CHAPTER EIGHTEEN - FINN
“Issy?” I ask. Because while I was talking about Declan being on TV with Caleb, she zoned out or something. “Issy?” I say again. But it’s like she doesn’t even hear me. She gets up, walks over to the big screen mounted above the fireplace, and just stares at the interview going on in front of the Capitol building.
“Issy?” I ask, walking over to her. “Are you OK?”
“What is this?” she asks, turning to look up at me.
“This?” I ask, looking at the TV. “I dunno,” I shrug. “An interview.” I read the ticker at the bottom of the screen out loud. “FBI joins forces with the Inmate Exoneration Project. Celebrating the release of Caleb Kelly after being incarcerated for—”
“Eight years,” she whispers. “Eight years.” She looks up at me, eyes wild. “They let him out?”
“Do you know him? Oh, man. That was the Caleb you mentioned last night, wasn’t it?”
Fuck.
“Holy shit,” she says, spinning around, grabbing her hair in confusion. “Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit!”
“What?” I ask. “What the fuck is happening? Do you know him?” Which is a stupid question, because obviously she does. “Did he hurt you?”
She doesn’t need to answer. I see it all over her face.
“What did he do? Issy? What did he do to you? Is he the reason your background profile is so incomplete?”
She just looks at me. Then she says, “They said he was going away forever! They promised me!”
“Tell me what’s going on! How do you know him?”
But she just shakes her head. She turns away, walks to the bedroom, closes the door, and locks it behind her.
I turn back to the TV and try to figure out what the fuck is happening. Then I have my phone and I’m calling Declan. It goes right to voicemail, and for a second I think of course it does, he’s on TV. But it’s not live. There’s a little banner with the time stamp, and it’s from earlier this morning.
What the fuck?
The bedroom door opens, Issy appears—fully dressed in yesterday’s clothes—and says, “We need to find Jordan. Right. Now.”
“Why? Does he have something to do with this?”
“I don’t know,” she says. “But I need answers. I need to know what the fuck is going on. And I swear, Agent Murphy—”
Agent Murphy? I thought we were past that.
“—if you’re involved in this, if you were sent to distract me so I didn’t find out until it was too late—”
“Issy, you’re not being rational!”
“No?” she asks, pretty much hysterical. “No? Well, isn’t it interesting that you show up in my life the night before that asshole gets out of prison? Isn’t it weird that I was tied up all night fucking around with you while this was happening?”
“I’ve got nothing to do with any of that!”
“Really? Then why is your partner at the FBI standing next to him saying he’s a supporter? Huh? Answer me that.”
But I can’t. Because I don’t know. And it looks pretty fuckin’ bad because yeah. This has Finn is involved written all over it.
She walks to the door, but I grab her by the arm. Her hand is in throat-chop mode immediately, but I know that move now, so I duck. “You’re not going anywhere without me.”
“The hell I’m not! I’m gonna hunt down Jordan Wells and get to the fuckin’ bottom of this!”
“You’ve got that seminar in like…” I check the clock on the wall. “Two and half hours. And it’s all the way down in the Tech Center, which is a thirty-minute drive. So how the fuck do you plan on finding Jordan Wells before that, huh?”
It’s lame. I know it’s lame as I’m saying it, but it’s all I got. And I don’t expect it to work, or stop her for more than a brief pause to tell me to go fuck myself, sans asterisk—
But she stops. Blinks. Says, “Shit.”
Which gives me another second. “I’ll get dressed, you stay here, and then I’ll drive you down to your seminar or whatever, and then when that’s over, we’ll go hunt down Jordan together. Deal?”
She’s shaking her head the whole time I’m talking.
“Issy,” I say, grabbing her hand. Not her arm, but her hand. Which she looks at like she might be thinking about breaking my fingers, so I let it go and just make that little surrender gesture, the both-hands-in-the-air one, and say, “I swear to fucking God, I’m on your side here. I swear. I just tried calling Declan to see what’s up and he didn’t answer.”
“Of course not, because then you’d have to provide me with answers! He’s your partner! You have to be in on this!”
“In on what? I’m new in town, remember? He’s dirty, I’m here to…”
“Be dirty with him, right?”
“That’s not…” I want to say it’s not true, but it kinda is true.
“I knew it!”
“Wait,” I say, getting in front of her so she can’t leave. “Wait, wait, wait. OK, I am here because of him.” I shake my head, unable to articulate well under this kind of stress. “But I’m on your side, OK? Not his. Yours! And if you give me five minutes to get dressed, I’ll prove it.”
“How?” She’s tapping her toe, arms crossed over her chest.
“I’ll use everything in my power, every FBI resource at my disposal to hunt down Jordan Wells and make him talk.”
She stares at me, more angry than scared. But still, I can just tell—this is fear talking. She’s afraid of Caleb. And I don’t want to bring that up because… because then I’ll have to go down that road with her.
I’m not ready to do that yet.
“I’m on your side, Issy,” I say, voice low and even now. “I’ll prove it. I will. I’m still your protector. So whatever Caleb did to you, he’ll never do it again. I’ll make sure of it.”
She swallows hard. Like her brave exterior is wilting right before my eyes. So I take another step closer, approaching her like a wild animal, and slowly, so very slowly, take her in my arms.
“He won’t get you,” I murmur. “He won’t get you. I promise. I won’t let him. We’re gonna figure this shit out together and it’s gonna be OK.”
She just shakes her head no and begins to cry.
And that’s the part that scares me.
Because Issy Grey is a pillar of strength. And if she feels vulnerable enough to cry and break her tough exterior in front of a man she barely knows… well, she must have a very good reason.
I take her back to her house to change clothes. Whoever was there is gone now, but I go in first to make sure. Gun ready, trigger finger ready. Clearing each room.
She walks right past me up the stairs.
“Goddammit! What the hell, Issy?”
“No one’s here,” she says. “And if they’re still hanging around, they’re outside. Point your gun outside.”
Shit. I go back to the door, which she left open, and press myself up against the foyer wall as I look out, gun in low ready, and scan the street.
The apartment buildings on either side of her little plot of land act like a wall. Which is good, I guess. People can’t really sneak up on her. They have to approach from the front.
Unless they come in from the back, dumbass.
Shit. I’m off my game right now. I’m preoccupied with what she’s hiding in her past. I’m not being careful enough. I kick the door closed, then go towards the back of the house.
She has a yard, but it’s very small and like the front, it’s flanked on either side by the windowless apartment buildings. The patio space is about twenty feet wide, equally as long, and backs up to an old brick garage. Pretty easy to secure, I realize. This place is set up like a tiny fortress in the middle of the city.
I can hear the shower going upstairs when I go back inside. So I look around at the mess. Couch cushions are thrown about, table upended and…
Oh, I want to kill someone now. Because the frame that was on the wall—the one with her young smiling face and a gold medal win—is on the ground, the glass smashed to bits.
Which means this was personal. Whoever came here was looking for her. Not money, not jewelry, not hidden information.
Her.
Fuck.
The shower upstairs stops, then I hear the old floorboards creaking as she walks around. A few minutes later the hairdryer is blowing, then a few more and she’s walking again.
What could she be hiding?
It could be anything, but somehow I know it’s not just anything. It’s something big. Something dirty. Something like what I’m hiding, maybe.
My stomach seizes and I feel sick all of a sudden. Because I’m getting a very bad feeling about this whole fucked-up situation.
Caleb Kelly. And Declan was at his side. So I know exactly what this is about.
The fucking Mob.
Issy Grey.
It’s a weird name. Almost… fake.
Which has me thinking about her missing background.
Was she…
No. Not her.
But she was young. Young people do stupid things. I know that better than most. I did stupid things. My father did stupid things. And now he’s dead and I killed him and now I’m here. Doing more stupid things.
Yeah.
The stairs creak, making me look over at Issy as she descends. She’s transformed. Neat feminine suit, cream-colored wide-leg pants, which look amazing on her small frame, and a fitted matching jacket with a silky ruffled edge over a pale pink cami. She’s wearing make-up and jewelry and flat pink shoes.
“God,” I say. “I want to back you up against a wall right now.”
She doesn’t smile, she sighs. “I’m ready. We better just… go.” Then she looks around, spies the broken framed picture on the floor, and shakes her head. “I can’t think about this now. I have a job to do. I have three hundred women coming to that seminar to find something. Some kind of hope to keep going. I might be their last chance to turn their lives around and I can’t let them down.”
“We’ll figure it out, Issy. I promise.”
“You better not be involved in this, Finn. Or I will…”
I wait her out as her threat trails off, wondering what she might do to me. Not that I’m worried about it, I’m not involved in any of this. But I want to know. It’ll tell me something about her. Tell me how deep this runs.
“I’ll just… break down. I don’t think I can take another betrayal. I really don’t.”
And that’s all I need to know. This is life-changing bad. This is more than some stupid game. This might be her, hanging by a thread. She is those women coming to hear her speak today. She’s been them, changed her future, somehow, some way, and this, what’s happening to her right now, might snap that thin thread she’s been hanging on by. “I’m not involved, Issy. I swear, I’m not.”
“We’ll see,” she says. But it’s a very weak truce. Because I haven’t told her all my secrets. Some of them can’t ever spill out. Some of them should never see the light of day.
I make myself smile. I force it to look real. Because she’s so lost right now. So sad. So… vulnerable.
“Come on. I can’t wait for your seminar. I think this day might change my life.”
She smiles. It might even be a real smile and I make a promise to myself today to fix this. Whatever is happening, whatever she’s afraid of, I will stand in front of her. I will protect her. I will make it right.
We’re just driving past the Capitol building when Issy says, “Pull over.” She looks over her shoulder, halfway out of her seat, and says it again. “Pull over. Find a parking garage.”
“What?” I say, stopping at a red light. “Why?”
“That’s Jordan’s building back there. We have some time. Let’s just go in there and see if we can find out where he is. I need to talk to him. And if that doesn’t work, let’s stop by Chella’s Tea Room. She’ll know where he is.”
I turn right, pull in to the first parking garage I see, and drive up the ramp to park.
She’s got her seat belt off before I even cut the engine, and she’s out of the car one second later.
I catch up to her, wanting to say all the right things, but failing. Because no words come to me. Something is happening to her world right now. Something terrible. So I just walk next to her as we make our way down to street level and approach the forty-story building that houses her lawyer.
The lobby is sleek and sophisticated. There’s a doorman and a reception desk, so Issy heads over that way, me trailing behind her.
“Excuse me,” she says to one of the receptionists. “I’m trying to find out if there’s an emergency contact for Wells, Wells, and Stratford. They’re on mid-winter break, I guess, and it’s very important I get in contact with them.”
The receptionist just stares at her. “Mid-winter what?”
“I dunno,” Issy says. “They’re like, all on vacation I guess.”
More confusion from the receptionist. Then she looks at her co-worker and says, “Mellie, is Wells, Wells, and Stratford on some kind of break today?”
“No,” Mellie says. “I saw Wells Senior go up just a few minutes ago.”
Issy looks at me. I stare back at her. And we both shake our heads.
That motherfucker.
That arrogant motherfucker is lying.