by Emelia Blair
Till she got caught.
I know about information brokers. They usually have a handler and not all of them have their hands in the dirt. Some are even contracted by the government.
But my mother being one of them is something I never imagined. The news is startling and it takes me a few minutes to absorb it.
This time, I look around the room with a new pair of eyes, saying slowly, “So someone was looking for something in here.”
Jace runs his hands along the furniture and his voice is thoughtful as he replies, “Yeah, but this happened quite a while ago. There’s dust everywhere, even on the papers on the ground.” He looks over his shoulder at the doorway. “The lower portion of the house looks like it’s been cleaned on a weekly basis, so why leave this room unattended?”
“And mine,” I add, telling him about the state of my childhood room, as well as that of my mother’s. “I’ll have to talk to Uncle Raymond and tell him. Whoever he hired, if he did, to keep the house maintained is doing a strange job of it.”
Jace looks uneasy. “Raymond doesn’t come down here, does he?”
I shake my head. “Losing Mom shook him so much that he never returned. He said he couldn’t bear to.”
“Then he should know that someone might be squatting here.” He looks at me. “It’s about to rain and unless you want to spend the night here, let’s find what you’re looking for and go back to the hotel.”
I nod and make my way to the electricity socket behind where the desk used to be. I feel Jace’s eyes on me as I put my hands around it and twist. You need to know the right way to turn it, and sure enough, the socket neatly comes out in my hand, revealing the gaping hole behind it.
The socket is an exceptionally large one, and I stick my hand in, searching for the small lever that helps me remove a portion of the fake wall.
“Be careful,” Jace warns me. “There might be rats in the wall.”
“It’s not a wall.” I grin at him. “Mom tore up this section and put in a safe here. This is just a false wall. Wait…” I press the lever and sure enough a small portion, the size of an oven door, separates from the smooth wall, neatly. I open the door. “Mom built this herself. Well, the safe she bought, but she hid it inside the wall and we covered it with a different portion of the same wallpaper to hide it.”
Jace blinks. “That is some over-the-top precaution.”
I still for a heartbeat.
He’s right.
As a child, this had been a fascinating secret only me and my mom knew of, but I had never thought about how odd it was. What could she have to hide that she couldn’t in a safety deposit box or in a normal safe?
However, asking questions at this point is useless because there is no one to answer them. So, I just reach in and take out the large box inside. It’s a heavy wooden box and I have some difficulty dragging it out, prompting Jace to help me.
It’s been so long since the box was opened that it seems to be stuck and it takes some heroic pulling from Jace’s side to get it to unstick.
When I see the contents, my brain goes numb.
When the letter had said that there was some money, I assumed a few hundred dollars, but the entire box is filled with packets of hundred-dollar bills.
Even as Jace’s face grows pale, as he takes out the money, and once everything is out, he’s silent for a few minutes before saying, hoarsely, “This is roughly around three quarters of a million dollars, Halley!”
My mouth is dry and I can’t think.
I’ve never seen such a large sum of money in my life.
“What do I do with this?” I mumble, reeling from this staggering shock. “Where did Mom get all this money from?”
Jace stares at the money. “If she was an information broker, this must have been chump change to her. But why hide money in the house? Why not take it with her when she ran?”
Suddenly, the contents of the letter start to make a little sense. “Because she knew someone was watching her and that she might not get away. This was her insurance, for me.”
A small upraised part in the wood at the bottom makes me peer down and I see that it’s a false bottom.
Mom really did go all the way.
Removing it is not difficult but its reveal makes my jaw drop, even more than after seeing the money.
“These are forged passports,” I whisper, staring at my own face under different names. There are three of them, along with identity cards, bank accounts, and fake birth certificates for me. But what is most surprising is that there is none for my mother.
Because she knew, she would never get away, but for some reason, she knew I would.
Why?
“Halley.” Jace grasps my wrist.
I look up at him, shaken.
He has a strange look in his eyes. “Do you trust me?”
Right now, I don’t know who to trust.
“I know your mother said not to trust anyone but can you trust me?” His tone is urgent.
Without thinking, I nod my head.
He stares at me. “Caleb has a lot of connections, even those in the underground world. I think we should bring him in. If anyone can help us, he can.”
I hesitate but I can’t help but recall the warmth with which Kendall has treated me and the way Caleb came to my defense, even when he didn’t know me.
I know if I refuse, Jace won’t push the issue, and he’ll keep everything a secret. I don’t know how I know but his integrity is something I believe in with my eyes closed. So, if he trusts Caleb, then I should try to as well. Besides, money like this must be nothing to the billionaire who runs the company. I nod. “Ok... So, we take this with us?”
Jace hesitates. “We need, like, a large sheet to bundle it in. I don’t want it to be very obvious.”
People in this town can be pretty nosy and they’re not exactly shy about asking questions. “We can take one of the sheets from downstairs. But…” I pause, “There must be some old suitcases in the attic. Nobody will look twice at a suitcase.”
Jace departs for the attic.
I look around the room.
As a child, I would often play in here while my mother worked. Of course, at that time, I didn’t know she was doing something which could potentially ruin our lives. Sitting cross-legged on the floor, I suddenly remember one of those days when we had been sitting in here and she had received a phone call. She had looked frightened and had locked me inside before going downstairs. I had heard a man’s voice arguing with her, and when she returned, the side of her face had looked swollen.
How had I forgotten that? It happened a week before everything took place.
Hearing shuffling, I look up to see Jace bringing in a small suitcase. It is dusty and quite familiar.
As we put in everything we’ve found, I recount the incident to him.
Jace says, “She might have been running from this person. Except she started making preparations months before that.”
Suddenly, I feel drained with all these new revelations and excitement.
Jace carries the suitcase to the car as I lock the door and then stand on the porch, studying his figure, feeling lost. I watch him turn to look at me and we stand like that, two lone figures just watching each other. A strong gust of wind ruffles my hair.
Jace approaches me, his gaze steady. When he reaches the bottom step, he asks, quietly, “What are you thinking?”
I don’t know how to put my feelings into words, so I chew on my lower lip, trying to find the right ones. “You know how you go through life, thinking you’re self-sufficient and don’t need anybody.”
His eyes glint as he climbs up one step, getting closer to me. “Yes.”
“A-And then one day you meet somebody and—and…” My words falter.
His eyes gentle, and he covers the distance between us, his hands reaching out to cup my face as he lowers his mouth to mine, whispering, “I know.”
This is unlike any of our previous kisses.
&n
bsp; His mouth is soft on mine, almost worshipful, and there is something so unbearably tender about the way he kisses me, making me whimper under his touch. His hands don’t wander from my face and all the shock from today, it settles as he moves his mouth over mine, lovingly, as if soothing all my pain.
I sigh into the kiss, leaning into him.
Jace chuckles, before pulling away.
I give him a dazed look before the first drop of rain falls on my face and I blink.
“Come on.” I’m dragged to the car and forced inside as Jace follows suit.
We sit in silence for a few minutes, before I let out a breath I didn’t know I had been holding in. “This has been one hell of a day.”
“You can say that again.” Jace starts the car. “Do we go back the same way? It’s a dirt road. It might be slippery considering how hard the rain is falling.”
“We can go around,” I tell him. “I mean, it’s a longer route but it will take you out to the edge of the town and then put you back on the main road.”
“Let’s do that then.”
This path is usually less traveled because it takes people through the woods and no one ever preferred that but it’s a sturdier road. As the rain lashes on the hood of the car and the trees fly by, the sky dark, I slowly recall another pitch dark night when it had rained as I was sitting in the passenger seat, my mother sitting beside me, her face pale as she gripped the steering wheel, muttering, “We’ll be fine. It’ll be fine.”
“Mom, what’s going on? I’m scared.”
“Halley.”
“Halley.”
Jace’s voice drags me out of my memory and I blink, confused. “What?”
He shoots me a strange look. “You fell asleep. You were muttering something to yourself.”
Another nightmare?
I run my fingers through my hair, not meeting his gaze. The dream felt so real though. Clearing my throat, I point towards the road. “Keep going straight. The road will end at a T and you have to turn right. That will take you through the woods onto the main road.”
Jace nods.
I sink into my seat. In the silence of the car, the sound of the rain is a constant loud drumming, and for some reason it’s making me uneasy. My eyes are on the road and the looming trees, which are swaying with the gale-ike wind, seem threatening and I cower, unintentionally.
Why am I so scared?
What am I scared of?
As the car moves forward, a sinking sensation settles in my gut and as we near the T, an ominous feeling fills my heart. Even as I watch Jace turn down the road, my hands tremble and I feel a bead of sweat roll down my temple.
He doesn’t seem to notice and keeps driving.
My heartbeat is quickening by the second and I’m afraid my heart will burst out of my chest at some point.
A thick sense of fear, the likes of which I’ve never experienced before, seizes me by the throat as I see the bell tower of the abandoned old church building, and suddenly, I know we can’t go any further or something really bad will happen. “Turn the car around!” I shout.
Jace shoots me a startled look. “Halley?” He sounds confused. “What—?”
I grab his wrist, saying urgently, my eyes wild, “We can’t go down that road. Turn around.”
Jace stops the car, immediately.
My lunch comes up in my throat, forcing me to jump out of the car. I hurl the contents of my stomach on the side of the road, not caring that the rain is drenching me. Trembling, I straighten up, and from the corner of my eye, I see Jace striding towards me.
He grips my arms, pushing my hair back. “Do you need to throw up some more?”
I shake my head, my hair clinging to my face, and I gaze up at the bell tower, which is the only thing the trees allow me to glimpse.
What is this paralyzing fear?
“We can’t be on this road. I’m supposed to run. Don’t look back,” the words are torn from my lips as if from memory. I don’t even realize that I’m saying them, my mouth is dry.
“Why?” Jace doesn’t budge.
I look up at him with haunted eyes. “Mom said to keep running.”
11
Jace
Halley hasn’t said a word since we returned to the motel.
Her usually cheery face is drawn and haggard while she’s sitting on my bed, the blanket around her. It takes a lot of effort to convince her to at least let me dry her hair, lest she catch a cold.
Her behavior on the road is making me uneasy. I’ve never known this girl to be unreasonable or fanciful, and yet, the way she gripped onto me and the words she said, I had no choice but to obey, if for no other reason than her sanity.
Although the air conditioner is off, she’s still shivering, her eyes look blank and dull.
Having never seen her like this, I’m frantic to get her to talk, to tell me what happened. I order up some soup and sit next to Halley on the bed. “You’ve got to tell me what’s going on.”
Halley is silent and then she looks at me. “I need my laptop and yours.”
Since those are the first words she’s said, I hurry to obey.
She doesn’t come out of the blanket, just sits cross-legged under it and opens both laptops.
Secure in the knowledge that the front door is locked, I slip into the bathroom to make a call to Caleb and appraise him of the events.
Caleb doesn’t say much but his silence speaks volumes. He wants to see the money and says that he’ll look into the matter. If there is anyone I trust, it’s him. Even if for Kendall’s sake, I know if I ever need help, he’ll do everything in his power to help me.
I exit the bathroom, only to see an intense expression on Halley’s face as her fingers move over her keyboard, almost furiously.
I walk over to see what has her so absorbed, and to my shock, I see she’s put a powerful shielding program on my laptop, which is connected to her laptop. On her screen, she has what looks like a police database.
“H-Halley, what are you doing?” I ask.
“Getting out the case files,” she says with a dark tinge to her voice.
“That’s hacking. You could get in serious trouble for that!” I protest.
She shoots me a sharp look. “I won’t get caught. But I need to know what happened that night and what the police found. Since they don’t want to tell me, I’ll find out for myself.”
When I glower at her, she tries to convince me, “There is no way they can track me. I just entered through a backdoor and I’ve got multiple firewalls up. I just need five minutes.”
I bite my tongue, knowing how dangerous it is and yet I don’t want to distract her because that might end up with both of our asses going to jail. So, I sit by her side and watch her.
The focused look in her eyes is something I’ve never seen before and I find it incredibly sexy. Her hair is falling around her face and she doesn’t seem to care, the deathly seriousness of her gaze moving on the screen.
True to her word, five minutes later, she lets out a deep breath and her face relaxes. “I got in.”
Apparently, it’s smooth sailing from there because she reaches out and locates the case file before withdrawing from the system, not leaving any clues behind. She closes my laptop and then looks at me. “I have it.” Her voice is trembling.
I mutter, “You should be scared. I can’t believe I’m dating a hacker. I’m not visiting you in prison.”
She chuckles and then leans against me, rubbing her head against my collarbone like a cat. “I wasn’t going to get caught.”
Her words make me narrow my eyes and I grip her by the chin, forcing her to meet my gaze, as I demand, “How many times have you done something like this?”
She smiles at me, before she darts up to give me a peck on my lips. “Don’t worry about it.”
Her coy smile makes me lose my breath and I know I’m not going to win, so I just sigh. I’m just relieved that whatever haunted her before is no longer there and she seems like her
old self.
She’s about to open the file, and I watch when the lights above flicker before the whole room plunges into darkness.
“Oh, shit!” Halley cries out, quickly moving to shut down the laptop.
“What’s wrong?”
“It was running on the charger. I’ll lose the data!” Her fingers move deftly and she closes the laptop in haste. “That was close.”
“Why were you running it on the charger?” I question.
Halley gives me a sheepish smile. “I damaged the battery a few days ago.”
“Now what?” I ask.
She places the laptop under the bed. “The electricity usually goes for a few hours when it’s raining like this. The heating also stops working, so you should get a blanket or something.”
I reach out in the darkness and tug the one she has. “Isn’t that mine?”
“But I’m using this.” Halley’s voice is tinged with exasperation.
“But it’s mine,” I counter, easily. When she doesn’t respond, I order, “Scoot over. We’re sharing.”
“You’re a grown man,” she complains even as she moves over. “Go to my room and get the other blanket.”
“I don’t want to,” I tell her as I squeeze myself next to her, feeling her body heat. “It’s summer. Why is it so cold?” I’m lying stretched out on the bed and Halley has also been forced to lie down so we can share the blanket properly.
Her voice is tinged with disapproval as she tells me, “It gets like this during thunderstorms. Wait till it stops raining. Then it’ll be both hot and humid. You’ll want to kill yourself.”
The bed is tiny and having us both lay side by side is getting uncomfortable, so I prop myself up on my elbow and lean over her, her delicate profile visible in the soft light emitting from the open curtains.
The position makes Halley fidget.
I gaze down at her, enjoying the view.
“Stop leering at me,” she mutters. “Pervert.”
“How do you know I’m looking at you?” I grin.
“I can feel it?” she grumbles.