“And me?” The question was soft, almost uncertain. “Are you going to talk to me and explain this to me?”
She opened her eyes, stared at her reflection. He already knew the worst things she had hidden inside.
She might as well explain the rest of it. But not now.
“I will. Soon.”
Chapter Seventeen
The heat of a Kentucky summer sucker-punched her as she left the airport. It was already night, but the air was thick, choked with humidity that already had sweat beading on her brow.
Yeah, that was one thing Keelie hadn’t missed about this place.
Well, one of many.
Her rental car waited and she had to smile at the sight of it. After so many years of driving the beater, she wasn’t quite so certain how to handle the Mercedes Paul had lined up for her. She fumbled with the key fob for a minute and then opened the door, almost reluctant to climb inside.
Her phone rang as she went to shut the door and she welcomed the distraction, even more as she saw the number.
“Paul.”
“Katie.”
She licked her lips. “Keelie. That’s who I am now. Katie . . .” She sighed and closed her eyes, letting her head fall back against the padded headrest. The seat was almost too comfortable to be believed. “It’s Keelie. Katie’s been gone a long time.”
“You aren’t defined by a name, kid. You’re defined by what you do.”
“And Katie was a kid who hid under the covers, ran away instead of standing up,” she said, opening her eyes to stare at the quiet, dark parking lot. She’d locked the doors out of habit and she sat in a cocoon of silence. Easier, she thought. Easier to just sit here and pretend the rest of the world didn’t exist. But there were things to do. She had to do them, so she could close this chapter of her life. “I don’t hide away anymore.”
Paul was quiet, but after a moment, he said, “I knew your dad. Did I ever tell you that?”
Her heart swelled, expanding until it seemed to fill her entire chest. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. “What?”
“I knew him. Not well, but I knew him. He was attending UK on scholarship and I’ll tell you, that boy had fire. He played basketball, but you could tell that it was a means to an end for him.” Paul’s voice was soft, faraway.
She could all but feel the memories he’d lost himself to. “We didn’t get to be friends in school. I was older, focused on finishing law school. He was taking more classes than most kids his age, playing ball. He had his hands full. But he found my name when he was looking for a lawyer to handle his estate, should he need it. We got to be friends then. He came from nothing, your dad. Grew up in a trailer park in Louisville. His dad was a drunk. His mother wasn’t much better. He’d lose himself in school, in the library . . . all he wanted was to make something more of himself . . . for himself. Then you came along, and all that focus shifted to you.”
Her throat went tight. She knew so little about him. Yes, she’d dug around as she’d gotten older, found some information that was public. She’d known he’d played basketball in college, knew he’d gotten through college on a sports scholarship. But the rest, all those personal details—as young as she’d been, she’d never known things like that.
She swallowed around the ache inside. “Why are you telling me this?”
“You’ve got the same kind of drive your dad had, Ka . . . Keelie. You’re his daughter. You found your center. You were a scared kid. And you tried. Don’t ever forget that. You tried.”
It wasn’t enough.
But she had to get past that.
It was time to start blaming the ones responsible—her stepbrother, who was still a monster under the skin, and his parents, for hiding who, and what, he was.
* * *
A day rolled by.
Then another.
Zane was back in New Mexico, talking with the Realtor. The couple who’d made the offer wanted to buy. Zane had to get the rest of the stuff out, handle a few more things.
And deal with the Realtor.
“I think we should have pushed for—”
Zane dragged his thoughts away from Keelie. “No. I wanted it done.” Turning his head, he met the Realtor’s bland brown eyes. What was the guy’s name? Zane should know it—he did know it, he thought. But just then, he couldn’t think of it. All he could really think of was Keelie.
Getting back to Tucson. Waiting for her.
Brooding when she went another day went without calling him.
Shit.
He yanked his thoughts back to the matter at hand and said again, “It’s done. It’s not like they’re robbing me blind.”
Ron—that was his name—Ron went silent, his mouth tightening a bit, but he nodded. “Maybe not. But that other guy was loaded, showed a lot of interest. We could have gotten even more.”
“And these people are ready to move forward now.” So I can move on—focus on everything else . . . Keelie.
Later that night, surrounded by more empty boxes, he stood at the window, his phone on the table next to him.
The phone stayed mockingly silent.
I will. Soon.
He’d kind of expected that to mean she’d call once she landed, got herself in a hotel.
But Keelie hadn’t called once. She’d sent a short text when she landed: I’m here. I’ll call in a few days.
A few days. That didn’t really work for him, but what was he supposed to do?
Unsettled by the emptiness inside him, he moved away from the window and sat in front of his laptop. He’d go over the designs he’d been thinking about for his studio for what felt like forever. The shop Abby had shown him had been perfect in more ways than one. It actually fit everything he’d ever wanted to do.
Now he had a place to do it.
He should be all but ready to tear down the walls himself—have sledgehammer, will travel.
Instead, here he sat.
“Fuck,” he snarled, scrubbing his hands over his face as she shoved her way into his mind yet again.
How could he focus on anything else going on when she was dominating his every thought?
What was she doing and why was it so important that she couldn’t let him know what was going on?
“Get to work. Just . . .” He blew out a breath. “Just don’t think about it, okay?”
He booted up the computer but it didn’t do anything. Aaaannnndddd . . . wonderful. He’d left it unplugged, and sleeping, so long the battery had died.
Plugging it in, he took a minute to grab a cup of coffee and then he sat back down.
That annoying little message flashed up.
Blah blah blah. Yeah, he’d let the battery go dead. Computer shut down, blah, blah blah. He tapped the mouse pad and then went stiff as he saw the images of the pictures he’d shown Keelie flash up. He hadn’t closed the folder and now, there they were.
He looked at the scared, skinny boy he’d been.
Keelie had looked so horrified, and then floored when he’d told her he’d never told his parents.
How in the fuck did a guy tell them that?
How could he tell his brothers?
Hey, Zach . . . you know all the times I picked a fight with you guys, half the time it was to cover up what some shithead had done to me? Sorry about that.
Except . . .
Swearing, he shoved up and turned away from the computer.
Keelie was off doing God knows what, trying to come to grips with the scared kid she’d once been. Find some way to accept what she hadn’t been able to stop.
Here he was hiding pictures of the bruises he’d borne.
Yeah, he’d done it at first because he didn’t want to forget.
Most probably wouldn’t understand that. But remembering had driven him to get stronger. Faster. It had driven him to make sure his brothers were the same way. Then he’d remembered and looked at others and known how it felt to be the weaker one, the one who couldn’t get away. So he’d been driven to step be
tween the victim and the victimizer.
It hadn’t even stopped once he left school, either.
All throughout college, even at the bar where he’d worked. His old boss had been pissed partly because he wasn’t just losing a decent bartender who’d worked for him for ten years. Zane had been just as good at dealing with the drunk idiots as some of the bouncers—and he’d enjoyed it.
Sometimes when he saw that glint in the eyes of a certain kind of guy, he’d remembered how he felt when he’d seen that same light in the eyes of Rick, Rodney, every asshole he’d ever dealt with growing up. And it felt good to be the one able to bring them down.
Slowly, he returned to the couch and sat down, staring at the monitor.
He swiped a finger across the screen, moving from one image to the next and the next. Even though the bruises had long since faded, he could almost feel the echo of them, sitting there, staring at those pictures.
He wanted to know why Keelie had gone off to face her demons?
He had the reason right here in front of him.
He carried his demons with him. He thought he faced them by not being the target he’d been.
By not letting others be the target.
But how did he really, truly face it when he still hid from it?
Sighing, he lowered his face into his hands and closed his eyes.
In that moment, he felt brutally old. Brutally exposed. Brutally alone.
* * *
The summer sunshine beat down on her shoulders.
She was due to meet Paul in five minutes.
She could have parked right in front of the law office. There had been room. But Keelie needed time to think. Time to breathe. So she’d parked a block down and now, she was trying not to panic. It wasn’t working.
She thought she just might sweat through the dress she’d bought for just this purpose.
Yesterday had been busy.
She knew, too well, just how important appearances were so she’d just decided to ride with it. She’d decided to go back to her natural color, pale blonde, and she’d practically felt her jaw hit the floor when she saw how much it cost to pay a professional to get her hair back to the color of her roots—and cut her hair into the short, pixie cut she’d decided to go with.
Her makeup was subtle—even for her. Since she rarely bothered with anything unless she was out on a date, the fact that she even wore any was a sharp one-eighty. The dress had a moderately high neck, although nothing would hide her tattoos. She wasn’t going to worry about that. But the sleeves went to her wrists and the material, a pale blue, was thin so she didn’t feel like she was smothering. It cut to her upper body before flaring out just slightly at the hips.
She wore a simple pair of taupe heels with a bit of sparkle down the side. She didn’t look like the woman who’d spent the past seven years of her life inking tattoos onto people’s skin for a living. Not that she was ashamed of what she did, what she planned to do for a good long while.
Keelie Jessup was a damn good tattoo artist and she was proud of it.
But the people she was here to face down weren’t going to see Keelie Jessup in the same light they’d see Katherine Lord.
Katherine Lord, heiress.
That was who her mother was looking for.
So she’d wear that face, even if it was a mask she was uncomfortable in. Money, appearance, it carried weight here.
Thus the reason she’d let Paul arrange for the rental of the Mercedes. The reason she carried a slim Coach purse instead of the battered, army-green handmade tote she’d used for years.
Spying a familiar form, she quickened her pace, suddenly eager to see the man who’d been a rare bright spot in her life.
At the sound of her heels clicking, he turned his head and it wasn’t more than a few seconds before she had her arms around his neck. “Paul.” She swallowed against the knot in her chest.
He just hugged her.
After a minute, she drew back and smiled at him, surprised at the wealth of emotion burning in her chest.
He reached up, tapped her nose. “Well. You turned out pretty decent, I must say.”
She laughed, the sound watery even to her own ears.
“You went and got older,” she said, making a face at him. Really, though, he looked the same. A few more lines on his face, and a few more pounds around the waistline.
But he still had that same kind smile she’d first seen in a courthouse years ago. She’d been sitting with the child advocate while they waited for her hearing. Paul really hadn’t had any reason for being there, but he had been.
It wasn’t until years later that she figured out why—he had wanted to be there so she wasn’t alone.
It was why he’d showed up every time she had to go to court, why he’d come to visit her, no matter which home she was in, no matter what family they’d placed her with.
She’d always had at least one person who’d cared.
“Thank you,” she said, the words slipping out of her before she could stop them.
He cocked his head, puzzled. “For what?”
“For always being around. You might have been the one hired to handle the estate, but you and I both know you went above and beyond your obligations to me.”
“Keelie.” He sighed, shaking his head. “Sweetheart, I didn’t do anything out of obligation. I gave some time to a scared, alone little girl and I started to care for her.” He reached out and caught her hand. “More than once, I thought about asking if we could take you, the missus and I. But I worried that might present a conflict of interest with the estate and, more than anything, we had to make sure nothing interfered with that. It was your father’s gift to you and we had to protect it. Of course, after that nasty business with your mother and that stepson . . .”
Paul’s mouth went tight.
“I got out,” she said, squeezing his hand. “Whoever they talked to—”
“It wasn’t them.” Paul looked up. “It was me. I talked to your social worker, to a few other people I knew. Told them things I probably shouldn’t have. But I knew you shouldn’t stay there. Your mother . . . now . . . she was not happy.”
Keelie felt her jaw fall open, shock rippling through her. “What . . . you . . . ?”
He inclined his head. “You know why she wanted you.”
“My father’s money,” Keelie said, her voice bitter. “Somebody’s making calls, looking around for me back home. I know it’s her. I know that’s why.”
“So she’s looking for you. We always suspected she might.” Paul looked unconcerned. Then he shrugged, averting his gaze so that he stared out over the street. It was mid-morning and early morning commuters were settled into their offices. None of the lunch rush had started. The traffic, both vehicular and pedestrian, was light. “I’m not surprised. The past few years haven’t been kind to the Vissing family. They made some poor investments and Price . . . well. Let’s say he’s got more arrogance than any ten men should have. He’s mismanaged more than a little bit of money.”
“And he wants to embark on a political career. Lovely.”
Paul slid her an amused look. “He’d be far from the first crooked politician, Keelie. But . . . maybe you can throw a wrench into his plans. Maybe he can silence or bribe a bunch of other people, but I don’t think he’ll have as much luck with you.”
Keelie smile grimly. “I’m planning on using more than a wrench. I’ve got a toolbox full of shit to heave his way.”
* * *
It was hours later when they finished.
It had been grueling, intense, almost invasive, and she had to explain far too many times why she’d been living under a different name for the past nine years. Why she’d left the state, why her money was managed not by her, but by a lawyer.
Not that Paul was just a typical lawyer.
He was a friend, one she trusted implicitly.
Quarterly, he sent money to her and she put it in an account, although more than once, she’d
told him just not to send anything. It wasn’t like she needed much. He handled the investments, he handled contributions and bequests, found other areas that he thought might interest her—the latest was a rape crisis center in Lexington. The funding had been pulled in the past few years and the people running it had managed to keep it going through private donations, but they were struggling.
Or they had been. Thanks to an anonymous donation, they were going to be okay.
It was one thing that made her smile when she thought about this place.
Although now, if she let herself hope, she might have another.
The woman Price had attacked, her name was Alice Reyes.
Alice wasn’t there.
They met with her lawyer, spoke only with him. He was a sharp-eyed, slim man by the name Howie Franklin and he had listened with keen interest as Keelie detailed why she was there, what had brought her home . . . and why she’d left. The need to distance herself had been strong. Now, the need to see her stepbrother answer for what he’d done, the need to see him stop preying on women was just as strong.
She’d had to sit through it as Howie blasted her with questions, and her temper had been a frayed, withered thing by the time he was done. He’d left her alone with Paul and she’d all but come out of her skin in the twenty minutes they’d been in that room.
When he came back in, he’d put a cup of coffee in front of her and then, dropping the shark exterior, he’d said bluntly, “If I put you on the stand, can you hold up like you just did?”
Now, looking back, she almost wanted to hope.
To believe.
They thought she’d be enough to rock Price.
He’d warned her—it might not be enough to get him behind bars, but Howie wanted him to pay in any way imaginable. They’d go for a conviction and if that didn’t work, then they’d hit another way. Civil lawsuits, through the media, anything.
“He’s caused this much harm and suffered no consequences because he’s in a position of power. Imagine how much worse it will get if he starts climbing that political ladder. We have to shut him down now,” Howie had told her.
It was nothing less than the truth. That was why she was here. Maybe if she’d thought to check up on him—
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