“I wish I knew.” His eyes darkened and he held my hands. “I just want you to remember that I never intended to hurt you. I never intended for any of this to happen.”
“I know.” I nodded. And I did. A new honesty was in Jakob’s eyes, one I’d never seen there before. True emotion shone through from his soul to mine. Whatever we found out together might break us apart forever, but it wasn’t either of our faults. We were innocent parties caught up in the webs our parents had weaved. “I loved my father,” I said tenderly. “I loved my father so much, but I wish he’d let this all die with him.” I rubbed the tears from my eyes. “I wish he’d just let me be.”
“Blake’s calling me.” I grabbed my ringing phone from the coffee table and answered the question in Jakob’s eyes as he stared at me.
“Okay.” He pursed his lips slightly, and I knew that for all his talk, he still wasn’t happy that Blake and I were friends.
“Hey, what’s up?”
“You’re not going to believe what I found.” Blake’s voice bounded with excitement through the phone and I smiled.
“Tell me!” I said eagerly, and moved away from Jakob, whose finger was running down my arm and making its way to my breast. “Stop,” I hissed at him as he sat up and leaned forward to kiss me.
“What?” Blake sounded confused, and Jakob grinned at me in response.
“Sorry, not you. What did you find?”
“Seems our good old friend Steve is pretty well connected.”
“Connected? With who?”
“So there are photographs of Steve as a boy with many different executives from the Bradley Corporation.”
“Yeah, that makes sense.” I felt slightly disappointed at his report. That was nothing new. “Hold on, Blake. Hey, Jakob, how did you and your brother know Steve?”
“He was an intern for my dad when he was a teenager.” Jakob continued playing with my breasts as he spoke. “He’s been with the company for a while. My dad trusted him a lot and he’s been on the payroll for many years.”
“You’re with Jakob, aka Mattias?” Blake’s voice was low. “Are you joking?”
“I’m with Jakob, yes, but he’s not Mattias, Blake. In fact, there is no Mattias.” I sighed, not wanting to have to tell the whole story. “They made Mattias up.”
“They made Mattias up?” Blake was in awe. “Like Parcher in A Beautiful Mind?”
“Yeah, though they told me Tyler Durden in Fight Club.”
“Holy shit! Let me get this straight—Mattias Bradley is a figment of the imagination? Was Jeremiah Bradley crazy? Did he have split personality? Manic disorder? Did he suffer from paranoid schizophrenia?”
“Blake, he just made up a fake kid to help protect his real kid from gold diggers,” I said, aware that Jakob was listening intently to every word of the conversation.
“Oh, okay, not as exciting then.”
“So anything else on Steve, aside from the fact that he was tight with the Bradleys?”
“Bianca, he wasn’t just tight with the Bradleys. He was tight with your father as well.”
“What?” I fell back against the couch, shaking my head. “That doesn’t make sense. How do you know that?”
“How does he know what?” Jakob’s eyes searched mine. “What did he say?”
“Blake says that Steve was friends with my father as well.”
“Are you sure you want to tell Jakob everything I tell you?” Blake asked warily. “Are you sure we trust this guy?”
“I trust him.” I gave Jakob a quick smile.
“If you’re sure . . .” Blake sounded uncertain.
“I am. Anything else?”
“Yeah.” Blake’s voice got excited again. “So Steve lives in a shitty apartment in Washington Heights, right?”
“I guess, if that’s what you’ve found.”
“But guess what? About two years ago, he started renting a house in Jersey City. A house that costs way more than his apartment in Washington Heights.”
“So?” I took a deep breath. “How is that relevant?”
“At his apartment in Washington Heights, he has full cable—I’m talking HBO, Showtime, Cinemax, sports channels, everything.”
“Okay.”
“And at the house in Jersey, he has no cable, not even basic.”
“So?”
“So this seems like a guy who likes TV. Why would he have every channel known to man in one place and nothing in the other?”
“Oh yeah, I guess that doesn’t make sense.”
“It only makes sense if he’s not spending much time in the new place—if he’s not home to watch TV, why pay for cable, right?”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“Which then makes us ask the question . . .”
“Who does live there?” Jakob was frowning at me and I knew he wanted an update. “So Blake found out that Steve is renting two apartments. One in Washington Heights and one in Jersey.”
“Jersey?” Jakob frowned. “No, he definitely lives in Washington Heights. I know this because my father kept trying to get him to move downtown, but he always refused. He said Washington Heights is his home and he would never leave.”
“Did you hear that, Blake?”
“Not well—why don’t you put me on speaker.”