“I should get you home,” Declan says. Despite everything, he reaches for my hand. And because of everything, I give it to him.
∞ ∞ ∞
I’m still staring at the ceiling when the sun comes up. I’ve been trying to think of a way to stay with Declan even after my four days are up. None of them will work. Why is it that I’ve found someone I could be with, but I have to leave him? My cell, well, Indigo’s cell rings twice, but I ignore it. I have four days of this perfection left. Perfect job, perfect man, perfect apartment, and in four days it’s gone.
The phone rings a third time around ten a.m. and I actually kick off the blankets to look at the number. It’s not anything I recognize and since there’s no name attached to it, it’s not something Indigo would recognize either. I set the phone down and try to go about my day. I call Uncle Jerry around noon. The conversation is short, an appointment for dinner, he’ll pick me up at five. He takes down my address. I’m sure he assumes it’s Hazel’s and that I’m still staying with her. I debate for an hour whether I’ll tell him everything or not. Now that there are only four days left, my choice doesn’t feel very smart.
I take Indigo’s mail key downstairs and retrieve her mail from the stuffed box. It’s not like I’ve needed to get the mail. None of it is for me. I toss it on the counter as I return and take note of at least six credit card bills. At least two have been stamped red with the words, ‘past due’. Every now and then it hits me how little I know about the person whose life I’ve assumed.
My cell rings again and thinking it might be Uncle Jerry telling me he’s close, I snatch it from the counter. It’s the number from before. Four calls and no voicemail. Though my instincts tell me to ignore it, I pick it up.
“Hello?”
“About time!” a woman’s voice breaks over the static, “I thought I would rot away before you ever picked up, you idiot.”
Indigo. She’s calling me, likely to set up her transition back home.
“Sorry,” I say, “I didn’t recognize the number. I thought you were going to program your disposable cell into the—”
“Of course it’s not in your phone. This is an international call. Shut up okay? I don’t have much time.”
Stress makes her voice ragged, as if she didn’t sleep last night. I immediately worry she’s been kidnapped or sold in the slave trade. Maybe she’s calling from a captor’s phone that she stole while they weren’t looking.
“Look,” Indigo says, “I’ve been arrested, but it’s all a big mistake.”
Okay, captured, but a different kind of captured.
“I met someone in the states. He had a package to move. He said if I’d come down to Mexico and help him get it through customs, then he’d pay for my vacation.”
That explained her desire to make it to Mexico at any cost.
“I did that, and it was easy, but two nights ago he asked if I’d carry something back across the border to a friend of his. Since the first one was so easy, I mean it was a little statue, I said I would. He was offering me three thousand dollars, Harper. That would really knock out some of my credit card debt. It was a teddy bear. I didn’t know it was full of heroin!”
I’m not sure what to say, or even how to begin to help her.
“Harper,” she says, “I need you to contact a lawyer for me. I need to get out of here.”
“You need to contact the embassy,” I tell her. “No lawyer here can help you.”
If I’m going to be totally honest, I’m not sure who can help her at this point. But one little teddy bear couldn’t be that bad. Right?
“I don’t have any more calls, please, call them for me. You and Hazel are the only two people that know I’m down here. No one will come looking for me, Harper.”
The line goes dead in the next second. Whether it was a guard, or a preset time that cut her off, I’m not sure. It’s all I can do to stare at my phone.
She’s right.
No one will be looking for her.
I’d wished for her life to be mine, and now, I have the chance to take it.
Chapter 20
“Wait, wait a minute,” Jerry’s hands come up, “you assumed her identity without anyone knowing?”
“Yes,” I say, “we’re nearly identical once I colored my hair, and it’s amazing what you can do with makeup.”
“And her co-workers, they have no idea?”
I immediately think of Declan. “No, no clue,” I say. “Apparently I’m better at her job than she ever was, so it’s not like anyone misses her either.”
“And now she’s stuck in a Mexican prison.”
“Yes.”
“And you’re trying to decide whether or not you’re going to leave her rotting there?”
It sounds awful when he says it like that.
“Yes.”
We’re back at Caraline’s diner, with two sizzling steaks in front of us. Caraline is busy talking to a customer about his meal and how their definitions of medium rare differ. It felt like as good a time as any to broach the subject of my alternative lifestyle.
“You have to call the U.S. Embassy, Harper,” Jerry says, and I know he’s right. Even though the wickedest parts of me say I should leave her there, it’s not right.
“I will,” I say.
Relief plays across his face and he finally slices into his steak. “And work, you like this job?”
“I love it.” My steak knife slides through my steak like warm butter. Jerry is right, this place is better than any five-star restaurant I’ve been to. “The strange part is that I’m working on an account for my father’s company.”
Jerry erupts in a fit of coughing as if he’s choking on his last bite. His face changes from pink to red, to a dark maroon, but he waves a hand at me to say he’s okay and he’s fading back to pink again.
“Are you okay?” I ask as he gulps water.
“Are you insane?” he asks in a raspy voice. “Your father? The highly connected, incredibly powerful, Montgomery Sutton? You have an account with him?”
“Yes,” I whisper the word out like it’s a secret. “It’s not like I’m meeting with him personally.”
“It’s only a matter of time, Max,” Jerry warns me. “You know how hands on he is about his company.”
You’d never guess it from how hands off he is about his only child, I think.
“Look, Max, I wasn’t going to say anything, but they’re looking for you. Hard. They’ve called in every favor. They’re calling this an abduction. Nothing is playing out here in the west, but every station from Tennessee to North Carolina is carrying the story about the stolen bride.”
“My mother knows I wasn’t abducted,” I say. “I called her. I told her I was safe and I didn’t want to go through with the wedding.”
Jerry takes a sip of his drink before he answers. “Yeah, I know, she told me. But you know that won’t look good in the headlines. They want you home, and this is the only way to save your marriage to Reginald the seventh or whatever his name is. They know that if they can get you home, they can still force you to marry him.”
“She called you? My mom, I mean.” It feels almost loving that she was looking for me, and I can’t help but feel a surge of hope at the idea.
“Yeah she called last week, about the time I made it back to Texas.”
“Was she worried?” I ask.
He tries to keep his derisive laugh to himself, but fails. “Worried? No. Irate is more like it. She knows I helped you. I didn’t tell her, but there’s no one else, Max. They’re looking into every flight I’ve taken over the last week. She has FBI on this, cop friends and contacts in every state. Harper, it’s only a matter of time. New life or not, you might need to move on.” Uncle Jerry catches my eye over his drink and adds, “Unless you’re ready to face them.”
I wish I could be. But I’m not. And I’m not ready to leave the life I’ve made either. I keep finding myself stuck with the life I want beyond the glass walls that surround
me.
∞ ∞ ∞
I call the U.S. Embassy first thing Monday morning from the conference room on my cell. It’s risky, sure, but I can’t afford to be late to work. Garnet doesn’t like me that much. They take down my information as Harper Sutton and promise to send someone to find Indigo. I’m still sitting ten minutes after I hang up because it feels out of place to use my real name here at work and I’m trying to become Max again. The knock on the door jars my attention and Declan shoves it open.
“Hey, the reps are here. Are you ready?”
“Reps?” I ask.
The new emotional distance between us strains his voice. He’s trying to keep his thoughts about ‘us’ separate from his work, but it’s not easy.
“Devil’s Harp Ale. They’re here. CEO and everything.”
The room spins. CEO. That’s my father. My father is here and I’m here, and Jerry was right, I should have run.
“Do you want to seat them, or do you want to get the packet with the ad campaign?”
“C-c-campaign,” is all I can say because this is it, this is the end of my run. I stand up too fast, and my chair clatters to the floor behind me. I try to pick it up, but I drop it twice because my hands are sweating as if I’m standing in the Sahara. Declan grips the back of the chair and rights it, then takes me by the shoulders.
“Hey,” he says, “what’s going on with you? Are you drunk?”
“No,” I say, but I can’t meet his eye. “I forgot about this meeting, and with everything going on—”
“Pull it together.” He lets me go. “Some of us don’t have another job to fall back on.”
“I don’t either,” I say under my breath, because it’s true. Everything I have is in this room, and I’m about to lose it all—my dream, my job, my freedom, and Declan.
My words, though soft, catch his attention. “Wait, you don’t? You turned the offer down?”
I shrug because it’s kind of the truth.
“Why?” he asks, and he’s forgotten the presentation we’re supposed to be making.
He might as well be asking me why I didn’t leave like Jerry told me to last night. At least I have an answer for that.
“Because I’m happier here, with you.”
Nothing has ever been truer.
A smile twitches at those perfect lips. “I feel the same way, Max.”
Max. If this is going to work at all, he can’t call me Max.
“Please, I know this is weird,” I say, “but for the presentation, please call me Indigo.”
∞ ∞ ∞
I watch him through the windows of the conference room. He decided to go gray about two years ago. His stylist, Maurice, helped him transition gracefully, and now he’s a silver fox, or at least that’s how the gossip rags back home describe him. The name Montgomery Sutton has a certain weight to it, and he’s not afraid to throw it around. I can tell by the way the interns fumble over his coffee that he’s already made a power play. My hands are trembling as if I’m cold, but I’m not cold, I’m terrified.
He’s my father.
He’ll know.
One look and he’ll know it’s me.
“Are you ready, Maxwell?” Garnet asks from behind me. “We don’t want to keep them waiting.”
“Yes, sir,” I say, but it doesn’t sound brave, I sound like the teenager that wasn’t allowed her own friends, the little girl who couldn’t hunt eggs because her Easter dress might wrinkle, the young woman forced to marry a man she’d never love because of the power and prestige it might bring her family. I’m not ready for this.
I might never be ready for this.
“Come on,” Garnet urges me through the door, “you have a brilliant marketing plan. You should be proud to share it.”
He nearly drags me into the room and shoots me more than one sideways glance. Declan’s eyes widen as he sees me stop near the doorway, clutching the folder as if I might make a mad dash for the exit.
Am I as pale as I feel?
“And here’s my partner, Indigo Maxwell. She’s actually the brain behind this project. It was her brilliance that led to our base point, and I think you’re going to enjoy hearing her thoughts.”
Garnet shoves me, far rougher than I expect, and I stumble in my heels. I cross my arms tight over the folder as if it’s my security blanket. It’s a recreation of every moment I was less than he expected, forced to stand before him like a traitor meeting the firing squad. He’ll disapprove of the way I’m acting. A Sutton looks down for no one, that’s what he taught me.
Except for him.
I rarely met his eye because the look there told me what a disappointment I would always be.
The child that never should have been born.
The girl he never wanted.
“Indigo,” Declan turns into me so he can keep his voice low, “pull it together.”
Indigo.
It’s the only thought left to hang onto, and it gives me strength. Indigo would never cower, not even for my father. My chin comes up, my eyes level with the room, and I stare at him directly. His eyes are my eyes, pale blue, but mine are larger and his are narrow, likely from glaring his entire life. There is the faintest flash of recognition, but it could be in my mind and I ignore it because I’m not Harper Sutton anymore.
“Hello, thank you for making the trip to visit us. I’m happy to share with you what we’ve come up with for your new line of ale.”
It’s not my voice, but it’s not Indigo’s either. It’s fresh and confident, determined to cling to this new life I’ve made with every last fiber of my being. I run through our points quickly before I let the ad play in its entirety. I pass out the print copies; field a few questions from my father’s cronies, Jack and Leslie, and Declan steps in to answer the statistical information.
On instinct, I know his eyes haven’t left me, constantly sizing me up. Whether it’s because he suspects that I’m Harper, or because he’s judging my abilities in general, I can’t tell, and it doesn’t matter. Even if he suspects that it might be me, he’ll never act on it because it’s crazy. What would his daughter be doing in California working at a marketing and ad agency under an assumed name? I’m the one living it and it sounds crazy to me.
We finish the presentation. My father’s lips suck in together as if he’s tasting everything we’ve put before him.
“How’s it testing?” he asks even though Declan has already gone over the numbers twice. I forgot how thick his accent is. My mother never trained it out of him. Georgia was his birthplace and it shows in the way his words stick together like fresh molasses.
“Very well, sir,” Declan says. My father’s approval glows at his formal use of the word. “Women especially enjoy the power play, and men find it alluring as well.”
“It’s a far cry from what we’ve done in the past.” He’s moments away from shutting it down.
“Well forgive me, sir,” I’m not nearly as reverent with my usage of the title, “but what you were doing wasn’t working, and that’s why you hired us.”
Every muscle in my father’s face turns to stone. No one talks to him like that. Ever.
Declan comes to my rescue. “She’s right. Your previous ads were dated and bordering on offensive. Your company has been hemorrhaging money for the past two quarters. Looking at the financials you sent over, this new ale is your Hail Mary pass.” Declan almost falters as my father’s glare turns on him, but he presses on. “At some point in time, you have to change what you’re doing if you expect to see a change in your company.”
My father rises from his seat and walks for the door. Jack and Leslie both scramble to catch up to him, but he stops them mid-movement as they’re halfway in and out of their chairs, like a terrifying game of freeze tag.
“If this fails, I will come after not only this company, but every single person that worked on this project until you are ruined.”
It’s not an empty threat. I’ve seen him do it.
“And when
it succeeds, we’ll receive bonuses, I presume,” I counter as I extend my hand to shake his in agreement.
My father’s head tilts and his eyes narrow to slits because he can see it, rather, he can see me. I take a deep breath and still the tremor in my hand. I can’t falter, not now, not as he and every other member of the room is staring at me, watching me, waiting for me to cower beneath this tycoon of industry, but I won’t.
I refuse.
My father grips my hand. I try to match his strength because he doesn’t respect a weak handshake.
“Agreed.” Our hands break apart. His inhale is slow and calculated. “It’s eerie. You look like someone I know.”
Greg has been silent through the entire meeting, but it’s this moment that he has to open his mouth.
“Yeah, we saw your daughter in a magazine. She’s a dead ringer for Indigo.”
My father hasn’t looked away from me. He’s determined to know, because while it’s crazy, it’s also possible. The last he saw me I was a bleached out blonde. In fact, I’ve been blonde since my freshman year when my mother decided it was more becoming. Indigo’s hair color is a dark chocolate brown, darker than even my natural shade.
“Greg you also said Mr. Sutton’s daughter was a lot hotter than Indigo as well. They aren’t that close,” Declan says.
I think he’s hoping to discredit everything Greg has to add to the conversation, but my father isn’t listening to Greg or Declan, not when he can stare at his daughter’s mirror image.
“She’s been missing over a week now. We think she was abducted. We’re worried sick about her.” His words say worry, but his face spells out his anger.
“Well, I’m obviously Indigo, but everyone has a twin I guess. I hope you find her, wherever she is,” I say, but I don’t mean it.
“Montgomery,” Leslie interrupts our staring match, “we have to go if we’re going to catch our plane.”
It breaks his concentration and allows me a chance to fade back into the rest of the room. Work has always come first for him, and even while staring his daughter in the eye, it hasn’t changed. He utters a few commands about production time as he exits the room, and he’s gone.
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