His Pretty Little Burden: Chapter 37

I SLICE through the centre of the chicken, creating a pocket for the cheese to go into. The heat from standing near the oven while Maggie bakes bread has formed a thin coat of perspiration over my skin. I wipe my forehead with the back of my hand. Behind me, the pool is like a siren—all welcoming and seductive.

“Can I go for a swim?” I ask hesitantly because I hate offering to help and committing to something and then flaking out. “I just want a little dip and then I’ll be—’

“Sweetie, you do not work here. You can come and go as you please. I love your company, but you should enjoy yourself too. You’re so young. Go shopping. Go to a movie or read a book.”

“A book.” I glance across the pool and think about sprawling out like a kitten, soaking up the warmth, reading something smutty all day long until the sun descends, spilling colours through the trees. Then he’ll get home and I’ll tell him what I was reading. I wonder if he’ll be happy about sharing me with book boyfriends. “Sounds so luxurious.”

“Can we talk?”

I twist to see Jasmine with her chin cast low, her eyes on her scuffing feet. She looks uncomfortable in her own world, which I don’t want at all. “Sure.” I follow her through the French doors and stand on the grand stone veranda where I first met the Devil’s prototype.

My Clay Butcher.

She peers out over the pool for a few contemplative moments before turning her solemn eyes to meet me. “I’m so sorry you lost the baby, Fawn.” Shaking her head with regret flickering in her glossy eyes, she says, “I didn’t know. I would have come to see you. I swear I would have.”

My hair tussles in the dense warm draft. Hooking my finger around a strand, I pull it from sticking to my lips. “It’s okay. I’m okay. It wasn’t meant to be.”

“That’s a line.” She sighs. “It still sucks. You can say it.”

I tip my shoulders, a defeated little shrug. “It sucks.”

“There you go.”

“Should we start again?” Holding my hand out for her to take, I say, “Hi, I’m Fawn. I’ve never had a real female friend before. Girls rarely like me. Or they used me to get to my brothers.”

Her hand wraps around mine, and we giggle as we shake them. “I’m Jasmine, and I think it’s their loss for not using your brothers to get to know you.”

We slump down on the steps and talk for a while before she heads back to finish her shift, and I wander down the steep decline to meet the pool’s edge. Enjoying the breeze even though it is warm, I close my eyes and breathe in deeply.

Then I hear a sound coming from the bushes—a shuffling or a sprinkler or—

“Psst!”

My eyes flash open, and I spin to face the dense gardens surrounding this section of the pool. Squinting through the vast webbing of trees and shrubbery, I make out a black figure crouching behind a hedge.

“Don’t look straight at me,” the voice says. “They will be watching you through the cameras.”

I square my shoulders, stepping backwards to put more distance between me and the boundary. “Who’s in there?”

A hushed voice says, “It’s Lee.”

My stomach churns, and while part of me wants to apologise for being the reason he had a gun shoved in his mouth, another part of me—a strong, loyal part that belongs to Clay—just wants to tell him to go away. “It’s best if you leave. You don’t know what he’ll do.”

The foliage in front of him rustles when he adjusts his stance. “What did I do wrong?”

“Fine then, come out. But don’t hide,” I say, peering around the greenery to get a better view of his hiding spot.

“Don’t look over here! Just look at the flowers.”

My heart picks up pace at the startling strain in his voice. “I’m telling Clay you’re back,” I say, turning.

“Wait!” he calls, and my foot stops mid-step when he says, “I have a message from your father.”

The blood in my veins chill to a frosty stream at the mention of my dad, at the inference that a message from the man I have been waiting for is a secret affair, a secret that needs to be kept from the people in this house. A secret that is whispered through trees between strangers. I don’t like how I feel. Cold shivers run up my spine.

Slowly turning back to the hedge, I narrow my eyes on the dark figure between the lightly swaying leaves. “I call bullshit.”

“Just turn your back to the house and look at the flowers, pick them, act like you’re counting them.”

My breathing becomes shallow, air drawn in through my nose, my mouth purses, teeth clench—discomfort like a literal entity winding itself around me while intrigue keeps me rooted to the grass. I don’t speak. Can’t. I squat down and pick a small grass flower, my eyes losing focus as he talks.

“He’s coming for you.”

I don’t understand.

“He’s coming to get you out.”

I’m not trapped.

Swallowing hard, I fight against the knot in my throat. I pick another flower and whisper, “But I’m not trapped, Lee.”

“Really?”

No. I pick another flower.

“Look around… You couldn’t leave if you tried.”

I pick another flower.

“Clay and Dustin are enemies, Fawn. You’re fucking bait! He’s using you to get to Dustin.”

No. “I’m not.”

“You are!”

I stand with a handful of flowers that I don’t want and will my knees to cease shaking. “He wouldn’t lie to me.” I dump the flowers on the ground, a pile of white, yellow, and green, creating a tatted mound by my new strappy shoes.

“Really?”

I rub my chest, feeling pin pricks hit my heart, deflating it. His words creep into me like demons spawning, seeping out with long black claws to change things forever. Infect my feelings. Ruin the first good thing in my life. My new everything. I trust him. I trust him, goddamn it. That isn’t something I do easily. It isn’t…

What is Lee saying? That Clay is using me to get to my father? Like the girls used me to get to my brothers, like Benji used me to make them jealous, like Jasmine used me to make herself feel better… “No. I trust him.”

“I didn’t want to have to do this, but if you don’t believe me, then, fine”—he throws something at me, the small black rectangle hitting my left shoe—“take this.”

It rests vertically on the lip of my leather sole. I don’t lean down. I don’t pick it up because I know what it is, but I don’t want to touch it in case it is what I know it is. Fuck. “What is it?” I say, my voice wobbling with my encroaching despair.

“The recording you have been looking for. Your father acquired it for you. He wants to look after you, Fawn. He wants to be your father. And he thinks you deserve the truth.”

I know the truth. “I know the truth,” I mutter with curt adamance, but my voice sounds fucking awful and obvious and… breaks on the following exhale.

“Do you? Where are your brothers?”

With that, my heart lurches into my throat, shuddering within the column, making it hard to breathe or swallow or think. “I’m leaving.” I whirl around.

“Listen, just watch the recording!” he pleads, and I still with my back to the garden. “Then, if you still think Mr Butcher wouldn’t lie to you, fine. But if you want the truth, more answers, answers you deserve, Fawn. To be in control of your own decisions in life, then meet me between the left hedge and the tennis court netting. There is a blind spot, and at 2:47 a.m. they switch guards. They talk and catch up for several minutes before they sit down. So, they won’t see you running through the house or even get to that spot. You’ll have maybe five minutes to get there. Then we won’t be in view. I made sure of it. I used to smoke there. I made a tree barrier, and if we stay low, they’ll never see us. And then I’ll take you to your father… You’ll be safe with him.”

I close my eyes, focusing on the ominous humid air filling my lungs. Gritting my teeth and cursing myself with every step, I walk to the black SD card and snatch it from beside the pile of ruined grass flowers.

I spin and stride away from Lee as his words follow me. Burn within my skull. I curse outwardly, fighting with my doubt, with my faithless mind. Drawing Clay’s deep, smooth timbre front and centre, I try to find the strength to ignore what was just uttered so convincingly. Forget it, even. Harmful lies from a scorned employee should hold no weight when our connection is so strong.

You are scared. I need you to trust me, little deer. I will do the worrying for you.

I am scared.

I’m scared Lee is telling the truth.

I ball my fingers in tight, digging my nails into my palms, feeling the sharp object inside, hoping I crack it by accident.

Hoping I render it defective.