by J. D. Mason
He thought for a few moments before responding. “Did you put this in the book? This part about Jordan’s real father?”
She shook her head. “I didn’t know about it at the time. It’s not in there.”
He sighed. “Then I guess that’s your leverage,” he said, reluctantly.
She was relieved that he wasn’t going to try and talk her out of it. Desi didn’t need logic or reason from Solomon. She needed him to be on her side, and to understand what she understood. That Jordan Gatewood was a dirty player, who made up the rules as he went along. And the only way to play the game with someone like him, was to play it like he played it.
But there were deeper questions piquing her curiosity now since she’d gotten her hands on a copy of that birth certificate. Solomon was a lawyer, and she figured maybe he could help shine the light on some things.
“So, by birth Jordan’s not a Gatewood, really.”
“Not by birth. No. But Julian could’ve adopted him.”
He could’ve.
“Julian was my father, Solomon,” she confessed. Of course, he wouldn’t believe her. And of course, she’d have to prove it, but growing up, it wasn’t a secret.
Solomon stared at her. “I can imagine that he was, Desi,” he said seriously. “Can you prove it?”
She gave it some thought before answering. “If it ever comes to that, then I’ll try.” She thought a bit more. “And if I could prove it, and prove that Jordan’s not a Gatewood…”
Solomon smiled. “It could make for some serious legal issues.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning, he’d have a lot of explaining to do.”
Desi felt smug. “Interesting.”
“How many copies did you make?”
She held up her hand. “Five.”
Solomon laughed. “Why so many?”
“I’m giving one to Jordan. I’m keeping one for myself. I’ve giving one to you. I’m putting one in a safety deposit box, and I’m sending one to Olivia Gatewood. If anything happens to me, you know what to do.”
“Nothing’s going to happen to you.”
“But if anything ever does … you know what to do?”
He noded. “I know what to do.”
* * *
Two days later she walked into Gatewood Tower like she owned the place, found out where Jordan’s office was, and marched up to his receptionist.
“Is Mr. Gatewood in?”
“He’s in a meeting. Did you have an appointment?”
“Where’s the meeting?” Desi asked, boldly.
The woman looked like she didn’t want to give up the information. So, Desi took the fight to another level. “I’m his sister!”
The woman looked surprised. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, picking up the receiver to call Jordan. Desi didn’t give her time to finish the call before she stormed into his office.
“What the hell?” he yelled, bolting to his feet.
She walked over to him, and tossed a copy of his birth certificate on his desk.
“Look at it,” she demanded.
“You need to get your black ass out of my office!” He pointed toward the door.
“Look at it!”
He reluctantly picked up the paper she’d dropped on his desk. Jordan tossed it back at her. “What the hell is this?”
“It’s your legacy, Jordan,” she said, smugly.
“Bullshit.” He sat down, studying the document she’d tossed at him.
“I agree, it’s bullshit that you either don’t know or don’t want to know.”
Jordan didn’t turn pale, exactly, but he did turn a peculiar shade of gray as all the color left his face.
“You got a suicide wish, Desi? Because I swear.…”
“I met him, Jordan. Joel Tunsen. He told me all about your mother, his former wife, and the child the two of them had. He regrets that you were taken from him, but in your memory he has your birth certificate and was kind enough to let me make copies.”
If he could’ve picked her up and thrown her out of the window of that high-rise building, he would’ve.
“So, is this the little project you and your friend were working on?”
“It’s real. It’s been certified by the state. The one with Julian’s name on it was issued three months after you were born. Check it out, if you’ve got the guts.”
“Ask Lonnie about how gutsy I can be.”
Desi was shocked at hearing him mention her name. “How do you know Lonnie?”
“Oh, I know Lonnie intimately,” he said, smugly.
Lonnie had never told her that she knew Jordan. She would have told Desi something like that.
“You didn’t know,” he laughed. “Obviously.”
“She would’ve told me…”
“Not necessarily. She didn’t mention you to me, either.”
“You’re lying, Jordan.”
“What reason would I have to lie to you? Believe me, I understand your dismay. Imagine my shock and disbelief when I found out that the woman I’ve been fuckin all this time had you as a BFF.” He leaned back and touched the tips of his fingers together.
He knew about the two of them. He knew. Desi hadn’t seen or heard from Lonnie in days. Desi swallowed. “Where is she?”
He glanced at the copy of the birth certificate still on his desk. “A copy of that going in your book?”
“When’s the last time you spoke to her?” she asked, apprehensively.
Jordan’s expression changed. Desi couldn’t read it.
“I want this to go away.”
“I want you to tell me where she is!”
“You keep my shit out of your damn book.”
“It’ll stay out of my book, as long as you stay the hell away from me and you tell me what you’ve done to Lonnie!” she said, gritting her teeth.
“I can only make you one promise, that I’ll stay out of your way. Nothing more.”
All the air seemed to leave the room. “Where is she, Jordan,” Desi whispered helplessly.
He never answered.
She turned to leave. Desi had a sick feeling in her stomach. First chance she got she was calling Lonnie again. If she didn’t answer, Desi’d stop by the house again, next time with the police.
Beautiful, Dirty, Rich
Beneath, Beneath the Rising
“I didn’t think I’d have to do all this,” Desi said, agitated, sitting in the back of the limousine next to Sue. “You never said anything about a book tour.”
“I didn’t know you’d be sent on one.”
Desi’s heart raced, and she felt sick to her stomach. Traffic was horrible, but it was always horrible in New York. “We’re going to be late.”
“For someone so against a book signing, you seem mighty anxious.”
“I just want to get this over with. Nobody’s going to be there.”
“You might be surprised. The book’s been getting a ton of press, and the reviews were remarkable, if I do say so myself.” Sue patted herself on the back. “It debuted at number three on the New York Times Bestseller list.”
Desi rolled her eyes. “Go figure.”
A year had passed since Lonnie had gone missing. Desi had gone back to her condo, and when she didn’t answer, called the police. There had been no sign of a struggle. Lonnie’s car was parked in its designated spot. She didn’t appear to have packed up and taken off on a trip or anything, there was no record of her catching a flight, and none of her friends or family had heard from her. The only image left of Lonnie was surveillance footage in the lobby of her leaving her building at seven o’clock one evening, nearly a year ago to the day.
Desi couldn’t prove it, but she knew that Jordan had had something to do with her disappearance. Since the release of the book a week ago, Beautiful, Dirty, Rich: The Desi Green Story, he’d been out of the country. His mother, Olivia, had been checked into a nursing home where she now lived full time. Texas authorities were slow to move in and charge her wi
th anything, because of her age and condition, and because she was Olivia Gatewood and money still talked. But even if they didn’t believe Desi’s claim in her book that Olivia had been the one who pulled the trigger the night Julian died, the general public and, this time, the media were on her side. Desi still hated the press, and she still refused to talk to any of them. It didn’t hurt that she had exposed Billings and Fleming in her book. Out of respect for Solomon and his mother she’d left out Mary’s role in the conspiracy.
This was her first official book signing at a major bookstore in Brooklyn.
“I hope no one shows up,” she muttered.
“Speak for yourself,” Sue said, applying lipstick.
When the driver turned the corner, both Desi and Sue sat up and gawked at the line of people waiting outside the store. Sue’s face lit up. Desi felt like she wanted to vomit. “Can’t you do this without me?”
Sue patted Desi on the hand. “You’re the main attraction, dear. Of course I can’t.”
It reminded her of what it was like to be her all those years ago, when the police dragged her into and out of that courtroom in handcuffs. Photographers snapped pictures of her until she could hardly see from all the flashes going off in her face, hordes of people were pressed against her and they screamed at her.
“What made you do it Desi?”
“Why’d you kill him?”
“Are you afraid you’ll be sent to prison?”
It seemed like a lifetime ago when she was afraid for her life, afraid they’d take it from her, and they did.
Sue squeezed her hand as the driver pulled up to the curb and stopped. “It’s alright, Desi.” She looked into Desi’s eyes and seemed to read her mind. “It’s not like before. These people aren’t here to convict you again. They’re here because they admire your strength for what you’ve been through.”
Desi took a deep breath. The driver came around to open the door for them. Sue stepped out first, but when Desi stepped out, the people on line applauded.
Read on for an excerpt from
The Real Mrs. Price
By J. D. Mason
Visit J. D. Mason online for more information on upcoming books, events, and more!
Drowning on Dry Land
AND JUST LIKE THAT, the fragile concept of what he believed was his reality snapped like a twig. His wife, Lucy, had destroyed him with three little words. “You killed Chuck.”
The dominoes were falling, one by one, creating a chain effect, and everything he’d held dear was crumbling around him. A nauseating knot twisted in his gut.
“Don’t look at me like that, Lucy.”
God! Why did she have to say it? Why did she have to look at him like that—like he was a stranger? Or evil? Like she was mortified by him. Disgusted. It pissed him off because she didn’t understand. Not everything. Lucy didn’t know what Ed had been going through, how he’d been suffering and derailed by the unexpected direction his life had taken because of Chuck.
“You killed him,” she said accusingly. “I know you did it, Ed. I know that it was you.”
She stopped. Stared. Her blue eyes widened, and her lower lip quivered. Lucy’s body quaked, and it was as if all of a sudden, she realized the magnitude of confronting him to his face, alone and standing in the middle of their living room. Ed realized it, too.
Never hit a woman. Never—never hit a woman. But he couldn’t help himself. This time, this one time, Ed’s emotions erupted like a volcano, and his fist seemed to be separate from his body as it landed hard against the side of her face. Impulse. He regretted it as soon as he’d done it, but the pressure had been building in him for days, even weeks, and Lucy had brought it to the surface with this accusation of hers.
“No!” he shouted, reaching for her as he watched her fall back onto the floor.
For some reason, Ed’s thoughts and his blame circled back to his friend. Chuck had started all of this, putting his gotdamn nose into Ed’s business. His noble ass had threatened to turn Ed in.
“It’s not too late, Ed,” Chuck had told him. “If we get on top of this thing now, you can turn it around, but you have to come forward and do what’s right.”
Ed had gotten selfish, sloppy, and cocky. Still, Ed had had this whole thing under control before Chuck’s meddlesome ass stepped in and fucked it all up.
Lucy lay flat on her back at his feet, moaning, rolling her head from side to side with blood oozing from one corner of her mouth and staining her teeth. His beautiful Lucy. What had he done? Ed dropped to his knees on the floor beside her, then crawled on top of her with tears flooding his eyes. He stretched out on top of her, lowered his body on top of hers, and sobbed like a helpless and remorseful child and tenderly stroked her hair.
“I’m sor—sorry, baby. Lucy? I didn’t mean to.”
Ed had snapped, the threat hovering over him like a storm cloud weighed down on top of him until he could hardly breathe. In the beginning, he’d been so careful, so diligent, but somewhere along the way, he’d gotten careless.
This was not right. Ed wasn’t right. Money had meant everything. The lure of it, the promise of it had made him do things that he’d have never dreamed of doing, jeopardizing his career, his marriage, freedom, and now his life and hers. He loved her so much. Even now, he loved her more than he ever dreamed that it was possible to love another human being.
“Baby? Sweetheart, can you hear me? Lucy?”
Her eyes fluttered desperately, and then she fixed her unsettled gaze on him, grimaced, and struggled to get free of him. His Lucy. His beautiful wife. Ed couldn’t believe what he’d done to her, but she shouldn’t have said anything. Even if she knew, she should’ve kept her mouth shut. Ed had crossed a dangerous line. Without realizing it, Lucy had crossed it, too. She thought that this was just about Chuck Harris, but he was just a small piece of a much bigger and more complicated puzzle.
“They’re calling Chuck’s death a homicide, Ed,” she’d blurted out as soon as he’d walked in the house.
She was so smart, too smart for her own good sometimes. He’d always loved that about her. He’d tease her that she had too much time on her hands and that she needed other hobbies besides him. In the year that the two of them had been married, she’d fixated on Ed, watching his every move, hanging on his every word. It was like living under a microscope, and whenever he mentioned it, she would get defensive.
“You knew that I was an overachiever when you married me, sweetie,” she’d reminded him once. “You’re my husband, Ed. I’m supposed to pay attention to you, just like I expect for you to pay attention to me.”
Chuck had been his friend and colleague, and ever since his body was discovered near the cabin he owned in Cripple Creek, she’d been obsessed with finding out what had happened to him. Ed had told her to back off and let the police handle finding Chuck’s killer, but Lucy wouldn’t let it go. Ed had to let it play out and pretended to be as concerned as she was.
“This is so terrible,” she’d say, watching the story unfold on the local evening news. “Who’d want to kill Chuck? Why?”
Ed would shake his head in dismay. “I have no idea, Lucy. He was a good man.”
“Get—off—me—Ed,” she said, spraying blood in his face. Tears ran down the sides of her face. “Get off!”
“Shhhh,” he said, his lips trembling as he stroked her hair. “You keep your voice down and I’ll get up. We can talk about this, Lucy. We have to talk about it.”
Lucy wouldn’t stop shaking. She wouldn’t stop crying.
“Shut up,” he said, his voice quaking.
She recoiled like she was afraid of him, and she had every reason to be, because Ed’s thoughts collided dangerously together in his head. He was afraid of himself and of what he was capable of. He was afraid for her.
It took several moments, but eventually, Lucy managed to calm down.
Ed carefully lifted his body off her and tried to help her up, but Lucy recoiled like he was infected, drew
her knees to her chest, and scooted on her bottom across the floor away from him. She swiped her mouth with the back of her hand and whimpered at the sight of her own blood.
Ed felt helpless and sick to his stomach over what he’d done to her. “Lucy,” he said hoarsely, desperate to connect with her again on this one thing. He took a step toward her and squatted. “Baby, we can fix this,” he reasoned. The irony was that there was nothing reasonable about any of this. “I know you’re scared, and I don’t blame you. I shouldn’t have hit you, but—” Ed reminded himself that he hadn’t meant to hurt Lucy. “It won’t happen again,” he promised. It felt as empty as it sounded. “There’s a lot that you don’t know or understand. I’ve been under a great deal of pressure lately, and—” He had to make her understand the gravity of this situation. “This doesn’t have to derail us, Lucy.”
How did she know about Chuck? If Ed was going to try to fix this with her, he needed answers. How could she possibly know?
“Who told you, baby?” he asked as carefully and as tenderly as he could. “How’d you know?”
She shook her head back and forth and pinned her back up against the wall as if she were trying to disappear inside it to get away from him. Lucy suddenly rolled over on all fours and started to crawl away from him. Ed caught her, grabbing her by the hem of her cardigan, but when she slipped out of it, he grabbed a handful of her hair.
Lucy cried out, and to shut her up, he wrapped his hand around her throat and squeezed. “Shut the fuck up,” he growled in her ear. “You need to calm the fuck down, Lucy. I’m not going to hurt you. Just calm down and tell me how you know.”
She clawed at his fingers around her throat and scratched at his hand grabbing her hair. Then it dawned on him that he was squeezing too tight.
“I’m sorry, Lucy,” he said, easing his grip around her throat. “You need to stop fighting me. If you’d stop fighting, I wouldn’t have to do this. Tell me how you know.” He carefully let her go. “It’s important, sweetheart.”