Say the Word (33 page)

No, the monikers that caught
my eye were household names — business moguls, multibillionaire technology mavens, United States congressmen, movie stars, political party leaders, and even, if I wasn’t mistaken, the Vice President himself. They were the people you saw on your television every morning when you turned on the news, and every night when you sat down for some mindless after-dinner entertainment.

The leaders of our country were on this list. Powerful, far-reaching people with a vested interest in keeping any affiliation with a place like
Labyrinth
a secret. The information in this dossier was prized. And it had somehow landed in the hands of three overworked, underpaid, fashion magazine employees at a trendy bar in Midtown.

Suddenly, it didn’t seem like a good idea to be reading
it out in public. In fact, it didn’t seem like a good idea to be reading it at all.

“Maybe we should…” Simon trailed off, casting his eyes around the bar at the fellow happy-hour indulgers.

Fae was already reaching for her wallet. “Pay the bill and get the fuck out of here before anyone sees that?” she finished.

“My thoughts exactly,” I muttered, shoving the papers back inside the envelope and tucking them deep down in the recesses of my purse where they couldn’t be seen.

As soon as the tab was paid, we headed for the door. The three of us waited for a cab, shrouded in an uneasy silence so unlike our typical nonstop chatter, until Fae leaned forward to whisper in my ear.

“Did you see it?”

“See what?” I whispered back.

She held my eyes for a beat, a flicker of unease flashing across her face. “One of the names on the list…”

“Yeah?” I prompted.

“It was Senator Covington.”

“Yahtzee!”

“How are we even related?” Jamie snorted. “This is poker. You don’t yell ‘Yahtzee’ in poker.”

“I have a royal flush and just whooped your ass — I’ll yell whatever I damn well please!” I grinned.

“She must be cheating.” Bash shook his head. “Maybe she’s counting cards?”

Jamie snorted. “Oh, please. She’s not that smart.”

“Hey!” I objected.

“I think it’s more likely that you’re going easy on her,” Jamie said. “To keep her from whining about her losses all night.”

“Or maybe Bash is just a shitty dealer,” I chimed in, sticking out my tongue in my boyfriend’s direction.

Bash raised his brows at me. “Oh, really?
Well maybe you should walk home tonight.”

I turned to Jamie with a shameful look on my face. “He forgets that his keys are in my purse,” I said, nodding in Bash’s direction. “It’s all looks, no brains with this one.”

At that, Bash leapt from his seat and pulled me into a playful headlock. “Someone’s asking for it, today,” he muttered, tickling my side with his free hand. I giggled, squirming in his arms so I could look up at his face.

“I might be asking for it,” I whispered slowly, a telltale blush rising to my cheeks. Bash leaned in to bump his nose against mine.

“Later,” he promised in a whisper.

Jamie began to wretch loudly, his fake-vomiting antics a clear protest of our mini PDA session. “Seriously, you guys are gross. Watching that two second interaction was more painful than a two hour round of chemo, I swear to you.”

Laughing, I detached from Sebastian and hopped up on the bed next to Jamie. I snuggled lightly into his side, laid my head on his shoulder, and wrapped an arm around his midsection.

“You nervous?” I asked in a quiet voice.

I felt Jamie’s body tense slightly. “A little,” he admitted, his voice unsteady.

I hated that he was afraid.

“You’re gonna do great, man,” Bash said, settling into the chair on the other side of Jamie’s hospital bed.

“Dr. Huntington has a spotless record, and I asked all the nurses about him,” I revealed. “He’s one of the best surgeons on staff. You’ll be in great hands, Jamie.”

“It’s not that,” he said flatly, staring down at his left leg which, after tomorrow, wouldn’t be there anymore.

“I know,” I whispered. “I’m sorry. I wish there was another way.”

We fell into sad moment of reflection, each wrapped up in our individual musings, until Sebastian cleared his throat and shattered the heavy silence.

“I know this is a few weeks late, and I feel like a real dick for hanging onto it for so long,” Bash said, reaching into the pocket of his jeans and pulling out an envelope. A red adhesive Christmas bow, flattened from its time in his pocket, was affixed to the top. “Merry Christmas, man.”

He handed the thin package to Jamie, who accepted it with a stunned expression.

“You didn’t have to get me anything,” Jamie said, eyeing the envelope curiously. “And now
I
feel like a dick. Your gift may be late, but I didn’t even bother to get you anything.”

Bash laughed. “Well, before you convince yourself that I’m entirely selfless, just open it.”

Jamie happily tore into the paper and pulled out two vouchers. The familiar hammer sigil alongside trademark blue and red script made them instantly identifiable.

“Dude! This is sweet!” Jamie grinned, holding the Braves tickets aloft. “I’ve never been to a major league game!”

“That second one’s for me,” Bash noted, grinning. “See? Not so selfless after all.”

Jamie laughed, reading the tickets more carefully. “Wait, are these…” he trailed off. “No way! No freaking way!”

He sat straight up in bed, his excitement tangible and his sudden movements launching me onto the floor.

“Care to enlighten me?” I asked Sebastian, arching an eyebrow as I regained my balance. I’d
never seen my brother so excited.

Bash laughed, watching with a happy smile as Jamie practically bounced up and down in anticipation. “They’re VIP Meet & Greet passes. You get to tour Turner Field before the game, meet all the players, take photos, get autographs… It’s supposed to be awesome.”

“Wow,” I murmured, more than a little in awe of my boyfriend. He’d managed to turn this day of mourning and grief into one of light and joy for my brother — a price I’d never be able to repay. Slipping one hand into his, I squeezed lightly and dropped my head against his shoulder. “I love you.”

Bash kissed the top of my head. “The tickets are flexible, so we can choose a game once the season kicks off and Jamie’s feeling up for it.”

“Dude, if this isn’t motivation for me to master my prosthetic in record time, I don’t know what is,” Jamie muttered, still unable to unglue his eyes from the tickets in his hands. “I’m gonna run a lap around the bases.”

I turned to face the wall, not wanting Jamie to see the moisture filming my eyes. But, in a happy twist of fate, they weren’t sad tears
.

T
hey were joyous.

“Lux?” Minnie called from the kitchen. “That boyfriend of yours called. Said his plans changed and he can pick you up tonight after all.”

“Okay thanks, Min!” I called back. I was in the front, wiping down tabletops and refilling condiment bottles after a busy Saturday night at the diner. Her announcement was a pleasant surprise. Bash made it a habit to pick me up after my shifts each night — tonight was one of the rare nights he’d said he couldn’t make it. His mother had dragged him away for the weekend to visit one of his great aunts who apparently controlled a vast amount of financial assets and required some annual ass-kissing to guarantee the Covingtons weren’t forgotten in her will. I wondered how he’d managed to escape early enough to pick me up.

Most nights he waited inside for me to finish cleaning after closing time — he’d charmed Minnie during their first meeting and from then on she’d been more than thrilled to let him keep us company. At the beginning I’d protested, saying he had much better things to do with his nights than help fill empty salt and pepper shakers, but he’d worn me down, insisting that no time spent with me was wasted. Tonight, as the minutes ticked by and Bash failed to appear at the front door, I felt a flutter of unease in my stomach. Maybe he wasn’t coming after all.

Sure enough, though, when I stepped out of the diner into the brisk January night, his Mercedes was there idling in the parking lot. Dismissing my rattled intuition, I waved goodbye to Minnie as she locked up and hurried for the car, eager to see Sebastian. The dark tinted windows were impossible to see through from the outside, but I knew he saw me — I heard the locks click open as I approached. Reaching for the handle with a smile on my face, I slid into the passenger seat and turned to kiss him hello.

Before I could so much as strap on my seatbelt, the car lurched forward with a jolt that slammed my still-open door shut and sent my stomach
reeling into my throat. Yet the shock induced by our abrupt departure was quickly overshadowed when I realized the man in the driver’s seat was not my boyfriend.

It was his father.

“Lux!” Andrew grinned over at me, then looked back at the road. “So glad you could make it.”

I reached for my seatbelt and strapped it on, my heart pounding as I ey
ed the speedometer. We were hurling away from the diner at breakneck speeds, inching past fifty miles per hour within seconds of leaving the parking lot.

“Senator.” I tried to keep my voice steady. “What a surprise.”

“Ah, well, I knew my boy was out of town tonight. Figured you could use a ride home.”

“Minnie would’ve taken me.”

“Nonsense! I’m happy to drive you.” His perfect smile was too unwavering to be genuine. “Plus, this way we can chat.”

I didn’t want to “chat” with him. I didn’t want to be in this car, traveling at this speed, without anyone knowing where I was or who I was with. I wished more than anything that I had a cellphone to call Bash, Minnie, or Jamie. Hell, I’d even call my parents at this point, I was so eager to escape this man’s presence.

“Want to hear something funny?” Andrew asked.

I didn’t respond. I had nothing nice to say
– any words I spoke would only anger him.

“No?” He laughed with forced good humor, his tone disingenuously cheery. “I’ll tell you anyway. My maid,
Greta — you remember Greta, don’t you?”

I clenched my hands tightly together in my lap and I looked out the window at the trees speeding by in a greenish blur. In
the movies, people always jumped out of cars going a hundred miles per hour and walked away without a scratch; at what speed could I hurl my body from the passenger seat in real life and still survive?

Not this fast, that much was certain.

“Well, Greta didn’t come back to work after you were sweet enough to drop her off the night of Sebastian’s birthday party a few weeks back. Quite unlike her — she’d never been late a day in her life. And then suddenly she simply doesn’t return?” He made a disapproving
tsk
sound. “Very unlike her. Strange enough to make you think someone else might’ve convinced her to stay away.”

My palms began to sweat — I wiped clammy hands against my jean skirt, focusing on the feeling of denim scraping against my skin to regain a sense of calm. “Where are you taking me, senator?” I bit out in as polite a tone as I could muster.

“Home, of course, darling girl.” He laughed boyishly. “After we’ve finished our chat.”

Great.

“Anyway, like I said, it’s been a terrible time at the house without Greta.” He paused for a beat. “We all miss her, but Greta and I had a… special bond… you might say.”

I flinched.

“But anyway, I didn’t pick you up to talk about Greta.”

“Then why
did
you pick me up?” I muttered.

“Don’t get testy, darling.” He laughed again. “We’ve still got a lot of ground to cover.”

“Why don’t you just skip to the point?” I asked, tired of all the false pretense littering this conversation.

“Fine, have it your way.” He pulled the car to the side of the road and shifted into park. My heart leapt into my throat when he leaned across the center console into my space and my hand groped blindly for the door handle, but it wouldn’t open — the child locks must’ve been enabled. I stilled when the glove compartment fell open and Andrew removed a thick white envelope. Still hovering over me, he turned his head over his shoulder and grinned, no doubt emboldened by our proximity and my clear discomfort. For a small infinity of time, with his arm pressed against my torso, I ceased even to breathe. One hand worked its way into my purse, as I searched desperately for my ring of house keys. When I grazed them, I clutched them between my fingers like tiny knives — prepared, if need be, to defend myself.

I felt a surge of relief when Andrew shifted back into his own space.

“Here,” he said, tossing the envelope onto my lap. “Open it.”

“What is it?”

He stared at me with that unflinching grin. “You’ll see.”

I felt a chill whisper up my spine as I ripped the package open. Inside, a single sheet of paper — embossed, in a curling archaic font was a phrase that stopped my heart.

Beneath the scrawling
script were two signatures I recognized easily — they belonged to my parents. I knew, instantly, that this was the document they’d agreed to sign several weeks ago, which granted complete ownership of our property to the bank. We were now existing as renters on what had once been our own property, and still so far indebted to the bank it was hard to imagine ever being free and clear again.

“Why do you have this?” I whispered, not looking at him.

“It’s a matter of public record, my dear! Any housing liens or foreclosures can be accessed with a simple trip to the Registry of Deeds.” He chuckled. “I must say, I had no idea your family was in such dire straights when I met you on Sebastian’s birthday. I suppose it does explain why he was so touchy when I brought them up. But after that night, I was inspired! I looked into your situation, my dear, and I must say, everything I discovered was a pleasant surprise.”

I stared at the words on the paper until they began to swim before my eyes, wishing I could
erase them with sheer force of will. When I began to feel nauseous, I closed my eyes against his words, trying desperately to shut him out.

“Shame about your brother, though.” His voice was full of false remorse. “James, is it?”

My eyes flew open and my head snapped in his direction. “Do
not
speak to me about my brother.”

“I do believe I’ve touched a nerve.” He grinned again. “But James is such an important piece in all of this.”

“What are you talking about?” I ground out the words through a tightly-locked jaw.