by Marie James
“Savannah’s been gone for almost two years Sierra.” I can finally say it without it bringing me to my knees.
“I’m not talking about her. That bitch that was at your condo. She doesn’t want you!” She screams the last sentence, and I immediately wonder why she’s even bringing London up.
I stand quietly hoping my semi-calm demeanor rubs off on her; it doesn’t.
“She’s working across town and doesn’t give a shit about you!” My eyes widen.
“You know where London is?” I hate the maniacal look in her eyes, but I ignore it at the mention of London.
I grab her arms roughly. “Tell me where she is!” I demand.
She smiles in my face like the psychotic person I know she’s become. “She’s working as a secretary or some shit for Justin Bland. She’s moved on Kadin.” His voice grows calmer like I’ll accept her news and move on with her instead.
I release her arms and take a step back sure she’s just fucking with me like she’s become an expert doing the last two years. “How do you know that?”
“I saw her at a grocery store the other day, and I followed her home.” She shrugs like stalking and following people is completely normal.
I narrow my eyes and try to determine if she’s telling the truth. She’s so hard to read these days, but I won’t take a chance. I know exactly where Justin Bland’s office is. He’s worked a couple of contracts for mutual clients of ours.
“I’ve given you enough time to get over Savannah,” she says angrily. “I won’t allow another woman to come between us. I’ve waited almost twenty years for you already.”
Ignoring the craziness of her last words, I turn my back on her to enter the house to get my truck keys. It’s late, but I’ll wait outside in the parking lot until the sun comes up if I have to.
“If you go after her, Kadin,” Sierra vows. “I swear to Christ I’ll kill her too.”
I was so upset when I left Kadin’s condo that I didn’t even realize that I could track him down through his work, but by the time I realized that, the truth that he’d moved on, literally as well as figuratively, had already settled in my gut. I’ve been on my own five months now, and I’ve grown somewhat used to the situation. My heart still hurts, but the pain is not as acute as it was. I’ll wait until after the baby is born and then revisit telling him about it. For now I’m trying to focus only on myself and the life I’ll be responsible for soon.
Jillian and I have grown closer, and we spend almost all of our time off either shopping or just hanging out at each other’s houses. I get the feeling that something happened between her and Hawke, but she refuses to talk about it even though I spilled my guts to her a couple months ago. The vibe around the office has been off ever since we all met up at the club yet no one seems to be willing to talk about it.
“I don’t think being supportive of a friend is an indication that you want to have a baby, Jillian.” She’s once again barged into my office so I put her on the spot, asking her if she’d go to my next appointment with me. I’d love to have someone to talk to since the wait seems to take forever.
“People will think we’re lovers,” she says comically waggling her eyebrows. I sigh in frustration. “Fine, I’ll go and be the supportive best friend slash gay lover.”
I smile big at her dramatics. “Thank you for the sacrifice.”
“I won’t stay in the room while he checks your vagina.” She crosses her arms over her chest in resistance.
“It’s not that kind of appointment, Jillian.” I glance back at my computer. “Don’t you have work to do?”
She sighs suddenly, and I can tell she looks dejected. “Hawke has a visitor, so I decided to come visit you.” She looks at her nails.
It doesn’t go unnoticed that she said visitor and not client which hints at the person in his office is there for personal reasons and not work. “Want to talk about it?” Maybe this is the time she actually opens up about it.
“Nope,” she says standing up and walking out. Maybe not.
The ringing of my phone doesn’t let me dwell on it any longer.
“London Sykes,” I say into the handset.
“Can you come in for a minute?” Justin.
“Sure,” I respond but find it weird he called rather than messaged me on the office’s instant messenger.
I enter his office without knocking. I used to knock, but he told me to stop, said it made him feel like I thought he was doing something creepy in there if I felt the need to ask permission to enter.
“What’s up?” I sit in the chair across from him.
“Why do I have travel plans on the calendar for the end of the week?” I shake my head in mild amusement.
“I swear you never listen to a word I say,” I tease him.
His face grows serious. “London I’ve heard everything you’ve ever said to me.”
He’s incredibly sweet, and I’ve really come to value his friendship these last few months. Jillian continues to push me in his direction, even more so since I discovered the old man living in Kadin’s condo.
“If that’s the case then you’d remember me telling you that you’d have to travel out of town to meet Mr. and Mrs. Hofstetter. They’re loaded and will be excellent clients, but they’re a little reclusive and refuse to travel. If you want them, you have to go to them.” He looks at me as confused as ever. “Ringing any bells?”
“Nope,” he answers with a smile. “What would I do without you?”
“Besides not show up for half of your appointments?” I laugh. I thought it was weird for the two men in this office to need personal assistants, but it was apparent very close to the beginning of my employment that we were needed desperately. Hawke isn’t quite as bad but some days I wonder how Justin’s ever shown up on time for anything on his own. He constantly loses track of time.
“Have dinner with me?” His words are soft and random in respect to our current conversation.
“Justin, I can’t.” I hate the way his face falls for the split second before he corrects it. He’s always taken my rejections in stride, and they’ve even practically stopped, but every once in a while he’ll ask. He told me from the beginning he’d continue to ask until I told him to stop. “I’m huge,” I say in jest and pat my growing stomach. I’m almost to the halfway point in my pregnancy. “You don’t want to be seen with me.”
“You were beautiful when you first started working, but you’re even more gorgeous now.” He leans in slightly before continuing. “You’re smiling more these days.”
I blush. He's completely sincere, and the attention is a huge boost to my ego. I think his complimentary nature is the main reason I’ve yet to put an end to the mild flirting and requests for dates. It’s almost as if I need the attention to feel validated. Feeling wanted works wonders for my self-esteem.
“You were broken when you first got here.” I wince because I’d thought I hid it very well.
“I’m still broken,” I say softly looking at my hands.
“You can’t tell from here,” he assures me. His comment validates that either I’ve gotten very good at hiding my true emotions or I’m beginning to move on. Most days I don’t know the difference myself.
“I feel incomplete,” I admit raising my head and looking into his eyes.
“You still love him,” he states, referring to a man he’s never met but still feels in competition with.
I can’t answer him. I can’t give a voice to that fact right now. I know I need to move on but I’m not ready, and I don’t know that I’ll ever be. Knowing that, I feel like I just need to jump off of the cliff into the unknown.
“Ask me again,” I whisper.
“Will you have dinner with me?” His eyes are on fire, and I can hear his foot tapping under his desk betraying his excitement.
“Yes,” I answer with a small smile. “I don’t want you to have high expectations, Justin. I know I’m not ready for anything serious.”
He leans back in
his chair and attempts to act nonchalant. “Casual dating?”
“Let’s start with just friends who have dinner together,” I say in rebuttal.
“Sounds like a perfect start. When?” He asks with a smile, knowing I’m more aware of what’s on his calendar than he is.
“Next Thursday,” I answer. We both have work the next day, so it seems safer and less date like.
“I’ll pick you up at seven?” His grin ear-to-ear grin is contagious.
“Seven sounds perfect.” I stand from my seat. “Don’t miss your flight to Utah,” I tell him pointing to the itinerary on his desk.
Did she just say? The room tilts and my head begins to swim. I turn my body around to face Sierra, but it takes a minute for my eyes to focus on her.
“The fuck you just say?” I had to have heard her wrong. There’s no way that she would go so far as to kill her own sister just to get a shot at being with me.
Her eyes go wide as if she can’t believe she just said what she did and in that second I realize she’d been telling the truth. My hands begin to tremble and in my rage a tear rolls down my cheek. “You crazy fucking bitch!”
She hates the word; I know she hates the word. Everyone had been very careful never to use the term around her. Hell, I was just as guilty as the rest of her family for skating around her mental health issues and making excuses for random crazy shit she did.
I watch as utter rage takes over her face, but I’m beyond caring at this point. “You killed my wife? Your sister?”
She sneers at me. “And I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”
“Even knowing I’d never be with you? Knowing that because of what you did I’ll hate you forever?” I grip my head with both hands because it feels like I’m in the twilight zone. “She was in a car accident, Sierra.”
I remember the accidents report. They presumed that she fell asleep behind the wheel because there were no signs of her trying to avoid driving off the ravine they found her car in.
“You can find anything on the internet, Kadin. Even how to cut brake lines.” She says it so matter of fact that it sends chills up my spine.
I take a moment to finally take a long look at her. At first all I see is pure evil, but the more I take in, the more I notice just how much she’s transformed herself into Savannah. I notice her haircut is similar to the way Savannah wore hers. Sierra’s clothes, which were usually a little edgy and hip have now been replaced with slacks and a sweater set, identical to what my late wife would’ve worn to the office.
“I didn’t take out my twin to have some two-bit whore come in and take what’s mine.” Her second reference to harming London makes me see red.
I whip around and run back into the house frantically looking for the phone. The woman outside just admitting to killing my wife and is now openly threatening the woman I love.
The woman I love.
The thought slams into me, but I don’t have time to consider it now. I need to call the police and have her put away for good this time. I fly up the stairs, grab my phone, and I’m dialing 911 before I make it back to the porch.
The bottle of Jack Daniels is shattered in the spot she previously occupied, and her car is already gone out of the driveway. The call connects and I relay to the operator everything she just admitted me.
I’m told that a detective will make contact with me, and I’d need to come to the station to give a proper statement tomorrow, but there is nothing that they can do about it tonight. The case would be transferred to the Criminal Investigation Division; they would take it from there.
They didn’t care that she has a history of mental illness. The operator sounded bored as if she took calls from people admitting to murder numerous times a day and she was reading from a cue card.
Remembering a detective I know I search my phone, hoping I still have his number. I’d worked with Henry Bates on more than one occasion when properties we were under contract to build were vandalized.
I eventually find his name under Spokane Police and press send. It rings three times before he picks up.
“Henry?”
“Hey, Kadin. What’s up?” I can hear the background noise fade out as he walks away from whatever he was doing.
“I have a situation. My sister-in-law just came to the house and admitted that she cut the brake lines on my wife’s car and caused her accident.”
“Fuck, Kadin. Didn’t your wife…” he trails off.
“Die? Yes. She killed my fucking wife and I called to report it to the police, and they said…”
“You’d have to wait for CID,” he says cutting me off.
“Yes! Is there anything that can be done?”
“I wish there was, man. They may be able to pick the case up first thing in the morning,” he says, and I can tell he’s not happy about the way the law is set up either.
“She’ll fucking kill herself before that happens and then she’ll never pay for what she’s done.” I sit on the couch and hang my head in defeat.
“Does she have a history of mental health problems?” He asks with renewed expression in his voice.
“She’s been hospitalized more than half her life for suicidal ideations and manic-depressive mood swings. She’s a paranoid schizophrenic.” I confess to him her secrets; the one her family always insisted we keep because of her dad’s public persona are no longer ones I’m willing to keep.
“I can call and have dispatch do a well-check on her. If she seems unstable, they can commit her for a few days for evaluation.” He offers.
“Seriously? That’d be awesome, Henry. Keep me informed?”
“Of course, Kadin,” he says before hanging up.
I grab my keys and wallet and head for my truck. It’s after ten at night, but I can’t sit still. I have every intention of driving to the attorney’s office even though I know no one will be there. I have to keep myself busy because if I think about the revelations that were made tonight I’ll drive myself insane.
As I head down the driveway and again as I near the empty office space where London has been working for God knows how long, I try to convince myself not to take up sentry in the parking lot tonight and wait for her to come to work in the morning.
Rather than park and wait I just drive around in concentric circles, knowing that most people live within a few miles of their job. I let my mind wander as each road starts to look the same and her car is not parked on any of them.
“You know she walked in on me in the bathroom again,” I tell Savannah as we pack to get ready to leave.
It’s our junior year at college, and we spent Thanksgiving with her family this year and plan to spend Christmas with mine.
“You left the door open again?” She’s hardly paying attention to me.
“Seriously?” I say growing annoyed. “She’s busted in on me three times this week alone. I think she waits until I head in there and plans her attacks.”
“Attacks? You’re so dramatic, Kadin,” she says with a laugh. She finally zips her suitcase closed and wraps her arms around my waist.
“You need to say something to your parents. Her behavior is getting worse.” I kiss her head, but she pulls away from me.
“She’s eccentric, Kadin. She’s harmless.” She turns her back to me, and I know the conversation is closed for discussion.
Her behaviors only got worse as time went on. Everyone felt sorry her because she wasn’t able to go to college or have what most people would consider a normal life because of her issues. Her father, being a local politician, did everything he could to avoid any type of awareness or stigma as far as Sierra was concerned.
I knew from day one that had more to do with his reputation and less to do with her well-being, and she’s suffered because of it. She’s been shuffled around to different mental health institutions around the states for the last twenty plus years, most times only receiving minimal help.
My ringing cell phone startles me. I pull to the side of the road knowing I�
��d never be able to drive and concentrate on a call. I look at the screen. Henry.
“Hey, man,” I answer.
“Kadin,” he says softly. My blood runs thin. “You made the right call on the well-check. Patrol found her with two slit wrists.”
I remain silent because I don’t have it in me to give a shit if she’s dead.
“They were able to stop the bleeding and got her in an ambulance, but it doesn’t look good. One of the officers on patrol said she was white as a ghost. You still there?” He asks when I don’t respond to a word he’s said.
“I’m here. Have her parents been called?” I pinch the bridge of my nose at the first sign of a major headache that is about to hit me.
“Yes. Kadin, you need to make sure you go to the police department tomorrow no matter what happens with the sister tonight.” He says.
“I’ll be there first thing in the morning,” I promise before ending the call.
I’m numb and decide on the way back to the lawyer’s office that I’m in no position to seek London out. As hard as it is I know I have to get all of this mess cleaned up once and for all before I see her again. I bypass the turn for Bland & Platt and head back to my house. The next few days may possibly be some of the worse I’ll ever have to face.
“So. Today’s the big day.”
I narrow my eyes at Jillian across the table of the café. “Today is not a big day.”
“You’re going on a date with Justin right?” She says.
“We are having dinner. As friends. That doesn’t make today a big day.” I correct her.
She’s been hounding me all week about agreeing to go out with my boss. I think she’s more excited about it than I am.
“When is it?” She asks then stuffs a bite of chicken salad in her mouth.
“He was going to pick me up at the house later this evening, but we decided to go ahead and leave from work.” I sip my water and watch her stuff her face.
Taking a break from her food binge she says, “Is that why you’re dressed extra nice today?” She angles her fork at my new dress.