by Hannah Ford
“Isn’t that illegal?” I asked. “To give someone money in order to drop charges against them?”
“I was never going to win a legal case,” Paisley said matter-of-factly. “So I dropped the charges. I filed a civil case, and in exchange, the Sheers gave me a settlement in exchange for signing an NDA.”
“So you can’t talk about what happened.”
“That depends.” She curled her hands around her glass. Everything about her was slow, sanguine, like a cat. “Are you going to tell anyone what I tell you?”
I shook my head. “I don’t need to know details,” I said, my stomach clenching as I thought about “I just need to know if it was Conner or Landon.”
“It was Conner who did the stalking. It was Landon who took the blame.”
“But if there was no criminal case, how could he take the blame?”
“They were building one against him,” Paisley said. Her tone was still matter-of-fact, as if we were discussing an unfortunate but realistic part of life, like New York real estate prices or sexism in the workplace. “The DA was trying to pin all the threatening letters and texts Conner had sent to me on Landon. Saying he was the one who was using Conner’s phone, that Landon had been secretly in love with me the whole time I was dating Conner.”
“Was he?”
“No.” Paisley shook her head. “That’s not Landon’s style. At least, it wasn’t back then.”
I wanted to ask her what she meant by that, but I told myself it didn’t matter. “So their father was willing to throw Landon under the bus, let him take the blame for something he didn’t do?”
“Victor is very protective of his sons,” she said. “But Conner in particular. I think he thought that if anything were to happen, Landon would be able to handle it better.”
My hand tightened around the stem of my glass, rage building up inside of me at the thought of Victor Sheer saddling Landon with a criminal record and jail time for something he didn’t do.
I took a long sip of wine now, white couch and tomorrow’s job interview be damned, wanting to feel that feeling of my limbs getting a little numb, my brain going fuzzy, the edges of my emotions dulling. Talking about Landon, about his family, about everything, was making me remember how much I missed him, how much I cared about him.
Paisley refilled my glass without me asking, and I allowed myself one sip before forcing myself to set it down on a square white coaster that sat on her coffee table.
My phone vibrated in my purse, and I pulled it out.
Landon.
Please, Aven.
It was only two words, but I couldn’t remember him ever saying ‘please’ to me like that. For him, it was akin to taking out an ad in the New York Times and begging for me to talk to him.
Another text followed immediately.
I’m going crazy.
“Is that Landon?” Paisley asked.
“Yes.” I tried to sound like it was no big deal as I silenced my phone and put it in my purse.
“He must really like you if he’s blowing up your phone like that.” She raised her perfectly- groomed eyebrows, a look of surprise flitting across her face.
I decided to ignore her comment and move on.
“That note you left in my sweatshirt…” I started
Paisley looked uncomfortable as she straightened up on the couch. “I know,” she said. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. I should have just talked to you, but I didn’t know how you’d react, and when I saw you sitting there in that restaurant, I panicked. I wrote it outside and slipped it in the pocket right before I came in to talk to you.”
“It’s fine,” I said, even though it wasn’t. But I’d come here for information, and contradicting her or making an enemy out of her wasn’t going to get that done. “I just… when you said that the Sheer family shouldn’t be trusted, that I would be danger if I did… you meant Landon, too?” Her note had specifically mentioned Landon. But I had to hear it from her directly.
Paisley ran her finger around the top of her wine glass. When she finally spoke, she seemed as if she were choosing her words carefully. “The Sheer family is very loyal. The three of them would do anything for each other, and they don’t care what they have to do to protect each other. I mean, come on, Aven. What kind of person takes the blame for their brother for something they didn’t do?”
I swallowed. “Being loyal doesn’t make someone dangerous.”
She sighed, and looked at me with something akin to pity. “Look, I know you care about Landon. A lot of women…” She stopped and sighed again, then took a deep breath. “I can’t say anything else, really. I just… I shouldn’t have put that letter in your pocket, and I’m sorry if I freaked you out. You’re going to do what you’re going to do.” She set her own wine down on the table, and I felt like I was losing her, like she was going to wrap up the conversation, and I wasn’t ready for that.
So I changed the subject to something more concrete.
“Did Abigail… did she say anything to you? Do you have any idea why someone would want to kill her?”
“No.” But her eyes moved quickly over to the side.
“Paisley,” I said. “Please.”
“It doesn’t matter. She’s dead now.” She shrugged, her eyes getting misty, but she held it together enough so that she didn’t start crying.
“Yes, but… if Victor is the one who got her killed, because she knew something, don’t you think he should pay for it?”
She laughed, a horrible, bitter sound, then reached over and took a cracker in her hand, crumbled it between her fingers, watching as the crumbs fell onto her pristine white coach. “You don’t get it yet, do you, Aven? There’s no ‘paying for it’ with the Sheer family. They have money. They have power. They have secrets that they’re willing to literally kill for. It doesn’t matter what I know, and it wouldn’t matter if I told you.”
“Paisley,” I said. “Please.”
“Abigail didn’t say anything to me,” she said, brushing the crumbs into her hand and depositing them onto her plate. “Nothing concrete. Just that she thought Victor was doing something inappropriate at the mental health center that her husband ran.”
I frowned. “The Benedict Center?”
“Yes. Victor Sheer is a big donor there. He has a lot of influence.” She snorted. “Like he does with anything he’s involved in.”
“But –”
“That’s all I know,” Paisley said, and now her tone was firm. She stood up, making it clear that our meeting was over, that if I pushed her, she wouldn’t be friendly any longer.
“Well, thank you,” I said, standing up, “For meeting with me. And I’m so sorry about Abigail. If there’s anything I can do…”
“Thank you.”
There were a million more questions I wanted to ask her, but at the same time, I didn’t want to push her. She was someone I might need for more information in the future, and if she felt like I was pushing her, she was going to break down.
So I said goodbye.
As I was leaving, though, I did ask her one more question right after she walked me to the door.
“Paisley,” I said, stepping into the hallway.
“Yeah?” she stopped with the door half-closed, opening it up a little bit again reluctantly. Her eyes had a distracted look to them, as if she were already mentally watching a reality TV show, curled up in bed in her pajamas as she fell asleep.
“Why did you ask if Landon knew that I was interviewing with Miles Marx?
But this time, Paisley just sighed. “That one is between you and Landon.”
And with that, she shut the door.
Landon had sent me seven texts and had tried to call me five times by the time I hailed a taxi to take me back to my apartment.
I gave the cabbie my address and then settled back into the seat, reaching over to turn down the volume on the tiny screen that was built into the back seat of all the New York City cabs, the one that broadcast hu
man interest stories and gave you updates on the news and weather.
The air outside was warm, and I’d just finished rolling down the window in the back when my phone rang again.
I hesitated, then finally, I picked up.
“Yes?” I did my best to sound neutral.
“Why are you in a taxi?” His voice was low, growly, demanding, and it felt as if it brushed over my skin, setting my nerve endings on fire.
“Please tell me you’ve gleaned that piece of information from the fact that you can hear background noises and not because you’re having me followed.”
“I’m not having you followed.”
“Then it was the background noises?”
“No. I’m following you myself.”
I glanced out the back window of the cab, but I couldn’t spot him in loose rows of cabs and trucks and limos that tangled up the streets of Midtown.
“Landon –“
“I don’t want you in cabs, Aven.”
“You prefer I take the subway?”
“Don’t be smart. I prefer you be with me at all times, but barring that, I prefer a private car of my choosing.”
I didn’t say anything. “What do you want, Landon?”
“Why weren’t you answering my calls?”
“I was busy.”
“You seem to have forgotten our agreement.”
I shifted on the seat. “And what agreement would that be?”
“Don’t play coy with me, Ms. Courtland.”
“Our agreement is now null and void.”
“Is it?” He sounded amused, not at all the desperation of someone who wanted to get me back.
I tried to ignore the pulse that was building between my legs, the goose bumps that had bloomed across my skin, the way my cheeks had flushed just at the sound of his voice.
“Landon, we can’t do this anymore,” I said firmly, forcing my brain to override my body for once, aided by the fact that we were on the phone and he wasn’t here, in front of me, his presence overwhelming me, his hands playing my body like only he could do, his lips whispering his empty promises against my skin.
“Can’t do what anymore?”
“This thing where I break up with you, and then you just act like nothing happened, and try to use the fact that I’ve agreed to be dominated by you to –”
“So you admit you’ve agreed to be dominated by me.”
“Not anymore.”
“And we’re broken up? I never knew we were in a relationship.”
“That’s exactly what I’m talking about!” My hand curled into a fist on the seat, the frustration so intense I wanted to scream. “You refuse to define things with me, so that I can’t even say that I broke up with you, because then I sound like the crazy one.”
The cabbie caught my eye in the rearview mirror and gave me a knowing look. Of course the one time I was having a humiliating conversation on the phone, the cabbie would be interested in listening to what I had to say. Usually they were on their own phones or too busy yelling at traffic to pay any attention to what I was doing.
I took solace in the fact that no matter what the cabbie was imagining about my situation, the truth was way more scandalous.
“You sound sexy when you’re angry,” Landon said.
“Landon, stop. I’m not angry. I’m confused and upset, and scared.”
There was a pause on the other end of the line.
When he spoke again, any trace of amusement and teasing was gone from his voice. Now he was low and deep and serious.
“What did she say?”
“Who?”
The cabbie pushed hard on the gas, and flew through a yellow light, and the quick movement accentuated the dropped I’d already felt in my stomach from Landon’s question.
“Paisley.”
Of course he knew I’d been there. He had my phone traced and bugged and he was following me.
“You mean you don’t know what she said?” I asked sarcastically. “The all-knowing Landon Sheer actually needs information from me?”
The cabbie was flying through a string of green lights before finally pulling to a stop in front of my apartment building. I reached into my purse and slid my card through the reader, added a tip that was more than generous for such a little eavesdropper, and then slid out of the cab.
I stood on the sidewalk, scanning the New York traffic for Landon’s car.
“I’m tracking your movements, Aven, not your conversations.”
“Just my in person ones,” I said. “But my texts and phone calls, you can hear?”
“Correct.”
“Well, it’s good to know you draw the line somewhere,” I said sarcastically.
“Everyone has their limits,” he said. “Pushing them is when things get interesting.”
A black Tesla pulled over at the end of the block. I was too far away to see inside of it, but just knowing he was there, knowing he was so close made the electricity that was already zipping through my nerve endings intensify.
“Hi,” he said.
“I’m going inside.”
“Come to my car.”
“No.”
“Then I’ll come to you.”
“No.” I slipped my key into the lock that opened the downstairs door to my building before he could change my mind. The fact that there was even a downstairs door to my building that you needed to use a key to get into provided little comfort to me. I knew that if Landon was determined to get inside, he would.
I shut the door, making sure the automatic lock clicked into place, then climbed the stairs to my apartment.
Another lock, another door.
“Do you know how hard it is for me to sit out here, knowing you’re inside?” His voice was a low growl, and the warmth between my legs pulsed.
“I appreciate your restraint.” I rolled my eyes even though he couldn’t see me, then dropped my keys onto the counter next to a note from Emma telling me she’d gone out, not to wait up, and that she hoped everything had gone well at Paisley’s.
“Tell me what Paisley said,” Landon demanded.
I walked to the refrigerator, grabbed a bottle of water and took a sip. The cool liquid slid down my throat, and I thought about whether or not I wanted to tell Landon anything. I didn’t owe him anything. In fact, I knew I should stay away from him.
But what do you want? a voice in my head whispered. What do you really want?
I knew the answer. I wanted to be with him. But how was telling him what Paisley said going to help relationship?
“If you want to know what Paisley said, I’m going to want something in return.”
“What?”
I capped the water bottle and thought about it.
“Aven.”
“Yes?”
“What do you want?”
I was still thinking, and I took my time, savoring this moment, where he was the one who was waiting for me to answer, waiting for me to decide.
What I wanted was for him to let me in. But I knew there was no way I could say that. It was way too vague. No, I needed something more tangible, a step that was going to be more in line with getting to my ultimate goal.
“I want us to go to therapy.”
The silence on the other end of the phone was deafening. I’d never really believed in that phrase before, because how could silence be deafening? It didn’t make sense. But this silence was deafening. It stretched over the phone, almost reverberating in my ears, so strange in its simplicity and emptiness.
“Therapy is a waste of time,” Landon said finally.
“How do you know unless you’ve tried it?”
“How do you know I haven’t tried it?” he shot back.
“Have you?”
“Yes.”
“Well, me too. After my parents died.” I’d seen a therapist right after my parents had died, on the insistence of my aunt, who thought it would be good for me to talk to someone. The therapist was a small birdlike woman named Julie
who’d acted like I was a child instead of a teenager. Even so, it was helpful to talk to someone, to get tips on how to deal with my grief, to hear someone tell me that what I was feeling was normal.
“Therapists are useless, Aven. They fill you up with psychobabble and drugs, until you’re dependent on both of them and forced to pay more and more money to get more and more therapy while the whole time you’re getting more and more fucked up.”
“Not if you’re honest with them,” I said. “Not if you go into it with an open mind.”
“Really? Did you tell your therapist what you told me?”
My hand tightened around the phone, thinking about what I’d told him, about the night before my parents had died, how I’d been the one responsible. My mouth went dry and I took a sip of water, but it didn’t help.
“Aven?” he prompted.
I stayed silent.
“Ah. So then maybe you shouldn’t be espousing the virtues of honesty in therapy.”
It was uncomfortable for me, and I wanted to hang up on him.
But I didn’t. I fought through it.
If I wasn’t willing to confront things, to talk about things that were uncomfortable for me, then how could I expect him to do the same?
“If we go to therapy, I’ll talk to the therapist. I’ll tell them the truth.” My throat tightened at the thought of telling a stranger the truth about what happened. And then something even worse – a brief flash of what Landon had told me before, that the only reason I wanted to be with him was because he punished me, that I thought I deserved to be punished for what I’d done, and that was why I was drawn to him.
“I’ll tell the truth and I’ll expect you to do the same,” I said. “This is just… this is too fucked up, and we just… we need to figure out how we can…”
“Aven.”
“Yes.”
“If I agree to this, I need a promise, too.”
“Isn’t it enough to tell you what Paisley said?”
“No. This is far more important.”
“What is it?”
“I need you to promise that no matter what happens, that no matter what a therapist tells us, that we will not give up on this. That we will stay together, no matter how fucked up they tell us we are, how bad they say we are for each other.”