by Amelia Wilde
“Mr. Brandon,” Cook says, standing up from behind his desk and extending his hand. He’s a silver fox—probably the original silver fox. Every time I see him, I think they should put his picture on the Wikipedia article for accountants.
“What do you have for me, Cook?”
“Ah,” he says, looking mildly uncomfortable.
The secretary sets the small tray with the glasses on the surface of Cook’s desk. “Can I get you anything else, Mr. Brandon?”
“No, thank you.” She’s gone in a flash, closing the door discreetly behind her.
Cook remains standing, then offers his hand to Angelica. “Jackson Cook,” he says as they shake.
“Angelica Chandler.”
“Lovely name.” He gives her a genuine smile as he says it, but when he turns to me his expression is serious. “Jett, I hate to put you in an uncomfortable situation, but....”
I know what he’s asking. “She can stay. It’s all right.”
Cook nods, then takes his seat. Angelica takes the chair on the left—ornate, with leather padding—and I take my usual seat on the right. She doesn’t reach for my hand, but tucks both of hers onto her lap.
“You’ll have to forgive me,” Cook says. “I’m waiting on one final piece of information. I wanted to get in contact with you as soon as possible in case you were a distance across town or wanted to arrange another time to meet—.”
The handset on his desk rings, loud and shrill. “One moment,” Cook says, excusing himself to take the call. “Cook.” He pulls a legal pad from the center of his desk toward him and picks up a thick ballpoint pen from a groove at the edge. “Yes.” He writes some figure on the pad. “Correct.” Another scribble. “Yes, it’s relevant.” Another piece of writing.
The urge to leap up and pace, moving to kill time, is strong. I don’t give in. I stay seated and glance over at Angelica. Her lips are pressed tightly together, and her face is oddly pale. Dinner sooner rather than later, I think.
“Thank you, Damon,” Cook says and hangs up the handset gently. “I’m sorry about that, Mr. Brandon.”
I wave away the apology. “Quick, Cook. I want to know what’s happened with my accounts.”
“It’s a very odd circumstance, Mr. Brandon. What we’ve uncovered is not, as we first suspected, due in any way to the automated investment system. I’ve had a team of people working on this since we last spoke, and they’ve confirmed that.”
My chest tightens. “What the hell is it, then?”
“It was difficult to pinpoint exactly what was happening, because many of these transactions were being moved between your own accounts. Earlier today, one of the members of my team uncovered the culprit. It’s an outside account disguised to look like one of your own.”
My skin goes hot. “Are you telling me that someone hacked my account?”
“It appears so, Mr. Brandon.” Cook looks me in the eye despite the color coming to his cheeks.
“Your servers are supposed to be secure.”
“That’s the thing, Jett.” Cook folds his hands on top of the legal pad. “In all, we’ve accounted for close to a million dollars in moved funds, with two hundred thousand already deposited into that account.”
I grit my teeth together.
No way.
“Rest assured, please,” Cook says, clearly struggling to keep his tone even, reassuring, “that all of this money will be returned to your accounts. We’ve already started the process of—”
I slap my hand down on the surface of the desk. “How did you let this happen?”
“Well...we didn’t, as a matter of fact.”
“What?”
“Our tech personnel were able to track where the access originated from. Everything that happened was started from your personal computer.”
My mind can’t make sense of this. What in the literal fuck is Cook trying to say?
“I didn’t steal my own money.”
“I’m not suggesting that. But someone had to have access to—”
I stand up, towering over Cook. “Wonderful. I assume we’re in the process of launching a full investigation to catch whatever greedy piece of shit did this?”
“Absolutely, Mr. Brandon. And again, I—”
“Wait.”
Angelica’s interruption is the last thing I expected to happen.
We both turn to look at her.
“What is it, Angelica?”
Her eyes fill with tears.
35
Angelica
I can’t let him storm out of here. I can’t let this go on another second. So when Jett’s accountant starts to explain the investigation that’s about to happen—the investigation, Jesus—it starts to spill out of me.
“Wait.” My voice is choked, tight. It’s the first thing I’ve said since we entered the office.
Jett looks down at me, eyes narrowed, mouth slightly open. I can feel the accountant’s eyes on me, but I don’t dare look at him, because...
“What is it, Angelica?”
My eyes fill with tears.
“I can...I can help you with your investigation.”
Jett drops back into the chair, forehead furrowed. The accountant clears his throat.
Jesus, this is so much harder than I thought it would be—and I thought it would be terrible to begin with.
I want to erase the confusion from Jett’s face. I want to calm his anger with an explanation that will make everything clear. I want to make the accountant’s job easier.
But I don’t want to lose Jett.
My heart thrums, Don’t do this. Don’t lose him. Don’t do this. You’ll lose him.
I know I will, and I can’t back down.
Not now.
My mind casts around for a solution, any solution, but it comes up blank...because there isn’t one.
I take a deep, shuddering breath and blink back the tears. They’re waiting for me to speak. Tick tock, Angelica.
“I want you to understand that...” It comes out as a pathetic whisper. Jett shakes his head. He couldn’t hear. I swallow the painful lump in my throat and start over.
“I was the one who...who got access to your computer.”
The color drains from Jett’s face. When he leans toward me, it’s with a slow, deliberate movement, as if it’s all he can do to keep his muscles under control.
“You did what?” His voice is deadly soft.
“You know—you know that all of this started...well, almost four weeks ago now. It started then because that’s when they sent me to install a program on your computer.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m the one,” I cry, a couple of tears spilling over onto my cheeks. “I’m the one who’s been feeding information to an outside group so they can steal your money. All I know is one name.”
Jett raises his hands to his hair, runs his fingers through it, and stares at me like I’m speaking a foreign language.
“My brother—he was in trouble. He owed money to a man named Charlie. He threatened to—” I shake my head. All this sounds like an invented excuse, and in the end, does it matter why I did what I did? “I did it, Jett. Every week I’ve been downloading information from your computer and giving it to Charlie. He’s got to be in charge of a crime ring, because he’s got people—”
“Angelica,” he says, the word a razor that goes straight into my heart. “What the hell were you thinking?”
My chin quivers.
I hate myself.
“I was protecting my brother.”
“Is that all?”
Jett’s question hits me like a meteor rocketing through the atmosphere and slamming into the earth’s surface, causing destruction across the planet.
“In the beginning...”
“That’s enough,” he says, holding his hand in the air. “That’s more than enough.”
There’s a heavy silence in the room.
I can hardly breathe.
Then Jett l
ooks at me with disgust in his eyes. “I should have known.”
I lick my lips, try to find the words, but he continues.
“I should have known that you were up to something pathetic that night. Who sneaks out like that in the middle of the night? Jesus, Angelica, are you some rebellious teenage bitch who doesn’t want to own up to what she’s really doing behind the scenes?”
If you hadn’t been such a stupid bitch and installed the program correctly the first time...
Charlie’s words, echoed by Jett’s, ring in my ears so loudly that I can’t hear what he’s saying. It doesn’t matter what he says. The hurt—the rage—on his face is so palpable that it makes my hands shake.
“I wanted to stop,” I say, and Jett shakes his head, his lip curling.
“At any point,” he says, his tone soft and sharp again, “you could have come to me. I have the resources to deal with...” His jaw works. “I don’t even know what to say to you, Angelica. I can’t believe you would do this.”
“I know.”
“Was it all a lie, then?”
Jett’s accountant has his eyes glued to his desk, and the man is holding perfectly still. I can imagine he wants to get out of here as quickly as possible, but there’s no graceful way to make an exit—not at this point. My face goes hotter. If Jett would cool down and listen to me, then maybe...
“Tell me.” His green eyes are flashing, locked on mine, burning me up from the inside. “Was it all a lie?”
“It wasn’t—”
“The elevator. That first day. Was that a lie?”
“It was the first time I ever saw you.”
“Were you there to steal from me?”
“I was doing what I had to do.”
“And that flood at your apartment? Another lie, so you could get closer to me?”
It’s an effort to relax my jaw enough to speak. “My apartment didn’t flood. But that doesn’t mean it was all—”
“Stop.”
I take a shuddering breath and pinch my lips together. I want him to know that I love him. I want him to know that I was afraid, I was doing this because I was afraid, because there was never a moment when my family’s lives weren’t at risk. What was I supposed to do? What was I supposed to do?
“If I could suggest something, Mr. Brandon,” the accountant interjects, his voice soft, appeasing. “It’s probably time that we contact the authorities. And your attorneys.”
36
Jett
There’s a strange pain in my chest, a tightness in my skin that makes me want to rip the buttons off the collar of my shirt, throw my jacket to the floor, anything to be free.
Instead, I sit quietly, looking at Angelica.
She looks back at me, eyes wide, tears leaking miserably from beneath her lashes.
For all I know, they’re crocodile tears.
Something in my heart hardens, a rock sitting in the center of my chest.
Twenty minutes ago I was looking forward to sitting across from Angelica at some exclusive hole-in-the-wall place, watching her face light up with each new dish, listening to her tell me about her day at work, about her horrible boss. Telling her that I love her.
Now...
I was exactly right. Exactly right. Emerald should have served as a true warning about getting involved with women, and I ignored it because...
Because why?
Because when I saw Angelica in the elevator, I thought she was perfection.
Magnetic perfection.
I didn’t want to walk away from her then, but I did.
Now I want to walk away from her, and I can’t.
“If I could make a suggestion, Mr. Brandon,” Cook says, calmly as ever. “It’s probably time that we contact the authorities. And your attorneys.” He’s doing his best not to provoke me any further. As if keeping things civil in his office is going to smooth over the lightning pain in my chest that throbs with every heartbeat.
“Call them, Cook.” It’s a near miracle that I get the words out.
He picks up the phone, speaking quickly and quietly into the handset. “They’re on their way, Mr. Brandon.”
My jaw locks together. I work at it to get it to release.
I was so right that I can’t stand it.
Never again.
Never again, after this.
Not a chance.
“I want you out of this building,” I say to Angelica before I can stop myself. Acid rises in my throat.
“I can understand that.” Her voice is barely more than a whisper. She presses her lips together again, and more tears fall onto her skirt.
We sit in silence for a long couple of minutes.
“Would you like me to step out, Mr. Brandon?” Cook says.
“No.”
He doesn’t question it. He pulls a folder to a space in front of him and flips through it. If he leaves, Angelica will probably start talking to me again. And if she speaks to me enough, if, God forbid, she tries to kiss me, I could get sucked in all over again.
Because the truth is, the awful, stinging, horrible truth, is that I want her to take it all back. I want her to tell me, right now, that this is a joke, that this is an incredibly ill-planned prank and none of it is real. I want her to tell me that everything we did together was for the sheer pleasure of it, for the sheer pleasure of being in love.
Being in love.
Not like with Emerald. How could she be another Emerald, after all that we shared?
Angelica folds her hands in her lap and stares down at them. Can she feel my eyes on her?
The moment stretches out, it feels like a century.
Angelica looks up. “Mr. Cook?”
“Yes, Ms. Chandler?” Leave it to Cook to keep a sense of decorum about him, even in situations like this one.
“I’m—” She cuts her eyes toward me, the hint of a glance. “I’m very sorry to have put you in this position.”
Cook nods, giving her the ghost of a smile.
“Him?”
I can’t help myself. I can’t stop myself.
“You’re going to apologize to him?”
Angelica looks back at me, chin quivering. “Would it matter if I apologized to you? Because I’m sorry, Jett. You have no idea how sorry I am. I never wanted....” She has to stop to swallow hard. “I’m so sorry.”
It doesn’t fix anything.
This could have played out so differently. I could be kissing her on the landing on the way out. I could be asking her to stay for as long as she wants. I could be holding her hand right now.
I clench my fist. I will not reach out to her. I will not touch her. No matter how much I want to, I won’t touch her.
She doesn’t deserve to be comforted by me. Not after what she’s done.
Cook’s phone rings, and he picks it up and answers it with a terse, “Cook.”
He nods once as he listens, then says, “Thank you. Goodbye.” He looks from me to Angelica, then back to me. “The police should be here any moment. They’re bringing along some members of their tech crime team to attempt to sort out what’s happened here.”
“Great news.” My voice is cutting, sharp, and I want to get it under control. I don’t want anyone other than Cook to see how much this has rattled me, how much this woman has affected me, gotten under my skin...
Betrayed me.
There’s one thing left I have to do before they get here.
“Angelica.”
She looks up at me, her eyes like storm clouds rimmed with red. There’s pain there, and a tiny spark of hope.
“When we leave here, I want you to understand something.” My voice is even, steady.
I can do this.
“Okay.” She threads her fingers together and holds on tight, her eyes searching my face like she’s looking for a sign of what’s to come. Surely she cannot be imagining that I’m going to forgive her, that I’m going to ask her to solve this with me, together.
Not now.
Not ever.
“We’re over.”
Angelica’s lips go white.
The flicker of hope in her eyes extinguishes.
She turns her face away, toward the closed door of the office, and blinks three times, swallows.
“I thought you might say that,” she whispers, and then she falls silent.
37
Angelica
The questioning goes on forever. My head is swimming, my heart pounding, the officers blurring into one endlessly gruff person asking the same questions over and over again.
“I didn’t want to do it,” I say at one point. “It was because of Charlie.”
Maybe they think I’m insane, that I’m inventing the character of Charlie to save myself, but I’m not.
Sometime during the middle of the night, an officer comes into the room where I’ve been sitting for hours now with a bowl of chicken noodle soup and half a sandwich that’s been delivered from a deli down the street. Every bite tastes like cardboard.
What the hell am I supposed to do now?
A woman police officer comes in and glances at the empty tray, then sits down across from me.
“They’re checking up on your story,” she says, folding her hands on the metal table that’s bolted into the floor.
“Which story?” My lips are slow to move.
“About Charlie and this supposed crime ring. Let’s go over it one more time. You say you saw Charlie himself several times, and one other associate who was posing as a CD seller on the sidewalk.”
“Yes.”
“How many times did you see Charlie?”
The time at Adam’s apartment. Two times with the flash drive...no, three.
“Four times.”
“And when was the first time you saw him?”
“At my brother Adam’s apartment.”
“Do you have a way for us to contact Adam so he can confirm that?”
“Yes.” I give her Adam’s cell number. “But call him soon. Get him somewhere away from Elsie.”