Not hard.
He was smarter than that. This was a man that I’d once watched convince a Ukrainian enforcer he’d accidentally gotten lost in the Ukrainian section of town—inside the Ukrainian weapon’s warehouse.
When the office door jingled, I was already working on an exasperated sigh. What now? Was it the Wi-Fi again? Had another ninja chipmunk managed to sever his contact with the outside world in an effort to trap him in his cabin and demand he get naked and take a shower?
No? That was just my sleazy fantasy?
Okay, then. Moving on…
“Hey, there,” a rich, warm voice called my attention out of my flustered silence. I lifted my gaze to find Jesse standing across the counter.
My smile was relaxed and genuine after I switched gears mentally. It only took three seconds. Ten seconds tops. “Hey, stranger. Haven’t seen you in a while.”
His smile wobbled and I mentally kicked myself for making him feel awkward. We hadn’t talked much since our date was derailed. He had texted the next day to make sure I was okay and we’d shared some random texts since then, but he hadn’t asked me out again. And he hadn’t made an effort to see me.
I didn’t know what to think about my current reality. And to be honest, I hadn’t really had time to think about my thwarted date with Jessie. Since that fateful Friday night, my thoughts and actions and decisions had been focused solely on Sayer. I’d even somehow let Gus slip through the cracks. I was pretty sure he was following me around town. I kept seeing a black Mercedes creeping behind me, but since I never had Juliet with me during those times nor was I doing anything particularly interesting other than random errands, I had let it slide. I should probably say something to him though. Maybe offer to log my activities for him and save him the trouble.
“Things have been crazy at the ranch,” Jesse explained not quite looking me in the eye. “We’re getting ready to go to auction.”
His excuse made me feel funny, rejected in a way I hadn’t felt in a very long time. He didn’t owe me an explanation and I wished he hadn’t given me one. It would have been better for him to pretend like nothing was weird between us. But acknowledging it shed light on it. Now I was embarrassed and flustered. I wanted to kick it all back under the rug.
I swiped my hand through the air. “Oh, no worries. I mean, that’s cool. Auction sounds… busy.” Holy crap, put the words back in my mouth. What was wrong with me?
Jesse took mercy on me and nodded. “It is busy.”
“I’ve been busy too,” I blurted when the silence had stretched between us for longer than three seconds. “So busy.”
“Oh, yeah? You got a lot going on?”
I let out a puff of air that forced my hair out of my eyes. “Yeah, I do. Work has been… swamped.” As a matter of fact, before Jesse walked in I had been trying to stack the new keycards into a tower. It was a truly frustrating endeavor because of how slippery they were. “And, you know, getting ready for Halloween has really, uh, taken up a lot more time than it should have.”
He laughed. “I forgot about Halloween. What are you going as?”
I plopped my chin in my hand and tried to relax. This was Jesse after all. I needed to chill out. Gosh, ever since Sayer showed up I had been acting like a crazy person. He’d gotten under my skin and started bringing out the worst in me within seconds. Was this always how it had been? Had I been too infatuated to see it? Had he always brought out the shady in me? My baser instincts? The dangerous criminal?
“A bank robber,” I told Jesse. “Juliet’s idea.”
He laughed because of how absurd that idea was. Who robbed banks anyway? Oh, wait...
Okay, I had never robbed a bank.
Bankers, sure. But not an actual bank.
Sayer’s Jeep pulled up outside and I wrinkled my nose. I didn’t want to deal with him right now. I was trying to have a conversation with Jesse. Argh! Why did he have to ruin everything?
“So auction is a big deal?” I asked him, vaulting the conversation away from Halloween and Juliet and my life.
His attention was on Sayer. “Yeah, it is. We’re buying and selling this year, so it’s a great big effort to make it all run smoothly.”
Out of the corner of my eye I watched Sayer jump down from his Jeep. He was back to businessman in gray dress pants and a blue sweater that would bring out the already vivid color of his eyes. His short hair was pushed to the side, styled to stay in place. And he was wearing his glasses again.
I focused harder on Jesse, realizing I hadn’t even paid attention to what he was wearing. “Oh, I bet.”
Jessie was wearing a button-up plaid shirt and jeans. If Sayer hadn’t walked into the office, ruining the entire morning, Jesse would have been one of the hottest guys I’d ever seen. I mean, who could resist plaid?
But alas, Sayer was here. And no matter what our history was or if he was trying to kill me or not, impartially speaking, the man looked delicious.
You know, from an objective perspective.
“Good morning,” Sayer greeted as he entered. “Man, it’s cold out there today.”
I was slightly taken aback because he hadn’t said more than two pleasant words to me since I’d seen him naked last week—and he’d subsequently berated me.
“M-morning,” I mostly whispered, which ended up being better for my self-esteem when Jesse said the same thing louder and with more confidence.
Then the two men proved we were in some kind of alternate reality and not real life by shaking hands.
What just happened?
“How’s it going?” Jesse asked Sayer.
“Good.” Sayer responded casually, nonchalantly, normally. “How are you? How’s your dad?”
“Good.” Jesse was comfortable and at ease. “He’s going to meet us down there if that’s all right?”
“Oh, yeah, that’s no problem.” Sayer tilted his head toward his Jeep. “Should we go?”
“Sounds good.” Jesse waiting a beat and asked, “Do you want me to drive?”
“No that’s all right. I can drive. It will help me get a feel for the area.”
“Okay, let me grab the paperwork out of my car then.”
“Sounds good.”
Jesse turned to me with a soft smile. I was pretty sure I looked like a cartoon character after that exchange, complete with my mouth hanging open and my eyeballs bugging out of my head. “Can I call you later, Caroline?” I nodded because I couldn’t seem to make words form. His smile stretched and he held up his hand to wave goodbye. “All right, then, talk to you later.”
“Bye, Jesse.”
Sayer walked over to the counter, giving Jesse his back.
Some of my sanity returned and I tilted my head to stare at him. “What the hell?”
His eyes cut to mine. “Excuse me?”
“What the hell are you doing with Jesse? What is going on?”
His expression hardened, the corner of his jaw ticking with fury. “It’s none of your business, Caroline.”
“Stop it,” I hissed. “Stop saying my name like that, like it’s some sort of crime against humanity or great offense to you. Caroline is my name. It’s what people are supposed to call me!”
He made a sound that said he didn’t entirely agree with me.
“And what are you going to do with Jesse? Seriously, I have a right to know. You better not hurt him. Or worse! Sayer, are you going to kill him? You just got out of prison and I don’t think that would be a good—”
“Are you kidding me? Have I ever killed anyone before? God, Caroline, what kind of monster do you think I am?”
I took a steadying breath. I hadn’t really thought he was going to kill Jesse. But it doesn’t hurt to ask questions. There was no such thing as a bad question, you know. “I just don’t understand why you two are going anywhere together. You guys have nothing in common.”
He leaned forward on the counter, resting his forearms in front of mine. He’d scooted intentionally close, trying to ge
t into my head. But I wasn’t going to let him. I was stronger than those glasses and that smell and the heat of his body. So much stronger.
“We have you in common,” he taunted. “Maybe we’re going to compare Caro to Caroline. Maybe we should swap details.” His head dipped, bringing his mouth close to my temple. His voice was rough, deep and smooth and hard all at once. “Do you make that sound when he nibbles on your ear? Are you still greedy with your mouth? Does he know where you like his fingers—”
“Stop.” I was breathless, and furious and blind with rage. “Enough.”
He pulled back, that cruel smirk I was getting used to twisting his mouth. “Don’t tell me you’re shy now, Six? After all we’ve been through?”
“It’s not like that with him.” There was enough grit in my voice that his eyebrows jumped. “We’re friends, asshole. Just friends. We’ve never so much as kissed goodbye, so whatever you’re planning for him today needs to end. He’s innocent. He hasn’t done a goddamn thing to you.”
“You’re so full of shit,” he snarled. “You showed up at my gallery in a sexy as sin dress hanging all over him. Yeah, I’m so sure he hasn’t hit this.”
My eyes were going to start shooting fireballs any second. I could feel them burning behind my eyelids, ready to raze this bastard of a man. “Enough, Sayer. I get that I hurt you. I get that you’re pissed off. But Jesse and I aren’t anything but an awkward first date interrupted by my ex-boyfriend showing up to ruin the night. Not that it’s any of your business. I’m only telling you this so you’ll leave Jesse the hell alone. He’s not some vendetta for you to settle. He’s innocent.”
Sayer tapped the counter. “You did so much more than hurt me, Caro. You showed me who you really are.”
“You’re such a prick.” Emotion roared through me, drowning out reason and logic and sanity. “You don’t even know what you’re talking about. You want to blame me for leaving you! But you won’t even own up to your part! What you did!”
“What did I do, Six? What did I do to you?”
You chose the brothers over your pregnant girlfriend, over your child. I sucked in my bottom lip, unwilling to let him keep getting to me. “Doesn’t matter now.”
He nodded, pursing his lips thoughtfully. “You’re fucking right about that.” He stepped back from the counter, tucking his hands into his pockets. “But for what it’s worth, I’m not taking Jesse out into the woods to murder him. He’s selling a piece of property. I might be interested in buying it. I know this is hard for you to wrap your judgmental mind around, but I’m not here to ruin your life. I’m here to start my own.”
I had nothing to say to him. He could tout that lie all he wanted, but I would never believe him. There was something else going on with him. Sayer Wesley didn’t just accidentally stumble into my life and decide to be a law-abiding, upstanding citizen.
He held my gaze, his blue eyes icing over with hatred. “And you know once upon a time, you would have supported that.”
I bit back all the things I had to say on that matter.
He jiggled the keys in his pocket and switched topics. “I’m expecting a package today. I’m not sure if they’ll drop it off here or at my cabin. Just wanted to give you a head’s up.”
It took everything in me to remain politely professional. “I’ll be on the lookout for it.”
His jaw ticked again. “I’d appreciate that.”
I watched him walk out of the office to his Jeep. I prevailed with a calm outer appearance resembling a statue, but inside I was on fire. My heart slammed against my breastbone, punching and kicking and screaming in frustration. My blood rushed and my adrenaline spiked and it was all I could do not to cry. It wasn’t even like I felt like crying or I was moved with sadness or anything. It was the surge of emotion desperate for an escape, desperate to release any way that it could. My brain bellowed in fury and my heart thudded in heartache, and my eyes were just desperate to rid myself of it all. I didn’t want to feel like this anymore. I didn’t want it to be this hard or this hurtful or this harrowing.
Sayer pulled out of the parking lot with Jesse in tow. I scrambled for my phone, yanking it out of my pocket and pushing dial before I could take another breath.
“Hello?” Francesca answered on the third ring.
“I can’t do this,” I told her. “Let’s go. Let’s leave town.”
“Tonight?”
“Right now.” I couldn’t seem to catch my breath. “I can’t do this anymore, Frankie. I don’t want to be around him anymore. It hurts too much.”
“I ran into Gus today,” she whispered. I heard a door close. She was at work, so she must have shut herself away. “He showed up at the front desk, asking for a meeting with me.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” She let out a slow breath. “Yes. I will be.” I didn’t bother pointing out that she was contradicting herself. I could relate. “I knew they were here. I had seen them. So it wasn’t so much of a shock as it could have been.” She was silent for a few beats before she admitted, “He gave me the same thinly veiled threats Sayer gave you. Don’t leave town and all that.”
“So what are you saying?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know if it’s a good idea. Do we have other identities? Do we have enough cash? We can’t make a mistake. We can’t mess this up. They can’t find us again.”
I agreed. “I reached out to my guy, but I haven’t heard anything yet. That either means he’s dead or he’s working on it.”
She made a wincing sound. “I hate not knowing. I need a game plan.”
The pain in her voice made my heart hurt. “We’re going to get out of this, Frankie. I swear to you, we will never go back.”
She sniffled, but she was able to relax a little when she said, “So we’re not flying out of town tonight like bats out of hell?”
“Standby,” I told her. “Let’s not count anything out yet.”
“Caro, I’m not sure if I’ve ever told you this before…” She sniffled again, stalling, making me worry about what she was going to say. “I just wanted to say thank you. Thank you for getting us out. Thank you for giving me these five years. You don’t know how much they’ve meant.”
She already sounded defeated. Or maybe she hadn’t totally given up, but she was preparing herself for it just in case. “They’re not over, Frankie. We’re still out. We’re going to stay out.”
Her voice dropped to a whisper, signaling an interruption from work. “I’ve got to go. Love you.”
“Love you too.”
I hung up the phone and spent the rest of the day thinking about a whirlwind of escape plans and what if scenarios. By the time the FedEx guy showed up I was sick with nerves, but hell bent on leaving town with an infallible plan in place. This wasn’t a game. This was the real deal and I needed to execute it perfectly.
The FedEx guy lifted his chin in greeting as he carried a few packages inside. Maggie’s was his last stop of the day, so he never showed up until close to five. We were friendly but I had yet to learn his name or give him mine.
“What did you order?” He walked with the stack of packages held as far away from him as possible.
“I don’t know,” I chuckled. “I just sign for them. I don’t know what Maggie orders.” Which wasn’t exactly true. I did a lot of the ordering for the resort, but I couldn’t think of anything that I’d gotten recently that would smell bad.
He dropped the packages in front of me and I got a whiff of what he meant. Stifling a gag against the rotten smell wafting from the cardboard boxes, I quickly signed for them. “Oh, something is definitely wrong with one of them.”
“Maybe something spoiled,” he suggested.
“Maybe.”
As soon as he retrieved his stylist that I used to sign for the packages, he was already backing out of the office, anxious to get away from the stinky package. “All right, see you tomorrow.”
“Bye,” I said to the closing door.
&
nbsp; Sayer mentioned he was expecting a package today. Was that the stinky one?
I quickly rifled through the deliveries, setting aside the majority as Maggie’s for the resort. There was nothing for Sayer in the pile. Not for Sayer Wesley or Sayer Smith or any of his other identities that I knew of.
But there was a box for Caroline Baker.
It was the same size as the dead dahlia and the return address hailed from the same town in Ohio. Was this what Sayer meant? The package he wanted me to look out for was for me? What a grade A asshole.
And surprise, surprise, it was the one that smelled.
I grabbed the nearest box-cutter and took the package outside. Whatever was inside wasn’t going to be a baked good with nice intentions gone bad. It smelled like death and decay and something putrid.
Had I gotten a horse’s head after all?
Slicing open the packing tape only intensified the stench. I covered my nose with the collar of my blouse and sucked in a sharp breath of courage before opening the lid.
I promptly turned my head and gagged, barely stopping myself from puking my lunch into the bushes. When I thought I had sufficiently recovered, I accidentally inhaled through my nose, caught another whiff of the godawful smell and gagged again.
Pinching my nose closed with two fingers and breathing exclusively through my mouth, I turned back to the box filled with fish guts. It had taken me a minute to figure out what they were, but I eventually found the chopped off heads. Six of them. The bottom was lined with brown butcher paper and the shiny side was slimy with the blood and guts and rotten pieces of rancid fish.
But six of them? Six dead fish? It was hard to misunderstand the message.
The problem was, I knew there would be a message in there. Somewhere in the carnage was a note meant for me.
I grabbed a stick from a few feet away and mentally readied myself to face the smell again. It took me a minute of poking around to find the rolled-up piece of paper wrapped in cellophane. And the worst part was that I had to retrieve it with my bare fingers.
Using the box cutter to tear off the slimy cellophane casing, I wiped my dirty fingers in the grass and unrolled the note. I didn’t know what I expected it to say. I mean, hadn’t Sayer said everything to me the other day? And again today? And every time he opened his mouth? It wasn’t like he was exactly going easy on me.