Behind the Green Curtain (36 page)

Chapter 54

The house was a fucking exhibit,
starting with the wife who answered the door in slacks and a sweater, looking
far too impeccable for such an early hour. A year of his salary probably
wouldn’t have paid for a single vase on display, but at least the money he did
have he’d earned through his own blood, sweat and tears, and not by spilling
those of others.

From the foyer, his team spread
out, and Slater went through the act, asking if Jack was home, though he knew
well where Jack had been staying the past few days, asking if Jack had an
office as if he didn’t know it was two stories above at the front corner of the
house.

The wife nodded, instructing the
housekeeper to call Jack and their lawyer, before leading him up the stairs.
Standing inside the doorway of Jack’s office, she looked as uncomfortable as
expected, and Slater told her she could wait downstairs. Not seeming to know
what else to do with herself, she opted to stay where she was, drawn, he
assumed, to the only person in her house she had seen before.

He could certainly see what made
Caton so gallant, suspecting Jack’s wife elicited that response in many people,
making them willing to fall on their swords on her behalf. Normally, having a
beautiful woman who didn’t want to leave his side would have been a perk, but
it did make his job more difficult.

Eyes going to the wood box, Slater
was eager to get at it, worried that Caton had carried through on her threat,
that she had somehow undone what she had done, destroying any chance they had
of ever putting Halston away for his many sins that were somehow only
borderline crimes. He knew he couldn’t hit the jackpot on the first spin,
though, so he opened the drawers of the desk, poking around for evidence he had
no expectation of finding.

That part of the show over, he
turned to the cabinet behind him, feigning surprise at the scuff marks on the
wall. Setting his feet, Slater dragged the heavy piece of furniture forward,
revealing the wall safe behind it.

“No chance you know the code, is
there?” he asked, glancing back, and when Jack’s wife shook her head, he
stepped past her into the hallway. “I need the safe drill and evidence bags,”
he called to the techs in the master bedroom, before moving casually back into
the office.

The safe, he knew was there. Its
contents, however, remained a mystery. He doubted there would be anything
incriminating inside. If Jack were that sloppy, he would have already been in
jail. Still, it wasn’t a good show until something got broken.

Shuffling back to the desk, Slater
moved some papers around on top of it, before giving in to his need to make
sure Caton hadn’t ruined everything. Skirting over the items on the shelf, he
picked up the box, hoping it looked natural, and pulled uselessly at the lid.
Top holding firm as expected, he reached for the key piece, bypassing it when
he realized he looked like he knew what he was doing.

“Any idea how you open this?” he
asked, and the wife shook her head.

Arms crossing over her chest, her
gaze dropped away, and she appeared to have little interest in his performance.
Without an audience, Slater felt no need to prolong it, and he slipped the wood
key from its position to pull up the lid. Inside, the felt corner bent upward
like a pull tab, and he pulled it back as the tech came through the door with
the requested tools. Withholding his relief at seeing the paper lodged inside,
Slater no longer trusted it, and he unfolded the worn note to ensure its contents.

Jack’s crimes against humanity
staring back at him, it was an ugly thing, and it was a beautiful thing.
Exactly as Mateo Vega described it to him, it was almost as if it had been real
from the start.

He could hardly call it a gift,
Slater’s ability to know what people wanted, to have such deep understanding of
the roots of their behavior, but it did come in useful. He knew Mateo was
looking for a way to take some time off his sentence, to end up with a few
years in the sun at the end of his life, and Mateo knew Slater was looking to
put an end to Jack Halston.

Once Mateo told him about the box,
it was easy to lead him to a little more.

For weeks, Slater made his regular
trips to Panama, questioning Mateo about his exploits, and Mateo had pushed Jack
as mastermind, begging for a chance to help build a case against him. When
Mateo insisted they would find the box at Jack’s house, that he would be
willing to testify against Jack if he could be bumped to a prison with a
smaller population and get a few years shaved off his sentence, Slater
listened, but held back the important question.

He knew they had to build trust
first, that they needed to know each other inside out before he dared ask.

“How do you think we’re going to
link that box to you? Even if we find it, Jack can say it came from anywhere.”

Mateo looked so unsure at the
question, Slater thought it had all been a waste of time, that Mateo wasn’t as
smart as his years of not getting caught indicated. Then, Mateo nodded,
realization dawning as he looked up at Slater in collaboration. “There’s a list
of the names in there,” he said. “I put it in there as a little surprise for
Jack to find, but he’s never mentioned it, so I doubt he ever has.”

“A list of your victims, you mean?”
Slater took the opportunity to remind Mateo what those names really were, and
the rapport between them actually worked to put a fleeting look of remorse on
Mateo’s face.

“Yeah,” he responded. “A list of
our victims.” And, though they both knew it was a lie, it was all the lie
Slater needed.

That list in his hand, Slater had
to hand it to Caton. She might have regretted it, but she did a perfect plant
job.

“Hmm,” he grunted.

“What is it?” the tech asked.

Glancing up, Slater watched the
wife come to attention. Maybe it was good to have her around. No talk of
planted evidence if she was standing right there when he found it.

“Nothin’,” Slater said, folding the
paper back up and returning it to its compartment. Dropping the lid closed, he
handed the box and its missing key to the tech. “Bag everything,” he ordered,
knowing the tech would know what to do and the less his own hands were in the
mix, the better.

Watching the planted evidence, the
only evidence they would find, walk out the door, Slater wanted to make the
rest look good. Starting in with the safe drill, it took only seconds to pop
the door, and he found a world of perfect order inside. Estate papers bound
together, a few personal files in a neat stack. At the back were several
expensive jewelry items that likely belonged to the woman standing at his back,
but, to her credit, she said nothing as Slater began to drop them into the
clear plastic bags as potential evidence.

Pulling the last item from the
safe, a stark contrast to the diamonds and rubies that came before it, Slater
thought it was possibly the ugliest locket he had ever seen. Pinkish toned with
an ivory face, twisted and poorly carved, it was supposed to be a Cameo, he
assumed, but had to be a knockoff.

“Wait.” The wife stepped forward
suddenly from the doorway, eyes on the necklace as he went to bag it, a flash
of life showing in them for the first time. “That was my grandmother’s,” she
whispered. “Jack said it had been lost.”

Glancing down at the ugly piece in
his hand, it made considerably more sense amongst the riches. Jack would never
buy and keep something so hideous, but Slater could definitely buy him hiding
it just to be a prick. “It has to go into evidence,” he said.

With an accepting nod, the wife
faded back into her position against the wall. Body slack, she looked suddenly
defeated, as if he could take everything of financial value and it meant little
to her, but losing something so sentimental was a crushing blow she couldn’t
endure.

Mind again going to Caton, to her
insistence that Jack’s family didn’t deserve what Jack had coming to him,
Slater reluctantly acknowledged that, if nothing else, he owed her. She had,
after all, only threatened to renege. In the end, she had done what she
promised.

Prying the locket open, he was
surprised at the old black-and-whites inside, a couple in their mid-thirties,
smiling happily into the camera. “Your grandparents?” he asked, and Jack’s wife
nodded, attempting a smile even as her world collapsed around her.

At his approach, she straightened a
little, trying to stand tall despite the circumstances, and Slater glanced past
her out the door, before pulling her hand up and dropping the locket into it.
“They’ll never know it was here,” he said quietly, feeling justified in the
overstep when her eyes filled with grateful tears.

“Thank you,” she breathed, dropping
her gaze to the locket for an instant, before easing the old chain over her
head and tucking it beneath her sweater.

The heirloom seemed to return an
iota of strength to her, and Slater hoped it would be enough to appease Caton,
that she would somehow know. He finally had Jack, and he couldn’t stand the
thought of losing him just because he’d scorned the wrong woman.

Chapter 55

Caton had never thought of herself
as the kind of person who would run home. If a single thing in her life were
going right, maybe she wouldn’t have, but demonstrating a mastery of
self-destruction she didn’t know she possessed, she had managed to fuck up her
personal life, professional life, and sanity all within a few months, a feat
that, from an alternative perspective, might well have been impressive.

Before she could tuck her
proverbial tail between her legs and make her escape, though, she was forced to
watch things fall apart from inside. Slater was insistent that she return to her
old job to avoid raising suspicion, and, surprisingly enough, Jack kept his
word, putting her back in her old position, even taking the time out of his
overextended schedule to rehire her himself, despite the authorities banging
down his door.

Settling across the desk from him,
Caton considered the possibility it might be an interrogation, that Jack
suspected her part in his downfall. As it turned out, he wanted only to drop
veiled references, thanking her for keeping his wife “occupied” and for “taking
care of Amelia’s needs”. Perfect world on the verge of collapse, he apparently
needed to gloat to the one person he thought he had bested.

“Well, someone had to.” Caton had
smiled calmly, refusing to give him further insight. He thought he knew
everything, but Jack had no idea how much she had lost. Since Amelia’s worth
had never been appraised in a dollar amount, Jack wouldn’t have understood her
losses if Caton did try to explain.

A few people stayed at Halston
& Company, but those who could ran, and Caton was certainly the only person
walking back in. In the weeks she was forced to wait it out at the office, she
watched her coworkers pack up their desks and move on, trying to distance
themselves from the Halston brand as expediently as possible. Agencies refused
to send temps to replace them. Senior executives cashed out their stock options
while they still had some value.

Caton had never imagined how fast a
company could fall when there were public investors. Soon enough, it looked
more suspicious for her to stay than for her to leave, and she was relieved of
her final duty in the takedown of Jack Halston.

“We all fall down,” Jenna had
declared, appearing in her cubicle as Caton was tossing the few personal items
she’d brought for show into her bag.

“Shut up, Jenna,” Caton returned
instantly.

Fairly or not, she still placed a
large chunk of the blame upon Jenna’s shoulders. If Jenna had just let it go,
if she had just let Caton walk away from Jack’s office without interference,
instead of jumping into the elevator with her and explaining the very sick
truth that she was getting close to Jack for the sole purpose of seeing him
fry, then Caton never would have had to destroy Amelia’s illusions. She never
would have given herself over so completely to a woman she was going to be
forced to live her life without.

Scoffing, Jenna insinuated herself
further into Caton’s cubicle. “I just came to say goodbye,” she stated, as if
it was a grand gesture.

“Why?” Caton had asked her, finally
glancing back. “Do we like each other now?”

Though she looked put-off by the
question, Jenna seemingly came to the same conclusion as Caton. They would
forever guard some of each other’s deepest secrets, but there was really
nothing more than a felony between them.

“No,” Jenna acknowledged. “I
suppose we don’t.” It was hardly civil, but the honesty was a welcome change,
and it served as Caton’s parting thought from Halston & Company and Chicago
in general.

A few days later, she was settled
into her temporary pity job from a friend of her father and the break in rent
for the studio above her cousin’s garage, and it felt utterly unnatural to be
back in such mundanity.

Sighing, she turned from the desk,
spreading files across the counter space behind her, reminding herself that she
had better get used to it. Never again would she take a commission from a
below-the-law agent or enter into a relationship that had no chance of lasting.
The quotidian was her life. She would adjust to its realities and embrace the
tedium.

“You go undercover for the BRC and
this is what you get in return?” the voice uttered behind her, low tone meant
for secrecy, but succeeding in sending a shiver of desire racing down Caton’s
back.

The ancient base creaking with her
weight as she turned the faded desk chair, she expected to find nothing. It
wouldn’t be the first time she’d heard Amelia’s voice when she wasn’t there,
though it usually came at night in the darkness of her pathetic living quarters
before she self-pitied herself to sleep.

Eyes locking on intimately familiar
brown, Caton fell instantly into their depths. It was only as she was gasping
at the air seconds later that she realized she had forgotten to breathe.

“It wasn’t exactly an authorized
mission,” she whispered, not trusting that her eyes weren’t deceiving her, not
trusting her legs to get up and find out. “How are you?” she asked, in case she
wasn’t hallucinating.

Shrugging as if she didn’t know, or
as if the answer didn’t matter, Amelia tilted her head, gaze dark and
circumspect, slightly longer hair brushing past her shoulder. “How are you?”
she asked in return.

Dragging her eyes from Amelia’s,
Caton glanced around the office with a forced laugh, relieved Amelia was still
there when she returned her gaze. Forcing her body to stand, she moved around the
old, chipped desk on unsteady legs, gravitating toward Amelia. Desperate to
touch her, she was terrified Amelia might dissolve on contact. “How did you
find me?”

“You’re not exactly hidden,” Amelia
responded. “And I can be very persuasive.”

All the ways in which Amelia was
incomparably persuasive inundating her at once, Caton reached out for support,
finding the corner of the desk and leaning heavily on it. There were so many
things she needed to say, things she had meant to say, but they jumbled together
in her head, making every thought nonsensical.

“Is Selene okay?” She finally found
a question that seemed fitting.

“She’s good,” Amelia responded.
“She’s been home for a while.”

“I’m glad.” Caton felt an iota of
real relief.

“So is she,” Amelia returned.

“And your parents?”

“Living up their golden years,”
Amelia responded, a small smile playing at her mouth. “They still have no
desire to move here. It’s too cold. Or so they say.”

“They’re still in their home?”
Caton questioned.

“For now,” Amelia answered. “And,”
she interrupted as Caton opened her mouth again. “Sole is also fine, before you
ask.”

Caton was going to, mostly because
she knew no other way to fill the awkward silence that yawned between them,
wide and trap-filled. Line of questioning shut down, she could think of nothing
else to say. All the slow steps she and Amelia had taken toward each other, and
it was as if they had made no progress at all.

“I’ve been living in the
guesthouse.” Amelia spared them continued silence. “Sole moved into a bedroom
in the house. Jack let me, which means he knows I know and he knows he’s
guilty. You understand, I wanted to take you at your word, Caton, but you
hadn’t given me a lot of reason.”

Gaze lowering to the floor, Caton
felt prepared and unprepared for the statement. Her eyes tearing, she swallowed
against the urge to break down and cry, to grovel, to beg forgiveness. “I’m
surprised he lets you leave the house,” she uttered.

“Jack is being very accommodating
actually,” Amelia replied. “He has something to fear now. That’s a new concept
for him.”

Caton imagined. She doubted Jack
had ever had to fear anything.

“They don’t have much, though.”
Amelia continued on a sigh, and Caton wasn’t sure if it was relief or
disappointment. “That’s what Jack’s lawyers said. Apparently, part of the
evidence was lost in transit. They have the box, but not the list. Just the
sworn testimony of a bunch of agents who saw it. Which is a relief, I guess,
since my fingerprints were all over it.”

“I knew Slater was going to...”
Caton started, before realizing she was probably only further incriminating
herself in Amelia’s eyes. “I knew it was never going to make it into evidence.
I never would have left it if I thought it could hurt you.”

Amelia’s gaze unblinking upon her,
it provided no insight, and Caton wasn’t sure if Amelia believed her or not. It
was almost a relief when Amelia finally glanced away to inspect the items on
the desk. “Jack’s lawyers also said, if he does get convicted, which I
seriously doubt, it will take decades. They can appeal until the end of his
life if that’s what it takes. They can keep Jack from his business, thank God,
but they’re not going to take anything, not for a while.”

“Good,” Caton uttered. “That’s
good.” It was hardly a win-win. Jack keeping his luxurious life wasn’t at all
what he deserved, but if it meant Amelia didn’t have to suffer along with him,
she would take it. “I hope you can be happy.”

“I can’t stay with him,” Amelia
surprised her by saying, and Caton looked up, her gaze falling to Amelia’s mouth
as it moved again. “Not knowing what he’s done.”

The announcement everything Caton
had been hoping to hear, it was rendered meaningless by her own misdeeds. What
Jack had done was done. What she had done was done. She couldn’t take it back,
and she couldn’t expect Amelia to forgive it. She didn’t even dare hope Amelia
could.

“You said that I was using you,”
Amelia stated, and, eyes closing, Caton felt the squeeze of regret, like a
tourniquet around her. The hypocritical words had haunted her since the moment
they left her lips, but somehow they were more haunting from Amelia’s.

“I said that you were using me,”
Amelia continued.

Feeling the shift in the room,
Caton’s eyes opened and she watched Amelia come closer until Amelia’s body
poured over her like liquid, no air left between them, her lips hovering
torturously out of reach.

“Is that what we were doing,
Caton?” she questioned, tongue sliding slowly across her lip, hand rising
between them to tug gently at the platinum and diamond pendant in the hollow of
Caton’s throat. “Were we using each other?”

Warm breath blowing over her, dark
eyes pinning her in place, Caton’s head swam, heart lurching forward before her
body could catch up. She knew she didn’t deserve it, to feel Amelia, to have
her, but she wanted it anyway. Swallowing Amelia’s harsh exhalation as their
lips met, she waited for the feel of Amelia’s hands against her shoulders,
shoving her away with all the force she deserved.

When Amelia’s body pressed into her
instead, the warm hands against her lower back dragging her closer, Caton wound
her fingers into dark hair and gave in. It was her answer. Both of their
answers. Wrong as it should have been after everything that had happened, it
was no less right, and, deserved or not, she could feel Amelia’s forgiveness
wash over her. With something else, something unspoken that was there every
time they touched.

Senses overloaded, it took Caton a
moment to register there was something that didn’t belong. The realization
didn’t dissuade her from the haven of Amelia’s lips, though, until she heard
the voice, well-known and jarring in the moment. “I am so sorry. I’ll just...”
it broke off, and, pulling away from Amelia, Caton felt like a
thirteen-year-old who just got caught making out in her bedroom for the first
time.

“Mom,” she said, watching her
mother turn back in the doorway, cheeks flaming pink, but otherwise
surprisingly composed. “It’s okay.”

Glancing back to Amelia, Caton
wondered if it actually was okay. Amelia appeared more anxious than her mother,
nervous in a way Caton had never seen her. Whether due to the surprise or the
sudden introduction, she wasn’t sure. Amelia looked so intriguingly human,
though, it was hard for Caton to pull her eyes away to return them to her
waiting parent. “This is Amelia,” she said, and Amelia’s usual assurance fell
into place as she turned to face the unexpected visitor.

Her mom’s eyes widening and
narrowing in no uncertain way, Caton knew she had made a huge mistake. When she
told her mother everything that happened, save the parts that made her a felon,
her mother rushed to condemn Amelia, placing all the blame on Amelia’s
shoulders for corrupting her decent daughter and turning her into the kind of
girl who would have an affair with a married woman. No matter how much Caton
tried to assure her she was no victim, her mother still chose to view her as
the helpless lamb to Amelia’s worldlier wolf. Maybe she hadn’t tried hard
enough to exonerate Amelia. At the time, she never expected the two to meet.

“Hmm,” her mother said shortly,
eyeing Amelia with open disdain that Amelia didn’t deserve.

“Reese, right?” Amelia recovered
from her shock with aplomb. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

Expert grace carrying her forward,
she offered her hand, which Caton watched her mother rudely refuse, wondering
how in the hell she was going to fix it. Before she had even a working idea,
Amelia pulled out the same winning style Caton had seen her drop on rich people
to strip them of their money, now put to the task of raising the value on
herself. “And clearly you’ve heard about me,” she continued. “And don’t think
very highly of me. I can’t blame you. I didn’t think very highly of myself for
a long time.”

Recognizing the admission as more
than a line, Caton sent her mother a stern glare and a telepathic message to
play nice. She really didn’t want to get into a fight in the middle of her
office in the middle of a workday, but she wasn’t about to let her mother treat
Amelia like a miscreant either.

“But I am in love with your
daughter,” Amelia proclaimed, and, gaze snapping back to Amelia, Caton forgot
all about her thoughts of civil war. “I want to be with her. I think that gives
us common ground, don’t you?”