Fatal Beauty (14 page)

"Why are you here, EJ? What the hell are we doing?"

EJ blinks, and a startled laugh climbs up, filling the car for a
moment before she shuts it down, clamps it off and shakes her head. "Is
that what this is? The why are we doing this crisis? Is it because of your
phone call to Daddy?"

"It's because you just made me come, and I'm not sure what
you expect from me," Charlie snaps, stung.

"Nothing," EJ says, tightly, leaning forward and
reaching for the radio.

Charlie slaps her hand away. "Talk to me, EJ."

"What the hell do you want me to say?"

"What do you want?"

"I want to cripple Jacobs, and I want a fucking castle in
Ireland. I want you to come with me because you're my best friend and I can't
imagine any of this without you. Because this—every fucking thing that's
happened since Tre died—has been a giant snowball of insanity and Jacobs is
still out there. So the snowball will keep growing. And I can't do this by
myself." It hits her, like a punch in the gut and her lips are numb as she
whispers, "I need you."

Charlie's grip on the wheel tightens, but she smiles and some of
the tension eases out of her. Just a little. Just enough to tell EJ that she
had said the right thing. "And last night?"

A deep breath. "Sex never means anything, right? So it
doesn't."

Silence lingers, and EJ reaches for the radio again. Just before
she clicks it on, she adds, "Unless you want it to mean something."

She catches Charlie's startled look, but she doesn't acknowledge
it as music fills the car. Instead, she lowers her sunglasses, and tilts her
head toward the sun, away from Charlie, and only then does she let a tiny smile
play on her lips.

Putting the ball in Charlie's court was a gamble, but she'd always
been very good at playing the odds.

*

They drive all day and into the night. EJ has emails out to her
people and it's almost midnight and they are approaching Santa Fe when she
finally gets a response.

"He's in Vegas," EJ murmurs. Charlie glances at her, a
curious look in the dark car. She's driving again, but she's been fighting
sleep for hours, and EJ knows they need to stop.

"But he can do the IDs."

"So we go to Vegas and then we get out of the country,"
Charlie says. It's so final, and so damn overdue. Everything she's been wanting
and working for, dreaming of, since the first time her mother stood her in
front of a mirror in a designer wedding dress.

She shivers and nods. "Yeah. We go to Vegas."

"You ok?" Charlie asks her, voice soft.

"I'm fine. Tired. We should stop."

"Ok," she says, a simple agreement that startles EJ.
Charlie is so used to getting what she wants that agreeing so easily is almost
alarming. But she doesn't press, just sits up and twists around to grab her
purse as Charlie drives through the night until they hit an exit with a decent
hotel. Neither seems too eager to repeat the shit hole they hid in outside of
Little Rock and there's enough distance between them and New Orleans now that
EJ can breathe. Maybe not quit worrying altogether, but she can breathe and
that's something.

She shifts through the bag, until she comes up with the phone and
her fake IDs and Charlie nods at it. "Why did Jacobs have a fake ID for
you?"

"Insurance. If he ever had to run, I'd be able to follow him.
Any ticket he left would be in this name. My accounts are in this name. It's
his way of making sure I had something to protect me and a way out, if shit
ever hit the fan on his end."

Charlie is quiet for a moment and then, "He loves you."

EJ bursts out laughing, and Charlie blinks, startled as she stops
at a red light on the exit ramp.

"What?"

"Jacobs doesn't know how to love. He takes care of me. He
took care of
Ziva
and the house, and this car too,
for that matter. It's what he does. He takes care of things he thinks are
his," she says, simply and matter of
factly
.

Charlie blinks at her, startled. “But you aren’t his.”

She smiles, and it’s a bitter thing that is almost painful. “I’ve
been Jacobs’ since I was ten years old, Charlie.”

She pushes out of the car and disappears into the hotel, and
Charlie stares after her.

She doesn’t know what to do with that, with the quiet helplessness
in EJ’s voice and the acceptance of something that doesn’t make sense.

EJ is, in her mind, where she will admit it to no one but herself,
a woman she admires. Because she lives on her own terms, and to hell with what
everyone around her thinks. Because she’s wild and reckless and fearless, and
completely unapologetic.

It’s almost sociopathic, her casual disregard for the world around
her. And it fascinates Charlie.

Growing up Travis Brooks’ daughter, she was groomed early for a
specific role. Groomed to be the smiling face who welcomed people into her
family home for parties, and quietly ushered criminals into her daddy’s office
for business. She was useful because she was lovely and complimentary and she
kept her mouth shut. Later, when Tre swept into her life, she became useful as
a way to climb into bed with Travis’ firm and a nice fuck to end a long day.

She was raised to compliment the men around her and she quietly
hated it while knowing there was nothing to be done. In her world—in her
family—that was simply the way things were.

EJ had never abided by those rules. She didn’t date in school, and
she didn’t work for her father—or any of the subsequent stepfathers. She
ignored her mother as much as possible, and started her own company, and
traveled whenever she wanted, and no one told her anything. Some of the idiots
at the country club used to whisper about it.

No one understood her.

But even before that afternoon so long ago when she caught EJ
dealing coke in the locker room, Charlie had watched her and been intrigued.

And jealous.

To hear her say something like this. To hear the cold finality in
her voice. It shakes her. And it enrages her.

She picks up the phone and dials before she can think it through.

“Ellie.” The voice is smooth and relieved and angry.

“She’s not here. And you need to let her go.”

A moment of silence and then Jacobs laughs. “Ballsy little mouse.
You have no idea what you’re doing, do you? But you’re outraged about something
and it has to be my fault. Please. Tell me. What has you so righteously
indignant?”

“She isn’t yours. And you’ve done enough to fuck her up. Leave her
alone,” Charlie snaps. Her voice is shaking with anger and she can’t help but
hate that. Hate that he hears her so unhinged.

“Does it occur to you, little
mouse, that
she is who she is because she’s mine? Because I’ve taught her how to be who she
is?”

“EJ didn’t need you fucking around in her life to be amazing.”

“No,” he agrees. “She was that well before I found her. I just
cultivated the thing I found so naturally in her. Do you want to know what it
is?”

Fear settles in her gut, and she hesitates.

She doesn’t. She doesn’t want him to tell her anything about EJ
because that would admit something she doesn’t want to be true.

He knows her. Better than Charlie does. Better than Charlie ever
could. The history between them—it doesn't bother her that Jacobs was once her
stepbrother. In their world, that is true of so many it's barely worth
mentioning. It's a tiny blip on the radar. But the history. She can't dismiss
that and she's been trying. Trying to ignore it.

"Are you afraid, Charlie?" he murmurs and it sounds the
way he did when he was inside her. "Are you afraid that when I catch
up--and I will--she will forget you? If you aren’t, you're an idiot and I
refuse to believe that of you."

She thinks, in a twisted sort of way, Jacobs just complimented her
and she almost wants to revel in it. Instead, she licks her lips and forces out
the question. "What did you see in her?"

He laughs. "The same thing she saw in you."

Panic claws at her and her grip tightens on the phone. His voice
is cool and detached. "Are you sure you want to know that?"

"She left you."

Jacobs scoffs. "Do you really think that means something?
Would you like to know how many times she's done that?"

"Bastard," she snarls, so furious everything else fades
away.

"Listen to me, little mouse. I'll drag her home because when
everything else falls away, she chooses me. She always has and always will.
Remember that."

"Fuck yourself," she spits.

"Give Ellie my love. And tell her I'll see her soon."

The line goes dead and she drops the phone like
it’s
diseased, rubbing her hand against her jeans to shake the gross, skin-crawling
feeling from it. She can’t shake the feeling that it was incredibly stupid to
call him. That she should have left it alone and let EJ continue to deal with
him.

The passenger door open and EJ slides inside. “We got the suite,”
she says happily. “Which comes with a real bathroom. Pull around.”

Moving on autopilot, she pulls the car around the side of the
hotel and parks. EJ is rummaging around, muttering under her breath and Jacobs’
words are swirling around her head, too loud and she wants to scream, wants to
do anything to drown him out.

“Ready?”

She blinks at EJ, and leans forward, catching her in an unexpected
kiss.

EJ goes still for a heartbeat, and then her hands are in Charlie’s
hair, holding her still as her lips part and her tongue tangles with hers.

She tastes impossibly sweet, like strawberries and chocolate, and
there is something intoxicating about the way she effortlessly controls the
kiss, her hand coming up to cup Charlie’s throat, squeezing just a little. When
she finally pulls back, Charlie’s breathing is choppy and her eyes are glassy,
and EJ’s staring at her, lips full and red. “What was that for?” she rasps.

Charlie shakes her head.

“No reason at all,” she says with a tight smile, and opens her
door. “Come on. Let’s go in.”

Part 3:

The Crash

Las Vegas Police
Department. Interrogation Room B.

Detective Blackmon:
Did you know that
you were being sought in regards to the disappearance of your fiancée? Is that
why you were on the run?

Charlotte Brooks:
I didn’t know any of that.
When I left Charleston, I wasn’t under investigation. If I were, I wouldn’t
have left. My father didn’t raise me to evade the authorities.

Blackmon:
Yes. Your father. A
criminal defense attorney. Care to explain that?

Brooks:
(flatly)
My
father’s career choice is why I’m being detained? I’ve not passed the bar, but
I’m pretty sure that’s against the law.

Blackmon:
Where were you two weeks
ago?

Brooks:
EJ and I were in Santa Fe.
Why?

Blackmon:
Tell me about your time
there.

Brooks:
(Silence)

Blackmon:
Something to hide, ma’am?

Brooks:
Not at all. But I’m tired.
I’ve been here since four am. I’m hungry, and I want to know if I’m being
charged. I want to know where the fuck EJ is.

Blackmon:
 
She hasn’t been brought in.

Brooks:
(laughing) Of course she
hasn’t. You can’t find her. Can you?

Blackmon:
The FBI is searching the
apartment of
Blaincot
. Will we find your DNA there?

Brooks:
Maybe. I visit him when I
go through Memphis. I’ve been friends with him since we were at
Vandy
together. That’s in your records.

Blackmon:
You have pretty extensive
training in firearms, Ms. Brooks. Why is that?

Brooks:
My father is a criminal defense
attorney and I live in the Deep South. You do the math.

Blackmon:
Tell me about the events in
Santa Fe.

Brooks:
(Silence)

Blackmon:
Still won’t talk about
that? Why? What happened?

Brooks:
(Silence)

Blackmon:
Would you like to hear my
theory? (Pause) I think she talked you into all of this.
Blaincot
,
the John Doe in his apartment, hell, maybe even the disappearance of your
fiancée. I think that Santa Fe was her idea as well. And it got out of
hand—maybe more than even she—“

Brooks:
There was no plan. I don’t
know what happened but EJ and I didn’t do anything. And if you had evidence
that said otherwise, you’d have booked me. So why am I still here?

Blackmon:
(Silence)

Brooks:
This has been a lot of fun,
Detective but put out or shut up—charge me or I’d like to go home.

Blackmon:
I can hold you for
questioning for up to forty-eight hours. I can still find the evidence to pin
all of this on you.

Brooks:
(Quietly) Then you should
go find it. Because it’s not going to be found talking to me.