Enemy Dearest

I need to get this shit show on the road, to do what needs to be done, and then slam that chapter shut, so I can finally get the Rose girl out of my system.

I thought of her again today in the shower, and then because apparently that wasn’t enough, I thought of her three other times today. Every scenario was vanilla-sweet with a side of her cinnamon mouth. Not my regular fare.

ROSE GIRL: For real? You have the name?

ME: Yes. Come over. I’ll wait for you by the gate in twenty.

With everything going on in her personal life, I don’t know if she’ll be in the mood to get fucked seven ways from Sunday the second I lock my bedroom door, but God help me, I’m going to try to get here there.

She doesn’t respond for a solid four minutes.

I pace my room. Check the window. Sniff the sheets to ensure the new housekeeper changed them today like I asked.

ROSE GIRL: I can’t come now. It’ll have to be later. Ten?

ME: Perfect.

I toss my phone aside and collapse on my bed, hands tucked behind my neck as I stare at the ceiling. The security camera in the corner blinks red. It’s on a closed, password protected circuit on our network. One that only I have access to.

I had it privately installed years ago when I discovered someone was habitually stealing cash from my dresser. Then a watch went missing. And handful of other pawnable items. Turned out it was one of Gannon’s fair weather “friends” whose name now resides permanently on our family’s infamous blacklist.

Whatever we do tonight in this room will be recorded in crisp black and white footage with an aerial view, which means I’ll be able to relive this moment as many times as I want. If I were pure evil, I’d send the video to her father. I’d let him know his sweet baby girl was defiled by the son of his lifelong enemy. It’s an idea I’ve entertained far too many times lately, envisioning the color draining from his face, tears filling his eyes. His clenched fists. A realization that what’s done is done—forever and there’s not a damned thing he can do about it.

I may be a sick bastard, but I’m not fucking abhorrent.

I won’t send him the video.

I hit the shower and get ready.

Tonight’s the night.

Chapter Twenty

Sheridan

* * *

I unzip my black hoodie, toss it on a chair, and sit at the edge of August’s bed. It’s late. And I’m exhausted. But I had to wait until Mama was sleeping and Dad had left for work before I could sneak out.

August retrieves a slip of paper from the top of his dresser. I run my damp palms along the tops of my thighs, holding my breath.

“Kara … Tindall,” he says, handing me the name. “Ring a bell?”

I jerk the slip from his fingers and read it myself.

Kara Tindall.

“Oh my god.” I clamp my hand over my mouth. “No. She used to babysit me …”

It had to have been ten years ago, maybe more.

“She’s a lawyer here in town,” he says. “That’s about all I could get.”

Sliding my phone out, I type her name into Google, tapping on the first result: a website for Rowe, Harper, and Slattery PC. I click on her profile, which is listed under junior partners. She specializes in everything from family law and child custody to workplace litigation and medical malpractice.

“Is that her?” he asks.

I nod. “Yeah.”

She was a high-schooler when she used to watch me. And while I was young, seven or eight at the time, I always thought it was strange how she wanted to hang around our family so much. Even when my parents would get home from wherever they’d gone off to, handed her a twenty, and told her goodnight … she’d always linger.

Mama said she just liked our family, that her daddy wasn’t around and her mom was less than nice. At one point, she joked to my parents about being an honorary Rose. I wasn’t a jealous child, but it lit a spark of something in me that day. A sharp jab to the chest. I didn’t want to share them, not with her. They were my parents.

After she went off to college, we never heard from her again, and my parents hired some other girl to watch me every once in a while. I never thought about Kara again, and as far as I knew, neither did my parents. Babysitters came and went. That’s just how it was.

“That bastard.” I grip the comforter in my fists. “Why would he do that?”

“I assume you’re referring to your father?”

“How could he do that to my mother? She’s sacrificed everything for him. And she’s not well. Why would he run off with our old babysitter?” I rise and pace his expansive room. “I mean, how cliché does he have to be? And not only that, but what would she want with him? She’s obviously doing very well for herself. My father can’t even pay to have our AC fixed for fucks’ sake.”