Mr. North

by Callie Hart

  Nate places his hand in the crook of my elbow and walks through the lobby, his eyes on the floor. “Look casual,” he tells me. “Or…just stop looking so fucking guilty.”

  “I can’t help it,” I hiss back. “I feel like we’re breaking and entering or something.”

  “The receptionists are assholes. They won’t let us up without an appointment. We both know Paxton, though. If he doesn’t want to see us or he’s in meetings, we can always come back. Shit. Don’t look to your left.”

  It’s almost impossible not to look to your left when someone tells you not to. Miraculously I manage to pull it off. “What’s happening?”

  “Security guard,” Nate shoots back under his breath. “It’s okay. He’s headed the other way now. Hold the door!” Nate hurries forward, jamming his hand between the doors of the elevator, preventing them from rolling shut. He drags me onto the car, scowling at the three men inside who take their sweet time moving back to make room for us. Their suits are Armani, their swift assessment of my friend and me more than a little disapproving. No one says a word as the elevator rises. Not. One. Word. It’s the slowest elevator ride of my life.

  Paxton’s office is on the top floor, of course. The men in the elevator with us must be really good at their jobs, too, because none of them get off at any of the lower floors. We all exit together, and the three of them stand in the hallway, watching us fiercely as Nate pulls me off to the right, hissing at me to hurry.

  He guides us down a labyrinth of hallways, passing people without so much as flinching. When we reach the expansive corner office that belongs to Paxton Ross, the man is nowhere to be seen. The walls that form Paxton’s office are made of glass. All of them. The huge room is like a goldfish bowl. Inside the office, the chair is neatly tucked under the desk, as if no one has sat in it all day. It definitely doesn’t look like Paxton has just stepped out and will be back any moment. There’s a small desk to the entrance of the office—presumably Paxton’s assistant’s desk—which is also empty.

  “It’s only two,” Nate muses. “He could be coming in for an afternoon start and working late. These guys do that sometimes.”

  “You have his cell phone number?”

  Nate shakes his head. “Never asked for it. I don’t particularly like the guy. If you haven’t noticed, he’s an arrogant, pompous asshole.”

  “Oh, I’ve noticed.”

  “Thalia probably has his contact info. Maybe you could ask her for it. While you’re doing that, I’m gonna crack this lock.”

  “Nate! We can’t just crack the—” It’s too late. Nate’s produced a long, silver tool of some description and he’s wedged into the Yale lock. Surprising that it’s not a key card system. Security probably never anticipated people sneaking past them and making it unhindered up to the top floor of the building.

  “You’d better get on the phone to Thalia,” Nate says, as he works furiously on the lock. “I’m gonna be through this in a second, and it’d be nice to know where to look for the file.”

  “How do you even know it’s here?”

  “I don’t. Doesn’t seem like the kind of thing Paxton would keep at home though. Too easily lost. Or stolen .” He winks at me, and I can’t help but laugh nervously under my breath. I told him downstairs that it felt like we were breaking and entering. And now we are breaking and entering. And stealing police reports. This situation could go horribly, horribly wrong here. If Paxton chooses to be angry over us busting his office door open and taking the report, he could easily have us both arrested. Press charges. My hopes of ever becoming a lawyer would go up in smoke, just like that. Poof!

  I take out my phone and find Thalia’s number, then I hit call. The phone buzzes for an extraordinarily long time before she eventually picks up.

  “Hi, Beth.”

  “Hey, are you okay? You sound sick.”

  There’s a pause, and then Thalia says, “It’s nothing. Just a head cold. I’ll be clear of it in a couple of days. Listen, I want to apologize. My behaviour was so shitty the other day at Raph’s place. I drank way too much, and I kept on—”

  “I’m sorry, Thalia. Can we talk about this another time? I need Paxton’s number from you ASAP. It’s important.”

  “Important? What’s going on? Is everything okay?”

  “Yes, everything’s fine. Nate just explained to me about the brake lines being cut on Raph’s Maserati the night of the accident. He thinks it was intentional. That the person who cut the lines is still out there. Apparently Paxton is the only person who still has a copy of the accident report.”

  “Oh my god. Are you…are you serious ?” For a second she sounds angry, and then she’s crying, sobbing tears of relief. “I can’t believe it. I seriously can’t believe it.”

  “I know. We need to find this file, though. The truth is somewhere inside that paperwork. We need to study it and figure this out, and to do that we need to speak to Paxton.”

  “Of course. I’ll send you his number now. Beth?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Paxton has a false back on the top drawer of his filing cabinet. Check there. You might find what you’re looking for.”

  A secret compartment? What kind of person would have a secret compartment in their filing cabinet? My insides are in knots all of a sudden, twisted up and tangled, making me feel nauseous. The kind of person who has things to hide, that’s who. Nate said Paxton wouldn’t give back the file when he asked for it after the accident; he said he repeatedly forgot it. Why would he have done that if he knew Nate was trying to clear Raph? Surely he would have pored over the information inside the file with Nate, trying to help find the key to proving him innocent. As I hang up the phone, a weighty sense of dread is settling into my bones. Nate must have heard everything Thalia said, because he heads directly for the filing cabinet and pulls the top drawer open, reaching into it. His expression is deadly serious as he roots around inside, hunting for the false back to the drawer. A moment later, the concentration on his face dissolves and his hand withdraws from the filing cabinet, holding onto a file of paperwork at least an inch thick. “Well, that was easy,” he says.

  My cell chimes in my hand. I check it and see that Thalia has done what she said she would. Paxton’s contact details stare back at me from the lit screen. “I don’t think,” I say slowly, “that we should contact Paxton after all.”

  The right hand side of Nate’s mouth lifts up in a tense smile. “Yeah. I kinda think you might be right.”

  Fourteen

  Beth

  W e pull into a parking lot outside a Dunkin Donuts in Red Hook and we rifle through the file, hunting for a clue. Some piece of information that was overlooked when Raph was first arrested. Nate lays the battered green suspension file on the console between us, and one by one we begin to go through each of the papers. There’s a lot of repetition—witness reports from the same people, printed out in duplicate. Mary Rose Hardy came across the accident just after the police showed up. She heard the commotion and followed the sirens, showing up on the scene just as Raph was being taken away in the back of a police cruiser. Osman Musharef was just finishing up his shift at The Waldorf Hotel, when there was an almighty crash from outside and the entire building shook. He immediately went about ensuring the safety and wellbeing of two guests who happened to be having an argument at the rear of the lobby, close to the elevators. By the time he actually made it outside the hotel, Raph was long gone, already taken to the station. He said it was an absolute miracle anyone survived the wreck at all, given how badly damaged the car was.

  There are more reports from people about the accident, each vague and unhelpful. “There wasn’t a single person who actually saw what happened, Nate. Not one of these people witnessed the accident. Something…something’s not right here.”

  Nate holds his takeout coffee to his chest and stares blankly at the paper in front of him. “It’s not just that. There are other inconsistencies, too. It says here Paxton was in the back seat on
the driver’s side of the car, and Thalia was in the rear on the passenger side. But then in this report…” He holds up another stapled document, the paper yellowed along one edge in a weird triangular stain. “This report says that Paxton was in the rear on the passenger side, and Thalia was on the driver’s side.”

  “I suppose a detail like that might be easily confused if things were chaotic.”

  Nate doesn’t look remotely convinced. “This accident report’s completely upside down. It doesn’t once talk about the severed brake lines. There are barely any forensic observations about the way the car impacted the hotel. It seems more concerned with the fact that blame for the incident must lie with the driver. I’ve counted the word ‘incompetence’ at least four times time. It’s not the accident investigator’s responsibility to place blame, only to record the bare facts of an accident.”

  “And Chloe’s medical reports?”

  “Vague, too.” Nate grabs the file and opens it, pointing down at the black ink. “Chloe Evans, aged twenty-seven. Blonde hair. Blue eyes. Cause of death: massive head trauma. I’m not an expert on the subject, but I read enough autopsy reports when I was in the military to know they include a little more detail than that. They usually describe any defining birthmarks or scars. And they always record all injuries incurred in accidents. They haven’t said a word about any other injuries to Chloe’s body. If the crash was that bad, how could she have only sustained injuries to her head and nowhere else on her body?”

  “You’re right.” I take a sip of my own coffee, frowning deeply. “What about the other medical reports? Are theirs just as vague, too?”

  “I’m not sure,” Nate admits. “Hang on, I’ll find them.” He sets down his coffee and flips through individual sheets of paper and heavily stapled documents, some of them fastened together with bulldog clips. It takes a moment for him to find them. “Here. This is Paxton’s. And…this one’s Thalia’s.” He hands them both over to me. I take a look, and the difference is immediately noticeable. It’s like night and day. Where Chloe’s report is no more than three lines long, Paxton’s is extensive—two full pages of information. Every single cut, scrape and scratch was recorded, it seems.

  Laceration to upper arm.

  Laceration to both left and right hands.

  Laceration to neck.

  Hairline fracture to left radius.

  Three broken ribs.

  T halia’s report is the same.

  B roken index finger on right hand.

  Laceration to jaw.

  Laceration to shoulder.

  Dislocation of right arm.

  Fractured collarbone.

  Broken ribs.

  R aph’s medical report , however, is notably short.

  A brasions to forehead .

  Mild concussion.

  Bruised ribs.

  I ’m about to comment on this when my phone starts ringing. I look down at the screen and my stomach rolls. The number isn’t one I have stored in my contacts, but I recognize it. Thalia texted it over to me earlier. It’s Paxton. I send a tense sideways glance in Nate’s direction.

  “You’d better answer it,” he says, his voice calm.

  My hands shake a little as I hold my cell to me ear. “Hello?”

  “Ms. Dreymon,” the cool, collected voice on the other end of the line purrs. Paxton Ross clears his throat—a polite, gentlemanly cough. “I think it’s time and you I had a little chat. Meet me at Thalia’s apartment. I’ll be waiting there for you.”

  “Okay. I’m bringing Nate with me, though.” I’d love to tell Paxton that I’m bringing Raph with me, but the way things were when we left, the look of pure fury in his eyes…god, if he knew what I was doing right now, he’d fucking kill me. He couldn’t have made it any clearer that he didn’t want me to digging into the accident. And even if I did tell him what was going on and where I’m about to go, it wouldn’t matter anyway; he hasn’t left his apartment in over five years, after all. I doubt he’d make an exception to come out now and help me do something he expressly forbade me from doing in the first place.

  “I’m afraid that’s not going to be possible,” Paxton informs me smoothly.

  “Why not?”

  “Because the authorities wish to speak to Nathaniel about the recent theft he committed at my workplace.”

  No. Fucking. Way. I knew Paxton was a dick, but seriously? He called the cops? Such a shitty move. Just as I’m about to tell him to go to hell, to call him every name under the sun, there’s a rap on the car window. I look up, and all hope of having back-up at Thalia’s disintegrates. There, on the other side of the glass, a police officer is standing beside the car…and his hand is resting menacingly on top of his gun.

  Fuck .

  Fifteen

  Beth

  T he cops arrest Nate . Since he was the one who broke Paxton’s office, he’s the only one Paxton demanded should be detained. Apparently, because I didn’t aid and abet Nate in picking Paxton’s office door and going through his filing cabinet, I can’t be held accountable for the crime, though the police officer did ream me out for being aware of what was happening and not putting a stop to it. Basically, I’m getting off light.

  I have two options right now: I can call Raphael and tell him what’s happened, or I can go and meet with Paxton at Thalia’s apartment. Technically, the smart thing to do is call Raphael. His immense power and pull in this city could probably have prevented Nate from being arrested in the first place. I can’t get his words out of my mind, though. “Because, Beth. It’s none of your business. None of this is any of your fucking business .” He was so furious. And after that, so was I . I still am. Calling Raphael is a last resort.

  Nate begged me to wait for him to be bailed out before I go over to see Paxton. He pleaded with me, even as he was being stowed in the back of the police cruiser, and I did nothing. There was nothing I could do.

  “I’m sorry, Nate. I’ll be fine. I’ll get answers,” I told him.

  As the cop car drove off and disappeared, leaving me alone in the Dunkin Donut’s parking lot, Nate’s face was a rictus of panic, staring at me out of the back window.

  Now, walking through the courtyard toward Thalia’s apartment building, I pull my jacket around me; the night air is cooler than it has been in weeks, but my nerves are the primary cause of my shivering. I’m glad Paxton insisted I meet him there. Having Thalia around as a buffer, a voice of reason, will be a gift from the heavens. I haven’t seen her since her meltdown at Raph’s, either. I haven’t been a very good friend to her over the past few days. I should have checked in on her. I should have made sure she was okay. She hasn’t messaged me, though. She hasn’t tried reaching out. A part of me thought maybe she needed the time to recover from her upset and her subsequent hangover.

  As I knock on Thalia’s door, I find myself questioning why I’m doing this. Raph wants to let sleeping dogs lie. I’m interfering in something that doesn’t technically concern me. On the other hand, in a lot of selfish ways, it does. I want to be able to walk down a street holding my boyfriend’s hand. I want to be able to go to a movie with him. I want to be able to travel and see the world, go to baseball games and drive across country on road trips. I realize that life is one I probably would never be able to enjoy with Raph. He is Raphael North, after all. His face is recognizable amongst thousands. Still, there really is absolutely no way any of that might be possible if Raph insists on punishing himself for an accident he believes to be his fault.

  I’ve been hoping I’d arrive at the apartment before Paxton. I’m out of luck when the door door swings open; Paxton stands there, a stormy expression on his otherwise perfect face. His dirty blond hair is swept back, not a strand out of place, his suit jacket buttoned, not a crease in sight, a fuchsia pocket square folded with crisp corners jutting out of the dove grey material. He looks like a Tom Ford model, albeit a Tom Ford model who’s been having a very bad day. He doesn’t speak as he steps aside for me to enter, but his
expression says enough. He’s angry. Really, really angry. I enter Thalia’s place with my heart in my throat. Thalia’s sitting on the couch. I know something’s wrong the moment I see her. Her knees are drawn up underneath her chin, her arms folded tightly around her body. She glances at me out of the corner of her eye, then swiftly screws her eyelids shut. She’s shaking like a leaf. There’s something all over the tiled floor, glittering and catching at the light. It takes me a moment to realize that it’s broken glass.

  “What’s going on?” I ask, looking around the apartment. Her usually tidy home is in disarray, papers scattered all over the table, overflowing coffee cups and dirty dishes mounded with food, discarded on the countertops. The place smells of rot and decay. Thalia shakes her head, biting down on her bottom lip, still not looking at me.

  “This,” Paxton says behind me, “is the result of your selfishness. This is what happens when you refuse to leave well alone.”

  I spin around, pinning him in my gaze. “What are you talking about?”

  Paxton looms over me as he takes a step forward, closing the gap between us. He’s unnervingly close. Too close for comfort. The bitter, sour tang of old sweat cuts through the clean, musk scent of his aftershave. He reaches up and brushes a strand of hair back behind my ear. His touch is too familiar and far too intimate. Somehow, it feels like the gentle gesture is a threat.