THE DIRTY ONES Page 2

Of course, I now know what the catch was. There’s a reason super-rich people keep to themselves. Create their own worlds. Live a different reality than the rest of us. And if I ever have a kid there’s no way in hell they’re gonna go to Essex because that world is pretty ugly once you get inside.

  Connor brought the cold and the wind with him as he passed through the door. Snowflakes swirl around in my small living room like a whirling winter dervish, then settle at his feet as he stomps on my front mat.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” I ask. The music is still playing, but the song ends and there’s that brief interlude of static just before the next one begins. I step over to the ancient-looking Victrola and lift the arm up off the record and place it on the holder.

  Connor sighs. “What is this?” he asks, rattling the paper of a white bag as he pulls out a book.

  I look at it, squinting my eyes, wondering if it’s one of mine. “I dunno,” I say, taking the book from his hands and turning it over so I can see the cover.

  The instant I read the title I know why he’s here. “What is this?” I ask, echoing his question.

  “That’s what I’m asking you, Kiera. What the fuck did you do?”

  “I didn’t write this. Who told you I wrote this?”

  “You’re the… writer, who else would it be?”

  I glare at him. Because I know what he almost said. You’re the dirty writer, Kiera. The one who writes filth like this.

  Fuck you, Connor Arlington. Just fuck you.

  I open the cover and read the inside flap out loud. “‘They said write what you know so that’s what I did. I wrote dirty. I wrote’—what the fuck is this?”

  “It’s exactly what it looks like. And do you know where I fucking found it?”

  “No clue,” I say, walking into the kitchen and placing it on the counter.

  “The Montreal airport bookstore sitting in the number three position on the goddamned New York Times bestseller list.”

  I’m filling my teapot with hot water when he finishes that sentence, my mind whirling around like the snowflakes did when they stole their way into my house. “It wasn’t me.”

  “Then who the fuck was it?” His voice is loud. Commanding and very much like the voice I remember. He’s not so different now. Still wearing the same expensive watch. Still well-groomed and on his way to conquering American politics. Still one of those arrogant, privileged assholes I used to know.

  I already know the answer to my next question, but I ask it anyway. “Did you barge in on Sofia? Or Camille? And ask them if they wrote the stupid book?”

  Silence behind me as I fit the top back on my tea pot, then turn around and place it on the stove. I glare at him as I turn the gas on high without looking and the whoosh of ignition brings a purple-blue flame to life.

  He stares at it for a long moment, then tracks back to me. “They don’t write this shit.”

  This shit? Oh, hell, no. He did not just say that.

  I lift one eyebrow high on my forehead and make a decision not to engage. “Is there anything else I can do for you, Connor? Because I’m real busy here.”

  He looks around. My little cottage isn’t messy but it’s not tidy, either. I’m wearing taupe yoga pants and an oversized tan sweater. I have knee-high shearling boots on my feet because my feet are always cold and they help me feel like I’m wearing clothes I could leave the house in, when I’m actually not. I don’t remember if I brushed my hair yesterday or the day before. But fuck it. I don’t owe him an explanation. I don’t owe him anything. I paid my debt a long time ago.

  “When’s the last time you left the house?” he asks, taking off his coat.

  “None of your business,” I reply. “And why are you taking off your coat? You’re not staying. In fact, I think you should probably leave right now.”

  “No,” he says, draping his coat over one of my antique-white dining table chairs. “We need to read this book.”

  “I’m not reading that book. Take it with you because I have absolutely no interest in that book.”

  “Do you not understand what this means, Kiera?”

  “I didn’t write the fucking book, Connor.”

  “Then who the fuck did?”

  “How do you even know it’s about us?” I say, picking the book up from the counter and flipping it over to scan the back cover.

  Connor snatches it out of my hand. “‘I’m gonna warn you,’” he says, reading the back copy out loud. “‘Our story isn’t for everyone. It’s not even for us. So if you’re looking for the fairytale and the stupid fucking prince on his dumb white horse, you’ve got a hold of the wrong book. Move along. This is not your story, this is not your life, and this is not your opportunity to dip your frightened little toe into the dark pool of water and “try new things” and then pull it out and decide… #NotForMe. When you go in with us you go all in. So make a decision before you turn this page. Because I’m making one promise with this book. Just one. It’s the truth. We are the dirty ones and this is our story.’” He slams the book back down on the counter and stares at me. “‘We are the dirty ones and this is our story?’ Are you fucking kidding me right now?”

  I take a step back because his rage is very clear.

  “We, Kiera, are the fucking dirty ones. That is literally the name we gave ourselves.”

  Our eyes meet. Hold there, suspending time. I pick up the book and thrust it at him. “I didn’t write it. And if you think Sofia and Camille don’t ‘write this shit,’ as you put it, then I guess you don’t know them as well as you think.”

  “What the fuck does that mean?”

  “It means they write this shit, Connor. The only difference between me and them is that they hide behind pen names and I don’t. So maybe next time you find your deepest, darkest secrets splashed all over the New York Times bestseller list by an anonymous source, you should hold your fucking preconceived notions in check and wait to hurl those accusations until after you ask all your dirty writer friends if they’re the author. OK?”

  He’s holding his breath. I only know that because there’s silence as I finish and then he lets it out in a long rush of air. “Well… fuck!”

  He shouts the curse word.

  “Who cares, anyway. It’s a stupid story.” I pick the book back up and start thumbing through it.

  “It’s a true fucking story, Kiera. You know what we did. You know what’s in there. And if you didn’t write it then who did? Because when I find out—”

  “There are no names in here,” I say.

  Connor is doing a two-fisted grab of his hair, staring down at his feet like there’s some magic answer on his soaking wet shoes, when this comes out. “What?” he says, releasing his grip and taking two steps towards me to grab the book from my outstretched hand.

  “Look,” I say, grabbing the book back and opening it up again. Does he really have to be such an asshole? Now I have to find the page again.

  “Give it to me.”

  I ignore him and thumb through until I see them again. “Look. It uses initials. CA. KB. SA. HF. BW. Right there.” I stab the page and hold it out for him.

  “Holy shit,” he says, doing that hair-grab thing again. “Thank God. You know I’m in the preliminary stages of running for US senator, right?”

  “No,” I deadpan. “In case you haven’t noticed, I don’t own a television.”

  He looks around, taking in my home. And I find his scrutinizing stare to be uncomfortable. “You don’t own a TV,” he parrots back. “Do you even have internet here?”

  “Nope. I get cell coverage if I walk down to the end of the driveway. But here in the house it’s hopeless.”

  “What the fuck is wrong with you, Kiera?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You can’t just… live somewhere without phone coverage.”

  I make that little noise you make when someone is being stupid and you just can’t take another moment of it. You know it when you hear it. Calling it
a laugh is far too generous. And a huff isn’t enough. Something between a snort and a sneer, I think. “This cottage is a hundred and twenty years old, Connor. And as far as I know, none of its occupants have ever died from lack of cell phone. Besides. The landline mostly works.”

  He glances over to an old-fashioned rotary wall phone in my tiny kitchen and makes that huff-snort again. Only it comes out like relief instead of sarcasm. Then he looks down at the book in his hands and says, in a very quiet voice, “What do you think it says? Everything?” But I can hear hope in his voice. Hope he’s wrong.

  “Obviously I have no idea, since five minutes ago I didn’t know the book existed.”

  “Well, we need to find out. Pack a bag, we’re going to New York.”

  “We are not going anywhere. You can go wherever the hell you want, but I’m staying right here.”

  “You can’t just pretend this won’t have consequences, Kiera. Did you forget what happened when we didn’t do what we were told?”

  “Yeah,” I say, my voice now dripping with sarcasm. “I forgot.”

  “You know what I’m talking about. We need to figure this out.”

  “Again,” I say, “I didn’t write that book and I have no interest in knowing more. There is no way this book tracks back to me. And I’m not beholden to anyone like you are. So I’m just gonna pretend I never saw it.”

  He stares at me for a second. I can practically see his mind working as he untangles my words and fits them back together in some new Connor Arlington way. Then he moves forward, towards my hallway.

  “What are you doing?”

  He ignores me. Just throws open a closet door and looks inside. He looks the contents over, then closes the door and walks into my bedroom.

  “What the fuck are you doing?”

  He finds the light switch and by the time I catch up to him, he’s already pulling open my closet door.

  “Connor,” I say. “What the hell?”

  “Where do you keep your luggage?”

  “I’m not going to New York with you.”

  “You are, Kiera. And you’ve got five minutes to pack or I’ll just take you out of here with no clothes.”

  I cross my arms and lean against the doorjamb. “I’d like to see you try.”

  “How do you not understand what happens next? Huh? You know what happens next, Kiera.”

  “You don’t even know that book is about us, OK? So just calm down.”

  He’s found my suitcases and he’s pulling one down off a shelf. “It is. Now pack.”

  “No. I’m not going. Did you even look at the weather today? We’re in the middle of the biggest snowstorm in five years.”

  “It’s barely snowing,” he says, bouncing the suitcase on the bed. He starts to unzip it.

  “That’s because the storm took a break. But we’re supposed to get a lot more tonight.”

  “How would you even know that? You don’t even have a weather app.”

  “I have a weather radio. I might be simple but I’m not stupid.”

  He looks at the window. It’s just about dark now even though it’s only late afternoon. Then he walks over to it, pulling his phone out of his coat and holding it up as he looks for a signal.

  It’s snowing a lot harder than it was when he arrived. “I’m not lying. We’re gonna get dumped on tonight. It’s a five-and-a-half-hour drive to New York and there’s no way Burlington hasn’t cancelled all flights out. Like it or not, we’re not going anywhere.”

  He places both hands on the windowsill, arching his back a little as he drops his head to stare at his feet.

  “Just… calm down, OK? It’s fine.”

  “It’s not fine,” he snaps, whirling around to face me. “It’s not fucking fine. Why are you lying to yourself? Whoever did this…” He sighs, shaking his head. “Whoever did this knew what would happen.”

  “It’s been ten years,” I say. “It’s over.”

  He laughs. “It’s not over. It never ended, Kiera. Not for me. Not for Hayes. Not for Bennett.”

  “What do you mean? It ended back in school.”

  “It. Never. Ended,” he growls.

  I just stare at him. Blink a couple times.

  “It never ended,” he says again. “It was a trap, don’t you see?”

  “No,” I say. “I don’t see. I never got another message. I dropped the book off in the tower that night and walked away. You must know I didn’t stay for graduation. I just packed up my car after finals and drove away that same night.”

  “Well, that’s not how it ended for us.”

  “Explain,” I say. And I hate to admit it, but my voice is shaky. The fear I remember creeps over me like a thick, dark mist. It starts at the small of my back and climbs up my spine until all those tiny hairs on the back of my neck are tingling.

  “What do you mean?” I ask, crossing the room and placing a hand on his arm. “What’s that mean?”

  “I mean… it means whoever wrote this book knew what would happened if we ever told that story. It means…” He runs his fingers through his hair. Swallows hard. “I’m not going to get elected to the Senate. And if that was the worst thing that could happen I’d have written and published this book myself a long time ago. But we both know that’s not all that can happen.”

  Emily.

  Her name is on the tip of my tongue. So many years since I spoke it out loud. And I don’t say it now. I catch myself just in time.

  “You don’t think—”

  “I know, Kiera. Whoever made us write that book back in college did it for one reason only. To control us in the future. And now—”

  “Listen,” I say, shaking his arm. “We didn’t do this. It was them, OK? Not us. Whoever published that book had permission.”

  “Don’t be naive,” he says, shaking off my grip. “I can take a lot of shit from people, Kiera. I can listen to a lot of lies. But not from you. Not when you know the truth.”

  CHAPTER THREE - CONNOR

  And the truth is… the truth is that we did do all those things in that book. I feel time rewinding as I stand in Kiera’s bedroom. I feel it like a person feels a haunting. Like bad luck following in your footsteps or a mistake catching up to you.

  We did this.

  “Just… calm down and stay here tonight, OK?”

  The fear she didn’t have when I arrived flows out now like a rushing stream of snowmelt in the spring.

  It wasn’t Kiera, I know that for sure. She has no idea what’s been happening all these years. So that only leaves two other possibilities. Sofia or Camille. And I had no idea they were writing… trash. None.

  Why would they do that?

  “Where were you coming from?” Kiera asks.

  “Montreal,” I remind her. “I had a business meeting this morning and was flying home this afternoon. But I saw two women fighting over the last copy of the book just before I boarded and then I rented a car and came straight here.”

  “So you have clothes?” she asks. “Out in your car?”

  I nod. “An overnight bag.”

  “Let’s go get it before the storm gets worse. You can’t go anywhere tonight. It’s just not possible. You’re stuck here. And you can make a call,” she adds. Like I need some kind of motivation to snap out of the sudden despair I feel.

  “Who will I call?”

  “I dunno. One of them. All of them? I don’t know. Do you have a wife?”

  I shoot her a look that makes her put up her hands, palms out. Like she’s backing off.

  “Look, I just don’t know you anymore, OK? I have no clue what you’ve been up to. I’ve just been living out here writing books since I left school. That’s all I do. So I don’t know who you’d call, but someone has to have noticed you didn’t make it back to New York, right?”

  I sigh, glancing down at my watch. “Believe me, everyone has noticed by now.”

  “So call them. Tell them you’re staying with an old friend and you’re caught in the storm. You
’ll be back as soon as you can.”

  “That driveway,” I say. “Why the fuck don’t you plow your damn driveway?”

  “Sorry,” she says. “I’ll go get your bag. Give me the keys.”

  “No,” I say. “Don’t be dumb. I’m not sending you out into a storm to get my fucking carry-on.”

  She smiles at me and I realize I’ve missed that smile. And now I just feel bad for so many things. For not following up with her. For not making sure she was OK. For not saying goodbye.

  But mostly for not saying thank you.

  She didn’t have to help us. They had nothing on her before she met us.

  But she did help. She played her part and did what she was told.

  Just like us.

  “We’ll go together then. Buddy system, right?” She smiles again, but it’s not the same.

  Or it is the same, I’m not sure. Because this smile is sad and a little bit afraid. And I hate that. I fucking hate it so much. Why did I come here? Why did I drag her back in? Why did I suspect her right away?

  Because they planned it that way, Connor. They knew she was always the outsider and if anything went wrong, she’d always be there to get blamed.

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  “You didn’t do this.”

  “I did. I came here. I blamed you, just like I was supposed to. I fell into the trap and now you’re caught in it with me. I’m sorry.”

  “Forget it,” she whispers. “If they wanted me back, they knew where to find me. My freedom was always an illusion. I knew that.”

  “Yeah, but I should’ve known better. I should’ve trusted you. I should’ve thought clearly and worked shit out. I mean, goddamn it. I had two hours in the car to get my shit together and work out the puzzle and I didn’t. I just reacted the way…”

  “The way they knew you would,” she finishes for me. “You’re just being you, Con. That’s all.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Guess I didn’t change much over the last ten years.”

  She smiles again. And again, it’s that old smile. The one filled with sadness and fear. “Let me get my coat and we’ll walk to the car together.”

  “Buddy system,” I say, remembering how much we relied on it back in school.