THE DIRTY ONES

by JA Huss

  “Hayes,” I say back.

  “Get dressed. You’re coming too. I’ve got a helicopter waiting. Bring enough clothes for a few days, at least. Maybe a week.”

  “What the fuck are you doing here?” Connor asks.

  “The book,” Hayes says, turning to face him. “Everyone’s meeting at my place at noon. So let’s get this show on the road.”

  Connor looks at me, questions written all over his face.

  “It’s cool,” I say. “We should go. Besides, I’m due for a trip to the city.” Hayes shoots me a look, but I just shrug at him. “What?”

  “This is serious shit, Kiera.”

  “I wasn’t joking,” I say, narrowing my eyes at him.

  “OK,” Connor says. “Can we table the inevitable Hayes vs Kiera bout for later? Let’s just get dressed.” He takes my hand in what I can only assume is a possessive gesture and tugs me back down the hallway to the bedroom. “Better pack heavy,” he says. “Just in case.”

  “Just in case what?”

  He smiles at me. Leans in and kisses me. Whispers, “In case you want to stay longer after we sort out the bullshit.”

  He pulls away, glancing down the hallway to where Hayes is waiting, then heads the other direction to the laundry room.

  I throw on a pair of leggings, because leggings are my life these days—so sad—and I’m just slipping another oversized sweater over my bare breasts when the reflection of Hayes comes up behind me. Our eyes meet in the mirror. “What?” I ask.

  He just shakes his head and leaves.

  CHAPTER NINE - CONNOR

  To understand Hayes Fitzgerald you have to accept two things as true.

  One, he does nothing half-ass and this helicopter is just another example of what Kiera was talking about.

  I admit that reluctantly because I want her to be wrong. I want to think that status in high society has nothing to do with friendships and love, but in what reality does Kiera Bonnaire find herself the guest of honor in a twelve-million-dollar luxury helicopter?

  An alternate one, was her point.

  Not her actual one.

  Except here we are. Sitting on butter-soft leather seats watching the local New York news on a pop-up console sitting between the seats across from us. Hayes, in one of those opposite seats, is switching between glaring at me and watching the screen that sits between Kiera and I. Yes, this helicopter has two pop-up TV’s because everyone should get the chance to news out like crazy when they get the fast-lane ride in the city.

  The second thing is that Hayes always has an end game. Even the smoked-up drunk-y version of Hayes always had an end game.

  But here’s the catch. You almost never know what that end game is because he’s a sneaky fucker. He’s one of those guys who looks at life as a challenge. Something to be studied from above and planned out with a purpose.

  Bennett is sorta like Hayes in this respect because he likes puzzles. The difference between Hayes’ end game and Bennett’s puzzle-solving is this. Bennett is playing Tetris on his phone while he waits in line and Hayes is playing chess with champions on a global stage.

  Both games require an ability to see ahead and make predictions, but you can’t really strategize Tetris. It was built to entertain. Your screen is only so big and there’s the added complication of all your failures compounding at the bottom of the screen.

  Bennett is OK with that. He’s playing against himself and mostly because he’s bored.

  Hayes isn’t. He’s playing to win.

  So… who am I in this scenario? I’m the one who doesn’t play at all.

  Sad, I know. But I don’t like games. I like truth. And I have come to realize that the whole world is filled with nothing but lies and illusions, so what’s the point, really? Why bother with games of strategy when I can just watch these fuckers tire themselves out and sleep well at the end of the day?

  I get it. I do. I realize this is not a great outlook.

  But I have spent my whole life wanting nothing because I already had it. And sure, you could point to all my friends and associates and say, Well, they had it too and yet they have managed to be ambitious.

  I am not them. I am just me. I am just… ambivalent to the whole thing. I have no purpose.

  So that’s why I’m gonna be a senator, I guess.

  There’s no risk. None at all. It’s not my money paying for this shit, it’s my father’s. It doesn’t even matter if I win or lose, there’s gonna be another chance, right? I mean, I’ve lost several campaigns already and no one cares, not even me. I got the backers. I got the funds. I got the name.

  So I’ll just keep doing it because I got nothing better going.

  It’s busywork, I decide. My whole life has been nothing but busywork.

  Except that year I spent as a Dirty One.

  That year… it was fucking amazing.

  Sure, Kiera got shot, Emily ended up in the nuthouse, and now our whole sick, sexy story is sitting on the New York Times bestseller list, but who cares? Connor felt energized, Connor felt needed, Connor felt complete.

  I’m a pretty sick dude.

  Inside the helicopter we’re all wearing headsets, but there’s no sound on the TV, so the silence is awkward. Especially since I can’t really read Hayes at the moment.

  I count him as a friend but that doesn’t mean I get the guy, ya know? He’s a complete enigma. His family isn’t related to the famous Fitzgerald, at least that’s what they say. Because the famous Fitzgerald family was pretty average as far as high-society thinkers go and God forbid anyone in our world be average.

  Upper-middle-class working families, like Kiera’s, I suppose, are legit on their own level, but she’s right. We don’t mingle. Mostly because there is not much occasion for it. I mean, maybe Kiera’s mother made enough to pay for her Essex education outright, but sixty thousand dollars, give or take, is a lot of fucking money to most people. Even if she was well off, you don’t easily give up that kind of cash every year unless you have so much of it, it barely matters.

  Hayes, Bennett, Sofia, Emily, Louise, and Camille—we’re all the same. They’re all like me deep down. Maybe they really believe in their purpose, but I doubt it.

  Only Kiera is different. She might be the only intriguing thing I’ve ever encountered in my short thirty years on this earth.

  Hayes clears his throat so I look up at him. “So…” he says.

  I glance over at Kiera, who is curled up in the giant leather seat, seemingly asleep with her head pressed against the window and her headset in her lap.

  I look back to Hayes. “So what?”

  “You two have a nice night stuck in the snow?”

  “It was you, wasn’t it?”

  “I’m gonna need a little more clarification if you want a straight answer to that question.”

  “The snow plow. It was you.”

  He nods. “Figured I’d shatter the illusion and bring you two back to reality. Because we’ve got problems.”

  “So wait a minute, you and Kiera…?”

  “Kiera and I… what?”

  “You’re friends?”

  “Why wouldn’t we be friends?”

  “Well, you’re Hayes, for one. You don’t have friends.”

  “That’s not true. I have you. Sofia. Bennett. Camille. I wouldn’t call Louise a friend, but that’s her choice. I tried, she just wasn’t interested.”

  “Hold on. You’re telling me that Kiera has been in your world this whole time?”

  “Again,” he says, sighing into the mic of his headset, “I don’t know why that surprises you. We went through a lot together and we came out of it stronger. You don’t just throw that away, Connor.”

  I just stare at him.

  “You really didn’t know we were all still in contact?”

  I blink at him now. “Wait, all of you? And Kiera?”

  “Of course. Sofia and Camille are her peers. They talk online regularly.”

  “Get the fuck out of here
.”

  “You think,” Hayes says, almost snarling the words, “that the world starts and stops when you enter and leave a room, don’t you, Connor?”

  “No,” I say. “I’m just surprised that this is the first I’ve heard about it.”

  “Well, all the ladies, present company excluded, are living double lives. They don’t just shout that shit from the rooftops.”

  “But you knew.”

  He shrugs. “I asked.”

  “How did I not know about this secret life stuff?’

  Hayes actually laughs. “Come on, Senator. You know why.”

  “I’m not a senator.”

  “Yet. But then again, I guess that outcome depends on this outcome.”

  Yeah, I think to myself. I think it does. And as much as I was trying my best to include the others in my paranoia—looking for connections with Kiera’s writing and then her family—this is about me. I’m sure of it. My puppetmasters published that book. They put it out there so I’d have a very clear picture of what my future looks like.

  “Has Kiera ever ridden in this helicopter before?” I ask.

  “Of course. I pick her up for lunch at least once a month and we… go places. Do things. See people.”

  I don’t even know how to process that. “So she has a secret life too.”

  “It’s not a secret, Connor. That’s the point you seem to be missing. Just because you’re oblivious to something doesn’t make it nefarious.”

  “I didn’t say nefarious. I just said—”

  “I know what you said.” He cuts me off. “And you’re still missing the point.”

  “Which is what?”

  “The world does not revolve around you.”

  I tune him out after that. And he must not object because he makes no more attempts at conversation. If that’s what you call the exchange we had.

  We land on his front lawn. Which probably needs clarification, because it’s one of those long expanses of open space facing the water. And it’s so far away from the mansion, there’s a road and a car waiting when we get out, leaving our bags behind for other people to deal with, ducking our heads under the rotors while holding our coats tight against the freezing wind and salty mist blowing up from the crashing waves of Huntington Bay nearby.

  The car ride is short, and no one says anything. If Kiera heard any of our conversation in the helicopter, she doesn’t let on. Just gazes out the window as we make our way up to the massive, castle-like Fitzgerald family mansion.

  Castle is a good descriptor. Because the imposing Gothic structure is all stone and comes complete with two flanking towers, gargoyles glaring down from tall, pointed-arch windows, a high-pitched, slanting roofline, and a massive twelve-foot door that makes you wonder if it’s gonna come slamming down on your head, drawbridge style, when you approach.

  The only thing he’s missing is a moat, but perhaps that’s in the works.

  We enter single file for some reason, Hayes taking point, and then we discard our outerwear into the waiting hands of the slew of servants and look at Hayes for direction.

  I don’t care how important you think you are, when you enter this palatial mansion, you get a little overwhelmed. There are so many rooms I wouldn’t have the slightest idea of where to go.

  “Follow me,” Hayes says, leading us to one of the nearby grand staircases. “Everyone’s already here in the third-floor library.”

  The fact that he has to tack the ‘third-floor’ qualifier onto the word ‘library’ should tell you all you need to know about this place.

  “Jesus, Hayes,” Kiera says. “You should’ve told me we’d be taking a hike when we got here. I’d have brought a protein bar to snack on while I climbed the seventy billion steps up to your third floor.”

  He shoots her a good-natured grin over his shoulder and not for the first time since our little conversation, I wonder what kind of relationship they have.

  Friends, she said.

  Good friends, from the looks of it.

  “Don’t you have an elevator in this place?” I ask as we round the corner of the winding second-floor landing.

  “Several,” Hayes says. “But it would take longer to get to one than it would to just climb the stairs. The library is right at the top here.”

  Kiera and I are both breathing hard by the time we stop in front of the massive double doors. Hayes reaches for both door handles, then looks back at us, grinning, like we’re in for a sweet surprise.

  And I guess we are, because when he opens the doors the first person we see is Emily.

  CHAPTER TEN - KIERA

  “Hi, Kiera,” she says in one of those artificially sweetened voices. “It’s nice to see you again.”

  “What the hell is she doing here?” I ask, whirling around to glare at Hayes.

  “She’s part of the game, isn’t she?” Hayes says, glancing at Connor to see how he’s taking it.

  From the look on Con’s face, I’d say… not well.

  “I wanted to come,” Emily says, reaching for me. I step back but she’s a quick little bitch. Her long fingers wrap around my upper arm and grip tight.

  It’s not like I’m afraid of Emily, because I’m not. But for fuck’s sake, the girl shot me ten years ago and has been locked away in a mental institution ever since.

  Two large men dressed in white scrubs step forward and pry her fingers off me, pulling her back to a more socially acceptable distance.

  “And she came with guards,” Hayes adds the obvious.

  “I wanted to say I was sorry,” Emily continues. “I didn’t think things through.” She talks slow, enunciating each word like she’s drugged and needs to think very hard about what she’s saying. “I didn’t think things through,” she says again. “And—”

  “I think that’s enough for one day, don’t you, Emily?” another man says, stepping forward. He is so obviously her doctor he doesn’t bother introducing himself to Connor and me.

  “No,” Emily says in her thick voice. “I have a present.”

  “Jesus,” I hear Sofia mutter.

  That’s the first time I notice that everyone is here except Louise. Camille is standing near the tall, pointed-arch windows at the far end of the library, holding a drink. Looking every bit the socialite she was born to be with her light blonde hair pinned up, long curling strands hanging down, artfully framing her sweet, heart-shaped face. She’s wearing a winter white linen suit, with wide-legged pants and a tight, cropped jacket trimmed in lace that makes her look like an updated version of Daisy from The Great Gatsby.

  She is backlit by the dull gray sky outside and Bennett is nearby, leaning up against the stone wall, looking uncharacteristically frazzled in his expensive suit as he runs his fingers through his hair.

  “Can someone get her out of here?” Sofia says.

  “No,” Emily protests. “I came bearing gifts.”

  “Yes, Emily,” her doctor says. “It’s time to go now. You’ve seen all your friends and they have work to do.”

  “I’m part of their work,” she says. “And I have a gift!” Her voice rises a little in building agitation.

  Sofia crosses the room to stand next to me. She feels like power in her red dress. It’s silk, I could see that even from a distance. And tight, accentuating her curves. She’s wearing a tightly cinched, thin black belt textured like alligator skin, and lots of jewelry. A set of bracelets clink together musically on her wrists, and a diamond choker encircles her throat. “Get her out of here,” Sofia says. “This is ridiculous. Kiera had no advance warning and it’s not fair to ambush her this way.”

  It comes off protective and I shoot Sofia an appreciative glance. She sends me a tight smile back and then I’m unsure if she was protecting me, or herself. Because she seems a little un-Sofia-like in this moment.

  “My present,” Emily demands. “I must give her my present.”

  Bennett huffs from across the room. “Let me guess, it’s another bullet.”

  “Th
at’s not funny,” Camille says.

  Bennett shoots me an apologetic shrug.

  “It’s time to go, Emily,” Hayes says, stepping forward to take her arm. “But it was nice seeing you. And you can come back again.”

  “Again?” I ask, looking at Hayes like I just discovered he’s a traitor. “She’s been here before?”

  “Later, Kiera,” Hayes says, leading Emily towards the door.

  “But my present,” Emily is still protesting.

  “You didn’t bring a present,” her doctor explains. “And it’s time to rest now.”

  There’s a small confrontation as the two—nurses? Guards? Whoever they are—reach for her arms when Hayes hands her off. Emily skirts away, running to the other side of the room, pressing her back against the wall.

  I sigh. Because I feel like I’m caught in a movie or something. The mansion, the people, the crazy girl with her weird doctor and tall, male nurses who look like prison guards. It feels like we’ve all been written into a script and now we’re each playing our parts.

  Emily has her hands out in front of her, trying to ward off the inevitable capture, when a phone rings.

  It’s a very old-fashioned, loud bell of a ring. And when I look down I spy a black rotary phone on the small table next to me.

  Everyone stops in this moment. Even Emily and her captors. We all just stare at the phone like this little plot twist is the whole point of the scene.

  I reach for the handset, more out of desperation to make the unbearable ringing stop than anything else, and bring it to my ear. “Yes?”

  Static on the other end.

  “Hello?”

  “It’s an inside line,” Hayes says, reaching for the phone. I hand it to him and he says, “What?”

  I hear someone talking but I can’t make out what’s being said.

  Everyone draws closer to the center of the room. Even Camille and Bennett. Until we’re a circle of people surrounding Hayes.

  “I see,” says Hayes. “Yes, open it up first, then call me back.” He hangs up.