Deception (Infidelity #3)

“D-do you have it, or even a copy?” I asked. “Maybe if I looked at it again, I could tell if it was really his signature.”

“I didn’t bring it with me, but I have a picture.” Deloris reached into her bag and pulled out her tablet. As it came to life, she said, “The only other prints on the paper were not in our system, but I found the possible match in a database of employees.”

I didn’t understand.

“Demetri Enterprise employees?” I asked.

“No, Infidelity.”

I gasped.

“Do you recognize the name Whitney Blessings?” Deloris asked.

I shook my head. “Karen said we wouldn’t know any of the other employees.”

“You wouldn’t know her from Infidelity. You might know her because of where she works—her main job,” she qualified.

“Why? Where does she work?”

“Montague Corporation. She’s your father’s—I mean your stepfather’s—secretary. Personal assistant. Her job description isn’t very specific.”

My stomach twisted. What did this mean? Was Alton an Infidelity client?

“That doesn’t make sense. I mean I’ve known forever that he screwed around on my mom, but why would he be a client?”

“Are you saying that he’s such a charismatic charmer that paying for companionship would be beneath him?”

I scrunched my nose as bile bubbled from the pits of my empty stomach.

Gross!

“No, that’s not what I mean. I-I just never imagined he’d be a client.”

“I didn’t say he was. I said his assistant is an employee, and I believe she touched the letter—more accurately the paper—possibly long before the words were written and it became a letter. This theory leads me to believe that the paper at the very least came from your stepfather’s office.”

I tried to process. “Maybe Bryce got the paper from there. He works at Montague in the corporate offices.”

“That’s a possibility. But wasn’t your stepfather on that call?” Deloris asked.

“Yes. He called me on my mother’s phone.”

“Why would he do that?”

I shrugged. “Because he knew I wouldn’t have answered if he’d used his own phone.”

“And he wanted…?” she asked.

“He said he was sending a plane. He wants me home… to Savannah,” I clarified.

Deloris’s expression remained blank, neither concerned nor anxious, as if dealing with threatening letters full of Demetri secrets was an everyday occurrence. She turned her attention to her tablet.

My phone buzzed with a recognizable ring.

The screen read ALTON.

Deloris’s green eyes met mine. I’d never looked at their color before. With the sunlight from the windows, flakes of gold and brown shone from their depths. Perhaps she was showing more emotion than usual, though she was much better at hiding it. “Alex, I apologize for cutting your call with your mother short. I’m concerned.”

My phone rang again.

“Lennox,” she continued, “has entrusted me with many tasks. Keeping you safe is one of them, one he holds as my greatest priority.”

Another ring.

“And him,” I said.

Deloris nodded. “As you know, that is my number-one priority. I should be with him in DC right now…”

Ring.

“If I don’t answer this, it will go to voicemail.”

She hitched a shoulder. “Would that be bad?”

“You saw the screen?”

“I did.”

My phone vibrated, indicating the call was sent to voicemail.

Though I had no desire to answer that call or listen to the message, I knew without a doubt I’d pissed Alton off, more than usual. Not only did he think I’d hung up on him but now I’d refused to answer his call.

“Here,” Deloris said as she pulled up the picture of the letter I’d found. She scrolled to the final page, the one with the signature. It simply read Bryce.

“You know,” I said, “he goes by different names.”

Deloris’s eyes opened wider. “That seems to be a trend I’m noticing with both of you.”

I tilted my head to the side. “Touché. But I was never Charli, not until Del Mar. I wasn’t even Alex until Stanford. I was always Alexandria. That was the name on the outside of the envelope. My point is that my cousin, Patrick, knew Bryce… well, forever. He calls him Spence. I’d never thought about it until the other night when Pat was talking about him. Over and over, he referred to him as Spence. Nox knows him, somehow, and calls him Edward.”

“His first name.”

“Yes, Edward Bryce Carmichael Spencer.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that only some of us who have known him forever call him Bryce. According to Nox, in business, he goes by Edward.”

“The letter was signed Bryce.”

I nodded. “Which is the way he’d sign it if it were from him to me.”

“You’re saying that others may mistakenly use one of his other names?”

“Yes. For example, if Nox received a letter from me and it was signed Alexandria, you could assume it wasn’t written by me.”

“What do your parents call him?”

The little bit of chicken salad I’d managed to eat hardened in my stomach. “Bryce. It’s what his mother calls him too.”

“What do you think of the writing?”

I shrugged. “It’s messy. It’s barely legible and it could be his. It’s been a long time since we passed notes at the academy. I would say it is his writing, but…” My eyes opened wider. “…you could have a handwriting expert look at it.”

“I could,” Deloris confirmed.

My phone buzzed again.

I didn’t need the screen. I knew the tune. “It’s my mother.”

“Or your stepfather using your mother’s phone.”

“This is only going to escalate,” I warned. “Trust me. I have experience.”

Ring.

“My job is to keep you safe,” Deloris said. “But you’re not a prisoner. Do you want to go to Savannah? Would you feel safer in your home?”

My home?

I knew the answer. I knew where I felt the safest, and it was in the arms of the man in DC. I hadn’t considered Montague Manor my home since the day I boarded the plane to Stanford. My home had been with Chelsea, and over the past month, it had been with Nox.

“No. I trust Nox. He trusts you. I know my stepfather and that isn’t reassuring. I want to assure my mom I’m all right. But I don’t want to leave.”

Ring.

She reached toward me. “May I help?”

Uncertainty flooded my system, testing my last statement, pushing me to my limit. If I handed my phone to Deloris, I was making a big leap of faith, trusting her not only where I was concerned, but also my mother, or God forbid, Alton.

Ring.

As I handed her my phone, Deloris nodded, neither appearing happy or discontent with my decision.

“Hello?” she said.

I could hear Alton’s voice again.

“This is Mrs. Witt, Mr. Demetri’s associate…”

Lifting my glass of iced tea from the table, I stood and paced near the windows, listening to both sides of the conversation as Deloris spoke with Alton. I loved her calm. Nothing rattled her, not even a billowing blowhard threatening legal charges.

“I assure you that Miss Collins, a legal adult, is safe and here of her own free will…”

I looked around for a clock. What time was it? Was Nox in DC?

I jumped as a hand touched my shoulder. I turned to the soft brown eyes of Silvia.

“Alex, Mr. Demetri is on the house line for you.”

My heart swelled. “Thank God! He probably tried my cell. My parents have had it monopolized.” I tilted my head toward Deloris, still in conversation.

“No, not Lennox, his father, Oren.”





“WHAT?” I ASKED Silvia as I tried to comprehend her words. “Nox’s father wants to speak to me?”

“Yes,” she said. “You can take the call in Lennox’s office, if you’d like.” She tilted her head toward Deloris. “It would be more private.”

More private? I still hadn’t been told the story I was supposed to relay about the shooting. I’d pleaded ignorant with my parents, but if I recalled, Nox had mentioned his father’s name, as if he’d spoken to him since our return to this house. If he had, then undoubtedly, Mr. Demetri knew what had happened.

I stared for another moment at Deloris, wondering if I should speak to her first.