by Amy Star
“I don’t want us to be enemies, Dad.” She closed her eyes, and the lantern light reflected off the tears running down her face. “I love you so much, and I want you to know that.”
“You spoiled little bitch.” His face twisted into something she wasn’t used to seeing. “Is that a threat?”
“It’s a warning.” She looked up at him. “I’ve been watching you do business, as you call it, my entire life. I had to learn what I could and couldn’t talk about pretty early on. You’ve had me keeping your dirty little secrets, and now I’m just about done.”
“I think you must have picked up some bad mushrooms while you were on your little camping trip.” He nodded to McDonald. “I want you to lock down her room and take her computer. No one goes in or out. Tomorrow I’ll get her in to see a head shrinker and get to the bottom of this little delusion.”
McDonald took her by the shoulders and pushed her toward the door.
“Don’t touch me, you fucking creep.” She shrugged his hands off and walked ahead.
“Briggs and Sheffield, I need the perimeter secured. Consider Little Lox a flight risk for the next twenty-four hours.”
“Excuse me.” Jillian turned around, squaring up with the big guy. “I hope you realize that Little Lox is a grown-ass woman who can walk out the front door any time she damn-well pleases. If you try to hold me here against my will, there will be legal consequences.”
“Spare me.” McDonald rolled his eyes. “I’ve been in this line of work since before you were born. Do you have any idea how many little trust-fund cunts have pissed off their parents and been tucked away in a nice little padded room somewhere? I do.”
He nodded for her to keep walking, and she begrudgingly obeyed.
Is this guy serious? Would it really be that easy for her father to claim she was mentally incompetent? What scared her the most was that she didn’t doubt that he would be willing to do just that if he thought she was a threat. After the conversation they just had, there was no denying that she was.
McDonald continued barking coded orders through his blue-tooth headset. By the time they reached her room, there was already a team of guys carrying out her smart tv, her desktop computer, her tablet.
“You guys realize that the power’s out, right?” Jillian rolled her eyes.
“Yeah.” McDonald put a hand on her shoulder, shoving her down into the armchair in front of her vanity mirror. “And as soon as the power comes back on, we can’t have you venting your nonsense on social media.”
“Your loyalty is so inspiring.” She slumped back into the chair. “He sure is lucky there’s no shortage of guys like you enabling the corrupt douchebags that run this country. Thank you for your service.” She saluted him.
“Keep it up, you self-righteous little princess.” He chuckled. “You’re going to spend the rest of your life drooling down the front of a straight-jacket.”
“And you’ll spend the rest of her your life with your nose lodged firmly up my father’s ass.” She scoffed. “I wouldn’t trade places with you for all the money in the world.”
He sneered as the rest of his guys filed out into the hallway. As they left her in total darkness, the click of the door lock sounded like the final nail in her coffin. Jillian let out a long, exasperated sigh as she looked into the dark silhouette of her reflection of her vanity mirror.
Way to go, Jillian. She folded her arms on the desk and laid her head down. That was a great plan.
Sure, she stopped search and rescue from stumbling onto the cabin. But she might have been a tad optimistic about how much pull she had with her father. She never imagined in a million years that he would lock her up, but then again, she’d never really stood up to him before.
Opening the drawer to her vanity, she pulled out five white candlesticks that were left over from the last time Elaina had stayed over. Elaina brought the candles along with a spirit board to attempt a séance a while back. Jillian teased her about being childish from time to time, but as eccentric as her best friend was, Elaina did bring adventure into Jillian’s life, which wasn’t the easiest thing to do. She dug through the drawer and found a book of matches, lighting the candles and setting them up on her desk.
The delicate flames danced with their reflections in the mirror. Jillian pulled open the drawer a little farther and reached inside to make sure there were no more candles that had rolled to the back. Her fingers touched the smooth rounded corner of something she recognized, and a slow smile crept across her face.
Glancing toward the door, she pulled out the little pink laptop that she hadn’t used since high school. Of course, it was dead as a doornail, but she wasn’t ready to give up hope yet. In a box in the back of her closet, she’d discarded a bunch of old cords. To her delight, there was also a portable charging station.
It took a few minutes to go through the cords and find one that worked for the old laptop, but when she did, all that was left was to plug in the charging station and hope that the power core still held a charge. It was a long shot since she hadn’t charged it in months. She took a deep breath before plugging it in. To her surprise, a little green light came on next to the power button, and the screen went from utterly black to a luminescent charcoal color.
“Holy shit.” Her eyes lit up as she moved to the floor on the opposite side of her bed. If old McDonald decided to pop in, she didn’t want him to find her laptop. As the screen flickered on, displaying her desktop. She slid her middle finger across the touchpad, opening her word processing app.
Sighing at the grayed-out Wi-Fi icon, she realized that even if she typed out a message for help, she had no way to send it to anyone. With the power out, she was completely cut off from the outside world. Still, she had to do something. Placing her fingers on the keys, she started typing the title…
Lox Family Secrets
Jillian bit her lip as she tried to figure out where to start. She could lead with his involvement with the DuPonts and their dirty business practices. But that was only the latest in a long string of bad decisions her father had made
My name is Jillian Lox, and I’m the daughter of a corrupt politician. One of my earliest childhood memories was of my father shoving my mother backward, knocking a framed picture off the wall. I started crying, and he yelled for the housekeeper who came and picked me up. She took me out of the room, kicking and screaming so that I wouldn’t see them argue.
She hadn’t thought about that in ages. She closed her eyes, trying to remember that woman’s face, but no matter how hard she tried, it was just a blur.
I don’t remember that woman’s name, probably because my father tries not to keep staff members around for too long. I think he was always afraid of any one person knowing too much about us. Because of that, I was raised by a dozen or so different nannies and housekeepers. I learned to avoid forming attachments to any of them, knowing that the women who cooked my meals, taught me right from wrong, and kissed my bruises would be temporary fixtures in my life.
She scowled at the cursor blinking on the screen. None of that mattered in the grand scheme of things. This wasn’t supposed to be about her. She deleted the last couple of sentences and sighed before her fingers started moving again.
But I’m not writing this to vent about my issues. I’m writing this because I’ve spent my entire life as a fly on the wall, watching my father exploit the people he’s supposed to be serving. No one could blame a child for the actions of their parent. But I’m not a child anymore, and if I don’t find the courage to speak out about the things I know, then I’m just as guilty as he is.
All the years of self-loathing and guilt she had been shoving to the deepest, darkest corner of her mind flowed out through her fingers as she laid bare every evil she could remember her father committing. The low battery bar started blinking, and she realized she was running out of time.
She quickly typed out what she knew about the bill DuPont had paid her father to pass before saving it. Rushing over to her
desk and digging around, she found a thumb drive and plugged it into the USB port.
Never put all your eggs in one basket. That was one good lesson her father had taught her. The dialog box confirming the data had been saved flashed across the screen just before it went black.
Now what? Jillian let out a defeated sigh. If her father were going to have her dragged away and quietly institutionalized in a matter of hours, her words would never even see the light of day.
A creaking noise made her look toward the balcony just in time to see the shadow of a man lurch over the railing.
Fuck!
She slapped the laptop closed and shoved it under the bed. Maybe the real reason the power was out was that the DuPont family put a hit out on her. People who stood up to them publicly did tend to end up floating face down in the Hudson. That was probably the main reason her father was so desperate to keep her quiet.
Leaping to her feet, she picked up her spelling bee trophy from third grade and hid behind the curtain next to the French doors leading out to the balcony. The handle jiggled back and forth before a series of scrapes and clicks. Jillian clapped a hand over her mouth, as her racing heart begged her lungs for more oxygen.
Tears trickled from the corners of her eyes. She blinked, hoping to keep her vision clear enough to get one good hard hit on the back of his head as the assassin entered. She brandished her weapon, bouncing it up and down in her hand a couple of times to feel the weight of it.
I’ll use the corner. She thought, turning it over in her hand. This could put a hole in a human skull, right?
Her heart thrummed in her ears so loud she could barely hear the door open. A hooded figure stepped into view, and she clenched her eyes shut, bringing the trophy down like a hammer, but not before he spun around, catching her by the wrist.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“Jeez, are you trying to kill me?” The burglar grinned, pulling the hood of his sweater back.
“Conner?” Jillian put a hand over her heart and leaned back against the wall. “You almost gave me a fucking heart attack. How the hell did you get in here?”
“If I stayed out past curfew, my dad would lock me out. I had to either learn to pick locks or get comfortable sleeping in the garden shed.”
“Okay, but the wall is like fifty feet.” She pulled him further inside and closed the doors.
“Please.” He scoffed. “It’s maybe thirty feet, and I got a running start.”
“A running start?” She chuckled. “You’re too much.”
“Well, you insisted on coming back here, but Finn and I didn’t feel great about it. So, I thought maybe I’d come to check on you.”
“And Vincent was okay with this?” She arched a brow at him.
“I left a note.” He shrugged. “I’m sure he’ll have something to say, but I’ll deal with it when I get back.”
“Did you have a chance to talk to your pops?” He put his hands in the pockets of his hoodie as he looked around the room. “This place is nice.”
“I tried talking to him.” Jillian looked away.
“Let me guess.” He smiled. “It didn’t go well.”
“He’s having me committed to a mental institution for troublesome rich kids.” She groaned. “So, I have until morning to figure this shit out.”
“Well, I came here to see if you needed help.” He smiled. “I have a theory that all great ideas come to you when you’re distracted…”
“Don’t you talk back to me!” Maggie’s high-pitched, angry voice was followed by the bedroom door swinging open and closed as she continued her rant. “I’ve worked here for three years. That little girl has nothing but hospital food in her belly, and that bald ape thinks he can stop me from…”
Maggie looked up just as Conner dove behind the bed. The gray-haired woman let out a soft whimper as her jaw dropped, but she kept a grip on the silver tray in her hands.
“I… uh brought you a bowl of tomato soup, some leftover rotisserie chicken, and a grilled cheese sandwich.” She set the tray down on the vanity. “Your mother said you wanted a salad, but after being lost in the woods for a week, I thought you might be tired of eating leaves for a while.”
“Maggie.” Jillian’s eyes widened as she walked toward the housekeeper, trying to think of a believable lie.
“Tut-tut.” Maggie put her hands up and closed her eyes. “I wasn’t born sixty-four years old, sweetie. I haven’t forgotten what it’s like to be in love.”
She walked past Jillian, peering around the side of the bed.
“Ma’am.” Conner stood up and nodded to her.
Maggie narrowed her eyes, sizing him up as she brushed off his shoulders and looked down at his feet. He wore sneakers with no socks. “This one isn’t quite as shiny as the boys you’ve courted before.” She pursed her lips and looked him in the eye. “Are you a decent fellow, young man?”
“I try to be, ma’am.” He offered a tremulous smile.
“Well, then you’re already a better man than the last one.” She smiled and pinched his cheek softly. “And that smile could melt butter, couldn’t it?”
“This is my friend, Conner.” Jillian held out her hand. “Conner, this is Maggie.”
“Ma’am.” He extended his hand to shake hers, and she obliged.
“Well, don’t you worry.” She grinned. “I won’t breathe a word.”
The old woman shuffled back toward the door, and Conner backed out of the line of sight in case the guard posted at the door decided to look back. Maggie went back to scolding the man standing at the door for attempting to bar her from feeding a hungry girl.
“It seems like a waste not to eat after she went through all the trouble of cooking on a gas stove in the dark.” Conner eyed the sandwiches. “We could even take it to go if you have a backpack… Well, maybe not the soup.”
“If the whole park squatter thing ever gets old, you'd make an excellent cat burglar.” She smirked.
“Sounds fun.” He reached out to grab her hand. “We could run away together, stealing priceless art and crown jewels.”
“Oh, don’t suck me into your life of crime.” She giggled, playfully turning to walk away.
“Hey, it was your idea.” He pulled her back against him, whispering in her ear. “You could be my fem-fatal, and we would see the world together.”
“So brazen…” She turned to put her arms around his neck. “You don’t have a shy bone in your body, do you?”
“I haven’t found one yet.” He leaned down to kiss her, but she turned her head.
“I’m sorry.” She took a step back. “I know I’m sending you mixed signals. I don’t mean to.”
“Vince is closer to your dad’s age than yours, and Finn has never exactly been the smoothest of criminals.” He sighed. “Am I completely delusional to think that we’re perfect for each other?”
“You are probably the most obvious choice.” She paced back to the French doors and looked through the glass at the moon. “You’re smart and sweet and funny. You’re exactly the kind of guy every girl wants to be with.”
“Every girl but the one I want.” He nodded. “I get it.”
“Conner, I like you.” She looked down at her feet.
“But you don’t love me.” He held out his arms before letting them fall to his sides. “We’ve known each other for five days. I can’t hold that against you.”
“I just don’t know you well enough to commit to having kids with you.” She lifted her eyes to meet his. “I don’t doubt that I could love you someday, but there’s more to consider than that.”
“You don’t have to explain.” He shrugged. “Seriously, I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”
“Uncomfortable isn’t the word I would use.” She walked back over to the tray of food. “How about we have some dinner, just the two of us?”
“Like a date?” He smiled.
“Sure.” She picked up the tray and moved it to the floor before retrieving one of the candles and
placing it in the center of the tray.
“You know you’re the first girl that I’ve been on a date within like a year. “Conner sat down, cross-legged on the opposite side of the tray.
“Is that all?” She picked up one half of the grilled cheese and handed the other to Conner. “I thought you moved in with Vincent and Finn when you were sixteen.”
“No, I turned into a bear and mauled my father when I was sixteen.” He accepted the sandwich and dipped it into the tomato soup. “I spent two years hitch-hiking around the country, working odd jobs for cash where I could. As I made my way closer and closer to New York, I heard more stories about weird paranormal shit happening in Hemlock Park.”
“So, you were homeless for two years?” She frowned, taking a bite of her sandwich. “What was that like?”
“Let’s just say it’s why I’m not scared of living in the woods.” He shuddered. “You’ve never been scared until a cracked-out hobo tries to stab you in the face with a hypodermic needle.”
“Jesus!” Her brow furrowed. “So, you were eighteen when you met Vincent and Finn?”
“Almost nineteen.” He nodded, taking another bite.
“And you’re how old now?” She mulled it over in her head.
“Twenty-four.” He glanced at the chicken.
“Same as me.” She pushed the plate toward him. He grabbed a drumstick.
“So, explain how you’ve had a date in the last year when you guys live like hermits.” She gave a wry smile.
“Finn gets antsy and goes off and does his thing.” Conner moaned at the flavor of the chicken. “I go off and do mine. Finn likes to spend his time off as a bear, which I personally think is lame. I like to come to the city and mingle with people.”
“Mingle, huh.” She threw a piece of crust that bounced off his head. “That’s one way to put it.”
“Well, I am still reasonably young.” He picked up the crust she threw and defiantly popped it into his mouth. “Surely you didn’t think I was celibate or something.”