It took a moment for her face to register, but then I smiled. It was forced, of course.
Jennifer Ashstrom was a girl I’d gone to high school with. After graduation, I had severed ties with all my acquaintances, mainly because they went off to college while I’d opted to hide out in my mother’s twenty-thousand-square-foot mansion, reducing the risk of getting snatched again while telling my mother I was focusing on my art. Since Monica didn’t care about anyone but herself, I didn’t have to come up with a convoluted story to make it believable. She did her thing; I did mine.
I accepted Jen’s hug and returned it. She pulled back, stared at me with a wide grin.
“I cannot tell you how glad I am that you’re here.” She sighed dramatically. “I don’t know a soul, and it looks like my boyfriend’s abandoned me.”
More like she was looking for some gossip, and I was the bullseye. Didn’t matter how hard I tried to stay out of the public eye, that was where I often found myself, thanks to my mother. She used me as a platform to boost her popularity. Everyone loved a doting, adoring mother, and thanks to my very public kidnapping, she’d effectively created the lie for the world.
“In the same boat,” I told Jen. “Where’s Mandy and Mindy?” I asked, referring to the girls who used to be attached to Jen’s hip back in the day.
She sighed again. “They couldn’t come. They’re in Greece for a month. Family vacation. They aresobored! Said they’d much rather be here, but no.”
Oh, yes, those poor,poorspoiled, rich bitches off in Greece, likely “suffering” on a yacht the size of a small country.
“Heather and Addy are around here somewhere.”
So much for not knowing a soul, Jen, but nice try.
Jen’s upper lip curled, and her voice lowered. “They’re trying to get Kash Miller to fuck them both at the same time.”
I nearly said, “Hashtag relationship goals,” but caught myself just in time. At least theyhadgoals.
Jen’s smile amped up a few megawatts. “So, I say the single girls should enjoy.”
She linked her arm to mine, grabbed us two more shots, and proceeded to tell me what she’d been up to for the past four years while not-so-discreetly tossing in questions about my time in captivity. Didn’t matter how many years passed, people still wanted to know the details since I had refused to talk about it. I hadn’t even told my mother. Not that she’d really asked. Monica Quinn wasn’t known for her empathy toward others. In this case, I think she was too scared to know what might’ve been done to her sweet, innocent daughter. In her eyes, I’d been away at fat camp for a couple of weeks. Nothing bad couldpossiblyhappen at fat camp.
For the record, I was neither sweet nor innocent, and I had absolutely no desire to rehash the worst two weeks of my life, so even I was starting to pretend it had been fat camp.
The rest of the night was mildly boring. As was the case at most of these parties. Wes stayed gone, so Jen and I spent our time being voyeurs while she went off on a tangent about recent kidnappings, another attempt to get me to spill.
“I’m not talking about it,” I reminded her, trying to keep my tone civil.
“About any of them?” she asked, a hint of a plea in her tone.
“No.”
“You know you could write a book. Call itThe Most Kidnapped Girl in the World.” Her eyebrows popped like it was a brilliant idea. “You’d make a lot of money.”
Yeah, that wasn’t happening. The last thing I wanted to do was share with the world how I’d been used as a pawn for my mother’s doting fanbase.
The sad thing was Jen wasn’t exaggerating. I’d actually been kidnapped four times in my life, none of which had resulted in any harm done to me. I probably should’ve been more traumatized than I was, but it wasn’t really an option since my mother insisted I was never in danger. Monica claimed her fans would go to any lengths to get her attention—which had been the case the first three times. And like I said, we didn’t talk about the last one.
I didn’t think Monica was actually clueless; she merely chose to turn a blind eye, which was what she’d done when the nurse had taken me from the hospital when I was two days old. And again, when my nanny took off with me when I was four. I didn’t remember either of those, but I did recall the time when I was eight. Some crazy fan had been seeking a way to get close to my mother, so she managed to get me alone on the playground while my nanny was deep in conversation with her other nanny friends. It took the stranger no time to convince me my mother was hurt and she needed to take me to her.
I know what you’re thinking—don’t take candy or pet puppies because those people are bad. I got it. But I did take the bait. That woman had known all the right words to say, and I’d gone willingly, only to learn that the woman was bartering an autograph for my safe return.
Some people.
The fourth one had been real, though. A sincere ransom for money. No one had ever found the person responsible, and without me telling them anything that would lead them to whoever was behind it, they never would.
I chose not to tell Jen any of that because I fought hard to keep my private life private. That wasn’t the case for my mother. She wanted people to talk about her, so she did whatever was necessary to keep the attention on her. Including dragging out the kidnapping long after I was home, claiming to have suffered PTSD from the event.
Evidently, that was over because she was currently entertaining the idea of a reality show. I had no doubt people would tune in to watch Monica Quinn unravel on a daily basis. It happened. I’d seen it more times than I cared to admit.
3
Laikyn
