Faking With My Brother's Rival: Six Months Isn't Enough

Chapter 1 The lights came on when my hand was already in the drawer, and I had exactly one second to decide whether to run or lie. "You've got about four seconds to explain why you're in my office at eleven at night before I call someone who won't ask nicely." I picked lie. Obviously. Running in heels across waxed concrete with a folder in my hand and a guilty face — yeah, that ends with me on the news. I turned around slow, like I had all the time in the world, and got my first look at him with the ceiling light on. Travis Marchetti was not supposed to be here. That was the whole point of eleven o'clock on a Tuesday. The schedule said road game, flight home tomorrow, empty building. I'd checked it twice. He filled the doorway like he'd been built for it. Dress shirt with the sleeves shoved up, tie gone, one hand on the frame, the other holding his phone at his hip. Not angry yet. Worse than angry — bored. Like catching a burglar was the least interesting thing that had happened to him all day. "Hi," I said. "Hi." "Okay, so — this is gonna sound insane." "Try me." "I'm your new cleaning person." He looked at my heels. Then at the drawer. Then back at my heels. "Cleaning person." "New girl. First shift. Nobody gave me a key yet, so I had to—" I made a little jiggling gesture with my hand, the universal sign for the lock was already like that. "With gloves on." "It's a rough neighborhood." "It's the third floor of a locked arena." "I'm very thorough." He pushed off the doorframe and walked toward me, and I want to be clear about something: I have never been scared of a man's size. I grew up around big loud men who yelled and then fell asleep in front of the TV. Size is not what gets you. It was the way he didn't hurry. He stopped about four feet away, turned his phone around, and held it up. On the screen: me. Hood down, face up, looking straight into a lens I had walked right past. Time stamp in the corner. Eleven-oh-four. I counted three cameras on the way in. Three. I was proud of those three. I'd mapped them off a photo on the team's website, worked out the blind spots on a napkin at the diner, felt like a genius for it. "You missed the one over the fire extinguisher," he said. "That's a terrible place for a camera." "It's a great place for a camera." I let out a breath that was almost a laugh and hated myself for it. "Okay," I said. "Let's say I'm not the cleaning person." "Let's." "Let's say I'm — a fan." "A fan with a key card and a folder." "I'm a very serious fan." He didn't smile. But something moved at the corner of his mouth, and I filed that away, because that's what I do. I file things. Photographers are just thieves with better lighting. "Phone," he said. "What?" "Your phone. Hand it over." "Absolutely not." "I'll get it anyway. You can hand it over or I can take it, and I've had a long day, so I'd rather you hand it over." I handed it over. He looked at the lock screen — a photo of my dad at the kitchen table, mid-argument with a crossword — and then tapped the side of it against his palm twice, thinking. He didn't try to unlock it. He didn't toss it on the desk. He put it in his pocket like he was doing me a favor by holding it. "You want to tell me what's in the drawer," he said, "or do I open it and find out and get annoyed?" "Contracts." "That was honest." "I'm bad at lying under pressure." He looked at me for a long second, and I noticed two things I didn't want to notice. One, he had the kind of face that's been described as handsome so many times in print that it's stopped meaning anything, and it was much worse in person. Two, he looked tired. Not sleepy-tired. Bone-tired. The kind that lives behind your eyes. "Contracts," he said again. "Which ones." "Yours." He went very still. The room got smaller. I heard the building hum — that low electric sound arenas make when nobody's in them. Somewhere down the hall, a door clicked shut. I became extremely aware of my own pulse in my ears. "Say that again," he said, quiet. "Your contract. The tampering clauses. Trade conditions. I was supposed to—" I stopped. "Supposed to." "I'm not doing this." "Yeah, you are. You're about sixty percent of the way there. Might as well go the last forty." He moved to the desk, opened the bottom drawer with the flat of his hand, and pulled out a manila folder. Held it up. Didn't even have to look. "You want to know how I knew someone would come?" he said. "Every year. Same month. Every year somebody comes for this drawer." "That's — convenient." "That's insurance." He set the folder on the desk between us and put his hand flat on it. Big hand. Scarred knuckles. The hand of a man whose job is to stand in front of things. His phone buzzed in his other pocket. He pulled it out — glanced at the screen — and I saw it before he flipped it face-down on the desk. Keira. Two calls, then a text. He didn't answer any of it. "Girlfriend?" I said. "None of your business." "Kind of feels like my business. You're holding me hostage." "You broke in." "Semantics." He leaned on the desk. "Here's where we are. I've got footage of your face, your fingerprints on a lock and a drawer, and a folder in your hand. You've got about nine minutes before I decide whether I care." "Nine minutes." "I've got a call I have to make at eleven-fifteen. After that, I'm going to be in a bad mood." "So what happens at the nine-minute mark?" "That depends entirely," he said, "on whether you say something true." I looked at the folder under his hand. Then at the door. Then at the ceiling where the camera was, the one I missed, the one pointed at my face like it had been waiting all night. This is the part where I should have lied better. I had a whole story built. I'd rehearsed it in the car — cleaning lady, lost, wrong floor, sorry, so sorry, let me just get my bag and go. What came out was: "I need five thousand dollars." He blinked. "My father's in the hospital. It's not — it's not a sob story, I'm not asking you for anything, I'm just telling you why I'm standing in your office at eleven at night instead of home with my feet up watching garbage TV like a normal person. Somebody offered me money to come in here and get that folder. I said yes. That's the truth. There it is." "Who." "I'm not telling you that." "Who," he said again, and it was flat, and it was the first time all night he sounded like the thing the newspapers said he was. "Then it's my nine minutes," I said. "I'm not giving you a name." He stared at me. And then he did the thing I have thought about every day since. He put the folder back in the drawer, closed it, picked up his phone, and walked to the door. He didn't pick up the office line. He didn't call security. He didn't call the cops. He crossed the floor, grabbed my bag off the chair on his way, turned it upside down, and shook it out over the desk. Everything hit the wood. Camera. Keys. Chapstick. A granola bar I'd been saving since noon. My wallet. And the envelope. It split when it landed. Cash fanned out across the desk like a bad hand of cards. Hundred dollar bills. All of it in there, all five thousand, still in the bank's paper band. He picked up the band. Read the bank's name on it. Read the date stamp on the deposit slip tucked underneath. Then he picked up my wallet. Opened it. Read my license out loud, slow, like he was tasting it. "Lisa Reyes." "Give me my wallet." "Twenty-six." He closed it and set it down on top of the money. "You broke into my building for five grand and a chance to end my career. And you didn't even count your own money." He walked to the door. "Wait —" I said, and hated how it came out. He grabbed the door with one hand and slammed it shut so hard the blinds on the hallway window rattled. Key out. Deadbolt. A sound like a sentence. Then he turned around and looked at me across the whole dark room. "Nobody's coming for you tonight. Sit down. We're going to be here a while, Lisa Reyes." Chapter 1 Ends