Strange Secrets Read online

  Chapter Ten

  Sarah

  I GRIMACED AS I SEARCHED through the files in front of me—because not one of them was actually relevant to the piece that I was putting together. And at this point, I didn’t know what the hell I could do to make sure that everything that Jesse had told me was the truth.

  It was nearly four in the afternoon, and I had spent all day putting together the interview that I had done with Jesse the day before. I knew that it was hardly going to be the hard-hitting piece that I might have hoped it would turn out to be, but I didn’t care. It would still have my name on it, and that was all that mattered. My name that proved that everything I had gotten out of him belonged to me and me alone. And that had to count for something.

  Didn’t it?

  I had been going through every little detail that he had laid out to me and fact-checking them one by one to make sure that he hadn’t been spinning me a story that I could easily debunk. I knew that this was crazy—I knew that I should have trusted him at least a little more than I was right now, but I didn’t give a damn how nuts it might seem. I just wanted to prove to myself that I could do this right. I wanted to be certain that I could put out this article and show everyone that it was the best that I could do.

  And he hadn’t misled me about anything that I could confirm—at least, not so far. In fact, everything that he had said to me had come up totally clean, and, somehow, that was more frustrating than anything else. I wanted there to be a gap in his story, I wanted there to be something that would prove that my instincts about him were right and that I had something to be suspicious of. But as time had passed, I realized that he was being honest with me. That there was no secret story that was lying underneath the stuff that he had told me. That there was no tale waiting to be spun by the right person.

  He had told me everything, and I knew now that this was what I had to work with. But that didn’t mean that I wasn’t going to go digging down every little rabbit hole to prove that my suspicions about him were correct—to prove that there was something going on under the surface that he might not have wanted the world to know about, if he’d had the choice.

  The strange thing was that I couldn’t find anything out about him past the last six years. Which was long enough to confirm all the stories that he had told me, but still—it was like he had just dropped in from another planet all those years ago and started life on Earth with no warning, and I had no idea what to make of that. Where had he come from? Where had he gotten all of that money? How much of his past was wrapped up in secrets that he didn’t want anyone to know because he was scared that it might undo the good standing that he had made for himself in this town over the last half-decade?

  Maybe it would have been better to just leave those questions untouched. Perhaps there was a good reason that he didn’t want to remember. Perhaps I should have just dropped it...

  But that wasn’t what my instincts were telling me. I was stuck in this odd situation, knowing that if I kept pushing, I might alienate someone who had been a solid part of this community for the last six years. And if I didn’t, I might be covering up the story of someone who didn’t want anyone to find out the truth of what he had been through. Maybe it was in the town’s best interests to know what he had been doing. Maybe I would be doing everyone a favor if I just followed through and tried to confirm it, one way or another. Or maybe I would just cause more hurt in the process than was necessary...

  I didn’t know, and I wasn’t sure who the hell I could ask to find out. I was supposed to have a handle on this stuff, and yet I was sure that they would laugh me out of the office if they knew how intently I was twisting back and forth trying to figure out the right thing to do.

  I leaned back from my desk and sighed, rubbing my hands over my face. I hadn’t eaten today—I always focused better before lunch, and I had extended that to before dinner now, too. With nothing but a few cups of coffee in my stomach, I was starting to feel jittery and annoyed. Or maybe that was about the fact that I couldn’t seem to work out how best to unpick this story, and it was starting to make me feel useless.

  “How’s it going, Sarah?” Allison asked me as she approached my desk and peered at my screen. I had some old files from another paper pulled up, and I quickly shut them down as though I had been looking at porn at work.

  “It’s okay,” I replied. “Just having a hard time corroborating some of the stuff that he told me, that’s all.”

  “You don’t have to worry about fact-checking everything that came out of his mouth,” she remarked, shaking her head. “You just have to make sure that you put a good story out there and give the people what they want.”

  “But won’t they want to know what happened before he came to Kingston?” I asked her. “I couldn’t get any of that out of him. He wouldn’t talk to me about it at all. And I’m sure that he’s hiding something—I keep trying to go back and figure out what he’s hiding, but there’s nothing on him, not just in Kingston but anywhere...”

  She sighed and took a seat next to me. It seemed like she was a little let-down, something that I hated more than anything in the world. I was an overachiever at heart, and I couldn’t handle the thought of being anything but the best.

  “Jesse has given a lot of money to the Press,” she explained. “He’s supported us at times when we’ve really been struggling over the years. I understand where the urge to get under the skin of this story comes from, but whatever he’s given you, that’s enough.”

  I stared at her for a moment, sure that I was hearing her wrong. After all, this was the woman who hadn’t been afraid to come out swinging in the face of nearly anything that she could get her hands on. She was the reason that I had wanted to work here in the first place, and now she was telling me...

  I pushed those thoughts down. She was just doing what she thought was best for the business. Who was I to argue with her?

  I smiled and nodded. “I’ll work with what I’ve got,” I replied, and I promised myself that I would pick up on the story another time, dig into it a little and figure out just what had been going on that had caused him to brush off my questions so sharply. I could still remember the shock of the way he’d talked to me when I pressed about his past, the way his face seemed to tauten in that moment, like he was trying to steel himself against anything that I might have thrown at him.

  “That’s a good idea,” Allison replied. It became clearer to me now why she had wanted to conduct the interview herself. She clearly hadn’t trusted me with being able to handle it, without saying something that might have put him off supporting the paper in their time of need again. She rose to her feet and headed away from the desk, and I watched as she went, wondering just how much she might have actually known about his past—and just how much he was trying to keep under wraps and away from people like me.

  Anyway. It would make the interview a hell of a lot easier to pull together if I didn’t have to go over every word that he’d said with a fine-toothed comb. I already had something pretty solid from what he had shared with me—nothing ground-breaking, like I had been hoping, but it would be enough to stick on the website and give people something to talk about over their Sunday brunch the next day.

  But there was a nagging dissatisfaction at the back of my mind, something that told me that I could have, and should have, done better. Was I really going to let him away with it that easily? Apparently, the answer was yes. It was too early into my career here to go stirring up trouble, no matter how much I might have wanted to. No matter how tempted I would have been right now to just put out an article on the website that pushed all the boundaries that I shouldn’t have pushed.

  I was starting to regret being the one to interview him at all. Sure, I thought it would be a boost for me, but really, it had just left me with me more questions about the kind of person he was—and just what he might have had to hide. He had done so much good in this town, I would have thought that he would be willing to come out and boast a
bout everything that he could. He had been happy to tell me about his brother—at least that was something—but as for the rest of his family, he ‘d kept his mouth firmly shut. And there had to be a reason for that. There had to be...

  It was starting to get dark outside, and people were beginning to clear out of the office. I knew that I would have to go home soon, or I was going to wind up locked in the office for the entire night. My eyes were starting to get blurry from having stared at the screen for so long, and I knew that I needed to take a break...

  “Hey!”

  A voice drew my attention. I looked over to see Mo—Maurice—one of the news reporters, leaning out from his desk beside me. He had thinning brown hair and a bright smile, with glasses that he wore on a chain around his neck.

  “Hey,” I replied, stifling a yawn. “Sorry, not you, I’m just—”

  “You’re working on that article about Jesse Miller, aren’t you?” he asked.

  I nodded. “What about it?”

  “Did he say anything interesting?” he asked curiously, and I grimaced and shook my head.

  “I’ve been trying to work out if there’s something hidden here that I’m missing, but if there is, I can’t see it,” I admitted. He glanced around, making sure that nobody was watching us, and then scooted his chair over to my desk.

  “You know, I’ve heard rumors about Jesse,” he explained.

  My eyes widened. This was what I wanted right now.

  “Oh, yeah?” I asked, looking over my shoulder to make sure that Allison wasn’t there to listen in. I knew that she would have been less than impressed to see me indulging in gossip like this, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t going to do something stupid and put it in my article. I just wanted to hear what he had to say. Because even if I couldn’t write the truth, I needed to know it myself.

  Chapter Eleven

  Jesse

  I AM NOT SURE HOW LONG I have been standing here. The music from the club is pulsing loudly, loud enough that I can feel it under my feet. I can almost count the beat to the music, the way that it moves in the still night. How long till he comes out of there? I have no idea. I check my watch. I need to get him out of here sooner rather than later.

  I squeeze the lighter inside my pocket, clamping my hand around the cool metal rectangle to make sure that it’s not going anywhere. I feel like I am going to burst if something doesn’t happen soon. This is the part that I hate the most of all, the part where time feels like it’s ticking at half-speed as I wait for reality to set in. I know that this is going to take all the restraint that I’ve got—but I have done this a hundred times before, and I will do it a hundred times again. I can handle myself. I can do this. No matter what it takes, I can do this.

  That is why I am here, because He knows I can do this. I don’t want to think about him right now, though. I know that he is relying on me to pull this off, and I need to prove to him that I can. I don’t know what it’s going to take for me to keep doing this, night after night, but I will carry on. Anything to make sure that he knows I am capable of doing what needs to be done. Anything at all.

  I can’t stop thinking about my family. Back at home, probably wondering where I am, wondering what I am doing out so late. I wish that I could tell them, but I know that they would freak out if they knew. My mother is sick—I can’t remember what she is sick with, but I remember, distantly, that she is ill, and that is bad enough for me right now. I can’t be in that house with her. I can’t do this and then just return to her. Something grinding, some terror deep down in my guts, is telling me that I need to stay here, away from her, away from all of that, away from everything that might tie me to what I had seen before.

  I push them to the back of my mind. Family has no place here, that’s for sure. I never want my family near this life. I check my strap again, the cool metal of the gun cold against my skin even through the fabric of the thick jacket that I am wearing. It is one of those long, cold winter nights that seems to stretch on into eternity, and I can’t figure out if this one is ever going to actually end. I hope so. I am not sure that I can take the thought of it dragging on any more than it already has.

  Before another thought can pass through my mind, I see him. Stepping out of the back door, away from the VIP area where he has probably spent most of his night. He calls to someone back inside the club, telling them that he is going to be back soon. Not if I have anything to do with it, you won’t be.

  I close the gap between us as I watch him fumble with his lighter, bringing a cigarette to his lips and trying to bring it to life. I reach into my pocket, pull mine out, and flick it on—he looks up and waves over to me, as though there is anyone else standing in this dank alley on this cold night.

  “Hey, can I borrow that?” he asks, and I nod, making my way over to him. I check that the trunk of the car is popped out of the corner of my eye. I need to make this as quick as possible. I hold out the lighter, and he cups his hand around it, waiting for me to light the flame—but, before I do, I jerk my hand upwards, landing a sharp thump between his eyes and sending him sprawling backwards. I follow it with another jab to his jaw, and that, matched with the booze that he has surely been putting away all night long, is enough for him to slump into unconsciousness at the foot of the steps that lead out of the club.

  Okay. I have to move fast. I reach down and pull him into my arms, dragging him across the rain-slicked ground and toward the trunk of the car. I yank it open and push him inside, ignoring the groan that he lets out as he feels his huge, useless body fall into the cramped space around him. I slam it shut on top of him and grab the keys from my pocket, glad that he went down without a fight. Perhaps there is some part of him, deep down, though I doubt that he would want to admit it, that is glad that this is over—that is glad that he’s not going to have to spend all that time looking over his shoulder and wondering when my boss was going to strike, once and for all.

  I climb into the front of the car, grip the wheel, and inhale slowly. Okay. I have him. Now I have to drop him off, and then I am done with this night and I can collect my bag. That’s all that matters.

  He doesn’t make a noise from the back—maybe he is too scared to, or maybe he has slipped into unconsciousness once more and can’t lift his head again. I hope it’s the latter. I don’t want to have to deal with his pleas for mercy. He knows that they are going to fall on deaf ears, and I can’t stand the thought of bringing him in to a fate that he knows is worse than death.

  I am starting to get soft. I have never cared before what happens to the people that I bring to my boss. What’s wrong with me? What changed? I grimace as I grip the wheel and put my foot down, pulling out of the alley and hitting the highway, driving as fast as I can.

  I am sure that I pass the same place once, twice, three times—where am I going again? I have made this trip so many times that I should know it by heart, but instead, I find myself doubling back to try and remember where I am supposed to be taking this dude right now. Eventually, I find myself on the right track, and I start to recognize the path that I am taking. Yes. I am heading in the right direction. I am going to be there in no time. I just need to keep going, and I am going to get out of here soon enough.

  And then I can go back home. Not to the apartment that I share with my family, though I am not sure why. There is another home playing at the back of my mind, and I rely on that. I know that I will be safe when I step through that door. It’s far from here, but it’s mine, and it’s safe, and that’s all that matters.

  I don’t play music. It doesn’t feel right, though it would help fill the almost eerie silence that surrounds me. Why are there no other cars on the road tonight? What is going on? Usually, there are at least a few other vehicles, but for some reason, I can’t remember passing any since I got out of the city. Where are they? What are they doing? Do they know something that I don’t? Something that has kept them from making the same mistake that I am making right now?

  Finally, I see the
house in the distance. It glows on the horizon, so big and bright that it looks like a palace from this distance. But I know it is anything but. I put my foot down and push the car a little faster. I don’t want to be in this thing any longer than I have to be. I can already feel the air starting to thin, as though we are getting too high out of the city to breathe. I focus on pushing forward, pushing on. I need this to be over. I need this to be done. And then I can go home, and I can forget that all of this ever happened in the first place.

  I pause outside the gates, but they swing open in front of me a second later, and I drive inside. I know that I am taking this man to something that he will never come back from. Even if he survives, somehow, it’s not like he’s going to be able to just brush off what has happened to him. I hate this. I hate that I am part of this. I hate that I haven’t stopped this yet. I thought that I had put all of this behind me, but here I am, trapped in this hellscape, sure that I am doing the very same thing that I promised myself that I would never get drawn into again.

  As I get closer to the house, the glow from the windows almost starts to blind me. I have to squint my eyes against it. I can’t see anything but the lights, the burning lights. Why are they so bright? Are they trying to hide something? I can feel the car slowing, as though it is dragging itself through molasses, and I push forward, keep pushing forward, try not to let it slow me down, but it’s as though the universe itself is telling me that I need to stop and turn back and get away while I still can—

  I woke up with a start, the burning of the lights still searing the inside of my eyelids. I was breathing hard, staring at the ceiling, trying to convince myself that I was really here. That I hadn’t just been pulled back through time and forced to face up to everything that I used to do before I came here.