Chapter Nine

Vienna

One look at Jenny Arnett and I knew she wasn’t anything like I remembered. That said, there was also a chance my memories of her were skewed based on the fact I’d spent the last ten years despising the woman without even really knowing her.

“Come in,” she said, her back already turned as she padded into the cramped living room to the left. “I just put some coffee on.”

The Jenny Arnett I remember would have been drinking something a lot stronger than coffee this late at night, I thought, then immediately chastised myself. I was judging her, which wasn’t fair at all. “Thanks, but I really shouldn’t stay too long.”

The house was small, and open concept. Jenny had trudged through the living room into the kitchen area, which was barely big enough to fit a tiny table and four chairs, and was pulling mugs from one of the cupboards. “Yeah, and why’s that? Because Cohen’s in the car waiting for you?”

A thin smirk graced her lips, while my cheeks burned intensely. “I…well, yes. I wasn’t sure you would want to talk to him.”

A scoffing sound came from her, but she was turned away, pouring hot coffee from the carafe on the counter. “I could see him from the window,” she explained. “Maybe he didn’t want to talk to me?”

“It’s not like that,” I assured her. “I just wanted to ask you a few—”

“Where you been all these years, Vienna?” Jenny had turned back around, and she crossed the floor into the living room where I stood, rooted in place, handing me one of the mugs without offering sugar or milk.

That was fine. I wasn’t sure I could taste it, anyway.

“New York,” I replied, though my voice was weaker now.

Jenny’s, however, was anything but. That scoffing sound came from her throat again. “So, why are you back here, rootin’ up the skeletons in all our closets with your old flame?”

Her tone was harsh, and there was a quality to her voice that made me wonder if she still smoked cigarettes the way she had in high school. One after another, like a chimney. “Because I think there was more to it,” I admitted, meeting her steely eyes. “And I’m hoping you’ll tell me what really happened.”

And because you just said there are skeletons to be found.

She laughed. The woman tossed her head back, let her dingy-looking blonde hair fall away from her shoulders, and she laughed. Shaking her head, Jenny pulled the Fisher Price telephone toy off the armchair and sat down, nestling in. “Why’s it so hard for you to believe that your high school boyfriend made a drunken mistake ten goddamn years ago? You know I want to tell you to get over yourself, right?” she sneered. “Hell, I want to tell you to get over this. All of it. Christ, it’s been ten years.”

Despite knowing that she was the only link I really had to finding out if my suspicions were true, her cruel comments made me angry. But I used every ounce of willpower I had to swallow it down. “Just tell me what part Garrett played in all this, Jenny. I don’t care about anything else, I swear.”

At the mention of Garrett’s name, Jenny’s face, already tired and pale from the hustle and bustle of her day, had gone white, almost to the point of translucency.

Bingo.

“Where’s Garrett now?” she asked hesitantly, her gaze flitting toward the curtains that were open partway.

“Still back in New York,” I stated. “We’re not together anymore.”

That got her attention. “Ah,” she nodded, looking a little more sure of herself. “But you were, huh?”

“For a few years.”

“So, he obviously got what he wanted, then. Even if it was just for a while.” Her eyes were sharp and malicious with intent, and there was no mistaking the wicked hint of a smirk at the corners of her lips.

“What he wanted?” I wasn’t an imbecile. I knew what she meant, but be damned if I wasn’t going to make her say it out loud. I wanted the truth. No more assumptions, no more omissions. I wanted all of it. “What did he want, Jenny?”

Jenny rolled her eyes with all the attitude of a typical sixteen-year-old girl, and I saw her then as I truly remembered her—the teenage girl who drank, smoked, and slept her way through her high school years. I hated her again instantly. “Jesus Christ,” she snapped, sitting forward to lean her elbows on her knees with the mug between her fingers. “You. You had to know that. Everyone else fucking did.”

Cohen’s words rang shrilly in my ears. He was always pretty devoted to you, I’ll give him that.

But how devoted?

“Look, Jenny. I only know what I saw that night. You, on top of Cohen, in the backseat of his car. But if that’s what this is all about—the fact that Garrett wanted to be with me—I really need you to tell me now.” I was getting fed up with this little game. If she’d been distant and avoidant with Cohen all these years, she wasn’t going that route with me. She was toying with me, simple as that.

“You don’t get it, do you?” she snapped, standing up so fast I couldn’t figure out how the coffee didn’t slosh over the side of her cup.

“Get what?” I snapped, finally releasing my frustration enough to let my voice grow an octave higher than it had been.

It got Jenny’s attention, but probably only because the noise risked waking her kids up.

“What’s in it for me?” she asked evenly.

I stared at her, wide-eyed and incredulous. “Pardon?” I couldn’t believe her audacity. “So, that’s how this is going to work, is it?”

“That’s how it worked on prom night.”

Damn you, just tell me what that means! My eyes never left hers, and I watched as something changed in her demeanor. She was on the edge, but she needed one more little push.

“Have you ever been in love, Jenny?” I decided to try a different tactic, and I didn’t wait for her to answer. “I don’t know if you’re stonewalling me because you don’t understand what Cohen and I are going through, or if I treated you badly in high school…but whatever it is, you don’t like me, and that’s your prerogative. But, Jenny, this isn’t high school anymore. And I know I’m digging up things that might be better left buried, but dang it…or damn it,” I stammered, “I love the man that’s in that car out in your driveway, and he loves me, too. We lost ten years together because of this. Because of a lie. Don’t let us waste ten more, Jenny. Please.”

I watched as the stoniness of her features transformed slowly from a coarse edginess to a softer, polished marble. She stayed silent, her gaze focused on the hazy steam billowing up from the cup in her hands.

“You two always were the Romeo and Juliet type, weren’t you?” she said finally, but the sharpness in her voice was gone. “Always so goddamn dramatic, and always so goddamn perfect.”

I wasn’t sure whether to take that as a compliment or not. But since Romeo and Juliet had offed themselves, I decided it probably wasn’t meant to be a favorable comparison. “Just tell me what happened,” I pleaded with her.

Jenny shrugged, pretending to be nonchalant about the whole thing, but I didn’t miss her gaze as it flitted toward the window for a fleeting moment. “I was eighteen, Vienna. Young and reckless. And I did a lot of stupid things. Most of it, I don’t regret. Most,” she enunciated with a hollow grin. “But, if I’m being honest, I’ll tell you that taking that money and doing what I did has always been something I’ve regretted. That was low, even for me.”

“Taking what money?” I could barely get air into my lungs.

Her eyes never wavered from mine. “The money Garrett offered me to frame the hell out of your boytoy.”