Burned (16 page)

“Well, this is new,” Holly said as she scanned over the kitchen.

I had a container of cookies, a pan of banana bread and plate of bars sitting on the counter. It was all that remained of my week of baking. Having Jake around had been an enormous help. I’d been able to bake my way through a dozen recipes or more and didn’t have to worry about where all the food would go.

He ate most of it.

“Apparently I like to bake,” I admitted. I moved over to the fridge and pulled the door open. “Ta-da,” I said with a dramatic flourish.

A triple layer chocolate cheesecake was proudly displayed on the top shelf.

“Very impressive.” She gave me a nudge. “Look at you. I leave you alone for two weeks and you get yourself a boyfriend and become all domesticated.”

I swung the door shut because the cheesecake was for later.

“The two are not related,” I assured her. “I had time on my hands and found that I really like to bake. Cooking,” I cringed at the memory of my failed gnocchi—a pot of mushy glop, “I am not so great at. But baking is kind of therapeutic.”

“And you need therapy because…?” She raised her eyebrows at me and gave me a knowing look.

I motioned toward the deck. I had put her off about Kyle long enough. It was time to fill my best friend in on my greatest humiliation in life. “Let’s sit outside. It’s gorgeous out.”

She and Max hadn’t been home for very long. Jake had been here, just chilling with me when they arrived. After dropping off their bags Max suggested he and Jake go to the store to pick up some steaks for grilling.

Max and Holly’s first day back and we were already planning a double date.  Dating Jake definitely had advantages.

Holly had unpacked—because she was compulsive enough to need to do that immediately—and had thrown a load of laundry in the washing machine. Now we had a few minutes to ourselves before Max and Jake came back.

“
Ahhh
, I missed this.” She released a contented sigh as she flopped onto a cushioned patio chair. She closed her eyes and tilted her face to the sun.

I settled down next to her and her eyes popped open. My short reprieve from reality was already over.

“All right,” she said. “I’ve given you long enough. Why didn’t you tell me about Kyle?”

I grimaced. “I was embarrassed. At the time, it felt like the end of the world. I was hurt, I was humiliated. I felt,” I squirmed, trying to come up with an adjective that would suffice. I settled for, “naïve. I felt
so
naïve. Did I mention stupid?”

“Stop being so hard on yourself,” she scolded. “You didn’t know.”

“Exactly. I didn’t know. I keep looking back, wondering if there were signs,” I admitted.

“So how did it all go down?” Holly asked.

“I figured Mom would’ve told you all about it,” I said a bit bitterly.

Holly made an apologetic face. “She told me some.”

“She probably told you everything, if I know her,” I corrected.

“I want to hear it from you. We both know your mom means well…” She faded off, not sure how to finish the sentence without saying something unpleasant about Mom.

I finished for her. “Most of the time she has a warped perspective of things.”

“
That
,” Holly agreed.

“If she told you about it, there’s probably not much more to say. I think she’s madder at me than she is at him.” To be honest, that was what hurt the most out of the whole situation.

“I don’t think she’s mad,” Holly said. “I do know that she’s concerned. She isn’t happy that you—”

“Ran away?” I guessed.

She nodded.

“I don’t look at it that way. I just had to get away. You, of all people, should be able to relate to that.”

“Of course I can. I’m not judging you. I get it. Trust me, I do. What Kyle did to you? It was awful. Without knowing the details, I get that he really hurt you. He should go to prison for what he did to you.”

I nodded, blinking back tears. I didn’t feel hurt anymore. Not really. Now I felt angry. And when I was angry I had a nasty habit of getting emotional.

“And he will,” I said. “If they ever catch the creep.”

“What…? Who hurt you? Prison…?”

My head whipped around. Jake was standing at the corner of the house. He closed the distance to the deck stairs. A blue, reusable grocery bag dangled from his hand. A head of romaine lettuce poked out of the top.

Max rounded the corner holding a package of steaks. “Hey, ladies. I hope—”

He interrupted himself to say, “What’s wrong?”

“That’s what I’d like to know,” Jake said. “Lanna, are you all right?”

“I’m fine.” I took in the concerned look on his face. It was clear that his mind was jumping to conclusions they shouldn’t be jumping to. “Really.”

He tromped up the deck stairs, his eyes never leaving mine.

“I’ll just…,” Holly said as she plucked the bag from his hand, “take this and get started on the salad. Max…?” She nodded her head toward the sliding glass door. Max slapped Jake across the shoulder before he followed her in.

A moment of heavy silence hung in the air.

I swiped beneath my eyes with my fingertip, grateful for the miracle that was waterproof mascara.

“I’m sorry,” Jake said. “I didn’t mean to overhear. But I did. So…?” He gave me a concerned, questioning look.

“Do you want to go for a walk?” I knew Holly and Max would give us privacy. But I didn’t want them to be prisoners in their own home. Besides, I was feeling fidgety. A walk on the beach sounded nice.

Jake held his hand out to me, pulling me from the porch swing. “Let’s go.”

We walked down to the ocean’s edge in silence. I could feel Jake sneaking furtive glances at me. I appreciated his patience. I needed a few moments to pull my thoughts together. I hadn’t explained what had happened to anyone but my mother…and the police. My mother had relayed the whole story to Holly.

Now it was my turn to relay it to Jake.          

“How much did you hear?”

“Not much. Just that some guy hurt you…and you’re obviously upset. And he should,
will
,” he corrected, “he
will
go to prison if he’s caught?” His voice became heavy with worry. “What did he do to you?” His tone was low, concerned, laced with anger.

“Not what I think you must be thinking. He never hurt me physically. But emotionally…Yeah.” He shattered my trust. He shattered my belief in myself. “He stole from me.”

“Oh.” Jake nodded. He sounded relieved.

“He stole a lot.” I cleared my throat. “He got his hands on a good portion of my trust fund.”

I sliced a sideways glance at Jake. He was grimacing. “Your trust fund?”

I cringed, my stomach twisted into that familiar, tight, aching knot. “Nearly a quarter of a million.”

Jake stopped walking. He was holding my hand so that meant that I stopped walking too.

“You’re serious?” He didn’t sound skeptical, just shocked and in need of clarification.

“Dead serious. Unfortunately.”

“How the hell did he manage that?”

We started walking and I dove into my explanation.

I met Kyle after I returned from a year abroad in Australia. I would’ve completed my education there, but Mom’s husband of the moment—Gerald—had insisted it was a waste of money. Part of me wanted to blame him for what happened. If he had just let me be, if he hadn’t swayed my mother, convincing her to make me come home, I never would’ve met Kyle.

But I did meet him. Holly had just ditched her ex-fiancé at the altar. I was back in Chamberlain for the first time in nearly a year. Without my best friend there, I was bored. I met Kyle at an orientation for Chamberlain University. We hit it off immediately. Looking back, he’d been smooth. Too smooth, almost as if he knew the perfect things to say and do to make me happy.

It was no secret around town that my mother had won an enormous lawsuit after Dad’s death. I never flaunted the money I was given, but it was obvious that I had money to spend. It never seemed to matter because that was just the way things were. I was more or less with the same group of kids all through elementary school and then high school.

It had never occurred to me to worry about the people I would meet in college. As for how Kyle found out, I had no idea. I had a hunch he had simply done his research, looked for an easy target and…I was it.

“We were living together, which was so stupid on my part. I should’ve realized things were moving too fast,” I said with a sigh. “I’m not sure exactly how he did it but he hacked into my account. I had the money invested in an online account. That account was connected to my checking account. I had it set up that way so that the dividends could be transferred on a monthly basis. I’m guessing he either figured out my password, or saw me enter my password…” I faded off, or he had found the little black binder I kept in the bottom drawer of my desk. The one where I, like a naïve little girl, kept all of my passwords. I did not share that with Jake. It was too embarrassing to even think about, let alone admit to. “Anyhow,” I said as I pushed the story forward, “he basically, without my knowledge, logged into my account and transferred all of my investments into my checking account.”

Jake nodded to let me know he was following.

I sighed. “And somehow, somewhere along the way, he had managed to link his account to my account and he transferred the entirety of it to himself.”

“Wow,” Jake said. “Ballsy.”

“Yeah.” I was ready to be done with this story. “Then he cashed it all out and disappeared.”

“Disappeared? You mean, like the cops can’t find him?”

“Disappeared as in it appears he headed to Mexico.”

“To live off your money.”

“It seems so,” I said with a sharp little nod.

“Are the authorities looking for him?”

I shrugged. “I guess. I mean, as much as they can be considering that he’s skipped the country and they have more pressing matters to attend to. Who knows, he might have already left Mexico. He had fake IDs so…” I shrugged as I faded off.

“Fake IDs?”

I nodded. “When we were together he just used them for getting into the bar, or for buying alcohol,” I admitted.

“So they were good enough to pass for drinking age but probably not good enough to get him in and out of different countries,” Jake guessed.

“Probably.”

“But he could still use them once he got into another country. For renting a room or whatever it is he’s doing down there.”

“Yes.”

“That would make it harder to find him.”

“Yes.”

“So if he knew how to get fake IDs before, he could probably get even better quality ones now. I mean, now that he has the money to pay for a good one.”

“And yes, again.” I wasn’t studied up on the art of conning someone but I would not have been surprised to learn that after Mexico, he’d used a fresh, new ID and skipped not just the country but the continent. He could be in France or even Croatia for all I knew.

“How did you find out?”

I did not want to talk about this, but I felt I owed Jake honesty after he’d been honest with me.

“I came home from class and our apartment was pretty much wiped clean. No note. Nothing.” I was crushed, devastated, completely blindsided. I left that part out. “I thought it was just his very heartless way of dumping me. It sucked, but it didn’t feel like the end of the world. A few days later I got around to checking my e mail, which I’m not very good about doing, and I came across a transfer statement. Only, I hadn’t made a transfer. I figured out things pretty quickly from there. But by then it was too late. I went to Mom, and then we went to the police together. She insisted I move out of the apartment because she said it was a waste of money I no longer had. I listened to her because she was so insistent. It took about two days for me to regret it. She drove me insane with her lecturing. I only lasted a few months with her. When Holly invited me to visit, I jumped on it. I couldn’t wait to get away.”

“Lanna…”

“I know,” I snapped. “I was gullible. My mother is livid and will never let me hear the end of it.”

“I was going to say I’m really sorry.”

I cast a suspicious glance his way. “Why?”

“I’m sorry that there are asses like that in this world. It’s just wrong to take advantage of another person.”

I sighed, fighting off tears, and we continued walking.

“The worst part of it is that it was
my inheritance
. My mom set aside a pretty decent chunk of it for me because my dad
died
. She put it in a trust fund. I didn’t have access to it until I was eighteen. She thought by then I’d be responsible enough to handle it. Instead,” I grimaced as I squeezed the words out, “I lost almost all of it.”

Thank heavens I’d already purchased my car or I’d probably have lost that chunk of money too. I had diversified a bit, but not enough. He’d had the ‘decency’ to leave money in a smaller account that I had. Or more likely, he just hadn’t stumbled across that one.