Chapter Twenty - Part Three

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” I said politely, pausing on the last step of the staircase to lean against the banister. I smiled at Ethan, and then addressed my mother. It was the second time that I had officially met her, and also the first that I could see her eyes – which were large like mine, but a light brown rather than green. And while Ethan and I were both dressed in jeans and t-shirts, here my mother stood in a black, pencil neck skirt, with Gucci heels, and a sleeveless, cream-colored blouse tucked into the skirt’s high waist. Her long hair was pulled back into a high pony-tail, showing off her bare, slender neck. And she was a natural beauty with very little makeup, and appearing much younger than I had expected. But her arrogance and disdain seemed to take away from her youthful appearance, causing you to notice her unkindness first, rather than her exquisite looks.

“We need to talk,” Paris said, shooting Ethan an icy look of reproach. “And alone, preferably.”

“Naomi, I was here first,” Ethan replied, petulant, and folding his arms, but still unable to meet Paris’ Medusa-like gaze. And from the way she looked at him, it wasn’t hard at all to picture him turning into stone.

“Ethan’s my Champion, Paris. You may not attend Pack meetings, but surely you knew that. So anything you have to say to me, you can say in front of him.”

I met her gaze squarely, and descended the last step. We were equal of height, and she was only a few feet away. We would be a level match-up in a fight, I knew…

“I beg to differ, Naomi. This is family business of a rather sensitive nature that needs to be discussed –”

“I’m sorry, Paris, but was your discussion about killing your husband really supposed to be private?” said Ethan, interrupting, with his eyes wide and full of innocence. “Because if you’re here to talk about how you paid off a couple of coroners to hide the truth about your husband’s death, then I can totally just leave…”

Paris turned to look at me with a horrified expression, and I knew Ethan had successfully caught her off guard.

“What? He’s my Champion.” I said with a calm shrug.

“You think you know everything. You think you know the truth –”

“It’s in black and white,” I said, with immediate bitterness. “And you have the proof right there in your hands. You killed him…”

“Is that what you think?” she asked, taking a few steps toward me. “That I could kill your father? That I could murder my own husband in cold blood?”

“How can you expect her to believe otherwise?” Ethan said, stepping in again. “You were never there for her. She doesn’t know you like the rest of us do, Paris.”

“True, Ethan,” Paris said. “But a mother knows her daughter. And I know that if Naomi is capable of unraveling a pack of lies, then she is just as capable of discovering the real truth.”

“So what are you saying?” I said, with a hard grin. “That the evidence is a lie? That you didn’t really kill my father?”

“Well, as damning as the evidence would appear to be…” Paris said, inspecting the nails of her perfect, French manicure. “Yes. I had no part in my husband’s death.”

“She’s lying, Mimi.” Ethan said quietly, as they both looked to me. “Don’t listen to her. I say we call the Elder right now – like we should have done from the start – and let her be a Hunter’s problem.”

“Oh, well here then, darling...” Paris said, rummaging in her small, white clutch to produce her phone, which she then extended to me. “Would you like to make the call? Or should I do it? I’ve got Charles on speed dial.”

“Well, allow me to do the honors then,” Ethan said, snatching the phone from Paris.

Meanwhile, my mother continued to merely stand there and smile. And smugly, she crossed her arms over her chest as she waited for Ethan to dial the number.

“You seem pretty confident for someone on their way to jail,” I said, speculating aloud.

But Paris said nothing, only letting her smile widen mysteriously. And it was a smile I recognized – the same grin I used when I knew that I had an Ace up my sleeve and I was about to deal some serious damage.

Quickly, I grabbed the phone from Ethan’s hand.

“Sorry, wrong number.” I said to the female 911 operator on the other line, and tossed the phone back to Paris.

“Naomi, my beautiful, cunning, meddling daughter – I wasn’t even with your father the day he died. Actually, I was overseas with a friend, drinking martinis and considering divorce.”

“You can’t come up with a better lie than that?” I replied, disgusted. “Your statement was in the papers – you were horseback riding at Challenger Stables when he had that heart attack. You told the police that yourself.”

“I have the same newspaper clipping sweetheart. I keep it in the drawer beside my vibrator. But I wasn’t the one who told the police what happened. In fact, my plane didn’t arrive back in Harbor until the day after.”

“But if you were out of the country the day Jack died,” I said slowly, as realization hit. “Then who was really with him? Who talked to the police while pretending to be you?”

Paris gave a bitter smirk, and my I felt my insides twist into knots.

“Oh someone who looks a lot like me, but can horseback ride much better…”

“Thalia,” I said quietly. “It was your sister, Thalia, who was with him that day. But why?”

“I have my suspicions they were having an affair,” Paris said coldly, looking the most distant that I’d ever seen her. “Thalia’s always been jealous of my marriage. But at the time, Jack and I were having our own… issues… and when I left town, she must’ve seen that as an opportunity to get close to him.”

“But that doesn’t explain why you hid the autopsy report and the paid off the coroners. You made it seem like you killed him –”

“I never went to the morgue either,” Paris said, looking regretful for the first time. “I was angry, hurt. I had just found out my husband was dead, and on top of that I thought that he was having an affair. So as soon as my flight touched down, I went to Charles and we had a discussion. And from there, we decided that it was best to let the rest of the world think he had really died with me. The family couldn’t handle the scandal of an affair on top of his death, so we kept it hidden. Charles said he would send someone for the body, and it was taken care of. I never saw him again until the funeral.

“So you never knew about the autopsy report?” Ethan said, but looking stubbornly unconvinced.

“I’d never even seen it until it came in the mail,” Paris replied, eyes flashing.

“Naomi,” Ethan said, stepping in between the two of us, to make sure he held my full attention. “You can’t listen to her. She’s probably just lying to save her own skin.”

“Look, I’m not gonna pretend as if the odds aren’t clearly stacked against her. But how much harm could it do just to confirm her story?”

“If we don’t turn you in…” I said, stepping around Ethan to confront my mother again. “If we let you walk away, right now, will we get more answers? But more importantly, will your alibi hold up?”

“I could tell you, but why don’t you find out yourselves?” Paris replied, as Ethan gave me a look of severe frustration. “Let’s play a game…” she said, digging in her purse and pulling out her large, dark sunglasses to hide her eyes and the sudden fury that had filled them. “Why don’t we see who can find my husband’s murderer first? Winner can pay for therapy. Then perhaps we’ll be able to salvage something from this disaster of a family.”

“Well, may the best woman win,” I replied, with a darkness to my tone. “But if you find out anything you have to promise to come to us first and no one else. No Hunters, no police, and especially no Elders…”

Paris smiled in agreement and then shot Ethan a final, smug look over the top of her glasses before crossing the foyer and sauntering to the door.

“Hey, wait a minute,” Ethan called, before she could turn the knob. “What about that dumb lawsuit? Mimi did you a real favor just now in deciding to let you go. Doesn’t she deserve something in return?”

Paris paused at the door, looking back, but leaving a hand on the knob.

“I’ll admit, orange clashes horribly with my skin tone, so I suppose I should thank you both for sparing me from that. I’ll call Jeremy and tell him the suit’s off. This house was always drafty anyway…”

And Ethan rolled his eyes as we both watched the front door close behind my mother.

“Mimi,” he said, turning to me with a look of seriousness that I couldn’t help but be fond of. “We might have just let that woman walk away with murder…”

I felt another intense wave of guilt at knowing that Ethan’s father was currently sitting behind bars because I had put him there. And yet, my mother (a potential murderer), I had let free to walk the streets. I was a hypocrite of the worst kind, I knew.

“I know, and you’re right about that. But, something’s telling me that I need look into this more before I make any sudden decisions. I mean, what if it it’s true? What if she really was out of the country the day my father died? That would mean that her own sister could have killed Jack. And who knows? Maybe Thalia got to the point where her jealousy overcame her. Maybe she just couldn’t bear to see him with her sister anymore…”

“And maybe Charles helped her…” Ethan said, taking me by surprise at his new theory. Just moments before, it hadn’t seemed like I would be able to do anything to shake him from his suspicions against my mother. “Maybe Thalia was jealous, and maybe Charles was just so eager to get his hands on the Leadership, that they were both willing to work together to make it happen.” Ethan finished, taking a seat beside me on the steps.

“You know what, Ethan? We never even asked ourselves how it was that Thalia could have managed to make it out of the morgue with a dead body, and then stroll through the hospital and to the front door, without someone else noticing. Don’t you think someone would have asked questions if they had seen a random person taking a body out of a hospital?”

“Uh… well…” Ethan began, and then faltered, unable to find a suitable explanation. “I guess that makes sense…” he said running his hands through his hair. “But maybe Thalia actually hired a real company to come and get rid of the body. Or maybe it was someone that Charles hired.”

“Yeah, but let’s say there was no company hired to pick up the body. Neither George, nor Dr. Harrison ever mentioned seeing anyone else with Thalia when she was in the morgue. And Thalia is Pack, so that means she’d be more than strong enough to haul a man’s dead weight. She just would have looked ridiculous with him slung over her shoulder, that’s all. Unless…”

“Unless what?” Ethan prompted, nudging my shoulder with his.

“Unless, Jack got up and walked away on his own. No one would have thought twice about that.”

“You’re crazy,” Ethan said, shaking his head in bewilderment. “So what are you saying? That Jack died – and Paris or Thalia or Charles or whoever it was that killed him – then went to the morgue and brought him back to life?”

“Maybe he never really died at all,” I said, with growing excitement. “What if Jack knew that Charles wanted him killed, so Thalia just made it look that way… Think about it. Jack was cremated, his ashes spread in the woods… No body, no evidence.”

Ethan and I stared at each other, wide-eyed and unable to speak for several seconds. But he was the first to break the silence.

“That’s insane,” Ethan said, standing. “A plot within a plot? Seriously, Mimi, I just came here to apologize, not get roped into crazy murder conspiracies.”

“Hey, it was you asked to get involved in this, remember?” I said, taking the hand that he offered as he pulled me, easily, to my feet. “And why are you apologizing, by the way?”

“Because I snapped at you last night,” Ethan said, looking apologetic. “I was angry, and worried about my dad, and I ended up taking all that out on you. So I’m sorry.”

“It’s ok, I promise.” I said, with compassion. “So how is your dad, by the way? How’s he holding up?”

“Good actually. And you know what? He and Sofia made bail this morning.” Ethan said, brightening. “They’ve got court in a few weeks, and ankles monitor too, but it’s still better than him sitting in a cell. And Charles is being so… cool about everything. Actually, he’s the one who posted their bail. But after what they did… I just didn’t really expect that from him, you know?”

“Yup, me neither,” I assured. “But does that mean that your dad and Sofia are still off the Leadership? Permanently?”

Ethan bit his lip and looked down, and immediately I felt terrible for even asking the question.

“Yeah, it’s still permanent. But my dad – he couldn’t go back after that, even if he wanted to. I mean, his heart was in the right place and I understand why he felt like he had to do it… but he really messed up. He’s gotta own that, and I think the Garou will say that too. It’s just a matter of when they all find out.”

“You know, you’re a good man, Charlie Brown,” I said, smiling.

“Yeah but you wouldn’t think so.” he said softly. “Not with the way I’ve treated you, right?”’

“What do you mean?” I said, feeling uncomfortable for reasons I didn’t care to admit.

“That night a few months ago? When we were at that house party? Mimi, you and I… we were supposed to…”

“Ethan, please. Please don’t –”

“No, I have to say this,” he said, firmly, and I was immediately silenced. “Whatever it was that happened between you and him that night, whatever it was that you felt with Tidus… I can’t help thinking that it should have been with me. You and I were supposed to be together that night, Mimi. And I know for a fact that if we had…”

I closed my eyes and he took my hand.

“If we had,” he continued, using his grip to pull me close. “You would trust me by now, and I wouldn’t be making the same mistakes with you that I did with Eve. When I had my palm read that day, I didn’t really wanna go with that girl. I was just trying to make you jealous, but what I should have been doing was try to show you how I really feel about you…”

I felt Ethan’s hands drop to my waist, and I swooned like the movies as he used those minutes that I was fragile to kiss me with thunder and passion in the foyer. And while it was true that the fireworks were missing, and the minstrels with their trumpets weren’t exactly there either, I did feel the euphoria and self-destruction that comes from a kiss that’s laced with love.

I let his hands travel where they wanted as he walked me, backwards, to pin me against the wall. I kissed him back, over and over again, gasping as his lips broke from mine and traveled down my jawline to dance across my throat. Suddenly, I wanted him then and I didn’t care about the fallout that would surely occur afterward. I wanted – needed – him and not anybody else.

But I had to stop.

“Ethan -”

But he silenced me with another kiss that was far deeper and harder than the others had been. And suddenly his hands were around my upper arms in a tight grip that was almost painful. He kissed me again, more fiercely still, and then decided to finally let me go. He pulled away slightly, and for a few seconds I found myself still wholly entranced by his lips, which were rosy and fuller from kissing.

“I can’t,” I said, breathless, and still coming down from the rush. “I didn’t mean to do “I’ll only hurt you.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s too late,” he said, in a soft tone that was full of forlorn accusation, which caused me to hate myself and what I had done even more. “Because everything you should be feeling for me, you ended up feeling for him instead. And I don’t know if it’s even worth trying to fix that... But at the same time, I don’t think I can let you go…”

He pulled me close again, and I expected another kiss, but ended up devastated when his lips fell just centimeters short. So we hovered there, suspended in kiss purgatory, until I succeeded in drawing him close enough to cause our lips to brush. But looking angry, he inhaled a deep, noisy breath and then exhaled the same way.

“Mimi, I’ll see you at Johl’s party. On Wednesday.” he said, sliding past me, and walking out.

And as soon as the door shut behind him, I doubled over and began to breathe rapidly. My heart ached in my chest as I realized that I had given my love away to someone who didn’t deserve it.

Someone that wasn’t Ethan.

And something told me that from here on out, Ethan was going to be dangerous for me. Somehow, in bad ways, he would always be around to remind how endearing, and romantic, and charming that he could be. And in my heart, I knew that these were all qualities that could charm any girl into bed or a marriage – and that terrified me to pieces.

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