13. Hannah

Hannah

T oday is a day for awkwardness.

“God fucking dammit.”

—That’s part of it. Mason’s been in his office all morning, door open, with expletives rolling out at every opportunity.

The other half is the argument we had the other night. His apology. The strange . . . tension in the air between us since.

He hasn’t told me if he’s been looking into Missy’s disappearance. I haven’t asked. I know if I push him, he’ll probably tell me to fuck off back to Sacramento, so I’ve been giving him some space.

“Of course, it doesn’t match. Why would it?” he grumbles and I finally decide I can’t take it anymore.

“Are you trying to perform open heart surgery in here or are you just trying out new things to say when you’re pissed off?”

He doesn’t look up to where I stand at the door to the office, but I can see a spreadsheet on the screen in front of him.

He scrubs a hand over his face, letting out a deep sigh. “I don’t have the patience for you right now.”

“Rude.” I step into the office, looking over his shoulder. I don’t miss the way his spine stiffens with my proximity, and to be honest, it’s a little humorous.

Mason’s not as indifferent as he likes to pretend.

“Your equation’s wrong.”

“Thanks,” he mutters sardonically, erasing the whole thing. “Don’t you have some dirt to victimize or something?”

“Nope,” I answer, popping the P . I step back, giving him a little space. “Everything’s spotless. You could eat off the bathroom floor, though I wouldn’t advise it.” No response other than a shake of his head. “You know, I could probably figure that out.”

“No,” he answers coldly before I’m even finished. “I’ll figure it out.”

I shrug. Fine. He wants to be miserable, then he can be miserable. Who am I to stop him?

“Suit yourself . . . though, spreadsheets were kind of my whole degree in college.”

His jaw ticks, but he doesn’t look at me as he tries, once again, to figure it out.

Five minutes later, the cursing starts again.

“Hannah,” he bites and I chuckle under my breath.

I take my time returning back to the door and this time, he’s looking at me like he already regrets asking me for my help.

He mulls the words over for a moment.

“Can you show me how to figure this shit out?”

I stare at him for a beat, unable to mask the coy smile from slipping out.

“Am I hearing things or did Mason Carpenter just admit he needs my help with something?”

He shakes his head, turning back to the computer.

“I’ll figure it out myself.”

I sigh, rolling my eyes. So dramatic.

“Move over. Let me see.”

I shove his arm and he lurches it back like I just doused him in gasoline and lit a match. He eyes me menacingly before vacating his giant chair and allowing me to take his place.

My feet don’t even touch the ground, a fact I’m only slightly embarrassed about. Mason may as well have auditioned to play a tree in the Wizard of Oz .

“Okay, obviously we just need to start over,” I murmur, trying to make sense of whatever he’s done. “Are these the books?”

“Invoices for the month,” he grumbles, sitting a battered chair from the lobby behind me.

Right behind me.

The back of my neck burns when he sits down, watching me work.

I never knew simple accounting could be so . . . alluring.

“How do you normally figure this stuff out?” I ask to break up the overwhelming silence.

At this proximity, I can smell the soap on his skin from a shower. He hasn’t been in the garage, so he’s not been sweaty and greasy today, but even that smells heavenly.

Is it creepy to get turned on by the scent of someone else?

Do I just need to get laid? It’s been . . . God, I don’t even know how long.

He clears his throat shifting in his chair and I just so happen to peek down at his denim-clad thigh, right next to mine.

Okay, I definitely need to get laid. A man’s thigh has never turned me on before and right now, there’s a steady pulse in my core.

“Figure it out at tax time.”

I’m pleased to see his voice is no longer pissed off. It’s softer. Nicer.

“It’s probably all fucked up.”

“Mason,” I scold quietly, turning back to him. “People get thrown in jail for that.”

His eyes zero in on mine and I almost look away from the intensity behind them. He shrugs. “No one’s said anything yet.”

“Trust me,” I grimace, turning back to the spreadsheet. “No one ever says anything, they just show up one day and shut you down.” I start building a new spreadsheet for last month, completely ignoring what he’s already done. It’s just easier to start over at this point.

“Then where would you turn?” he murmurs darkly and I swallow past the lump in my throat.

“Mason, I know I haven’t said this, yet,” I say quietly, afraid to look at him. Fortunately, when I’m stressed, I do a better job. I always hated what I went to college for. It was boring, but Mom insisted, stating it would land me a better job in the long run. “But thank you.”

If only she could see me, now. Sat in Mason’s little dusty office, typing away on an ancient computer and fixing the books for his mechanic’s shop. Something about knowing she would be angrier than a cat in a laser factory makes me almost laugh.

Mason, on the other hand, doesn’t reply, but he doesn’t need to. I can feel the animosity firing in the air like electrical charges.

“Why are you doing this, Hannah?” he asks after a long time of watching me work.

“You needed help.”

“You know what I’m talking about.”

I swallow, sucking in a deep breath.

How do I tell him and make him understand when I don’t even know myself?

“I just . . . I can’t abandon her.”

“She abandoned you.”

I peek at him over my shoulder and find him watching me. For once, he doesn’t look like he hates me. He’s inspecting me as if he’s trying to find something. Some shred of doubt that maybe I won’t follow through with this.

“She did,” I admit, finally. I can’t tell if it feels good to say that out loud, or not. “But where would we be if we were always keeping a tally on who owes whom?”

He doesn’t have an answer for that. His gaze darkens, but he doesn’t say anything, so I turn back to the spreadsheet.

“You know what they’re accusing her of.”

It’s not a question.

A pit forms in the bottom of my stomach. The same one that always comes with racing thoughts about Missy.

“I know.” I’m ashamed of how small my voice sounds when I say it.

“And if it’s true?”

It can’t be. Sure, she slept with someone else’s husband. That’s not a crime, though it is disgusting. Especially with Marcus Parker, but . . . human trafficking? The Missy I knew wouldn’t have been able to stomach it.

But . . . the same Missy I knew also wasn’t deranged and sinister. Or hooked on some illegal concoction that makes people eat each other.

That night flashes back across my mind. The night Mason came and brought Marcus to take Missy away.

The night I kissed him. If I think about it for a moment, I can still feel the way his calloused hands felt against the smooth bare skin of my legs, my back. The way his fingers gripped the roots of my hair, pulling on the strands like he couldn’t get me close enough.

A shudder rolls through me, but I readjust in the chair to hide it.

Mason doesn’t need to know I still think about that night. Or the way he tasted like nicotine, whiskey and sweet, sweet temptation. Like a bad man who would do all the right things for a good girl.

—Or that I still have that damned flannel.

“ If it’s true,” I mumble, “then I can’t help her. I’ll turn her in because it’s the right thing to do.”

“And you could do that? To your sister?”

I don’t like what he’s implying, but I ignore it. As if I’m not strong enough.

“Doesn’t sound very loyal of me, does it?”

“Doesn’t sound very Hannah of you,” he corrects.

“Maybe you don’t know me as well as you thought,” I challenge.

“Oh, little doe, I know you very, very well.”

Holy shit.

My cheeks flame and that burn in my core amplifies. Little doe . It’s been years since he’s called me that, but even now, it has the same effect it did back then. My stomach tightens and I get all these crazy ideas in my head before I brush them to the side and remind myself that Mason and I are nothing more than unwilling partners in a battle between families.

And then I remember the way he completely cut me off after that night.

“It’s done,” I say quietly after a long, harrowing silence. “You’re in the green for the month by fifteen thousand and some change, though I don’t know if that number’s really correct because the rest of the months might be wrong.”

“Can you . . . “ he pauses when I turn around in the chair to face him. It feels like looking into the eye of a hurricane. “Can you look at the rest of them?”

I cock a brow at him.

“Are you giving me free rein to fix stuff?”

His jaw ticks.

“Yes.”

Finally. Some common ground.

“I’ll move the computer out there and you can go through all of it. I just . . .”

“It’s okay. Sometimes math is easier for some, and cars are easier for others.”

That actually seems to work because he nods solemnly.

“Hannah . . .” he starts to say something else, but he cuts himself off while I wait on bated breath. Is this where he finally gives me whatever information he was able to find out about Missy? Or is this where he apologizes for being a ghost of a dick for almost two years?

Unfortunately, neither.

“Were you able to find anything out?”

Something flashes across his gaze, but it’s gone before I can read it.

“No. I spoke to some contacts, but . . . nothing.”

Fuck.

Tears burn in the corners of my eyes, but I shove them away before he can see them and turn back to the computer.

“Well, I guess I’ll get started on this. There’s no telling how long it’ll take.”

“Hannah,” he murmurs, though there’s something conflicting in his voice. A guilt that wasn’t there before. “I’ll keep looking. I’ve got a couple other people to talk to.”

“Okay,” I nod, my voice higher than usual.

He waits for a moment as if he’s going to say something else, but eventually, he just gets up and heads toward the door.

“I’ll move the computer Monday. We’re almost done for the day, so why don’t you go home.”

“It’s only four,” I point out and he shrugs, not looking at me.

“And it’s hot.” He starts to walk away but stops at the door. “Have a good weekend, Hannah.”

I almost smile, despite everything.

That’s the nicest he’s been to me since I started.

“Have a good weekend, Mason.”

My house is pink.

Like Barbie went manic and redecorated on a Tuesday pink.

The outside is pink. The linoleum floors in the kitchen and bath? Pink sparkles. The couch that came with the house? You guessed it. Pink. There was even some custom pink toilet paper that I put away when I moved in.

Normally I wouldn’t complain. I was fortunate to find a place this cheap in a moderately decent neighborhood in LA and that’s saying something. Most of the places I looked at were either overpriced cardboard boxes or felt like at any moment, I was going to find some creep living in the walls.

I just feel anything but cheerful tonight, and the pink makes me feel like I have to be.

Like one of Mom’s parties.

I still haven’t finished unpacking, but if Mason really is looking into Missy’s disappearance, I may not have to. If I can find Missy, I can go home, or . . . something. I still haven’t decided.

To be honest, the prospect of coming back to LA freaking petrified me. The people aren’t the same here. They’re more . . . in your face. Everyone’s trying to make something of themselves, as opposed to back in Sacramento that’s full of the elderly and politicians.

I’m well and truly on my own for the first time in my entire life.

It’s liberating, but . . . it’s also fucking terrifying.

Imagine being murdered and the police show up at your house, only for it to be some bubblegum pink nightmare dollhouse?

I don’t know. Maybe I’m just being cynical.

This is the part where I always come up short in my irrational plan to take the law into my own hands.

I thought I had it all figured out. My Barbie’s dream house Airbnb is rented under a false name—not hard to do. My mother thinks I’m in Africa on a mission trip for her charity—something I’ve done before. Even Michael, my best friend, doesn’t know I’m here.

I don’t even know where Missy’s been living the last two years and LA isn’t exactly a small town. I can’t just ask the neighbor if they’ve seen a woman who looks like me at the local 7-Eleven. I have no real concrete evidence to go by and that’s not exactly conducive to completing my mission.

Which is . . . I don’t really know.

Find Missy? Take her home?

I’ve heard things about what she’s done. Some bad. Some worse. I can’t stomach the thought of her doing any of what the rumors say, so I choose not to believe them.

Does that make me the problem? An enabler?

I’ve gone over the places she could be hiding in my head a billion times. I’ll be honest, the odds of finding her are not in my favor.

Especially if I can’t find somewhere to start.

And to think . . . I lied. I lied and told my mother I would go help build a school in a little village that really needs it, yet, here I am, sitting in my pink house trying to piece together the clues to my sister’s disappearance. Does that make me . . . bad? Mason said no, but there’s still that part of me that wonders if all these lies will eventually start to tumble down on one another until I’m left in the rubble.

Fuck.

“What am I going to do?” I groan, laying my head in my hands because that seems like the best course of action when you’re all alone on a Friday night.

And then my phone buzzes.

There are only three people that could be.

My mother, who won’t call because, again, she thinks I’m off the grid.

Michael, who also won’t call because he too thinks I’m off the grid.

And . . . them.

Begrudgingly, I check the screen and find a number I don’t know, but hey, at least it’s not Unknown, right?

“Hello?”

No answer, save for the sounds of idle background noise.

“Hello?”

Again, no answer.

“Look asshole. I don’t know who you are or why you keep calling me, but if you don’t even have the balls to say it—”

“Ha—Hannah?”

I freeze as ice fills my veins. I know that voice.

“Missy?” I jump up from the couch and cut the TV completely. “Missy, is that you?”

“Hannah, I’m in trouble,” she whispers, voice barely legible over the racing of my heartbeat in my chest.

“Missy, where are you?”

“I—I don’t know,” she stammers. “You’ve got to help me. They’re going to kill me.”

“Missy—”

“I don’t have a lot of time,” she whispers, voice cracking. “They’re going to come back.”

“What’s it look like where you are? Are you still in California?” The panic in my chest swells at the sound of her quiet crying on the other end of the phone. “Who is coming for you?”

“I—I’m in some kind of warehouse. I think I’m in LA, but I don’t know. Hannah, they’ve been drugging me. They’re going to kill me.”

“Who?”

“ Men ,” she cries, but she doesn’t explain. “These men are after me, because of Marcus. Because he loved me and took care of me. Oh my God, Hannah. I miss him so much. Our home.”

“We can get you back home, I just need to find you.”

“ No ,” she hisses, almost venomously. “My home. With Marcus.” She sucks in a deep breath. “With the man I love.”

“Missy, where was your house?”

“I’ve got to go,” she says hurriedly. “I can hear them coming. Find me, Hannah.”

“Missy—” I growl, but a cold, harsh click followed by silence is all that greets me.

I stare at the phone in my hand for a moment, Missy’s words repeating over and over again in my mind.

They’re going to kill me.

“Fuck!” I curse, throwing my phone across the room and instantly regretting it. I rush to it, letting out a deep sigh of relief when I realize it’s not broken.

She may call back.

“What the hell am I supposed to do?” I repeat, looking up at the ceiling. What do you know? It’s pink, too.

But of course, it doesn’t answer.

My phone does, though, as another buzz against the hardwood floor startles me into scrambling to grab it.

A text.

You’ll never guess from who.

Unknown: I wonder why Mason Carpenter hasn’t told you about your sister’s finger ending up in his mother’s mailbox yet?

Unknown: Curious.

Unknown: Curious, indeed.

My heart bottoms out, reading the message, but it’s quickly replaced with revulsion when the picture comes through.

Because there it is. The mustache tattoo I always hated.

Only, now, it’s detached and lying next to a photograph of Missy, tied up. Gagged. Tears streaming down her face.

Unknown: Seems time’s running out.

Unknown: Tick Tock.