I laughed a little. “Well, I do. I mean, we just started dating. It’s like Sex-Ed 101.”
He looked at me, and there was no masking the annoyance on his face. “You really want to get into this now?”
“Yeah, I kind of do.” I pulled my shirt across my chest, feeling vulnerable in my ripped tights and gaping shirt. “That was sort of shitty, Aiden.”
He scoffed. “Yeah, like you played no part in that. You wanted it just as bad as me. Not my fault you didn’t come prepared.” He walked down the hall to his kitchen. “Want a drink?”
“Aiden!” I shouted, my anger back in full force now. “This is seriously shitty! We need to talk about this, and about what you said earlier.”
He turned to face me. “I don’t think we do, actually. And if you don’t like it, then you can leave.”
I watched him go, my heart pounding. A part of me, I’ll be honest, wanted to just bury it down. Ignore it. Play nice. But I was Lila Carlisle, and Jude and Brooklyn’s warnings were ringing in my ears.
“Fine.” I tied my shirt across my chest to make it halfway decent and stalked outside, slamming his front door behind me. Who needed a guy like that?
But as I walked down the street, heading to Brooklyn’s, I couldn’t stop the angry tears from coursing down my cheeks. I really thought that Aiden was my Brooklyn. A guy who would teach me how to be a better person. But so far, Aiden seemed to have taught me nothing but how much of a dick he was.
I stopped short. Shit, I needed to stop and get the morning after pill on my way to her house. The last thing I needed now was a pregnancy. Brooklyn’s apartment was a three mile walk. I could make it, and would have to part with a little bit of our meager store of cash for the morning after pill at a drugstore on the way.
Fucking Aiden.
11
Brooklyn
Jude came back from his meetings without Lila, but full of information. I made us sandwiches while he filled me in on all the updates, including the fact that apparently now Lila was a suspect. One more thing to toss onto the shit heap.
I didn’t say much, just let him get it all out. The hardest was biting my tongue when he told me how much was in their trust funds. I barely heard a word of the rest of that sentence, I was too shocked. I had to force myself to focus after that. I mean, I knew they were rich, but that amount was… shocking.
We’d finished our sandwiches, and he was in the middle of a sentence about the financial advisor when he suddenly cut himself off.
“Lila’s not here,” he said, and I saw his eyes darken.
“You just noticed that?” I laughed.
“What I mean is…” he stood and walked slowly towards me. “We’re here alone. And who knows how long it will be until we’re alone again.”
I felt the blood rise into my cheeks. He was right. No time to waste. With a giggle, I launched myself out of the chair and into his arms. He caught me with ease, backing up until he fell backwards onto my bed so that I was on top. I kissed him, my breath quickening with desire.
His hand moved to my hair, stroking it away from my face. I wiggled out of my jeans and pulled my shirt off over my head while he did the same. Our lips came back together like magnets as he ran a hand up my thigh. In the background, there was a buzzing, but I barely noticed, too intent on his body. On being closer to him. But the buzzing didn’t stop, and finally I connected the sound.
“Our phones,” I whispered.
“Fuck it,” he said. “I don’t care about anything but you right now.” He leaned up again to kiss me, but the buzzing started up again.
“Fuck.” With a huge amount of regret, I stood up from the bed, ignoring his protests as I dug around in my purse for my phone.
“It’s your sister!” I gasped, looking at the messages. A missed call for me, probably a few for Jude, and she’d texted saying she was downstairs without a key. “She’s here, she needs me to let her in.”
“She can wait a few minutes,” Jude grabbed my hand and tried to pull me back to bed.
I laughed and pulled away. “No way I’m leaving your sister alone on this street. The homeless wouldn’t know what hit them.” I grabbed my robe from the back of the door and tied it on quickly, stepping out onto the balcony to toss her down my keys. “Lila!” I called, seeing her head below. “Catch!” I dropped the keys and she caught them.
Coming back inside, I said to a still-naked Jude, “You’ve got about two minutes before your sister comes in and sees you naked.”
“Talk about timing,” he muttered as he pulled his clothes back on. “We need to finish what we started later,” he said with a sideways look at me and a promising smile.
“I can’t wait.”
He grabbed a cigarette and stepped out onto the balcony, so it was only me when Lila opened the door.
“Oh my God, Lila, what the fuck happened?” I ran to her side. She looked like shit, her shirt tied haphazardly across her chest. The tights she’d worn earlier were gone, and her carefully applied eye makeup was streaked down her face.
“Fucking Aiden,” she spat, dumping her purse and a CVS bag on the floor.
“Did he--?“ I stopped, too horrified to finish the sentence.
“No.” She went into the bathroom and started scrubbing viciously at the makeup. “We had sex, but it was consensual. Then he basically kicked me out.”
I put a gentle hand on hers. “Give me that before you scrub your skin off.” I dabbed some makeup remover on the cotton round and wiped away the eyeliner and mascara carefully.
I drew in a soft breath. “Why would he do that to you?”
She practically spat the words at me. “Fuck knows with him. You were right. You both were right, as much as I hate to say it. He’s a piece of shit. Fuck!” She smacked a hand on the sink. “Ow.”
She brought the hand to her lips and I saw with dismay that tears had filled her eyes.
“Hey, hey,” I said quietly, grabbing her shoulders. “It’s okay.” I pulled her into a tight hug. “Fuck him, who needs that asshole? You’ve got us.”
I felt her laugh against my shoulder. “Thanks, Brooklyn. Though I have to say I did not imagine that this would suddenly become my life now.”
I rubbed her back. “None of us are ever right about what our life is going to turn out to be. You just have to roll with the punches.” I pulled back. “I’m going to give you some comfortable clothes to wear, nothing tailored or fancy, and we’ll lounge around the house today eating ice cream and watching shitty TV, all right?”
She nodded, but her eyes widened when she saw Jude about to come inside. “Shit. Listen, Brooklyn, don’t tell Jude about any of this. He’ll want to kill Aiden, and we don’t need that now. Especially if the feds are already suspicious of us. I’ll tell him we broke up, but he doesn’t need to see all this,” she ran a hand down her torn clothes and the makeup streaked cotton-pads.
She had a point, so I nodded. “Okay. I’m going to knock when I have some clothes for you.”
“Thanks,” she smiled a little and closed the bathroom door just as Jude came back in.
“She in there?” he asked, hooking a thumb at the bathroom door.
“Yep,” I said casually. “I’m forcing her to wear something comfortable of mine today. I lifted a pair of worn-thin high school sweatpants and a snowman dotted pair of pajama pants. “Which one do you think?”
“Oh, definitely the snowmen,” he laughed, walking to the door and calling though. “Lila, just got off the phone with our lawyer! We’re going to meet him at the station tomorrow to talk to Martin.”
She gave an unintelligible reply. I grabbed my softest t-shirt from a county softball league I’d used to play in and passed it and the sweatpants (I decided to take pity on her, given the circumstances) through the door. Snagging the remote, I flipped on the TV and settled on Bravo. The drama and craziness was exactly what we needed today.
A moment later, Lila opened the door, glaring. “You’ve got to be fucking kiddi
ng me,” she said.
Jude nearly fell to the floor laughing at the Couture Queen wearing ratty sweatpants and a massive t-shirt.
“Here,” I said, rolling up the waistband twice so the pants wouldn’t fall down. “Now, I know it’s hideous, but how comfortable are you right now?”
She pursed her lips. “Actually… really freaking comfortable.” She gave her hips a little wiggle, stretched her arms. “Is this why you dress as trashy as you do? I mean, I’ve got so much mobility.”
I rolled my eyes. “Just sit.”
I made us each a bowl of ice cream with every topping imaginable since it was all I could think about after we left their house, and we spent the day watching trash TV and eating our weight in junk. In the midst of the storm that was their lives falling down around them, it was actually a pretty great day.
But for some reason, it made me wonder if something darker was lurking around the corner. Waiting for the best moment to strike us back down.
12
Jude
Lila and I made sure to arrive at the police station the next morning early for our appointment. She looked a little jumpy as she next to me in the waiting room, waiting for our family lawyer.
“What’s up with you?” I asked, putting a hand on her bouncing knee. “You’re all keyed up.”
“Aiden and I broke up,” she said out of the corner of her mouth, her eyes staring straight ahead.
I blinked. “When did this happen?”
“Yesterday,” she said. “It wasn’t working out.”
Hm. I left it alone for now, but I knew there was something else. But, I also knew that if she wanted to talk to me, she would. Besides, I was glad. I didn’t like that bastard anyway. And it had only been a few dates, nothing super serious, so odds were she wasn’t that torn up about it.
A guy who looked to be our age stopped in front of us, sticking out a hand to shake. “Good morning, I’m Jake. Jake Gallagher.”
I shook his hand blankly, wondering what the hell he wanted from us.
“Your lawyer?” he added uncertainly.
“Our lawyer’s Philip Walsh,” I said without much interest. “He’ll be here soon, but thanks anyways.”
He paused. “Um, actually, Mr. Walsh sent me here.”
That caught my attention, but it was Lila that spoke first. “What do you mean? Isn’t he representing us? He’s been our lawyer since we were, like, babies.” She turned to face me. “Remember him representing you for lighting the playhouse at the public playground on fire?”
“Ah yes,” I said nostalgically. “My first fire.”
“How old were you?” the kid asked, eyes wide.
I grinned. “Eight.”
Lila snickered next to me.
The kid clicked his tongue. “Well-well, Mr. Carlisle- Ms. Carlisle, unfortunately, your mother has retained Mr. Walsh already. And of course, it would be a conflict of interest to have him also represent the two of you. So, he sent me.”
My brows drew together as I looked him up and down. “What are you, twenty-two?”
“Twenty-four,” he said officiously, as if that were much better.
“Yeah, no thanks.” I stood to go, gesturing for Lila to follow. “We’ll find someone else.”
“Wait!” He ran up behind us as we went for the door. “Listen, I know I’m young but I’m a little bit of a… a prodigy,” he blurted out, his pale face turning a bright, shiny red.
I stopped and smirked at him. “A wunderkind, huh?”
He puffed his skinny chest out. “Well, technically, yes,” he said, looking mortified. “Graduated from college at 16, law school at 20. I’m young, but I’m good. I wouldn’t be employed by Walsh and Wexler Law Offices if I weren’t.”
“Alright, Jakey, let’s give you a go then.” I turned around and went back inside, he and Lila trailing behind me.
Agent Martin was ready for us, and we were led back to that same cold, shitty room, with me, Lila, and Gallagher on one side of the table; Martin across from us. He had already been seated when we arrived.
Gallagher transformed when we sat down, laying his briefcase on the table and looking Martin directly in the eye. “Now what is all of this about exactly, Agent Martin? Because my clients are the victims here, and I find your line of questioning concerning.”
Even in the face of Martin’s stone cold glare, the kid did not shrink. I nodded to myself.
Maybe this would work out okay.
Martin spoke without preamble, seemingly unimpressed. “I would like more information on Ms. Carlisle’s annual trips to Switzerland.”
Walsh’s assistant told us yesterday to email over any documentation we had about Lila’s trips. And luckily, in the age of the internet, it had been easy to pull up via email. We’d sent over a host of emails with Airbnb rentals, concert tickets, fashion show tickets, her boarding school information, and the contact information of all of her friends there. And a bonus, we’d created an album with photos of her at all of these events.
Gallagher passed a thick folder, which I guessed contained this information, across the table. Martin flicked it open and looked through the pages for a few minutes, before snapping it shut.
Then, he held it up for us to see. As if we didn’t know what it looked like in the first place. “This doesn’t prove much.”
“What?” Lila asked. “That’s got my details for nearly every trip I’ve been there! What more could you need?”
“Pictures of you at a host of different events does not prove that you did not have an hour to spare to set up a Swiss bank account for your mother,” Martin said.
Lila and I both started to reply, but Gallagher put up a hand to stop us. “Ms. Carlisle is being very forthcoming in providing all of these details,” he said coolly. “She is willing to fully cooperate with you in this investigation, proving her innocence.”
“Hardly proving,” said Martin calmly. “I would like for them to testify. Against their mother, at the trial.”
“In regard to her financial indiscretion?” Gallagher said. “That’s hardly an area of knowledge they were privy to.”
“No. In regard to the abuse.”
I felt Lila go rigid beside me before she spoke. “You want us to get up in front of everyone, including the national media, and tell them how our mother treated us?”
Martin nodded. “Yes. That is exactly what we want.”
Gallagher leaned forward. “What relevance will that have in the case? The judge might not even allow it.”
“Let us work that out,” Martin said. “And though it may not pertain exactly to her crimes as a publicly elected official, for the murder case it does help us establish a history of violence and show proof of her overall character. Provided your clients agree to testify.”
I thought about standing up in the courtroom and telling America that my mother had locked me and Lila in a basement as punishment for most of our lives. I considered the idea of telling the entire nation—no, the entire world—that she had beat us, starved us, and dehydrated us in the pit of blackness. That sometimes we were down there so long that mice made meals of our legs and that’s why I always wore pants. That’s why Lila always covered her legs in makeup before she ever left the house. I thought about the pity, the jokes, the well-meaning kindnesses that would provoke.
Then, I thought about the scrutiny. About how people would see us as victims instead of survivors. Poor old twins, with no one and nowhere to go. The entire country would pity us like we were weak.
No.
No way I’d do it.
I started to say so when Lila spoke up. “Okay. I’ll do it.”
“What?” I turned to her. “Li, imagine the whole country picking us apart and laughing at us for how shitty she treated us. We’ll never live that down.”
Her eyes were burning with a new and unexpected fervor. “Let them,” she said hotly. “Let them mock us. I’m past caring. And you act like they’re not going to mock us over this. You think th
e media won’t catch wind of this? We’ll be the butt of everyone’s joking around before the end of the day tomorrow. And when we turn twenty-five? We can take our money and get the hell out of here, just like we’ve always wanted. We’ll have enough money to not need anything from anyone ever again, so who cares? I want to see her behind bars, and if there is anything I can do to help make that happen, then I’m in.”
Martin’s face warmed two degrees, and I thought the investigation against Lila was likely closed. “Good,” he said.
Then he looked at me. “If your sister is testifying, we won’t necessarily need you as well, provided she is comfortable speaking for you both. However, it would be more powerful to have your testimony as well.”
I thought about what Lila had said and finally sighed. “Why not? Fuck it, I’m in too.”
We went through some of the facts of the case, planning and working things out for the next hour or so. Martin was considerably warmer, and I thought that our agreement to testify tied with Lila’s words yesterday had convinced him that we weren’t guilty here, even if we had profited off Mother’s wealth for so long.
“Thanks for your time,” Martin said, shaking our hands as we exited the room. “I’ll be in touch.”
Walking down the gray hallway that smelled like burnt coffee, we came face to face with Aiden. Lila tensed up, and I moved to step in front of her, glaring at him.
“Hey Lila,” he said, smiling with that stupid puppy dog look he’d perfected. “What are you doing here?”
“Mother’s case,” she said shortly. “We’re going to testify.”
“Wow, good for you!” he said. “That’s so commendable. So brave.”
Her voice fell even flatter. “Thanks.”
I glared at Aiden. “We should go. Places to go, things to do.”
And as I put a hand on Lila’s elbow, walking us forward, we passed by Aiden as he stared us down. He didn’t say a word, but I could feel his eyes on our backs as he watched us go.
Man, what I wouldn’t have given in that moment to punch that man’s teeth through the back of his skull.
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