Page 64 of The Pleasure of Panic

Shit. I’m off my game right now. I’m preoccupied with what she’s hiding in her past. I’m not being careful enough. I kick the door closed, then go towards the back of the house.

She has a yard, but it’s very small and like the front, it’s flanked on either side by the windowless apartment buildings. The patio space is about twenty feet wide, equally as long, and backs up to an old brick garage. Pretty easy to secure, I realize. This place is set up like a tiny fortress in the middle of the city.

I can hear the shower going upstairs when I go back inside. So I look around at the mess. Couch cushions are thrown about, table upended and…

Oh, I want to kill someone now. Because the frame that was on the wall—the one with her young smiling face and a gold medal win—is on the ground, the glass smashed to bits.

Which means this was personal. Whoever came here was looking for her. Not money, not jewelry, not hidden information.

Her.

Fuck.

The shower upstairs stops, then I hear the old floorboards creaking as she walks around. A few minutes later the hairdryer is blowing, then a few more and she’s walking again.

What could she be hiding?

It could be anything, but somehow I know it’s not just anything. It’s something big. Something dirty. Something like what I’m hiding, maybe.

My stomach seizes and I feel sick all of a sudden. Because I’m getting a very bad feeling about this whole fucked-up situation.

Caleb Kelly. And Declan was at his side. So I know exactly what this is about.

The fucking Mob.

Issy Grey.

It’s a weird name. Almost… fake.

Which has me thinking about her missing background.

Was she…

No. Not her.

But she was young. Young people do stupid things. I know that better than most. I did stupid things. My father did stupid things. And now he’s dead and I killed him and now I’m here. Doing more stupid things.

Yeah.

The stairs creak, making me look over at Issy as she descends. She’s transformed. Neat feminine suit, cream-colored wide-leg pants, which look amazing on her small frame, and a fitted matching jacket with a silky ruffled edge over a pale pink cami. She’s wearing make-up and jewelry and flat pink shoes.

“God,” I say. “I want to back you up against a wall right now.”

She doesn’t smile, she sighs. “I’m ready. We better just… go.” Then she looks around, spies the broken framed picture on the floor, and shakes her head. “I can’t think about this now. I have a job to do. I have three hundred women coming to that seminar to find something. Some kind of hope to keep going. I might be their last chance to turn their lives around and I can’t let them down.”

“We’ll figure it out, Issy. I promise.”

“You better not be involved in this, Finn. Or I will…”

I wait her out as her threat trails off, wondering what she might do to me. Not that I’m worried about it, I’m not involved in any of this. But I want to know. It’ll tell me something about her. Tell me how deep this runs.

“I’ll just… break down. I don’t think I can take another betrayal. I really don’t.”

And that’s all I need to know. This is life-changing bad. This is more than some stupid game. This might be her, hanging by a thread. She is those women coming to hear her speak today. She’s been them, changed her future, somehow, some way, and this, what’s happening to her right now, might snap that thin thread she’s been hanging on by. “I’m not involved, Issy. I swear, I’m not.”

“We’ll see,” she says. But it’s a very weak truce. Because I haven’t told her all my secrets. Some of them can’t ever spill out. Some of them should never see the light of day.

I make myself smile. I force it to look real. Because she’s so lost right now. So sad. So… vulnerable.