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“Yes, and guess what? Jordan knew him!” I vaguely notice that the volume of my voice has risen to twice its normal levels thanks to the alcohol warming my stomach.
“What?”
“The dead guy is, was, a private investigator.”
“Oh,” she mutters. “And Jordan hired him?”
I nod while reaching for the bottle and chugging the amber liquid right from it. My entire body shivers when I stop. “Yes.”
“Jordan hired the PI to look into you?”
“Bingo!” I take another swig then pass the bottle to Celeste. “I can’t believe he asked a stranger to dig up information on me. That’s probably howhefound me.”
“I’m sure that Jordan didn’t mean any harm when he did it.”
“I know he didn’t. And he’s right. I should have told him how dangerous my father is and that this would happen if he poked around. But I’m still so mad at him for bringing him right to our doorstep!”
“Why kill the two men though, if it was your father or someone acting on his orders?”
I give her a shrug. “I don’t know. Maybe because the PI knew who I really was. I don’t know why my father, or his torturer do what they do, or why they have to make it so…gruesome.” Grabbing her hand on the bottle of Fireball, I tell her, “I am so,so sorry you and Greer had to close the bar yesterday because of me.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Celeste tells me again giving my hand a reassuring pat of hers. “Sure, you could have maybe told Jordan more about your life before you met him, but I get wanting to hide your head in the sand and try to pretend nothing but the present is your life. That’s how I ended up here in Rockland, at this bar actually.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was living out of my car, running from place to place, hiding from my own demons.”
“Oh. I didn’t know. You paid for a private plane...”
“I didn’t touch any of my money after I ran. It was too risky, I didn’t want...” She trails off and chugs straight from the bottle.
“You didn’t want anyone to find you?”
Celeste uses the back of her hand to wipe her mouth before passing the bottle back to me. “Exactly. So, I get where you’re coming from, how you just want to move on with your life and forget the past. But unfortunately, life doesn’t work that way. And my past nearly killed me and Greer. Thankfully he’s in prison now.”
I consider her words as I take another big gulp. “My father, his employee, they’ll never end up in prison. I think they would rather die first.”
“Then they’re even more dangerous than I assumed.”
“They are,” I agree. “And I don’t know what to do. Last night I packed my things, what few things I own, and was going to leave. But Jordan talked me out of it, convinced me to stay with him. Now, I’m so angry at him, but I don’t want to leave like this, during an argument. It doesn’t seem right.”
“God, I honestly have no idea what you should do, Maddie.”
Folding my arms on the table, I lay my head down on them. “I wish I could convince Jordan to just leave with me, to go somewhere and start over again.”
“You’ll just be delaying the inevitable. For the short term you may think you’ll be happy, but aren’t you tired of having to constantly look over your shoulder?”
“Yes. But I don’t want to go back to my old life either. My father, there’s no way he would ever let me stay here. And um, his employee is sort of part of the reason why I ran away.”
“Oh, wow. The torturer did something bad to you?”
“Something bad, but also good if that makes any sense?”
“Bad but good?”
I think back to that night that feels like a million years ago. “It was…unexpected for him to attack me out of the blue, but I liked it. I hate that I liked it, but I did. Then, after it was over, I realized that the only reason he did it was because he wanted my father to catch him, to catch us, so he would kill him. He was using me to hurt my father, to make him so angry he would snap and kill him so he would finally be free.”
“Be free?” she asks softly.
