Climax

by Holly Hart

  The sound washes over me, like surf meeting a vicious cliff; except instead of rock, I’m burning, seething with fire. “She did what?” I growl. “You said before?”

  I can hear Harper nodding. “Yeah. In my opinion, Charlie, it’s as bad as it looks. The evidence is flaky, I know that, but if it looks like corporate espionage, and smells like corporate espionage…”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I mutter. “You’re right.”

  There’s another pause.

  “Charlie?”

  “Yeah?”

  “How are you holding up?”

  How the hell do I answer that question: with the truth? That I’m as angry as I’ve ever been; that I want to hunt Penny down and crush her; not for breaking into my company, but for breaking my heart.

  I catch myself: my heart? That’s strong for a girl I’ve known all of a couple of weeks…

  I hear the click of the door opening behind me.

  “Harper, I’ve got to go,” I grunt.

  “Charlie –”

  Then the phone’s gone from my ear.

  I watch as Tilly’s reflection wanders into Penny’s old bedroom. “Hey, daddy.”

  “Hey kiddo,” I say.

  I scrunch my eyelids closed – tight – biting back something that’s not quite a tear. How the hell am I supposed to explain what’s happened to this kid? That I’ve let her down as a father: by bringing someone like Penny into our lives.

  “What’s wrong?” She says. The reflection – all three feet nothing of it, dressed in pink polka dot pajamas – gets closer, and then hugs my leg.

  “Nothing’s wrong, kid.” I ruffle her hair, smiling down. My throat’s all clenched up. Maybe I don’t need to tell her tonight – but soon. She’s a smart kid. She’ll work out that something’s wrong.

  “Don’t lie to me, daddy,” she says. She tugs my arm so that I’m forced to hold her gaze. “We don’t lie, remember?”

  “How can I forget with you around?” I say, dropping to one knee. “You’re a hard task master…”

  I close my eyes, and rest my forehead on hers, just drinking in the moment. Tilly’s the one girl in my life who will never leave me: and the one person I need to protect more than anything else in the world. She’s bigger than me: my company; even the women I choose to bring into my life.

  “So don’t, then,” she says simply.

  I feel a couple of little fingers on my face, and suddenly my eyelid is being forced open, and I see Tilly’s grinning face peering in. I jerk my head backward, and pull a face.

  “Hey!”

  Tilly crosses her arms. She cocks her head to one side like a woman twice her age. “So?”

  “Where did you catch that attitude, Tills?” I groan. I hold my tongue for a second, and then I realize I need to stop procrastinating. “Listen, kid – there’s something I need to tell you.”

  She rolls her eyes. It’s hard to reconcile something so cute being in front of me when I’m so angry inside: angry at Penny’s betrayal; even angrier at my own failure.

  “Is it about the merger?” She asks.

  My forehead wrinkles. “How did you hear about that?”

  “Come on, daddy,” she says with time-worn impatience. “It’s everywhere!”

  “Fair enough,” I allow. “But no, it’s not about that. Daddy’s going to deal with smelly Landon Winchester, let me tell you that!”

  “Then it has to be Penny,” Tilly says matter-of-factly.

  I don’t bother trying to hide it. “How did you know?”

  She has her hands on her hips this time. “Daddy, it doesn’t take an expert. You’re in her room, and your eyes are all teary. What happened? Did she dump you?”

  I shake my head, I cough, and sneeze all at once – and it’s pure emotion coming out, nothing else. I lean forward and pull Tilly in for a hug. “No, kiddo, it’s –”

  I bite my tongue, thinking. But my kid, who’s smarter than a dozen women three times her age, cuts that short as well.

  “Don’t try and hide it from me, daddy,” she says.

  “I fu–,” I catch myself.

  “I screwed up, kiddo. Penny … she wasn’t a good person. She came into our family to steal from us. Maybe not money: but something; she was here to hurt us. I’m sorry I let it happen. I’m sorry she tricked me so bad. I thought she was a good person, but I was wrong. I don’t know how, but I promise you I won’t let it happen again.”

  My confession is heartfelt. I feel stupid admitting all this to an eleven-year-old, but there’s no way to hide it from Tilly.

  Her face scrunches up. She looks confused. And then…

  “No.”

  “‘No’ what?” I ask in confusion.

  “No. I don’t believe it.”

  I squeeze Tilly’s tiny body once again, hugging her with all my might. “I’m sorry, kiddo. It’s true.”

  She breaks free of my hold.

  “No, daddy, it’s not. And don’t you dare try and tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about! You did fuck up,” she says – to my open-mouthed shock. “Not just screw up. Trust me on that, daddy.”

  Then she runs out of the room, leaving me angry and hurt and embarrassed and numb. I drop down to my knees, staring out at the twinkling streetlights of New York.

  Whatever I’m feeling, it’s a mess. Then – still numb – I do something. I reach for my phone. I dial a number, and it goes to voicemail.

  I bite my lip one last time. I can’t believe I’m about to do this – and all on the word of an eleven-year-old.

  But I do it anyway.

  “Harper. I want to speak to the man you had follow Penny. Don’t give me any shit about plausible deniability. Just make it happen.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Penny

  The silenced TV in dad’s hospital room flickers, filling it with a ghostly blue glow. The images from Landon Winchester’s press conference are still flashing on the business segment on the nightly news. I think about asking the nurses to change the channel, but I don’t have the energy.

  Besides, I’m not a virgin anymore.

  Not in life, and not to Brookdale University Hospital – a place where happiness goes to die. Asking the nurses to do anything around here – even provide basic medical care – is a fool’s errand.

  Carol Winters’ words echo in my mind. “There are foster homes, and then there are foster homes, Penny,” she says.

  “We both know you lied about being Charlie Thorne’s wife. The State will discover the truth eventually, Ms. Walters. Make the right choice. Come clean, and I’ll place Tilly in a pleasant, safe family: somewhere on the Upper East Side, maybe. I’m sure there’s a hedge fund family out there who would jump at the chance to take the mighty Charlie Thorne’s daughter. Or don’t… and maybe I won’t be so generous.”

  “I’m sorry, dad,” I whisper. “I tried. I did everything I knew how to do. I know you won’t be proud of me, not after the things I’ve done. I lied, I cheated. But it was all to help you. Or to save you –”

  My voice disappears, and my throat chokes up. I kick off the heels that Charlie – no Landon – sent me, and climb up onto dad’s hospital bed. I curl up next to him.

  I remember a time when the difference between my petite frame, and daddy’s strong, broad shoulders was almost comical. Now, though, after years of cancer and hospital treatments, dad’s once proud frame has almost completely withered away.

  I squeeze my eyes shut.

  “Maybe I should have done it, dad,” I say. “I could have saved your life.”

  But then I would have thrown away every last scrap of my honor.

  Now I’ve opened the floodgates, I’ll never be able to stop. The emotion floods out of me, carrying words that jumble against each other in my depressed eagerness to come clean.

  “That woman, Carol Winters,” I continue – even though my dad’s in a medically induced coma and can’t hear a damn word I say.

  “She showed me her fancy Italian de
signer clothes, her purse – everything – thousands of dollars’ worth. She outright admitted Landon paid for them with bribes. She offered me the same. I don’t get it, dad. What happened to her? She must have been a good person, once. Who goes into social work if they don’t care? Who could threaten a child like that?”

  Tears burn as they streak down my cheeks. I don’t bother wiping them aside, and they fall onto the musty hospital blanket.

  “But I could have saved you, dad. If I had taken her offer – their offer. Landon, he would have paid for everything: all your treatment; whatever it took to get you better.”

  I strain to open my eyes, and look at dad’s face. His hair is thinning from all the drugs, and his skin is pale and sallow. He’s hooked up to a feeding tube, as well as another dripping hydration in through the top of his hand.

  I hate to see him like this, and to know that I could have done something to prevent it.

  “But you wouldn’t have wanted that, would you dad?” I whisper.

  The monitoring machines on a trolley by the hospital bed blink and moan, but every line stays straight and placid. I stare at them through blurred eyes, waiting for any sign that dad can understand what I’m saying – that he can hear me from somewhere inside his coma – but there’s nothing.

  I’m just hoping beyond hope.

  I know it’s not possible.

  I swallow. My throat hurts from crying, and it shoots a pang of pain down my front. I deserve it.

  “I failed you, didn’t I?”

  The tears are now streaming down my cheeks in quantities large enough to soak the silk cocktail dress that still clings to my body. A digital clock mounted high on the wall shows that it’s past three in the morning.

  I don’t know where the time went.

  “I know you wouldn’t have respected me, and I would deserve it. You wouldn’t have wanted me to con Charlie. I knew it even when Robbie convinced me into doing it, but I told myself it was okay. I said I’d do anything to save you. Only…”

  My voice cracks and I close my eyes once more, swaddling my face in my hands. My stomach is exhausted and tender from hours of sobbing.

  “… Only it’s not true. I won’t. I couldn’t take that bitch from CPS’ offer. I couldn’t throw Tilly under the bus like that. Or Charlie…”

  Dad’s heart rate monitor bleeps once. I don’t register the sound at first. I’m too bound up in my own problems: too worried about dad’s health to notice as it dwindles away right in front of me.

  Then there’s another beep.

  My eyes burst open, I look up. Dad’s face – already pale – is now white and ghostlike. Something’s wrong.

  I scramble to my feet, moving too slowly. I’m numb. Everything feels as though I’m stumbling through quicksand.

  “Help,” I say. But my voice is quiet, way too quiet to be heard. “Help!”

  Then all hell breaks loose. The line on dad’s heart rate monitor spikes: climbing; climbing; climbing. It’s at ninety-five, then a hundred, then a hundred and ten, and then another spike, and then it’s past a hundred and fifty.

  I’m no medical professional, but I know that he can’t bear this kind of pressure for long. He’s too frail, his body too fragile.

  And his mind –

  – After months in a medically induced coma, I don’t even know if there’s anything left of dad and the man he was to carry on the fight.

  The hospital room door clatters open. Things start to operate at a different speed. A nurse in blue scrubs runs in.

  It’s strange what your mind focuses on at times like this. I see the spectacles dancing on a string around her neck. I see her hair switching from side to side – almost in slow motion.

  “You: move,” she orders. It sounds slower, stretched out in my head.

  “Move!”

  Then it doesn’t. Then there’s another nurse, and another. After all I’ve said about Brookdale Hospital, I still can’t do anything but hope that I was wrong; that they are better at the job than I made out.

  Because if they’re not; dad’s dead.

  Finally, as though my body remembers how to reassert control, my feet start to move. I press myself against the wall; then inch out of the hospital room. I can’t see this. I can’t bear to watch my own father die in front of me.

  The world is an explosion of bedside alarms, and nurses shouting orders at each other. I hear, “code!” It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what happens next.

  Another nurse thunders past me. She stops, just in time – perhaps noticing my tear-streaked face. “Go to the waiting room,” she says. “You don’t need to see this.”

  “Will –,” I croak. “Will he be okay?”

  The nurse winces as I speak. She gives me a sad, tired frown, with sad, tired eyes.

  “I can’t promise you anything, girl. Just go.”

  I move in slow motion and I finally do as I’m told. The hospital smells on the way out, just as it did on the way in.

  Through the hurt, through the pain – through the fear of what’s coming – another thought takes hold in my mind. It’s like a seed, germinating there, sprouting roots.

  Once it has sprouted, it’s lodged there. Stuck. I can’t stop thinking about it.

  I can’t save dad. But I can save someone else’s. I can’t let Tilly lose her father like I’m about to lose mine. Even if that means that I won’t be by my father’s bedside when he passes. Dad would understand. He’d want me to be the daughter he raised, not the girl I turned into.

  I hope.

  Because I know how to stop Landon Winchester.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Charlie

  Tim, my bodyguard and driver of several years, taps his ear.

  “He’s here, boss.”

  “Send him in.”

  We’re standing in the kitchen area of Thorne Enterprises’ HQ. Tim emptied out every last chef, leaving it strangely quiet – except for the bubbling over the sound of a forgotten saucepan of pasta.

  It’s a strange place to meet – but it works perfectly.

  This is the kind of meeting I don’t want on the record. I don’t want my guest caught on any CCTV cameras on the way in. I don’t want him signing for an entrance badge, nor do I want the prospect of a receptionist remembering him later on.

  No, this way is better.

  I hear footsteps from the corner, then watch as two burly men in ill-fitting suits – weapons strapped to their hips – lead a third man. He’s short, perhaps five foot seven, with scruffy black hair, tanned skin, and a salt-and-pepper beard.

  “I’ll take it from here, boys,” Tim mutters. He holds his palm up, indicating for my guest to stop. The man does as he’s told, grimacing and holding his arms out, ready to be searched. Tim does the honors.

  “He’s clean, boss,” Tim says as he finishes patting the scruffy-haired man down. “Want me to stay and –”

  I shake my head. “Leave us, Tim. My guest and I will be fine, won’t we?”

  Tim bites his lip before he says something he shouldn’t. I watch as his muscles twitch – his body fighting with the natural urge to disagree – before he acquiesces. He nods and departs.

  “So,” I say. My voice sounds strangely quiet in the empty industrial kitchen.

  My guest says nothing.

  “You have a name?”

  The mysterious guest holds his tongue long enough for me to wonder whether there was any point bringing him here at all. Finally, he breaks his silence.

  “Jason.”

  “Is that your real name?”

  No answer.

  I don’t suppose I’ll get a surname, and I don’t particularly care to ask. One of the more disagreeable aspects, of running a multibillion dollar corporation, are moments like this.

  “You know why you’re here, Jason?”

  No movement.

  “I’ll do the talking, then,” I smile. “I understand Harper hired you to follow a young lady.”

  “Your w
ife,” Jason finally grunts. He says the words without judgment – with almost complete disinterest. I guess if you’re a PI, or a corporate spy; meetings like this quickly become old news.

  I incline my head in agreement: “My wife.”

  Jason shrugs.

  The cloth of his nondescript navy blue canvas jacket tugs against his body as he does so – revealing that despite his slight height, he has a more than muscular frame. The man radiates danger. I’m not surprised Tim didn’t want to leave me alone with him.

  “Tell me what you found,” I say.

  Jason doesn’t hesitate this time. “She’s got a father, late fifties, in the hospital. She was homeless for a bit. I spoke to a few people who knew her on the street –”

  I feel like I might stumble at any moment. I pinch the bridge of my nose, and my forehead knits together. The idea that Penny – my Penny – could once have lived on the streets is shocking.

  “Wait,” I say. “Her father: what’s wrong with him?”

  Jason’s eyes flicker, almost as though he’s reading from an imaginary notebook. They go glassy for a second, and then he returns to life. I idly wonder whether he has a photographic memory.

  “Brain tumor: operable, but not on his insurance.”

  “She never mentioned,” I whisper.

  Hell, I guess there was a lot Penny never told me about. Still, it hurts that a woman I allowed to get so close to me could hide something so terrible from me.

  “That’s because you were her mark,” Jason says.

  I’ve suspected this for a while, but to hear it directly from Jason’s lips, cold and impassionate, still hurts.

  “Walk me through it. Don’t sugarcoat it.”

  “We found the evidence on the housemate’s phone. They searched through a dozen different targets before settling on you. I guess she did it to pay for her dad’s treatment. Who knows? I can’t figure out why she married you, though. That bit doesn’t make sense.”

  “It was never part of the plan,” I mutter.

  The floor feels unsteady beneath me.

  “Should I go?” Jason asks. He doesn’t try and comfort me – and to be honest – I appreciate it.