Insider (Exodus End #1) (64 page)

Toni climbed the steps to the deck that surrounded the entire house and let herself into the mudroom. She figured she could fall asleep standing up until the mouth-watering scents of garlic, oregano, and basil filled her nose. Her grandmother must have spent the entire day cooking. Toni closed the door behind her and dumped her messenger bag and laptop case on the floor with a weary sigh.

“Eloise?” Grandma called from the connecting kitchen.

“No, it’s Toni,” she said.

“About time you came home. These delivery guys are about to drive me nuts. Ringing the doorbell every hour on the hour like clockwork.”

“Delivery guys?”

Toni came around the corner into the kitchen and stopped dead in her tracks, her eyes widening and mouth dropping open with shock. Vases of flowers were perched on every available surface. The fragrant and colorful blooms ranged from a simple dozen red roses to several arrangements of mixed flowers to a bouquet of brilliant pink and white stargazer lilies that was as wide as the table that bore its weight.

“What in the world?” Toni said.

“You better call that young man and forgive him for whatever he’s done. I don’t think the next batch will fit through the door,” Grandma said. “And don’t get me started on those damned balloons.”

“Balloons?”

“I told Birdie to take them to your room. It isn’t safe to have them floating about in the kitchen while I’m cooking.”

Over the sound of water boiling on the stove, Toni could hear Birdie giggling and the playful yap of one of Grandma’s Pomeranians.

“Are these all from Logan?” Toni wondered aloud. She reached for the card on the closest bouquet.

Grinning at Toni, Grandma tapped the vase closest to her. “Unless you have more than one man who is crazy in love with you, I’d guess so.”

The card read:
Please call me, Toni. The woman who answered my phone this morning was my mother. Logan

“His
mother
?”

Toni snatched the card from the next bouquet.
Toni, I swear didn’t cheat on you. I would never do that to you. Please call. I need to hear your voice. Love, Logan

She went around the room, reading one card after another. The next one seemed a little angry.
What do I have to do to get you to answer your damned phone, Toni? Answer it! Now. Stop fucking ignoring me.

Then pleading.
Please call me, Toni. Text me. Email me. Something. Please. Even if it’s to yell at me. I can’t take your silence.

Desperate.
I’ll do anything to win you back, lamb. Just tell me what to do.

Insulting.
You are the most stubborn woman I’ve ever met. Will you just talk to me?

Threatening?
I’m going to track you down and kiss you until you see reason. We are meant to be together. Don’t you get that?

Just . . . I love you.

I love you, Toni.

That has to be enough. I love you. Desperately. Unconditionally. Forever.

Resigned.
Well, this obviously isn’t working. I give up.

Clutching his little notes to her chest, she allowed tears to stream down her cheeks. Tears of happiness—he hadn’t cheated on her. Tears of exhilaration—he truly loved her. Tears of empathy—the poor guy had been completely miserable all day. Her cellphone was still over an hour away in Seattle, and unfortunately she didn’t have his number memorized. How could she reach him?

“Well?” Grandma asked.

Blurry-eyed, Toni spun around, still clutching Logan’s notes. “He loves me.”

Grandma smiled. “In that desperate I’ll-die-if-I-can’t-touch-you kind of way or the more settled I-can’t-notice-anything-but-your-absence-when-you’re-gone kind of way?”

“Both, I think.”

“Lucky you. So you’re going to forgive him and make amends?”

Toni choked on a laugh. “He didn’t do anything wrong to begin with. It was just a misunderstanding. But yes, I’d forgive him. I’d probably forgive him anything. Just don’t tell him that.”

Grandma patted Toni’s shoulder. “I guess you’d better call him and let him off the hook. Unless you think you need more flowers.” She glanced around the room at the abundance of blooms.

“I have more than enough flowers, but I left my phone at the office.” Toni gnawed on her lip, trying to decide on her best plan of action.

“Is your mother still there? Maybe she can bring it home with her.”

“Good idea!” She was still upset with her mother, but Toni was desperate enough to ask her for a favor.

“You just caught me on my way out,” Mom said via her office line. “I’ll bring it with me.”

“Thanks.”

“But wouldn’t it make more sense if I looked his number up in your contacts and read it to you? Just give me your pass code.”

Toni almost jumped on that idea, but remembered that Logan had recently changed his icon to an X-rated close-up of his cock, and she didn’t want her mother to get an eyeful of that.

“Uh . . .” She nibbled a fingernail. “No, that’s okay. Just bring it home. I don’t need it that desperately.” She cringed at her total lie.

“By the way, I’ve set up some home viewings for tomorrow,” Mom said, turning Toni’s moment of jubilation to bitterness. “I’d like you and Birdie to come with me to look at condos.”

Condos? Oh God, no.

“I might be busy,” Toni said. Actually, she would make it a priority to be too busy to view condos, no matter if she ended up hurrying off to Logan or not.

Toni frowned as she turned to help Grandma put the finishing touches on dinner.

“She’s not bringing it?” Grandma asked.

“She is,” Toni said.

“Then why so glum?”

Toni glanced toward the stairs, no wanting Birdie to overhear. She was surprised her little sister hadn’t come down to greet her. Toni supposed playing with dogs and helium balloons was far more interesting than she was.

“Mom is going to sell the farm,” Toni said in a hushed tone.

Grandma’s eyebrows shot up and she dropped her wooden spoon in the sauce, splattering red flecks on the stove. “Oh no, she’s not!”

“She needs the money to keep the business afloat. And, well, she never really liked it out here in the sticks.”

“If she’s selling, I’m buying. This is the only place I still feel connected to Phillip. And I’ve been so happy here with Birdie this past week. I thought I’d finally found a place to call home.”

“I thought you liked roaming the country with your dogs in your little RV.”

“I did,” Grandma said. “But I’m over all that. You and Birdie are the only family I have left. I don’t want to waste another moment being alone.”

Toni hugged her. “I’m so glad you’ve decided to stay, but even if we pool our money together, I don’t think we can afford to buy this place. It’s prime acreage.”

“I have money saved up, and selling the RV will bring in a little more.”

“Daddy left me some money. I’m all in. I just don’t think it’ll be enough. I’m sure we’re talking a few million dollars, Grandma.” Toni didn’t have even close to that much money and was pretty sure her grandmother wasn’t drowning in cash either.

“You could always let your boyfriend continue to think he’s in trouble and open your own flower shop.” Grandma leaned away and stared into Toni’s eyes, patting her cheek affectionately.

Toni laughed. “That might work.” She was joking of course, but there had to be a way to keep their home. She just needed time to think of a plan.

“Toni!” Birdie yelled from the kitchen doorway. “I didn’t know you was home! Come see all the balloons. Logan gave them to you. Your whole room is full of balloons. Red ones!”

“It’s time to eat dinner, Buttercup,” Toni said. “Grandma made your favorite.”

“Sketties!”

Grandma kissed Birdie’s forehead when she came within reach, and Birdie smiled brightly. It melted Toni’s heart to see such affection between them.

“Grandma says we should get a baby goat!” Birdie said.

Grandma cringed at being outed.

“That would be fun,” Toni said. “But are you prepared to take care of it? It would be your responsibility.”

“Oh yes!” Birdie carefully placed a napkin next to each plate on the table. “I saw a gray baby goat on Ameridas Funnest Home Videos. I want a gray one.” She continued to jabber about gray baby goats for several minutes. “Can we go upstairs to show you the balloons now?”

“How about after we eat?” Toni had nothing better to do while she waited the hour it would take her mom to get home with her phone.

“Balloons, balloons, balloons, balloons,” Birdie intoned as she placed silverware on the table. “Toni has balloons. Balloons. Balloons. Balloons.”

“Why don’t you go see your balloons so she’ll stop fixating?” Grandma suggested. “I can finish up here.”

So Grandma already understood how Birdie tended to fixate on one detail with infallible concentration. Toni wished Grandma had come to stay with them ages ago. Then Toni might have been able to build a more far-reaching life for herself without the constant guilt.

“All right,” Toni said. “I’ll go see the balloons.”

“Yay!” Birdie grabbed her hand and yanked her toward the stairs.

The entire vaulted ceiling of Toni’s large bedroom was completely concealed by red balloons. Just the sight made her smile. Remembering the last time she’d been given red balloons made her ache with longing for the man behind the gesture. The two Pomeranians jumping in the air trying to grab the dangling strings made her laugh. Her laughter died when she noticed a familiar, presumed-lost journal lying on her bed. How in the hell had her diary gotten here?

Toni darted across the room and lifted the pink journal from her pale green coverlet. Thumbing through the pages, there was no doubt it was the same journal she’d been writing in while on tour with Exodus End. The final entry was dated May 8 and the remaining pages were blank.

“I tried to read your book, Toni, but it was too much squiggles. I can’t tell what it says. So I gave it back.”

Toni turned to stare at her sister in disbelief.
Birdie
had taken her journal? If that was true, how had the tabloid gotten hold of the band’s personal information?

“Where did you get this, Birdie?”

“I found it in your bag at Denver and I hide it in my pocket. Are you mad I taked it?”

“You shouldn’t take things without asking first.”

Birdie frowned. “I sorry. I thought it was a princess story ’cause it’s pink.”

“I’m not mad. Just ask next time you want to borrow something, okay?”

“Okay.”

Toni tried to remember when Birdie had been with her bag in Denver. In the conference room while she’d given her presentation, maybe? That had to be the case.

“Did anyone else read my book, Birdie?”

“No,” she said, tilting her head and shrugging. “Not even me. Toni, you have
bad
handwriting.”

Toni couldn’t help but laugh. Her handwriting
was
atrocious. But if Birdie had her journal and no one else had seen it, how had all those stories about Exodus End been leaked?

“Are you sure no one else saw my book, Birdie?”

“I sure. I kept it safe in my secret spot. Can we eat sketties now?”

“Of course.”

Scowling with puzzlement, Toni trailed after Birdie to the kitchen.

“You’ve stopped smiling already,” Grandma remarked to Toni as they sat down to eat. “You’ll get things straightened out with Logan.”

“I hope so,” she said, but that wasn’t what had her picking at her food. She supposed she would have to read the damned tabloid for clues. The only explanation she could come up with was that someone had somehow found the journal in Birdie’s secret spot under her bed. But the only person who could have found it was her mother and Toni could not—
would
not—believe that her own mother would stoop to that level.

Mom didn’t show up all through dinner or during Birdie’s bedtime routine. Toni was starting to worry that something had happened to her. It wasn’t unusual for her workaholic mother to come home late at night, but Mom knew Toni was awaiting the delivery of her phone. Unable to take the wait any longer, she gave in and called her.

When Mom answered, Toni said, “Why aren’t you home yet? I’ve been imagining you dead in a gutter.”

“I’m on my way,” she said, her voice distant since she spoke through her car’s speakerphone function. “Another half hour or so.”

“Did you remember my phone?”

“Yep.”

“Mom, have you seen my journal?” Toni’s stomach twisted with anxiety as she waited for her response. She knew how desperate her mother was for cash, but surely she wouldn’t sell information to the tabloids.

“Which journal?”

“Pink faux leather cover. Small enough to fit in a pocket.” And with privileged information written inside.

“No idea what you’re talking about. Maybe Birdie has seen it.”

Toni let out a deep breath as relief spread through her body. “I’ll ask her. See you in a bit.”

Grandma had already retired to the guest suite, so Toni retrieved the copy of the tabloid she’d bought at the airport. At the time she hadn’t been sure why she was encouraging the further publication of trash by giving them her money, but now she was glad she’d bought a copy.

Dread weighed heavy on the back of her neck as she sat at her desk, opened the paper, and scanned the first article. There was no doubt that the stories could have been fabricated based on the snippets in her journal, but there was far more information in the articles than she’d written. She’d hardly even mentioned the false rumors of Steve having a homosexual relationship with Zach Mercer, and yet the author of the article had run with that. Another article was about Steve and his ex-wife. A third about Steve’s mystery second wife. Wait? Had she even written about Steve’s second wife in her diary? She didn’t remember doing so. Another article about Steve fooling around with various women.

Why was there such a huge section devoted to Steve?

Toni flipped to the next article. Logan’s troubles with his brother were completely blown out of proportion, making it sound as if he cried nonstop into his pillow over his lost childhood. And poor Reagan. No wonder she’d been so upset. Not only had the article author revealed the nature of her relationship with Trey Mills and Ethan Conner, but he or she had completely trashed Reagan's character and her “novice guitar playing.” It was even suggested that the only reason Reagan had gotten her shot in the limelight was because she was screwing every member of the band, going so far as to imply marathon orgies.