I sent you a gift. Let them in. They’re shadowing you for the day. That’s all I could get them for.
I asked where he was, but he didn’t respond. The two police officers were the ones who informed me that Snark had been called back to federal headquarters. That was all they knew and all they could say. I was conflicted. Snark would hate that I was with Kian now, but I also wanted to talk to him about the interview. I needed Snark’s approval or maybe just his reassurance.
One officer added, “Someone tipped off your location. That circus is only going to double the longer you stay. You have somewhere else to hide?”
“Yes,” Erica said before she disappeared into her bedroom. When she came back out, she dumped three bags at their feet. The bags were packed to the max, protruding out. She caught my look and lifted a shoulder. “I have no idea when I can come back here. You heard Kian. I’m a part of this story now, too. I figured we’d have to leave sometime. I wanted to be prepared.” Her arms folded over her chest. “I’m ready to go. And I know our first stop.”
Erica went to the door first, and her bags remained behind. As she led the way out, Wanker picked up one. The second officer picked up a second, and I took the third. If anything, I figured I could use it to shove people back or block anything thrown at me.
We got down to the main floor and were heading for the front door, when we were stopped once again. Susan appeared with a camera in her hand. She pointed it at me.
I had two seconds to brace myself.
“Jordan Emory, are you in love with Kian Maston?”
Erica started for her. “It was you, wasn’t it?”
Wanker cursed under his breath beside me, and he shifted so that I was behind him.
Erica lifted her hand, as if to grab for the camera, but Susan dodged her. She backtracked, saying, “Come on, Erica. I have to do something. The paper is being laughed at. We had her right under our nose. Did you know?” She swung the camera to Erica, and her finger pressed a button. She was zooming in on Erica. “Have you been lying for her the entire time?”
A guttural growl came from Erica, sounding from the bottom of her throat. “Back off, Susan.”
Wanker jerked forward two more steps. At the same time, the police officer who was behind me moved in front with a hand extended toward me. He was holding me back without touching me. The other officer was watching the exchange.
Wanker snorted. “The text to Jake. It wasn’t a text, was it?”
Susan’s nostrils flared. Her eyes were dilated, like she was on something. Her cheeks were flushed, and the ends of her hair were wet from sweat.
I saw it then. She thought she had the scoop.
She was wearing a smug smirk. “I’d been calling Jake the entire time. He doesn’t know what he did, but he didn’t reject my call. He accepted it and stuffed his phone into his pocket, or I’m assuming he did. I could hear everything. Imagine my surprise when I heard her voice.” She pointed the camera to me, lifting it higher to see me over the officer’s shoulders. “And I heard Kian’s voice, too. Where is he?” She raised her tone, sending the question to me. “He was here before. Where is he now?”
Erica muttered a curse and then started forward. “Fuck this.”
“You can’t touch me!” Susan jerked backward, her back hitting the wall.
Erica ignored her, reaching for the door behind her. Susan realized her mistake then. She had been pushed into a corner. The door opened, and it blocked her in even more. She was flat behind the door. Erica started to hold it, keeping her in that corner, but Wanker nudged her forward. He held the door open as the rest of us formed a line, going past one by one. All the while, he had his back to us.
As I went by, Susan turned the camera to follow me, and I looked over my shoulder. I got a glimpse of Wanker’s face. He was staring hard at Susan. His eyes were flat as his lips moved. He was saying something to her, but as Erica opened the front door, the sounds from the street flooded us. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, and she shrank down. Her arm dropped down, and she almost let the camera fall to the ground. Her jaw slacked, and her mouth fell open. She could only stare at Wanker before he turned and followed behind us.
After that, everything happened so fast.
People were yelling my name as I was ushered into a police car. I scooted in next to Erica, Wanker plopped next to me, and the door was slammed shut. The second officer hurried to his squad car, and then we were moving. The crowd was forced to move aside for us, but there really was no going back.
I had to do the interview.
After a three-hour meeting with the lawyers and Laura, everyone was on board. My body was tired, but I wanted to find Jordan again. I knew she was safe with Erica—or at least hidden—but I still wanted to hold her. I was leaving the bedroom, after washing up and changing clothes, and I was about to call her when Laura stopped me in the hallway.
“You knew about this?” Her tone was sharp.
I frowned. “About what?”
My phone lit up. For a split second, I thought it was Jordan, but it wasn’t. It was Cal. He never called unless he had to.
I held a finger up to Laura as I answered the call, “Cal?”
Laura took the phone from me.
“Laura—”
She listened for one second and then marched to the living room. She grabbed the remote and hit the Volume Up button. As she did, I stopped. Jordan was there on the screen. In some dark, private room, she was sitting all alone with one lamp shining behind her.
Laura said to me, still gripping my phone in her hand, “It’s one camera on her. One person is asking her questions. Your girl, who you just went to bat for, is selling you out.” She stabbed the remote in the air toward the television. “She’s doing a live interview, Kian.”
My jaw hardened, and I grabbed my phone from her. “You don’t know that she’s selling me out. All retrial charges have been dropped. I’m in the clear, and so is she.”
“It’s the public’s opinion. She’s going to turn them against you. What then? You’ll be screwed if she does.”
I wasn’t listening. Whatever Jordan was doing, it wasn’t that. Jordan had feelings for me. I felt them from her hours earlier. I felt them inside her. There was no way.
I grabbed my keys, and I headed out the door. No one stopped me. They didn’t dare. As I hurried down the hallway, I brought my phone back to my ear. Cal was still there.
I asked, “Where is she?”
“You can talk to me and look at me. It can be as if we’re having our own private conversation,” Erica said, sitting right next to the large camera.
It was easy for her to say, and I got it. I did. She wanted me to be the most genuine I could be. It was going to be live, and I had no doubt that other channels would pick it up immediately, but this wasn’t her life. It was mine, and these were my words.
There was one light above, shining on me. A blanket was thrown over the backdrop behind me, covering two paintings in our motel room. I felt the gazes coming from the rest of those in the room. The two officers remained outside. This wasn’t their job. They were assigned to keep me safe for the day, but even with their absence, the tiny room felt cramped. Wanker sat on the bed, to the side. The camera guy was behind the camera, taking directions from Erica, and the other reporter Erica trusted was standing behind her a few feet away, in the open doorway for the bathroom.
All eyes were on me.
I already felt hot.
Millions of eyes would be on me within minutes.
My pulse sped up, and I had to fan myself with a magazine.
Did I really want to do this?
I’d never spoken out before. I wanted to talk to Snark about it, but his phone was off. I didn’t know what happened to him, but he’d been the only other constant during all of this. Kian was the other.
Kian.
I had to call him—but no, I was getting confused. I shook my head, feeling a fog coming over me.
I had called h
im. I texted him and then called him again.
The reporter said we needed to go live now. The sooner, the better. “We have to get ahead of the story,” was how she put it. Erica agreed. So, here we were, about to go live.
I was going to pass out.
“Jo?”
I looked up, hearing Erica. She was the reporter now, not my roommate, but she gave me a soft smile. There. She was still my best friend. It was small, but it was enough.
I nodded, clearing my throat. “I’m ready.” My fingers dug into the underside of my chair.
She still gazed at me for a moment longer, studying me, and then nodded herself. She signaled to the camera guy. “Okay, let’s do this.” She twisted around to the other reporter. “Your station is a go?”
The lady clipped her head in a quick movement, up and down. “They’re good to go. You can start whenever, and they’ll jump in after a quick introduction from their end. It’ll be fine.” Her eyes darted to mine then, widening with the same excited rush that Susan had earlier.
I didn’t want her there, but Erica said it was necessary. They wouldn’t broadcast the interview if one of their reporters wasn’t present.
I just wanted to get it over with.
“Okay.” Erica gentled her voice. “Jo, you can start whenever you want. This is for you. It’s your time to address us. Tell us what you want us to hear.”
The light on the camera went from clear to red. He was taping me. This was now live.
And I couldn’t speak.
My throat wasn’t working.
Erica scooted forward. Her chair protested, groaning, and the other reporter held her breath.
Erica didn’t care. She said so calmly, “Let’s start with an easy one. What’s your name?”
“Jordan Emory.” My heart was trying to pound its way out of my chest, one heartbeat after another. I needed to calm the fuck down.
One breath.
Two.
I closed my eyes and pretended it was only Kian and me, just us two, just like earlier in the day.
I started again, my voice stronger this time as I opened my eyes. “I’ve been hiding as Joslyn Keen for a little under the last three years. I tried to finish my senior year, but couldn’t. I ended up quitting and finishing with my GED.”
“Why did you have to hide?” Erica was subdued.
She was trying to draw me out, but she couldn’t. I had to choose to come out.
My nails dug even further into my chair, but I was trying. I really was. “I had to hide because people hated me.”
“Why—”
I didn’t need her prompting anymore. “Because, a long time ago, a very rich and good-looking boy saved my life. He killed my foster father, but instead of people focusing on what my foster father did or that the rich and handsome boy had to kill him in the first place, they focused on me. They blamed me.”
They blamed the victim.
Erica cleared her throat, fidgeting on her chair. I didn’t know what was making her uncomfortable. I didn’t care.
I kept going, looking right into the camera this time. “My parents died in a car accident when I was little. I wasn’t adopted, so I went from foster home to foster home. It’s the same old system that only foster kids understand. I moved in with Edmund’s family during the summer, and the first part of the year was fine.” I took a breath. Here was the hard part. “Until I got a boyfriend. I had no friends, so when Justin started paying attention to me, I was grateful. Someone cared. Someone was interested.”
Maybe someone would love me.
My voice dropped to a whisper, but I never looked away from that lens. “Edmund didn’t like that I was going out on dates. He and his wife were having problems, and he liked looking at me, but that was all it was. He just watched me.”
I could feel him again. He was in the room. He was seeing me once more, just like back then. He was always there, always waiting, always watching.
I had to stop talking for a moment. My breath hitched in my throat. I pulled my nails out of the chair and smoothed my palms down my jeans to wipe the sweat off there.
“He began drinking, and then he started drinking at work. That led to him being fired, and then he drank every day at home. He would go through a bottle every night. Sometimes more. His wife hid it all. She’d keep him out of the house when the social worker came, not that it was often. It happened more in the beginning, but then not as often toward the end. His wife was nice and warm…to others.” I refused to say her name. My tone hardened. “They had two biological children, who kept the secret, too. None of them talked.”
“What about the day Kian saved you?” Erica leaned forward, resting her elbows on her legs. Her head lowered, her focus so intent on me. “Tell us about that day.”
That day…
I felt myself slipping away. I was in my bedroom again.
I was there, not in the hotel room. I could hear my voice speaking, sounding far away. “I broke up with my boyfriend a few weeks earlier. He started to get more and more demanding when we were together. He wouldn’t ask. He would just grab my body whenever he wanted. Edmund would ask me every day if that boy was going to come back again. I told him he wasn’t, that I broke up with him. He was asking me about Justin again that day, but I don’t remember why…”
Wait.
I stopped.
I was reading a book on my bed when the floorboards creaked from outside my door. There was no reason to be scared. Edmund stood outside my door all the time. He never did anything. He never came inside, but that day, I was scared. I knew, somehow I knew, even before he opened the door and came inside. I didn’t remember moving, but then I was at the window.
I was watching it happen again. I was removed from my body, watching from the other side of the window, and it was like that then, too. I was a spectator to what happened.
I watched from where I was safe.
I turned around so that my back pressed to the window. Edmund was inside my room. He was shutting the door. He never shut the door when he came inside. It was always left open. That was one thing his wife insisted on, but he turned the lock on it now.
I reached behind me and held on to the window frame.
I said to Erica, “I was so scared.”
“Tell us what happened. What are you remembering right now?”
I told her as I experienced it again.
He was drinking. I could smell the beer on his breath. His shirt had two beer stains on it, like he’d used it to wipe his face off. His face was sweaty. And, my gaze dipped down, his pants were undone.
There was an added gleam in his eyes. It was twisted and dark, and I knew then. I knew what was going to happen to me.
A switch turned off in my head.
I said, “I didn’t know if I was going to live.” My voice was so quiet now.
“What did you do?”
“I had to get out of there.”
“How?”
I remembered forcing my fingers to let go of the window frame, but I didn’t release it.
I still held on.