spoken to her in a while I pick up.
“Will you come over?” she asks without even bothering with hello.
“Yes,” I say immediately and tell the driver her address.
When I ring her doorbell, she buzzes me in almost immediately and then throws her arms around my neck when I knock on her door.
She cries and I cry along with her. I’ve missed her, too, and it wasn’t until what just happened at Sam’s that I realized exactly how much.
I love Jackson and I want to marry him, but Julie is my best girlfriend.
I love and need her in a completely different way than I love and need Jackson.
“I’m really sorry about everything,” she mumbles through her tears.
“It’s okay, really,” I reassure her over and over again.
She invites me inside and we climb onto her bed to talk, just like we used to when we were roommates. I take off my shoes and she brings us our teas with lemon-custard cookies.
“Wow, you’ve prepared,” I joke, biting into it and letting myself enjoy its deliciousness.
“Thanks for coming,” she mumbles, swallowing her cookie almost whole.
We sit and talk about nothing in particular at first, just to get to know about each other’s lives again.
We are both avoiding the one thing that perhaps we should be talking about, but it’s okay for now. It’s nice just to be here. It’s nice just to talk to her again.
After three cups of tea, we are finally secure enough in our newfound friendship to broach the subject again.
“I’m so sorry about your loss,” I say.
“Thank you,” Julie says, hanging her head. I can see the pain on her face even though she is averting her eyes. She doesn’t want me to see that she’s crying but a rogue tear breaks free, betraying her.
“And I’m so sorry for your loss as well,” she says after a moment. “Your…baby.”
“Yeah,” I whisper.
I reach out to her, pulling her close to me. We hold each other for some time without letting go.
“I just really want him dead.”
“Who?”
“Their killer.”
All I can do is nod in agreement.
She asks me if I know of anything else or if the police know anything.
I really want to tell her that I’m talking to Parker online and about my whole plan, and I have to bite my tongue to stop myself.
I can’t bring her into this. I can’t put myself in danger like that. Besides, what if she were to do something to stop me? No, no one can know.
“They don’t know anything,” I say with a shrug.
“What about Jackson?”
“What about him?”
“Is he going to hire a private investigator?”
“I don’t know. We haven’t talked about it.”
“Well, the more time that passes the less likely this thing will ever be solved. After the first forty-eight hours…”
Her words trail off. I know how to finish her thought.
Everyone knows that the police solve the majority of the crimes within this timeframe and after that things get a lot more difficult.
Clues and witnesses disappear.
“I am sure that they are doing their best,” I say through my teeth. I regret it immediately. Her eyes dart up to my face and narrow.
“What are you talking about? You don’t have any faith in the police!”
“No, that’s not what I meant,” I backtrack.
“Yes, it is,” she says, taking my hands into hers. “Tell me. What’s going on?”
The answer is at the tip of my tongue. But I force myself to stay quiet. No, I will not put myself in danger or her in the position to keep quiet in return for one moment of relief.
“Julie, I really don’t know anything. I was just…trying to comfort you. That’s all.”
“So, Jackson isn’t going to hire a private investigator?” She looks up at me. This is what she wants to hear. This will give her momentary peace. So why not lie?
“Yes, okay? I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone but he is looking into hiring someone.”
A big wide smile comes over her face and she pulls me close to her in a big hug. “I knew it,” she whispers into my ear. “I just knew it.”
36
Jackson
When I meet up with him…
After the staged proposal, Minetta Media is overwhelmed with positive press.
There are pictures of Harley and me in all the online magazines and even in some of the tabloids.
That’s a big deal since I’m not technically a particularly well known person outside of the business world.
Understandably, Andrew Lindell is pleased with the results and now wants to take it a step further.
He wants us to get married and give him access to all of the proceedings.
The details of the wedding are up to us, of course, and he will provide us with an emergency wedding planner who can make miracles happen no matter how big of a wedding we want to have.
The proposal doesn’t feel like a fake to me since I did propose to Harley earlier for real, so I’m not entirely sure about going forward with this.
Besides, he didn’t exactly live up to his end of the bargain by telling me where I could find Parker.
“You will know as soon as you get married. That I promise you,” he tells me over another tense lunch, ones that I have learned to dread.
“You said that last time,” I point out.
“I know and apologize for that. I can pay you for it instead? But this is the only kind of leverage I have at this point.”
“Why is this so important to you?” I ask.
“I want out of this business. And you want me out of this business, right? So why don’t you just do what I ask? You want to marry. You are going to have a videographer and a photographer anyway. So…who is getting hurt here? You are the one who will have the whole wedding paid for.”
“I may not be worth as much as I was before, but I assure you, I can pay for my own wedding.”
“Of course,” he says. “I didn’t mean to offend you. But you have to know where I am coming from. I need this company to go public in the best way. That’s the only way I can exit it and make myself some money.”
“Please don’t take this as an offense, but I thought you wanted Minetta as a way to launder money.”
He smiles and sits back in his seat.
“Hypothetically, of course,” I add just in case anyone is listening or recording this conversation.
“I did.”
“And now?”
“Now, not so much. I see that I can buy something a little bit less valuable to do that, if I want to do that. Hypothetically speaking, of course.”
Later that afternoon, I tell Harley what happened at lunch. Much to my surprise, she likes the idea.
I thought that she would put up more of a fight but her mind is elsewhere. In fact, she barely cares at all.
I have no idea what’s bothering her, so I put it to one side and decide to bring it up later. Much to my surprise, she actually broaches the subject first.
“Sorry I was so distracted before. I was thinking about it and why not do it?”
“I don’t know,” I agree.
“This will go a long way to getting him out of Minetta’s business, right?”
I nod.
“So, let’s do it. We are going to get married anyway. We can do it on Lindell’s dime.”
“He wants to do it within a month.”
“Can we do it in two weeks?” she asks. I take a step back.
“You don’t want to marry me in two weeks?” Harley jokes.
“No…but still, isn’t that too soon?”
“What’s another two weeks?” she asks, shrugging. She’s right of course. I know that. But something still makes me uncomfortable. Why is she so into this idea?
“Can I ask you something?”
Harley nods. Her eyes twinkle in the falling light.
“Did Lindell talk to you about this?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course.”
I give her a peck on the cheek and accept her answer.
Still, something doesn’t feel right.
It’s like she is hiding something.
But until I know what it is, I don’t want to press her. Neither of us are back to normal yet.
Besides…I am hiding something, too.
I haven’t told Harley the one thing that Andrew keeps promising me in exchange for all of these theatrics.
It’s the only reason I am doing any of this, and it’s the thing that he is still holding out on.
I’ve debated whether I should tell Harley about Andrew’s promise. On one hand, she deserves to know.
On the other, the thing that I plan to do with that information is nothing that she should know anything about.
I don’t worry about her betraying me to the police. I know that she won’t talk to them.
But I don’t want to put her in danger.
She has suffered enough.
If she were to know his whereabouts, there is no way that she would let me go by myself to confront him.
If I tried to stop her, then she would follow me.
Worrying about her is not something I can do when I am confronting a man like Parker Huntington. No, this is for me to take care of. He is mine to eliminate on my own.
37
Harley
When he tells me…
Andrew Lindell wants to give us a big wedding.
He wants to plan it and pay for it and in exchange for that he will sell the video and photo rights to magazines and then possibly give Jackson back his company after it goes public.
Jackson seems to be very concerned with this whole situation, but I frankly don’t see what the big deal is.
I want to marry Jackson.
The sooner the better.
I don’t want to plan anything but I do want it to be gorgeous and amazing and perfect.
I’ve never been much into parties, but I have looked through a few bridal magazines.
Everything is so staged and perfect and there have been more than a few pages that I earmarked for the fabulous occasion.
But as for going over all the details of the event planning?
No, that’s not for me.
I can’t even pretend to have an interest in that. Jackson isn’t so sure about the whole process.
“Look, we wouldn’t really plan every aspect of this event ourselves anyway, right?” I ask.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, if we were to get married in say a year? If we took the proper amount of time to make all the preparations. That doesn’t mean that we would actually make all the preparations. You would probably insist on hiring a wedding planner who showed us pre-selected options that we would either approve or disapprove of.”
“Yes, I guess.” Jackson nods.
“So, how is this any different? It’s just more work for the wedding planner if we do it sooner.”
The more we talk, the more comfortable Jackson seems to get with the idea. Neither of us really wants to wait to get married and neither of us have really high expectations of what kind of wedding we should have.
While Jackson excuses himself to make the call to Andrew and confirm our plan to wed in two weeks, I check my phone.
I sign into my other Facebook account to see if there are any messages from Parker or Sam.
There aren’t any.
I don’t expect any from Sam, given that he’s in jail now, but I am worried about one thing.
What if Sam reached out to Parker and told him that I had pretended to be someone online?
Maybe that’s why Parker isn’t replying to any of my messages.
I write a casual miss you and send it hoping that this one gets a reply. But it doesn’t.
Shit.
I really messed up.
I shouldn’t have met up with Sam. He wasn’t really the one I was after. And now, it’s all ruined. Parker knows about me and there’s no way that I’ll ever find him again.
When Jackson comes back and tells me that everything is set with our wedding, he wraps his arms around me and I let my worries disappear. I can’t do anything about Parker not writing me back, but I can put him out of my mind, at least for a few moments.
I lose myself in the moment and his mouth.
When our mouths touch, I feel the urgency that has been building up within me. I am hungry for him. It has been way too long since I’ve felt his strong body on top of mine, and yet this feels like it’s our first time.
I take a deep breath. He smells like home. This is where I belong.
I want to take it slowly, but my body is more in charge than I am. My hands are moving up and down his back, fingers digging into his skin. When he tries to pull away even for a second, I pull him closer.
He’s on top of me. Our breathing becomes one. His body grinds against mine for a few moments. Then I open my legs under him and welcome him inside.
We moan simultaneously. When I open my eyes, I see the muscles in his arms tense and relax with each thrust. I press my nose to his right bicep, inhaling his scent.
The end is not so much a wave, but a tsunami. It overwhelms my senses. It makes me scream his name. It makes my legs go numb.
Afterward, Jackson has to take care of some work thing on his computer. I decide to spend the rest of the day in bed watching Netflix. On the second episode of Grey’s Anatomy, my phone dings. It’s Parker.
Let’s meet
up now.
As I stare at the message, my hands turn to ice. Why does he want to meet now? What does he know? Does he know anything?
I don’t know if I can, I type, my fingers shaking.
It’s now or never.
What’s going on?
I can’t tell you over this. Just meet me in Montauk. I’ll text you the address once you’re on your way.
What are you doing there?
Montauk is a small town on the tip of Long Island. There’s only one way in and one way out by car as it’s completely isolated by water. You’d think that it’s hardly the perfect place for a fugitive to hide out. But maybe that’s why he was there in the first place. While the authorities have checkpoints set up on the border with Canada, he’s hiding in Montauk.
I’ll tell you everything once you get here.
I don’t think I can go now.
Dani, it’s now or never. You have 4 hours.
What’s going to happen then?
I’m getting on a boat and I’m getting the hell out of America.
I don’t have much time to decide. It’s about a three hour drive all the way there and that’s if there’s no traffic.
I’ll see you in three hours, I type.
38
Jackson
When I find out…
While in a meeting with the higher ups at Minetta, I am supposed to be listening to the reports and findings about our progress but my thoughts are on Harley.
I miss her even though I just saw her less than two hours ago.
Is this normal? Probably not.
But it feels good to care about someone so much again. I just want to spend all of my time with her.
I want to take her into my arms and do absolutely nothing for a long time except be with her.
Nowadays, a honeymoon is typically a week long but I want to take a month off to be with her.
Tangled up in Love Page 12