Acting Brave (Fenbrook Academy #3) (54 page)

I knew what I had to do. Even if it meant putting myself in danger.

“But what about Nick?” I whispered.

Ryan shook his head. “Your dad can’t kill him,” he said. “If he shows up dead in the middle of the trial, it’s way too suspicious. You’re right—he’ll have him stashed somewhere. He’s safe, for now.”

I looked deep into his eyes. I was utterly terrified...but if there was one person I trusted to get me through this, it was Ryan. Big, honest, incorruptible and stubborn as an ox. The only cop I’d ever trusted.

I could feel something stirring inside me, deep inside the scared girl that was Emma. Something I hadn’t felt in over three years. Hope.

I’d constructed Jasmine because Emma’s life was over, because she was broken beyond repair. But somehow, Ryan had fallen for her and slowly brought her back with his love. Maybe I didn’t have to run anymore. Maybe I could take my old life back.

Maybe I just had to fight for it.

“I’ll do it,” I said. “I’ll call the detectives and tell them I want to testify.” I took a deep breath. “But first, there’s someone I need to be straight with.”

***

Karen arrived with Connor but I got Ryan to take him into the kitchen for a beer while I huddled with Karen in my bedroom. It’s funny: the bedroom had always been the most
Jasmine
room in the house, full of boudoir chic. It felt like someone else’s place, now. I wondered if I’d be able to live with all the feather boas and silk.

Karen stared at me, her eyes huge and frightened behind her glasses. It had still been early when I’d called her and she hadn’t had time to put her contacts in, so she looked like the Karen I remembered, before her transformation. I sat cross-legged on the bed, facing her, and tried to find a place to start.

“First, I want to say sorry for lying to you,” I began. “And not just lying to you. I did that to Nat and Clarissa, too. But you’ve always been my best friend. I should have come to you. I should have—”

I broke off. Big, choking sobs were coming up from inside me. Damnit. I thought I’d gotten it all out of my system with Ryan. I’d pictured myself apologizing and then serenely telling the tale.

Karen leaned forward and grabbed my arm. “Jasmine, what’s happened?! Is it Ryan?” She glanced over her shoulder in the direction of the kitchen. “Did he—”

“No.” I took a deep breath. “This was long, long before Ryan. Before I came to New York. In Chicago.”

In halting tearful starts, I told her. When I got to the rape, she threw herself forward and latched onto me, clinging to my front, and refusing to let go. She may have been tiny, but the power of the hug was out of all proportion to her size.

I told her about running to New York and becoming Jasmine. I told her how Ryan had brought me, Emma, back to life. I told her about my dad showing up and that I had to testify.

By the end of it, she was in tears, too. “Why didn’t you
tell me?!”
she sobbed. “I understand why you lied at first, but not
now,
not now we’ve known each other for years!” She looked so hurt that a huge swell of guilt rose up inside me. “You should have told me last year. When I helped you that night, when you were going to become an escort!”

I nodded. It was true. I should have.

“What
changed?!”
She took off her glasses and wiped the back of her hand across her eyes, but fresh tears were already springing free.

I was sobbing too. “
You
did! You suddenly...grew up! You had Connor, and contact lenses and, and... and a piercing! You didn’t need me anymore!”

She looked astonished. “
That’s
why you’ve been distant?”

“
Me?! I’ve
been distant?!”

We stared at each other. And then I was pulling her into my arms. “I’m sorry,” I blubbed. “I thought...I thought you were all sorted and grown up and didn’t need me.”

“You idiot,” she said into my neck. “I’ll
always
need you. I have a million questions about how to have a proper relationship, now I’m with Connor. And I don’t feel I can ask because everyone expects me to be all...
okay.
But I’m not okay. I don’t know what I’m doing!”

I clung to her just as she’d clung to me. “I’ll always be there for you,” I told her. It was only now that I realized how much of an aching void she’d left when I’d drifted apart from her. That’s how you lose best friends. Not with a sudden break-up, because you love each other too much to let that happen. Instead, you just drift apart and that’s even worse because you don’t realize it’s happening until it’s too late. But now I had her back.

“Let’s never do that again,” I whispered as we rocked back and forth, bodies locked together, and I felt her nod.

When we’d finally dried our eyes, I shook my head. “I’ve don’t know if I can do this,” I told her. “I know I need to testify. But he said he’d kill Ryan. He’ll kill me too. I’m
scared.”
I bit my lip. “What do we do?”

Karen grabbed my shoulders and leaned close, looking me in the eye. “Fenbrook girls...
assemble!”

Chapter 66

Jasmine

Nat and Darrell were the first to arrive. They came as fast as they could, arriving on Darrell’s motorcycle. Darrell joined the growing throng of guys in the kitchen and I looked at Nat, then at Karen. “I’m not sure if....” I didn’t know if I could bear telling the story twice more. “Should we wait for Clarissa? She’s in Vegas.”

Karen shook her head. “I called her as soon as you called me. She was already on her way back.”

Even as she said it, there was the throb of a two-stroke from the street outside. Neil and Clarissa roared up on Neil’s Harley and moments later there was the clump of Neil’s biker boots on the stairs.

Clarissa, when she appeared, looked...
different,
somehow.
I caught Karen’s eye and she nodded. She could see it, too.

Clarissa noticed us looking and shook her head. An
I’ll tell you later
shake. “What’s up?” she asked. “Karen sounded worried.”

I took her and Nat through to my bedroom. Karen came, too, and held my hand as I started to speak. “My real name,” I told them, “is Emma.”

***

“We should have spotted it,” said Nat savagely when I’d finished. “I was too caught up in—
Jesus,
all sorts of stupid crap.”

“I’m a good liar,” I told her.

Clarissa shook her head. “And I went off to Vegas. I
knew
something wasn’t right, but you were with Ryan, you seemed so happy….”

“Ryan’s the one good thing to have come from this,” I whispered.

The three of them pulled me into a complicated group hug.

“I’m sorry I lied to you all,” I sobbed as the tears started again.

The hug tightened. “What you did wasn’t wrong,” said Nat softly. “Wanting to escape, to become somebody else...that’s not wrong. What was wrong was
trying to do it by yourself!”

I nodded and then shook my head to tell them I’d never do it again, and then we were all sobbing again.

When we emerged from the bedroom, it was as one solid group. Karen hadn’t released my hand the entire time. Clarissa and Nat were behind me, their arms around my shoulders. Both of them were red-eyed from crying.

The guys: Ryan, Connor, Darrell and Neil, emerged from the kitchen. I caught a glimpse of my friends in the mirror. Karen’s eyes were scared but determined behind her glasses. Nat’s face was ashen—she was unsettled, I think, by how close she’d come to drifting away from us completely. Clarissa’s jaw was set, her eyes diamond-hard chips of ice. She was on my side, and even
I
was a little scared of her.

I looked at Ryan and then at the other three guys. Connor, all Irish charm and honesty. Darrell, that mix of confidence and intelligence—millions of dollars and an engineer’s brain that didn’t care about the money. And Neil, with his leathers and his long, blond hair, a genuine Dom and a borderline criminal. Not one of them was under six feet. I’d have trusted any of them with my life.

But they were men, and I couldn’t tell them. Not about all of it. Not about the back room.

I spoke before anyone else could. “The other girls can fill you in. I need a drink.” And I marched through to the kitchen and, with shaking hands, poured myself a large white wine. I didn’t sip. I glugged. And I didn’t stop until I heard Karen’s soft but precise tone, laying it all out for them.

There was a crash as someone dropped their beer bottle.

A moment later, there was a thump that made the saucepans in the kitchen clatter. Neil had just punched the wall.

Only when it was quiet did I dare to walk back through and face them. The guys had all instinctively grabbed hold of their women. Every one of them was looking at me with pained eyes, desperate to help. All three couples encircled Ryan and me, their hands on our shoulders. I’ve never felt such an outpouring of love.

But that brought a new problem.

“If I do this,” I said, “I’m worried it might...my dad’s friends might try to hurt us. Not just me and Ryan but maybe you, too.” I swallowed. “The safest place might be far away from us, for a while.”

Everyone closed in tighter.

“Wild
fucking
horses,” muttered Connor. The others nodded.

“I could get you police protection,” said Ryan. “A couple of guys watching the apartment. But….”

He’d had the same thought as me. “My dad was paying off cops all over Chicago,” I told the others. “Some of them probably have friends here in New York. I’m not sure I trust the cops.” I looked at Ryan. “Except you.”

“Connor,” said Karen quietly. “Can you be Jasmine’s bodyguard? When Ryan can’t be there.”

Connor cracked his knuckles and nodded.

“But that leaves Karen on her own in her apartment—” I started.

Karen started to argue. Darrell held up his hand for silence. He wasn’t a man who spoke often but, when he did, everyone paid attention. “You’re moving into the mansion,” he said. He looked around the group. “All of you. Until this thing is over.”

Nat nodded. “We’ve got plenty of space.”

“Jasmine’s going to have to make a trip,” said Connor. A long one, if the trial’s in Chicago.”

Clarissa lifted her head and I saw the look in her eyes. The anger that had flared when I told her my story hadn’t abated—if anything, it was even fiercer, now. She looked as if she wanted to personally disembowel everyone who’d hurt me. “Neil?” she said. “Don’t you have some friends who can protect people on the roads?”

Neil normally would have made some crack about
aren’t those the friends you disapprove of?
Instead, he just nodded solemnly. That spoke volumes about how upset everyone was.

“Okay then,” said Ryan. He looked deep into my eyes. “The next part’s up to you. If you’re sure you want to go through with this?”

I wavered for a second...but I knew I’d never forgive myself if I didn’t finish this. It was time to fight back.

And I knew now that I didn’t have to do it on my own.

The others watched as I dug the business card out of my pocket and dialed the number. “Detective Banks?” I said. “I need to talk.”

Chapter 67

Ryan

The state had been trying to build a case against Jasmine’s dad for years and they’d moved into high gear when they found the body. When Detective Banks received her call, everything happened very fast. Jasmine was given a lawyer who quickly bargained for immunity for her in return for testifying. That was a relief—technically, even though she’d been in the woods under duress, they could have attempted to try her as an accessory to the murder.

Even with an eager prosecutor, though, it would be two more weeks before the case came to trial.

Darrell’s mansion took some getting used to. Entering the main hallway, with its huge staircase and galleried landing, was like walking onto a movie set. At least with six extra people staying there, it felt full. I couldn’t imagine how Natasha and Darrell lived there by themselves, with all the empty rooms.

Jasmine told me she wanted to attend the whole trial, not just show up for her testimony. That would mean coming face-to-face with her dad, day after day. I’d been to enough trials to know it was going to be a gut-wrenching experience for Jasmine, but I knew it was her only shot at closure.

Luckily, the new Fenbrook semester hadn’t started yet and we were still waiting to get word back from Dixon on how the pilot went down with test audiences, so there was nowhere she had to be. Nat, Clarissa, and Karen huddled with her in the mansion, taking over a different bedroom each day and turning it into a girly paradise of ice cream and hot chocolate and romcom movie marathons. I knew it was all an attempt to stop Jasmine thinking about the trial and I loved them for it.