Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 63716 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 319(@200wpm)___ 255(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63716 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 319(@200wpm)___ 255(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
My phone lit up. Willow had finally texted me back. She was fine. She’d explain everything later. The vise around my guts eased, but it didn’t release entirely. Thank God she was alive. Thank God she was apparently fine. But where the hell was she, and why had she texted instead of called?
I called her, but it went to voicemail.
I was still staring at the phone in my hand, wondering what the hell was going on, when it lit up again. It wasn’t Willow’s name on the Caller ID though–it was Fletcher’s.
Wondering if I was still asleep, in some sort of fever dream, I answered.
“Fletch.”
“Julian, you motherfucker. You almost got me.” His laugh was too big and too loud for 8:30 in the morning.
“Fletcher, I don’t have time for this.” I dug my thumb and forefinger into my eye sockets, trying to displace the grit. “Tell me what the fuck you want so I can tell you to fuck off.”
His voice took an affected, offended tone. “I was calling to thank you.”
The hell he was. I didn’t know what this game was, but I knew I couldn’t play. Not right now. “You’re welcome. Now fuck off.” My finger was hovering over the End Call button when he spoke next.
“I wanted to thank you for this fun game we’ve been playing. You made it quite a challenge. I almost respect you for it.” His tone was jovial, but there was menace underneath. Dark and oily, oozing out between the syllables.
I tightened my grip on the phone. “What game?”
Now he managed to sound both smug and surprised. The man was definitely on the right side of the camera. “For the rights to All the Dying Light.”
“Fletcher, for fuck’s sake, just tell me what you’re talking about,” I said, my patience snapping.
“I just wanted to tell you that I’ve been enjoying it, but I think it’s time we called a truce.”
I stared down at the phone. Was Fletcher serious? Last I’d heard he had blown up his chances with that insane documentary idea. Was that why he wanted to call a truce? Because he had lost?
As if he could hear my thoughts, Fletcher went on. “When my daughter ends up in the hospital, I think it’s gone too far.”
“Your daughter is in the hospital?” I repeated. “Tiffany?” The band was around my chest again. Tightening. Tightening. He couldn’t mean Tiffany. It didn’t make any sense.
“My other daughter,” he said gleefully. “I think you know her a little bit better than Tiffany.”
No. Fuck no.
“You’ve gotten to know her pretty well over the last few months. I’m guessing she was on her way to your place when she got in the accident.”
The motherfucker was building suspense, the glee in his voice notching higher and higher. He was getting ready to drop the bomb, and even though I knew it was coming, there was nowhere to hide. No way to avoid the blast.
“Her name is…”
Don’t say Willow. Say any other name. Tell me that Dana is the fucking double agent somehow. But don’t say Willow.
“Willow Laurier.”
I hung up the phone a second too late. The name slipped through, branded itself in my brain.
Disbelief, quickly followed by anger, coursed through me. I stared around at the living room I’d been sitting in for the last twelve hours, worrying about Willow. The kitchen we’d cooked dozens of meals in. We’d made love on every couch, up against the balcony railing. It was saturated with her, with us.
And it had all been a fucking con.
The revelation was a kick in the chest, a knee to the balls. My whole body hurt with it. But I couldn’t get it through my thick skull. Not entirely. My brain kept saying, but it couldn’t be. It couldn’t.
So I called Landon.
“I need to know if Willow Laurier is really Willow James,” I said when he answered.
“Willow James?” he repeated.
“Yeah, as in Fletcher James’ daughter.”
A long, ominous silence. The quiet rhythm of his fingers flying across his keyboard. And then, “Shit.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, my brain finally getting the message. “Tell me,” I gritted out.
“She’s the daughter of Melinda Laurier, a former production assistant. Fletcher was fucking around on his wife, no surprise there. Got his production assistant pregnant. Looks like he got his wife pregnant around the same time.” Landon’s voice was measured, but I knew him well enough to catch the note of disdain. “Melinda Laurier had to sue to establish paternity and collect child support. There are a few articles about his relationship with Willow James. Doesn’t sound like he’s up for any father of the year awards.”
I sucked in my breath slowly, released it even more slowly, trying to dispel the red mist that was gathering in my vision. “Willow James,” I repeated slowly. And Fletcher had said she was in the hospital, but no wonder none of them had been able to tell me whether she was a patient. I hadn’t even known her real fucking name.