I shook my head. “Really?”
“Just last night. The lawyer motioned for an extension on account of bias—to no one’s surprise and shock, the previous judge and Jude Letour are members of the same Princeton society and have a weekly squash date.”
“Of course they are.” I was only just beginning to realize how deeply the nepotistic ties of the Janus society really ran.
“Anyway, there will be a new hearing tomorrow about the case. Brandon thinks there is a good chance the new judge will throw the whole thing out. If I know Eric, he’ll probably be on a plane the second the judge bangs the gavel.”
I cringed. I was in big trouble for being here. But I had to come, and Eric would be the first to tell me. My mother was missing. A madman had abducted her. And the only person we had sent into the fray had been found dead.
I couldn’t risk another person’s life for my family drama. And I couldn’t just leave my mother alone either.
I fell back onto the bed again. It was the kind of bed Eric would have liked, big enough for his long limbs to splay, and wide enough he could toss me around however he wanted. Right now, though, I wouldn’t have been the slightest bit interested. Fatigue was drawing over me like a thick cloak, and this time, I couldn’t fight it off, even as nerves warred within my stomach.
I turned onto my side to where the contents of Kim’s files were spread across the bed. I had intended to go through them all tonight before meeting with the detective, but now I wasn’t sure I could keep my eyes open long enough to read the first page of notes. I needed to read them, though. I needed to determine everything I could about this case so I could hopefully solve it myself and go home.
“Tomorrow,” I murmured to myself, promising a future I couldn’t quite see.
Skylar continued to chatter about what she thought would happen in Eric’s hearing. But before long, her words blended. I fell asleep with my face plastered against four newsprint clippings from 1987.
2
2009
“Someone get me a whiskey.”
I grinned at my new roommate. We were both sweaty messes after spending the day running around Harvard Law School orientation events like a couple of frantic hamsters, but Skylar, with her bright red hair and freckled skin, was more flustered than most. HLS didn’t mess around. Today alone we had listened to a supreme court justice, followed by a couple of deans, section leaders, and then we had attended the LAWn party for the entire five-hundred-student entering class.
We were beat. And thirsty.
Cleo’s, the dank, unofficially official bar for HLS students a few blocks off Harvard Square, offered just the thing. I ordered Skylar a whiskey soda—I’d learned the girl’s drink preferences within minutes of meeting her—and myself an ice cold PBR. It was late August in Boston. I would have thrown myself naked into the bar’s ice bin if that were socially acceptable.
Skylar grabbed the stool next to me and pulled a list of internships already accepting applications for the next summer from her orientation packet.
“Sky, are you serious?” I said, trying to bat the thing away. “We’re done for the day. Put that away.”
“That’s easy for you to say,” she said, dodging my reach. “Your dad already has you set up with an internship with the state’s attorney’s office, right? Not everyone has those kinds of connections.”
“Christ on a cracker, Ms. Crosby. We haven’t even started classes yet. And my dad’s a VA employee, not the Illinois governor. He hasn’t set me up—he dropped my name at the office.” I didn’t mention that the current SA had also been my dad’s college roommate at Urbana. Skylar was a little bitter about the nepotism at Harvard.
“I’m still behind the curve.” She took a sip of her drink and made a couple of emphatic check marks on the list.
“I thought you said your mom was helping you with law school,” I said. “Why are you so stressed about this?”
“Financially, yes. But we don’t really talk much. And my dad doesn’t really meet a whole lot of movers and shakers while emptying their garbage.” She pointed at a few of the bottom listings. “This one is promising. Sterling Grove is one of the top ten firms on the East Coast.”
I made a face. “If you want to work for a corporate bloodsucker, they seem like a good choice.”
“Well, I’m coming from a corporate bloodsucking background. It would make sense to capitalize on it.”
I took a long swig of my PBR. “Aren’t you trying to get away from that, though?” All I knew about Skylar’s time in the finance sector was that she hated it. “Or is Patrick trying to talk you back into it?”
The new pink in her already flushed face told me I was spot-on. Skylar’s boyfriend still worked on Wall Street. Not for the first time since meeting her, I wondered just how supportive he really was of his girlfriend moving four hours away for law school.
“We’ve been together a long time,” was all she said. “You didn’t leave a special someone behind in Chicago?”
Would it be embarrassing to say the only special someone I’d ever had was my dad? If I was being perfectly honest, I’d say that the hardest part about leaving Chicago was leaving him. My mother drove me absolutely bonkers, but Dad was my biggest cheerleader. His dog whistle sounded across the entire graduation when I finished at Northwestern. When I received my Harvard acceptance, there was no way I could say no to his chubby, proud face.
“With great power comes great responsibility, kiddo,” he said before I got on the plane. “This degree is going to give you the power to change the world.”
“That’s from Spiderman, you goon,” I joked back.
“Hey, Stan Lee is a modern prophet, Jane Brain.”
Now I looked down at my t-shirt, which had Spiderman plastered across the front. I’d found it at Newbury Comics just after arriving in Boston and had deemed it a sign. My talisman, a way of carrying Dad’s good wishes with me into this life I still wasn’t sure I wanted. But it mostly reminded me of the fact that Dad loved me in a way no one else ever had or ever would. Why even bother trying to replace it?
“No,” I said finally. “No one special. I had a few boyfriends here and there in college, but the truth is, I don’t think I’m relationship material. No one else really walks to this drumbeat, if you know what I mean.” I bent over the internship list, suddenly wanting to change the subject. “So, are you going to apply for it?”
“No, they only want second years.” Skylar sounded deflated. “Maybe next year.”
“Are you talking about the Sterling Grove internship?”
We turned to find a tall blond kid signaling for the bartender.
“We are.” Skylar’s tone was immediately guarded.
I smirked. I had only known my roommate for a few days, but I already knew she wasn’t an easy nut to crack.
The kid shrugged, like Skylar’s chill didn’t bother him in the slightest. He nodded at the bartender, a cute young girl who sprinted over the second he smiled. For a moment, I was also transfixed. At first, the guy looked like any other twenty-something student from Connecticut or wherever. Fair, blond, kind of lanky, with a face that was handsome, but nothing remarkable. But then he smiled, and personality flashed across those otherwise nondescript features like a lightning bolt. As he leaned forward to flirt openly with the bartender, his mouth tugged to one side like it had been caught with a hook. I had a hard time swallowing.
The bartender squealed. She actually squealed, like a mouse ready to run straight into the jaws of a trap. I watched curiously as the blond guy’s gaze darkened, like a cat identifying its prey. I was suddenly turned on, but annoyed at the same time. Awkward.
He paid for his drink—two fingers of top-shelf vodka on the rocks—and turned away, features smoothed back into bland curiosity. Until they sharpened all over again. On me.
“So.” He set his drink on the bar with purpose. “Are you HLS too?”
I felt like I was stuck in place. Did this guy have superpowers
? How could someone go from being eight percent unremarkable to the most charismatic person in the room on a dime?
Even so, I knew the look I was currently receiving. I’d been getting that look my whole life. I was the weird girl at a suburban school. The one who busted out vintage jeans and spiked bracelets when everyone else was sporting Abercrombie and Fitch. The one who went through at least two short-lived Avril Lavigne lookalike phases between the ages of ten and seventeen until I could sew well enough to make my own ideas come to life. Boys like him were fascinated with girls like me long enough to get their rocks off. They fucked us or bullied us. Sometimes both.
Okay, so I lost my virginity in the back of rugby-shirt-wearing Decker Carlson’s 4Runner only so he could announce to our entire high school that he scored with the slutty goth girl. And yeah, I might have had a hard time with it. But that was more than five years ago. My prejudice had nothing to do with that. Nothing. I swear.
It was just a matter of difference. Blondie here was a CW show. I was an indie film festival short. Total opposites, plain and simple.
But the kid just peered at me that much more intensely and continued his questioning. “How old are you, anyway? You look about fourteen.”
I cleared my throat. “That’s really too bad. I work damn hard to conceal my youth with unhealthy doses of eyeliner.”
I didn’t say I was actually twenty-one, a minimum year younger than the rest of the incoming class. I also didn’t say that I was horribly intimidated by the other students at Harvard. I had already met two conferred PhDs and another kid who had finished a tour with the Peace Corps. Their accomplishments made my degree from Northwestern seem downright commonplace.
“Since we’re making snap judgments,” I said, “if I’m a baby-faced Asian girl who snuck in despite being a model minority, then what are you? The trust-funded son of a senator? Or is it a governor? Where are you from anyway? Newton? Maybe somewhere in Connecticut?”
He barely looked uncomfortable. “No,” he said after a measured sip of his vodka. “I’m from New York, originally.” He held out a hand. “I’m Eric.”
“Eric what?” I asked. His name was probably Clinton or Bush. I’d bet ten dollars this kid was part of a political dynasty, or one of those families who only reproduced with others like them to corral all the wealth and natural magnetism in their own gene pool. No one could work charm that way without generations of breeding.
His gray eyes narrowed and glinted like steel. “Ah, Stallsmith. And you are?”
I searched for any signs of condescension or mendacity in that strangely penetrating expression, but found none. Just sharp curiosity. So I shook his hand, ignoring the way his touch, which was strong and gentle at the same time, sent tingles up my wrist.
“Lefferts,” I replied. “Jane Lefferts.”
“That’s not an Asian name.”
“I’m only half. My mom is Korean.”
He nodded. I tucked my hand away and sipped on my beer. Skylar was ignoring us completely, reabsorbed in her internship list.
“I saw you at the orientation meeting,” he said. “Section six, right?”
“You saw me?” I said. “What kind of come-on line is that?”
But instead of shuttering like so many men do when challenged, Eric just tilted his head, looking amused. “Well, you’re kind of hard to miss. I think you were the only one in the hall with bright blue hair.”
I picked up a lock of my hair and examined it. “Actually, this is aqua. Like the sea.” I chuckled to myself. “New school, new color.”
“Like a siren,” Eric murmured.
“Well, my dad did say it reminded him of the Little Mermaid. I guess that makes him King Triton, huh?”
Eric started, like he’d been shocked, but didn’t move his gaze. For a moment, I couldn’t move myself.
“Yo! Eric!”
We both turned to where a group of other students in a booth called our new friend, shattering the oddly intense moment. They waved at Eric, beckoning him.
Eric turned back to me with a lopsided smile. The intensity was gone, but the charm offensive was back. I wasn’t sure which was more deadly.
“Listen,” he said. “I’d love to get another drink with you sometime. Maybe before classes start?”
“I…” I watched, unusually dumbfounded as the beautiful boy scribbled his number on one of the bar coasters. I was unaccountably shy—under normal circumstances, I’d tell him that the drinks could hang. We could leave right now, get what we both clearly wanted, and go our merry ways. No more lingering stares or electric touches that left me feeling distinctly unsettled.
But instead, I said nothing.
Eric pushed the coaster across the bar to me and winked. “See you, Jane.”
I remained silent, watching him go until Skylar pulled me out of my odd little trance.
“Who’s Ariel?” she asked, reading the coaster.
I finally looked down at the note.
Ariel—
When you’re ready for that drink, let me know. We’ll take a swim together.
Eric
(212) 555-4982
I chuckled. “The Little Mermaid, of course,” I said with a quick tug at my hair.
For good measure, I stole one last glance across the bar and found Eric smiling at me. He knew exactly what I’d discovered. I almost fell off my stool.
“What did he say his name was again?” Skylar asked as she looked between us.
“Eric Stallsmith,” I said, still unable to break eye contact with this increasingly attractive kid. Eric. Just like the prince in the movie. Oh, he was a smooth one, all right. I was going to have to be careful.
“That’s weird,” Skylar said. “I heard him tell the registration people his last name was de Vries.”
Her comment was the rock that shattered the illusion. I turned away from Eric, frowning. A fake name? Really? What was he going to do next, put a false number in my phone and forget to call me?
I had known it from the start. Guys like him were really only good for one thing, but they were so damn self-absorbed they assumed every girl they met was already half in love with them. They never once considered the idea that the weird girl with the piercings and the crazy hair might want to use them as much as they wanted to use her.
Well, I wasn’t ashamed of who I was, nor did I expect every penis on the planet to fall in love with me. But I wasn’t about to be played for a fool either. That, I couldn’t handle.
I examined the coaster with renewed suspicion, then tossed it aside. “Goodbye, Eric Stallsmith de Vries, or whoever you are. You can try running your game on some other unsuspecting coed.”
3
Present
I burst from the water of the hotel’s pool, echoes of the dreams I’d had the night before still dancing behind my vision. I rarely dreamed of my past. Usually mine were more of the Salvador Dali persuasion—surreal unicorns erupting from the sky before they morphed into my mother yelling at me. Lots of ticking clocks, reminding me of how very brief this life was. You know, the normal stuff.
But lately, it was like my subconscious was reminding me of something, and in these scant free moments, I brooded on those memories from so long ago.
Eric and I had had several other chances together over the years. Every time we’d completely fucked them up. Now I wondered if he’d been trying to tell me something, even back then.
When we first met, Eric had been fighting his own battles. At that point, he would have been just over a year or so out from Penny’s death. That boy, as cocky as he’d seemed, had really been full of bravado. Just like me.
Was he still Triton then too, or had he already walked away from the society? Had it been strange to him when I’d brought up the reference at all?
I took another lap in the pool. The water was the same bright blue shade that my hair had been when I’d started school. Vaguely, I wondered if I should do it again. It had been almost a year since the rainbow job.
/> Skylar recommended swimming to help with my energy while I was pregnant. Stress wasn’t good for the baby, she said, and swimming was about as safe an exercise as you could get. Exercise and I generally got along like oil and water, but I had to say, she was right. Although my friend, with her aquatic habits and red hair, more closely resembled the mermaid of my dreams. Somehow being in the water brought me back to those first moments. Maybe that’s why I was enjoying it. Over the last few weeks, when the realities of Eric in the slammer and my mother abducted to God-knows-where were too much for me, a dip did my mental state some good.
Or maybe I was just putting off the inevitable.
“Ms. Lefferts?”
Tony, my head security guard, approached the edge of the pool from where he and another guard had been sitting dutifully by the door, keeping out anyone else who wanted to swim while I took a few morning laps. The team of four had been alternating shifts while we were in Korea, standing like sentries outside of my hotel room while I slept, shadowing me everywhere else I ventured. It was a little much, but considering who else was at large here, they made me feel safe. And I knew Eric would never forgive me if I was careless enough to make myself vulnerable.
I swam to the side and looked up at him, pulling awkwardly on my swim cap. “What’s up, Tony?”
He averted his eyes—the big man was oddly conservative, probably out of deference to Eric. He generally avoided looking at me directly whenever he could and absolutely refused to use my first name. When I announced I was going swimming this morning, the dread on his face—apparently at having to watch me in a bathing suit—was practically a Halloween mask.
“I just thought you would like to know that your appointment with Detective Cho is in approximately two hours. We need to leave in about forty-five minutes, ma’am, to reach the station on time.”
I let myself sink back into the water, touch my feet to the bottom, then reemerge before answering. “Okay.”
The Love Trap (Quicksilver Book 3) Page 3