Little Secrets(93)
“Are they going to arrest Julian, too?”
“They will if they can find him, which is unlikely once Sal is in custody. But even if they do catch up to him, Julian won’t talk.”
Marin can’t keep the secret in any longer. It’s searing her from the inside out.
“Vanessa, I tried to … I tried to hire Julian to…” She chokes on her words, and the other woman reaches forward and takes her hand.
“He was never going to do it, Marin,” Castro says. “Don’t you understand that? Sal’s involved with McKenzie, and he only made you think you were hiring Julian. They wanted your money. It was a setup.”
“It was still wrong.”
“Maybe so. Maybe you lost your head, and your judgment went out the window. But I’m on your side,” Castro says. “Don’t you know that by now? I have been since the beginning. And I can say, with absolute certainty, considering all you’ve been through, you get a pass on this one.”
The sobs heave from Marin’s chest, and she cries freely in front of the woman for the first time since they met, until the sound of the garage door rolling up startles them both.
Derek is home.
Chapter 29
Kenzie’s face hurts like a sonofabitch where Julian punched her. Her eye and jaw feel like they’re pulsing with a life of their own, and it hurts to make any kind of facial expression. She stares into the mirror, tracing her finger along the swelling, and winces when she touches a particularly tender spot.
Somewhere along the way, everything has gotten so fucked up.
She’s never liked J.R.’s farmhouse. It was already old and tired when she first saw it years ago, and it’s in even worse shape now. She hates the way it smells, like moss and mildew. She hates the dated décor, especially the faded eighties wallpaper and the floral upholstery. In J.R.’s old bedroom, the mattress is so worn she can feel every coil of every spring digging into her back. J.R. said the house used to be lovely, but that was obviously well before Kenzie’s time.
The grounds aren’t much better. The three acres of grapevines surrounding the house that J.R.’s mother still owns are dried up and useless. The tree swing at the back is starting to rot. Even the temperature-controlled wine cellar underneath the old tasting room, which used to be stocked floor to ceiling with a collection of ultra-fine wines from both the family winery and around the world, is near depleted. The cellar used to be a fun place to have sex. Now it’s just depressing.
To add insult to injury, Lorna’s never liked her. J.R.’s mother thinks she’s a tramp, out to lure her son into some kind of corrupt life, which is hilarious and proves she doesn’t know a damned thing about the man he’s become. In fairness, Kenzie doesn’t like Lorna, either, but at least the woman’s been hospitable. J.R. told his mother that Kenzie was hiding out from an abusive boyfriend, which softened Lorna’s hostility toward her a little. She even gave Kenzie an ice pack and made her a bowl of soup.
“You can’t chew for a while,” Lorna had said. “Soup is easier.”
From what J.R.’s told her, his mother would know.
“Does it still hurt?” a voice asks from the bed behind her.
She didn’t realize he was awake. J.R. had fallen asleep after they had sex, but he’s sitting up now, the bedsheets pushed aside to expose his bare torso. He reaches for a half-smoked joint sitting in the ashtray and relights it. Kenzie hates it when he smokes so much. The weed makes him paranoid.
“It’s a little better, but the asshole didn’t have to hit me so hard.” She’s aware that she sounds sulky and childish, but she’s entitled. She’s still pissed.
“You want to get paid, don’t you?” J.R.’s already lost interest in the conversation. He scrolls through his phone, the joint dangling dangerously out the side of his mouth. “It had to look realistic for the picture.”
“Yeah, but not like this.” She turns away from the mirror to glare at him, then realizes it hurts to frown and relaxes her face. “When you said we would find another way to close the deal, I didn’t think you meant this.”
“Hey,” he says, staring at something on his screen. “Come here.”
He crooks a finger, motioning for her to come over. She sits on the bed, the springs bouncing under her weight, and he tilts his phone toward her. Tyler’s Facebook page is open on the screen.
“Since when do you have Facebook?” she asks.
Instead of answering, J.R. points to Tyler’s status update. Her roommate posted something about her, and the post is popular, with over a thousand likes and over three hundred comments.
“Oh shit,” she says, reading through the post. “Ty thinks I’ve disappeared. He filed a missing persons report.”
“You were supposed to text him and let him know you were okay,” J.R. says.
“I totally forgot. I probably would have remembered when I got here, but I was in too much pain yesterday. Julian turned my phone off after he texted Derek, so it couldn’t be traced.”
“For fuck’s sake, do I have to think of everything?” J.R. ruminates for a moment, then reaches for her phone sitting on the nightstand. He powers it on. “Post something on Instagram. Not of your face. And nothing that identifies where you are.”