Chaos (13 page)

Payton

Sunday

Sebastian insisted on coming with me to my father’s shop. We got up early, but not due to an alarm clock or any other annoying wake-up call. I’d had a hard time sleeping although both my brain and my body had been exhausted.

After we crawled into bed the night before, Sebastian had paid me back for the little impromptu blow job I’d given him in his office. He gave back tenfold, making me scream his name on more than one occasion until my body was sated. Too bad my brain hadn’t shut down enough to sleep soundly. I woke before the sun was up but didn’t move, not wanting to disturb Sebastian. It wasn’t long before he was awake, though. And when he suggested a quick shower, I didn’t refuse him.

Our breakfast consisted of coffee and a breakfast sandwich at the first drive-thru that we came to. We arrived at my father’s shop around eight. On a Sunday morning, that was unheard of. Luckily, no one would be there to question us because Fowler Body and Frame was closed on Sunday.

I still carried a key to my father’s shop on my key ring because he told me I never knew when I might need it. I was grateful for his foresight, because it came in handy this morning and saved us at least an hour trip out to my parents’ house and back.

When we arrived, I didn’t bother giving Sebastian a tour because I knew he didn’t care any more than I did. The goal was to check out the old files to see if we could find something to tie Lauren back to the accident that had killed Sebastian’s mother. My father had informed me the files that dated that far back were in a storage shed at the back of the property behind the paint booth, so that was where we went.

As I opened the door and saw the rows of boxes stacked to the ceiling, some of them dusty from the length of time they’d been stored there, I knew we had our work cut out for us. I set my coffee cup on the window ledge, and we left the door open to air the place out but immediately got to work. Some of the boxes were labeled, others weren’t. I went with the idea that the older boxes would be in the back, so we moved them around, placed those that we knew held more recent files on one side and others that were closer to the time frame we were looking for in another corner, unsure whether we would need to look in them but keeping them separate just in case.

Six boxes a piece and nearly two hours later, Sebastian said my name softly. I looked up to see his eyes glued to a file in front of him. I lowered the box I’d had resting on my lap and stood, stretching my aching back muscles as I moved closer to him. Leaning over his shoulder, I read the name on the top of the file:
Hodges, Lauren.

“Is that her maiden name? Hodges?”

“I guess,” Sebastian answered. “I was just looking at every Lauren I came to. The address on this one matches.”

I lowered myself to a box beside Sebastian and placed my hand on his arm. “Did you see pictures of your mother’s car from the accident report?” I asked, wondering what type of damage we would be looking for.

“Yeah. The notes mentioned there was white paint along the driver’s side front and rear doors.”

That meant if the car in the pictures was white, more than likely it was the one used in the accident. My heart rate tripled as I waited for Sebastian to open the folder. His finger was lodged between the papers, as though he’d already been through them, so my guess was that he already knew the answer to the unspoken question.

He opened the folder, and there in vivid color was a white SUV with significant front-end damage. That would match up to the fact that Sebastian had told me his mother had been T-boned in the accident.

I gasped, my eyes filling with tears as I looked at the pictures, knowing without a doubt that we’d found the evidence we needed to identify Lauren as, at the minimum, an accomplice in Sebastian’s mother’s death. And as far as I was concerned, the “accident” had just been bumped to “murder.”

I hadn’t realized I was crying until Sebastian put his arms around me, burying his face in my neck. He was sobbing, too. Desperately, I wrapped my arms around him, cradling the back of his head as I held him. I considered myself a fairly strong woman. I’ve been known to shed a tear, but never have I felt as lost and hopeless as I did right then with Sebastian’s body trembling in my arms. I could only imagine how much he’d held in since the day he’d learned his mother had been killed. It’d taken more than a decade for him to get some sort of answers. And what we’d found… It was enough to break down the hardest man.

The proof was in my arms.

I wasn’t even sure how much time had passed while I held Sebastian and cried for the boy who’d lost his mother, shed even more tears for the grown man who’d endured so much over the years, holding it all inside because he didn’t have anyone to lean on. I hated Conrad Trovato for that. Maybe he was innocent in all of this — God, I hoped like hell he was innocent in all of this — but he still held the honorary title of shitty father because he’d shunned his own son from the day he was born.

I didn’t want to go back to Trovato, Inc. tomorrow and face the man. I wasn’t sure I could and still keep the secret that I now carried. I knew we had to talk to Derrick, to provide him with this evidence and see where he decided to go with this new lead. Considering he wasn’t officially on this case, I didn’t even know how this worked.

When Sebastian pulled back, wiping his eyes with the heels of his hands, I quietly wiped my own tears away.

“We need to get this to Derrick,” he said, speaking my thoughts aloud.

“I think we need to make copies, keep the originals here in a safe place. And then I should probably tell my father,” I told him.

Sebastian nodded in agreement and then got to his feet, offering me his hand. I let him pull me up, and I brushed off my jeans while Sebastian placed the folder on a box near the door.

We spent the next few minutes putting the boxes back in their rightful places, then locking the shed behind us before returning to the main building. Once inside, I took the file to the copy machine and made three sets of copies. Don’t ask me why I did that, but I’d seen enough movies to know that this was the point when something would happen to destroy the evidence. Sure, maybe I was being extra paranoid, but as far as I was concerned, one could never be too careful.

I figured I had to keep my eyes open for anything, at this point. Lauren had resorted to threatening my job, which meant I wasn’t the only one who was paranoid. Trevor was lurking, or so it seemed to me, and it was enough that I was nervous to have him in the building, much less popping up every time I turned around.

I finished making copies, placed the original file in a locked cabinet in my father’s office, and took the three sets of copies with me. One for Derrick, one for Sebastian, and a backup copy that I would leave at my apartment. Now that I was finished, I did think it might’ve been overkill to have quite so many copies, but again, never hurt to be careful.

“You ready?” Sebastian asked when I met him near the front doors.

“As I’ll ever be,” I told him. “Should we stop by my parents’ house? We can go over this with my father. I doubt he’ll remember from so long ago, but at least he’ll be apprised of the situation.”

Sebastian nodded as he pushed open the front door. After locking the doors, we went to his truck, and for the first time that I could recall, Sebastian didn’t take my hand, and he didn’t open my door for me. Not that I expected it, but I knew then that he was off somewhere else in his head.

And that worried me more than anything else at the moment.

Sebastian

Monday morning

By the time I crawled out of bed, I had slept maybe a solid hour all night. Without Payton in my bed, I was learning I couldn’t sleep for shit. Between the absence of her soft, warm body and the millions of thoughts running through my head, I’d tossed and turned and now felt completely worthless.

My thoughts drifted back to the conversation Payton and I had had with her parents last night. Rehashing all of the details that Derrick had shared, along with the proof that we’d found, hadn’t been an easy discussion. And when Hal had reacted similar to the way Payton had, blanching at the news that he’d repaired a vehicle that had been used to kill my mother, I’d had a hard time sitting there. Fortunately, Susan had made dinner, distracting us with food. It wasn’t until we were leaving that Hal had taken me aside, apologizing as though it had actually been his fault. I assured him that there was no way he could’ve known, but I had seen in the man’s eyes that he was going to shoulder the blame much the way Payton had.

That was just another reason I hadn’t been able to sleep last night.

When I made it to the kitchen, I realized that Leif had already left for work, and that left me home alone. I took advantage and went to the workout room. After a solid hour of pounding away at the heavy bag, I dove into the pool and did laps to try to escape the chaos that had amped up in my head. The noise was so loud I wasn’t sure if I would ever escape it. Realizing I wasn’t going to get away from it, I gave up when my muscles could no longer carry me across the pool.

After a quick shower, I went to my office and pulled up my email. I was tempted to shoot off a note to my father, but I refrained. We had faxed Derrick the information we had retrieved from Payton’s father’s files last night, and I knew I couldn’t say anything until we heard from him. I prayed it would be soon.

Although I’d waited eleven long, painful years to solve this, I felt like every minute that passed now was an eternity. And on top of that, I had to figure out when I was going to give Payton her Christmas present.

Pulling open the top drawer of my desk, I reached to the very back and found the small velvet box that I’d hidden there. With it in my hand, I leaned back in my chair and flipped it open, staring at the diamonds — four karats total — set in a platinum band. I was going to ask Payton to marry me. If it wasn’t for the fact that the ring was the only Christmas present I had for her, I would’ve probably sprung the question on her by now. I was that eager.

Even with all the shit raining down around me, Payton still managed to put a smile on my face just by being in the same room. She was the only thing keeping me from completely unraveling.

As though she knew I was thinking about her, my cell phone rang, and I hit the talk button as soon as her name came up on the screen.

“Hey,” I greeted, a smile on my face.

“Hey,” she replied, sounding not nearly as happy to hear my voice as I was to hear hers.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, instantly worried.

“Nothing,” she answered quickly. “Well, nothing more than usual. I’m just finding it really difficult to be here right now.”

“No one’s giving you a hard time, are they?” I immediately thought of Lauren’s threats. I was pretty sure my stepmother knew that something was up. That or she was just nervous. It made sense to me, considering what she’d done — or what I’d suspected she had done, anyway — but I wasn’t sure how she would’ve been tipped off to what we were doing.

I think it was more due to Trevor’s presence. If he had been the one driving the SUV that had hit my mother, I was pretty certain he was now using that as leverage against Lauren. For what, I didn’t know.

“No, everything’s fine. Conrad’s not here this week.”

“What about Trevor?” I asked, my concern growing.

As much as I hated my father for the lack of love he’d shown me throughout my life, right then he seemed like the only possible protection for Payton. No matter how hard I tried to tie him back to my mother’s death, I couldn’t. Not anymore. Based on the new information, I was beginning to think my father was completely clueless when it came to the actions of his wife, which, in my opinion, made him just as guilty.

“Why don’t you come home? If he’s not there, maybe take the next few days off. Christmas is on Thursday, so the office will be pretty empty this week.”

“It is. The only person I’ve seen is Maude, but she said she was leaving early and would be out for the rest of the week. Ron’s not even here.”

“Ron’s not there?” I asked, sitting up straight. The hair on the back of my neck stood up when I thought about Payton at the Trovato, Inc. office without a security guard on hand. Especially if… “Have you seen Trevor?”

There was a long pause, and I knew that Payton wasn’t telling me something.

“Payton? Talk to me.”

“Yeah, he’s here. He met me when I got here this morning. He was sitting at my desk.”

I got to my feet. I had a bad feeling that I couldn’t seem to shake. “Payton, you need to leave.”

“I can’t. I’ve got to be here to answer the phones.”

“Screw the phones, Payton. I’m serious, you need to come home.”

Shit. I wasn’t as close to my father’s office as I would’ve been had I still lived there. Which meant I wouldn’t be able to get to her for at least half an hour. And I really had a bad feeling about her being there alone with Trevor.

“Payton, listen to me,” I told her, my voice firm. “I want you to shut everything down and walk to your car. If you don’t, then I’m heading that way and I’m taking you home.”

“No,” she told me firmly. “It’s fine. I really just wanted to call to hear your voice.”

“Payton, I’m serious.” As much as I wanted to acknowledge the fact that she missed me, I couldn’t. I was getting antsy at this point, and it had everything to do with the fact that Payton was probably there alone with Trevor, and she didn’t even realize it.

“I’ll be fine. I’ll probably head out early, anyway.”

“No. I want you to leave right now. Do you understand me?”

“Sebastian.” Payton’s tone was firmer as she spoke softly. “I’m fine.”

“Then I’m on my way.” I was already moving through the house. I grabbed my truck keys from the bar in the kitchen, snatched my jacket off the chair by the door, and went to my truck, keeping Payton on the phone.

“Crap,” she said suddenly. “The phone is ringing. I’ll have to call you back.”

“No,” I said urgently. “Don’t hang up your cell phone. I’ll hang on.”

“Sebastian, seriously. I’m fine. I’ll call you back in a little while.”

Son of a fucking bitch.

The call disconnected. I almost threw my cell phone across the garage. Instead, I gripped it tightly as I climbed into my truck. I narrowly missed the edge of the garage door when I backed out, too impatient to wait for it to open completely. I hit the button to close it but didn’t bother waiting until it was all the way down before I peeled out of my driveway.

My heart was racing, trying to keep pace with my rate of speed as I hit the toll road going ninety-five. I tried Payton again, and when she didn’t answer, I damn near lost my shit. I tried calling Toby, but he didn’t answer, so then I tried Leif.

“Hey, man. What’s up?” Leif greeted.

“Where are you?”

“The shop. Why?”

“How long would it take you to get to the Trovato office?”

“Ten minutes.”

“Can you go over there? Something doesn’t feel right.”

I heard Leif mumble something and then another muffled voice replied before Leif returned to the phone. “I’m leaving now.”

“Hurry. When you get there, go in the main doors and up the stairs. No one should be there to stop you. Once you get to Payton, call me.”

“Okay, man. Something I should know?”

“Something’s off. Conrad’s not there; neither is Maude or Ron. Payton shouldn’t be there. Conrad should’ve given her the week off, but he didn’t. She’s not answering her phone.”

“I’m on my way now,” Leif said, the loud rumble of his Mustang’s engine sounding in the background, assuring me he was doing as he said.

I hung up the phone and put both hands on the wheel. I was pushing the truck over one hundred miles per hour, and I knew it was about to top out, but even then, I knew I wasn’t going to get there before Leif.

I debated on whether or not I should call my father. I picked up my phone, put it down. I did that three times before I said fuck it. I dialed his cell and waited for him to answer.

“Sebastian,” he answered gruffly.

“Where are you?” I asked, my voice coming out anxious and hurried.

“I’m at the house, why?”

“Why didn’t you give Payton the week off?” I asked him. “If no one’s there, what the hell is she supposed to do?”

“What are you talking about?” Conrad asked, his voice softer than before. “I sent her an email last week telling her to take the week off due to the holidays.”

“What?” I exclaimed.

“I sent another to her over the weekend, wishing her a happy holiday. What the hell is going on, Sebastian?”

“Shit if I know,” I growled. “She’s in the office. She hasn’t received any emails telling her not to be there. Where’s Trevor?”

“He’s at…” Conrad didn’t finish his sentence, but I knew what he was thinking. After hearing Aaliyah’s story, I knew there was something fucking wrong with Trevor. He shouldn’t be in the picture, and Conrad knew that as much as I did.

“Go to the office now,” I demanded. “Leif’s on his way and so am I. I can’t get Payton to answer the fucking phone.”

I figured I would get a rebuttal from my father, but he surprised the shit out of me when he told me he was on his way. The phone disconnected, and I tried Payton one more time before I gave up. I was still ten minutes out, and that was only if I kept at the speed I was at. If I wasn’t careful, I was going to get pulled over, and that wasn’t going to help me one fucking bit.

I was depending on a radar detector, my best friend, and my father to get to my woman. And the only thing I could do was pray that none of them failed me now. Because if they did and something happened to Payton, then I knew without a doubt, my life was officially over.