She’s using her motherly tone. The one she uses on Luca and her students. Hell, I’ve heard her use it on her husband a time or two before.
So, I explain the very short story leading up to my absolute freak out that made me ditch work in the middle of the day. My phone went off at least three times before an onslaught of text messages poured in. All Janel being concerned about me. Not mad at how I ran out. Not judgmental for being unprofessional.
Just worried.
I groan, realizing how I must look to Janel now. She’s been trusting me to handle the Moskins case, and all I’ve done is cross every line possible. “I’m probably going to lose my job,” I mumble, drying my face off once the tears stop flowing. “First, I let a client give me an orgasm, and then I ran out of a meeting with his manager like a scared little girl.”
“Whoa,” Kourtney drawls, gripping my hand tighter. “Did you just say you let someone…?”
I sniff again. “Yeah,” I murmur, not even caring that I’m admitting it. There are worse things going on in my life, so who gives me an orgasm isn’t the first thing on my mind right now. “Not my finest moment. Neither is the whole running away thing.”
She waves that off. “I don’t care about the second part at all. Not when you drop a massive bomb like this. You hadsexwith yourclient? The asshole who you said you couldn’t kill with kindness? When I told you to show him who is boss, I didn’t mean Venus flytrap him with your vagina.”
I really hope there aren’t cameras in here because I do not need anyone she works with to hear this conversation. “I didn’t have sex with him,” I whisper-hiss. “Things just got a little heated. And is that all you can focus on right now? Mom and Dad’s killer could very well be at my office as we speak!”
Kourtney pinches the bridge of her nose. “I have so many thoughts right now, but I don’t know where to begin.”
I blow my nose obnoxiously loud. “Can we begin with you referencing my vagina as a Venus flytrap?”
She snorts. “It sounded like the perfect analogy at the time. I kind of want the details, but I also don’t. Am I going to be grossed out if I ask how he got you off? Was he good? Is his dick big? Men who are assholes usually know how to use their dicks. It’s how women look past their bad personality. How the hell did things go from you loathing each other to him giving you the big O?”
This is not the reason I came here. “We’re getting way off track, considering the monumental event that brought me here.”
To her credit, she tries to let it go. “I’m going to reach out to our lawyer and see if he heard anything about Adam. But he knows better than to track us down. Think about it, Win. He’s not going to come after the people he’s screwed over. If anything, he’ll try starting over somewhere far, far away from Fairbanks.”
That’s what I would have thought, until he got arrested in the town over for that bar fight. “He was only thirty minutes away when he hurt that bartender. We don’t know what he’s capable of if he’s angry enough.”
She points out something very poignant. “We didn’t do anything for him to be angry about. It wasn’t us who convicted him. We were the ones who were hurt the most by his actions. I don’t want you to live in fear that he could come after you. I don’t want Mom and Dad’s deaths to be the reason you stop living. You’ve got so much potential, Winnie. You deserve the world, and they would have wanted you to be happy.”
I close my eyes, trying to refrain from letting more tears fall. “It’s not that I think he’ll hurt me. It’s just that…” How do I explain this? “Up until today, I haven’t let myselfthinkabout him. But when I saw his face, it all came rushing back.”
The trial. The pictures they showed. The way his lawyer tried to blameourparents for driving recklessly to get his client off easier. I understood why Kourtney told me not to go. Seeing the images on the screen of their mangled car, the very car I rode in only hours before the accident, ripped my heart apart. But nothing,nothingcould have prepared me for the pictures of Mom and Dad. I held on to Kourtney’s hand so tightly, I heard her joints crack from the pressure.
She stands and gives me a tight hug. It’s only when she squeezes me that I let myself relax against her and take a deep breath of her favorite lotion that smells like summer and cotton candy. Luca picks it out for her every year for Mother’s Day, and even though I’m not sure she likes it, she wears it for him.
“Babes,” she says softly, brushing my hair. “I’m sorry you went through that. I really am. And I wish I could have been there to tell you if it was him or not. I’m sad that I wasn’t around to give you that confirmation.”
I frown against her shoulder. “You can’t always be there for me.”
“I know. But I want to be,” she says, pulling away and swiping her thumbs over my cheeks. “And I’m glad you camehere to talk to me about it. Although, how did you get here? Did you Uber? Please tell me you didn’t walk.”
A laugh bubbles out of me. “I took the bus. The driver kept staring at me like I was about to have a breakdown. I waited until I saw you for that.”
She smiles, playing with the tips of my dyed hair. “That’s probably for the better. You’re not a pretty crier, sis.”
I roll my eyes that feel sore from wiping them. “Nobody is. Let’s not forget when we watchedMarley and Me, and you sobbed so hard you had snot coming out of your nose. I watched it slither out like a snake.”
She gasps dramatically. “That is totally justifiable! And you were crying too, you little bitch.”
We both start laughing, which lightens the weight resting on my chest. Then Kourtney’s smile wavers, and I can tell she wants to say something but isn’t sure if she should.
I tap my foot against hers. “What?”
She wets her lips. “Adam had a brother,” she says carefully, gauging my reaction. “I remember him at the trial. Their parents were there too.”
Why don’t I remember them? I’d studied his side of the courtroom to see who was there to support him—somebody so blatantly guilty of taking my mother and father away from me. I wanted to know how they felt. If they were going to argue for their son’s innocence. But I couldn’t bear to look at the people whom I wanted so badly to blame. Their images always blurred, and fury would take over until Kourtney forced me to switch sides with her to block my view.
She hadn’t let me memorize them.
