The Set Up (8 page)

Wanting to help her, I step closer and can’t help but notice how good she smells. Without thinking, I take the towel from her hand and wipe the streaks off her face. Just as the contact is made, I feel a rush of something strange course through me, and my body stiffens. My senses seem electrified.

As if struck by lightning, her body shudders in response to my touch.

What is this?

I try to shove the foreign feeling away.

Charlotte Lane holds a lot of memories for me. Too bad most of them aren’t good. And just like that, a black cloud settles over me just like the one over the plant the night of the explosion. “Yeah, I remember your name.”

Her smile fades the moment she must realize the shock of seeing her has worn off. “Thank you,” she says, taking the towel from my still outstretched hand.

I step back. “What are you doing here?” My tone is harsh.

Without answering me, she quickly moves toward the car and puts the dipstick back in the transmission fluid before she closes the hood to her very dirty Honda Civic. “My car broke down. I think I need to call for a tow truck.”

“No, not here.” I point to the ground. “In Detroit. Are you here to block the sale of the property?” I bluntly ask.

“No,” she says hoarsely.

“I don’t believe you.”

Her whole body jerks as if I’d slapped her. “Jasper, I’m not lying. I’m not here for that.”

I narrow my eyes at her. No matter how much my body wants to betray me, my head can’t wrap itself around the fact that her father and his business partner up and ran right after the accident.

Who knows the real story behind their flight?

It was never fully uncovered.

Some say deceit.

Others have called foul play.

The authorities ruled out any misconduct and therefore never pressed charges against either Adam Lane or Tom Worth.

Personally, I think there was money somewhere. There had to be. I’ve always gone along the lines that you run only because you have something to run from. So yeah, I can’t forgive what her family did to this town, to my family, to me.

On so many levels.

Cowards.

That’s what they were.

Cowards.

It was their plant, for fuck’s sake. People died brutal deaths and they didn’t attend any of the funerals. Didn’t send flowers. Didn’t even give as much as an
I’m sorry for your loss
.

I look at her with disdain in my eyes. “Whatever.”

“It’s true. I’m here—”

I cut her off. “You know what, never mind. I don’t care why you’re here.”

Her eyes close and then open. It’s a habit she has kept all these years. “JJ,” she starts.

I glower at her. “Don’t call me that.”

She gulps and her eyes close again, this time for slightly longer than a moment. I can’t help but notice her long lashes and the way they flutter against her skin. “Jasper. Please. Let me explain.”

I shake my head. “You don’t get to talk to me. I’ll call a tow truck to come up here and assist you. Just wait in your car.”

Clearly I’ve upset her. She’s trembling and I feel a little bad about my tone, but I can’t be near her. My head is all over the place and the memories of us, the innocent memories of two kids who just liked to play together—of a little girl who was always scared, of a little boy who liked to feel like he could take care of her—they are all I can recall. But I know that’s not all there is. There’s so much more. So much bad. And I don’t want to remember it anymore. I’ve already remembered too much.

With my phone to my ear, I make the call to my buddy Craig for a pickup and then look at her. “They’ll be here soon.”

She nods, and I swear she wrinkles her nose at me. Did she do that on purpose? Shaking off our childhood signal that meant she was fine, I head to my car. My hood is facing hers and once I’m sitting inside, I can’t keep my eyes from drifting her way.

She’s sitting in her front seat with her head down, and I think she’s crying.

Fuck.

Fuck.

Fuck.

I don’t need this right now. I don’t need to be distracted. Today is the most important day of my life. Today I get to claim that piece of land, and then Monday morning I’ll be at the town square and make sure that property is legally mine.

If that’s why she’s here, I won’t let her win.

I won’t.

I just won’t.

The tow truck promised to arrive in less than fifteen minutes, but even that seems like a lifetime. Each minute feels like hell. Every second that ticks by, I have to fight the urge to get out of my car and check on her. Make sure she’s okay. Make sure she’s not afraid. Ask her where she’s been. If her life has been good.

What the fuck is wrong with me?

Why don’t I just leave?

Because I can’t.

That’s why.

I can’t leave her out here alone—it isn’t safe.

And she hates to be alone.

No, she hated to be alone.

A long time ago she was a neglected child. I don’t know shit about her now.

Finally, the truck arrives, and as soon as the car is loaded and she’s in the passenger seat of the rig, it takes off.

I don’t look at her.

Not as the truck turns around, not as it hops on the interstate and heads south, and not as the taillights fade in the distance.

I consider going after her.

I don’t.

When the truck is out of sight, I’m left alone.

I feel strange.

I can’t move.

I feel numb.

I feel weird.

I feel like I wish I could redo that encounter, maybe in a different way.

A nicer way.

But there is no other way.

My hand hovers over the key, but I can’t start my car. I wait and wait and wait. I have to go in the same direction and I don’t want to come close to her. Charlie is dead to me. She’s been dead to me for twenty years. I never want to see her again.

But even as I think it, I know it’s a lie.

Yes, Charlie might be dead to me, but she has blossomed into a beautiful woman who couldn’t be more alive.

And her name is Charlotte.

ROAD BLOCK

Charlotte

TAKING OFF WITHOUT
doing what I came here to do isn’t an option.

My paycheck depends on it. I tried to argue with my boss not to send me out in the field on this assignment, but he wouldn’t listen. He told me he needed help and also promised me a future promotion if I did well.

Hopeful, I gave in. I never really had a choice. That was clear from our conversation, even if he did sugarcoat it. “Do what I tell you or leave now” is really what he meant.

So here I am.

And now Jasper knows I’m in Detroit.

And it went just the way I always knew it would.

You see, I know much more about his life than he knows about mine. I’ve thought about him for years. Devoured every word on social media ever written about him. Yearned to reach out to him. Yet, somehow I knew he wouldn’t be receptive. My side of the story wouldn’t matter because in the end, everything that happened to him happened because of what happened here—at Laneworth Automotive Parts Plant.

I look around.

People are everywhere.

The desolate acres of land are no longer the ghost town they had been earlier when I arrived. Thumbing through the photos I took less than an hour ago, I study them.
Odd.
I can’t ever remember coming here when I was little. Even staring at the rubble of the office building doesn’t help. Nothing stirs a memory. It bothers me. I want to remember it; I just can’t. I keep looking. Hopefully the pictures will be useful in my next steps.

“Excuse me, miss, but I need to set this table up.”

“Oh, sorry,” I say and move out of the way.

Forced to give up my quest, I look around again. It looks so different. Someone worked his or her magic very quickly. I’m now standing near at least a dozen tables dressed in red, white, and blue. There are tents, banners, taped-off areas, and even a small stage where the red Storm prototype sits. The place has become a madhouse. Hundreds of bodies are moving from one place to another. People are mingling. Smiling. There’s an element of hope in the air. Everyone seems genuinely happy.

God, I hope Jasper doesn’t tell anyone who I am.

“There you are,” Cole says.

Straightening my shoulders, I plaster a smile on my face and turn around. “Yes. Here I am.”

“I was beginning to worry you weren’t coming.”

I quickly slide my camera in my bag and set it out of sight. “I’ve been here for a while. I looked for you but didn’t see you.”

“Oh, you weren’t here when I arrived, so I took off for a bit to grab some coffee.”

“Sorry. I had car trouble.”

“Well, that sucks. Everything okay now?”

Cole Reynolds is not a man who cares to hear about personal problems. “Nothing I can’t handle.”

“Cool,” he says. “Where’s Eve?”

Cole Reynolds is Eve’s boss. As the senior blogger at
The Detroit Scene
, he is someone you want to be connected to. Too bad Eve took that literally and slept with him to get her job as junior blogger. Unfortunately for me, he’s also my very married boss. And I, on the other hand, did not sleep with him to get my job. I also, on the other hand, do not have my own column. I’m his assistant.

“Well?” he asks.

Nothing like being put in an awkward situation because your roommate never came back to the room last night when you know your boss planned for you to stay there so he could be with her tonight. I find his narrowed eyes. “I’m not sure.”

Cole continues to look at me sharply.

Unfortunately for me, I’m a bad liar and by process of elimination if she wasn’t with him, she had to be with someone from the party she went to last night. “Really, Cole, I have no idea where she is.”

A quick glance at his watch tells me he’s not happy. “She’s late.”

“I could call her.”

“I already did. She’s not answering her phone.”

My anxiety is high enough without the worry of covering up for Eve’s indiscretions. “I left early and when I got back there was no sign she had returned yet,” I confess.

There, I said it.

“Yet?”

“Ummm . . . yes. She went to a party late last night for the Storm and never came back.”

“I know she went to the party. I also know she left. I ran into her in the hotel lobby and it was pretty late.”

“You were here? I thought you were taking your family to the lake.”

“I did,” he snaps. “I left last night instead of this morning, not that it’s any of your business.”

“Maybe she went back to the party?” I suggest.

Cole’s tone is quiet, surprisingly calm, but his words are not. “Nice to know where her priorities lie.”

“I’m sure she’ll be here soon.”

Agitation is written all over his face. “Did you check my emails? Any information I might be able to use today?”

“I checked early this morning. Nothing other than a few messages marked ‘personal’ that of course I didn’t open.”

From Eve,
I neglect to add.

He nods and then focuses his attention elsewhere. “That’s Jasper Storm over there, isn’t it?” He points toward a group of men standing around the black car Jasper was driving this morning.

My heart stops at the sight of him leaning against his car with his arms crossed. Even at a distance, I can’t stop my body from shuddering. Hair the color of milk chocolate lightened by the sun spikes forward over his forehead and feathers against his cheeks in front of his ears. Short and wispy in the back, it sticks up everywhere. He’s wearing similar clothing to what he was wearing last night. The same clothes he was also wearing early this morning when I saw him on the road. Only these pieces aren’t wrinkled or dirty. Pressed crisp white shirt, unbuttoned at the top, paired with perfectly seamed black slacks, and a different pair of shoes. Older, I think. In the sunlight, I can see the impressive muscle tone of his arms and chest. The mouthwatering leanness of his waist. His face is tan. He must spend a great deal of time outdoors. His sunglasses are in place, hiding those light brown eyes that glimmer with specks of gold in the sun.

“Charlotte, I asked you a question.”