Silenced Read online

  Silenced

  By Alicia Renee Kline

  Copyright 2015 Alicia Renee Kline

  Smashwords Edition

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  The past

  A promise

  The threat

  A vow

  The End.

  Chapter One

  Lauren

  There wasn’t much in life that could throw me any more. Maybe it came with the territory. Over the past few years, my life had spiraled into a completely different direction than I’d ever imagined. But here I was, a living, breathing, character in a soap opera that I commonly referred to as my existence.

  The love of my life was a convicted felon. His crime? None other than multiple drunk driving charges, which tied in rather ironically with the fact that my mother had been killed in a car accident caused by someone who’d been guilty of the same thing.

  My sister-in-law, also known as my former roommate and the first real friend I’d had in Fort Wayne, hadn’t exactly picked an easy road to travel, either. Though things were looking up for her now, she’d experienced her share of heartache and tragedy. Only some of these at the hands of her brother. She and her now-husband, Chris, had loved and lost for the better part of a twenty year history. She loved him. He loved her. I tolerated him. And for what it was worth, his feeling in my direction was mutual at best. Most days it bordered on intense dislike.

  See, Chris was my husband’s best friend, and he held a grudge like no other towards me. Yes, I was culpable for stringing Matthew along for more time than necessary while I sorted out my business with my ex-boyfriend, but still. Blake had kept the secret of miscarrying their child from him for an entire decade and he had forgiven her in two weeks flat. Years later, I was still big, bad Lauren.

  And then there was Gracie. My best friend from Indianapolis, she had followed me up north after Blake hired her. She’d just come clean about sleeping with another one of our group’s collective acquaintances, Will. Turns out, they’d progressed beyond the friends with benefits thing and declared their love for one another. Or at least that’s what I’d assumed happened. I’d witnessed Will’s declaration; she’d taken off after him and I hadn’t heard back from her yet. That had been Friday. It was now Monday.

  So that pretty much summed up my state of mind. Eager and willing to accept what life tossed at me. Ready at a moment’s notice to change my course of direction and move along with the tide.

  Except for this.

  Which was why my mouth opened and closed like a fish, the receiver of my work phone clutched in a white-knuckled hand as my boss stared at me from the opposite side of my desk. And Mrs. Patricia Barrett Snyder waited on the other end of the line for my response.

  My mother-in-law. By name only. I’d never met the woman, though I’d firmly declared my hatred of her. Anyone who could cut off ties to Matthew and Blake for the past ten plus years didn’t deserve the benefit of my doubt, no matter what legalities said.

  “Lauren?” Her crisp, decidedly upper middle class voice broke through my haze.

  “Yes, I’m still here,” I said quickly.

  I sank deeper into my office chair, wishing I could roll away and abandon this call. George regarded me with visible concern etched over his features. He made a move to get up from his seat and allow me privacy, but I shook my head. I wanted him here. Even if he was a bank Vice President and my immediate supervisor, he was also my local father figure. He caught my drift, but still stood. He made the trek to the threshold of my office, closing the door to the room and securing us both inside. Then he returned, his eyes focused intently on me as he tried to prepare for the fallout of whatever new drama was unfolding.

  “I know that my calling comes as a surprise,” Patricia continued.

  Should I even call her that? Was she Patricia to me? I doubted she’d go by something as laid back as Trish. Maybe to me she was Mrs. Snyder. Mrs. Barrett Snyder?

  I failed at concealing the snort that preceded my agreement. I didn’t really care. “You could say that,” I allowed.

  “I realize that you may have some perceptions of me that may or may not be warranted,” she continued.

  This time, I bit my tongue to refrain from providing commentary.

  “At any rate, I’ve come to the conclusion that my absence in Matthew and Blake’s life could have been ill-advised.”

  “Could have been?”

  My inner filter turned completely off and I flew into mother hen mode. Matthew and Blake were my family now. I would defend them to the death if I had to. She had disposed of them as quickly and neatly as one discards a dirty napkin. If there was ever a battle of loyalties, clearly I would come out on top. And I wasn’t about to go soft on her under the pretense of common courtesy.

  She didn’t deserve it.

  Which didn’t mean that I wasn’t intrigued.

  My accusation met with silence, I pressed for more details. “So why now? Why open the lines of communication after all this time? And why through me? Do I appear to be the weakest link?”

  “Now, Lauren,” she admonished, “I would never imply that. You seem to have done well for yourself. I can only imagine how hard you’ve had to work to get where you are in your own career. I’m not inferring that you’re like the other women that my son used to entertain. In fact, you’ve appeared to whip him into shape, so to speak.”

  I didn’t doubt that she’d done some background research on me prior to placing the call. Though Matthew and I didn’t live conspicuously, it was nearly impossible in this day and age to be entirely under the radar. She knew we were married, even though we’d not publicized that fact. She’d likely seen our daughter’s birth announcement in the paper, placed by an elated and quite possibly vindictive Blake. She’d found me at work, though that wasn’t hard. My name was plastered on the bank’s website as head of the mortgage underwriting department. A quick internet search could have told her all that.

  “Matthew didn’t need coddling to become the person he is today,” I said with conviction. “He only needed someone who believed in him. Maybe if you had attempted something resembling support you could have seen that. But instead, you chose to turn a blind eye and you’re still paying for that decision.”

  She said nothing. Perhaps out of shame, maybe out of agreement.

  I sighed heavily into the phone, knowing she wasn’t the only one who could put on an air of self-importance. “I have a staff to manage and lending decisions to make. Unless you have something you’d like to discuss besides insulting my loved ones, I really must let you go. It’s been a pleasure chatting. We should do it again sometime, perhaps before the next decade passes. But if we don’t, then it’s your loss.”

  I caught George’s eye, practically feeling his amusement radiate through my office. He’d been privy to enough of my backstory to understand the gist of what was being said, as well as narrow down to two suspects who was on the receiving end of my wrath.

  “Lauren, wait,” Patricia gasped desperately. For a split second, she sounded like someone with something to lose. Someone human.

  I hadn’t really been about to hang up on her, but she didn’t need to know that. Let her sweat a bit.

  “What do you want from me?” I hissed.

  Give me enough guesses, or even just one, and I had a fairly good idea. But I needed her to voice it. I wasn’t about to volunte
er.

  “Could we meet for lunch?” The request came almost timidly. As if I was some sort of a celebrity. At the very least, as if I was somehow the most important person in her orbit at the moment. The gatekeeper who controlled the outcome of whatever it was she was concerned with.

  “I don’t take lunches.” This was a lie. I did take my meals at my desk more often than not, but I wasn’t opposed to hitting up a restaurant every now and then when the mood struck. It wasn’t like I was chained to my computer. But I’d be damned if I would agree to wasting an hour of my time sitting under her microscope.

  “Then you could meet me after work?” she suggested.

  “I have to pick up my daughter once I leave the office. My evenings with my family are short enough as it is. What’s so important that this has to be done face to face?”

  I quite literally witnessed her momentum deflate over the phone lines. Pleased with myself, I allowed her the time that she required to formulate an answer.

  “Fine then,” she relented, “I’ll come see you at work. Do you think you could squeeze fifteen minutes out of your busy day to visit with me?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “I assume that’s the best that I’m going to get?”

  “You’re starting to get the picture.”

  There was no way that I’d be able to deny her if she showed up at the operations center of the bank, tucking her tail between her legs and hovering at my office door like a wounded animal. I wasn’t cold and heartless. But let her have the fear of rejection in the back of her mind. Just in case my bravado took a leap out the window, I could use her nervousness to my advantage.

  “Very well. I’ll arrive at ten, if that works for you.”

  “I suppose so. I’ll have the receptionist pencil you in.”

  This drew a quiet laugh from George, something that wouldn’t be overhead on Patricia’s end. We weren’t that formal here, not really. And since we didn’t meet personally with clients, the only appointments that were actually made were few and far between - things like sales calls from vendors or candidates for a job posting. If a friend or family member wanted to stop by, they simply dropped in.

  But Patricia was neither, though I sensed that for some inexplicable reason, she wanted that to change.

  “See you soon, Lauren.”

  “Goodbye.”

  I replaced the phone gently in its cradle after my intentionally impersonal farewell. My elbows resting on the top of my desk, I ran my hands through my hair, attempting to rub the throbbing pain from my temples.

  As much as I had smooth talked my way through that exchange, I knew I was screwed.

  “What was that all about?” George inquired after a moment of observation.

  “That was Patricia Snyder.”

  His eyebrow raised. He knew of her, and not just because of who I was married to. Banking executives traveled in high society circles, and he was at least familiar with both her and her husband. Alan Snyder was a prominent local attorney, and grabbing his financial accounts would be akin to something of a coup in the Fort Wayne area. He’d been loyal to one bank - not ours - for several years, despite some of our higher ups’ cajoling to get him to switch institutions. Since I’d begun working there, knowing my history with the family, George had called off the hounds.

  “And what did she want? A mortgage loan?” he teased.

  “You’re oh so optimistic, aren’t you?” I grinned, appreciating the humor.

  “It never hurts to try.”

  “No, I think her sudden interest in me has very little to do with dollar signs and everything to do with making my life a living hell.”

  Chapter Two

  Gracie

  His head rested upon my naked breasts, his warm breath a whisper against my bare skin. My legs were spread to accommodate the bulk of his frame; even though he was more athletic than built, I imagined he could still crush me if I bore his full weight for too long. My feet were curled around the back of his knees, pulling him into me further. Even in slumber, his fingers laced in mine, as if he couldn’t let go. His slow, steady pulse reverberated against my chest, almost as if it came from within me.

  As sure as I was that my own heart hadn’t stopped beating, I would have been perfectly fine if it had. I’d gladly let him control the blood that coursed through my veins, be the air that I drew into my lungs. Giving up total control of my faculties had never sounded so appealing.

  If this was what love did to you, then I wanted to sign up for a lifetime supply.

  I got it.

  I finally got it.

  In this alternate reality where I actually woke up well in advance of the alarm on my cell ringing for the third time, I laid underneath my man, wondering how in the world we’d ended up here. Here in a place where I stroked his mess of auburn hair absently as early morning sunlight shone through the window, reminding me it was yet another day and he hadn’t yet left.

  Technically since it was his place, I would have been the candidate to leave, but that was beside the point. Been there, done that. And I doubted he’d let me forget that, whether or not it was ever spoken. Even if he never brought it up again, I’d always remember.

  In fact, we hadn’t left the bedroom much since my arrival on Friday evening. After Emma’s departure and my declaration of mutual affection, Will and I had settled into a wordless challenge to exhaust his stolen condom supply. We ventured out only for nourishment and for creature comforts like showers and using the bathroom. And to stop by my place for a change or two of clothing. And because we never backed down from meeting a goal, a detour to the pharmacy for more contraception.

  Emma had breezed through Saturday afternoon, en route to yet another friend’s house for yet another sleepover. Noting the hint of guilt that I’d expressed at single-handedly turning Will into the worst parent ever in the span of twenty-four hours, she had shrugged things off and stressed that this was all part of her plan. And I supposed that at sixteen years old, she really didn’t need daddy time any longer. With a promise that she wouldn’t breathe a word of her father’s activities to her mother, she’d disappeared off to her friend’s, then straight to Stephanie’s after work on Sunday.

  Now it was Monday morning, and even more pressing than my need to pee was my desire to be a responsible member of society and get my ass ready for work. The honeymoon was over. Time for the real world.

  “Will,” I cooed, “time to get up.”

  This barely garnered a response. A pronounced intake of breath, a squeezing of my hand. Then nothing.

  “Will.”

  Still no material movement.

  My free hand, fingers buried in locks of curly hair, tightened into a fist and pulled. Hard.

  “Will. Wake the fuck up.”

  He jolted into consciousness, blessing me with those green eyes that swung up to mine. For a split second, it was as if he’d imagined this weekend, fully expecting to wake up alone and unattached. I watched with amusement as he processed where he was and who he was with. Recognition dawned on him and a grin slid across his features. A resulting twinge curled across my stomach from the inside out.

  “Hello there,” I greeted.

  Whether or not he associated the reason behind waking up with the hair pulling, or with me in general for that matter, was a mystery I didn’t really care to solve. He absentmindedly rubbed his head in the area I’d attacked, likely not putting two and two together.

  “Good morning, darling.”

  Like a total girl, I felt heat rise in my cheeks. I responded in kind with a smile of my own, embarrassed at my inability to string coherent thoughts together on a regular basis in his presence. Never before had anyone ever stolen my tongue like he could, much in the way he’d stolen my heart.

  “How long have you been up?” he asked, rubbing sleep from his eyes while correctly observing that I was relatively awake.

  “A while,” I hedged.

  “Am I keeping you from something?” he joked, shi
fting his weight completely off of me. “Coffee? Shower? Morning television?”

  “Work,” I confirmed with a matching grin.

  We both knew that punctuality wasn’t a key component of my employability. It came with the territory of having one of your closest friends as your boss, working underneath her in her company of two. I could saunter in at any hour today, especially given the weekend she knew I’d had, and not face any disciplinary action.

  The strange thing about that was the more freedom I had, the more devotion to the cause it instilled. Working for Blake at her design studio meant fifty hour weeks were the norm, and I didn’t bat an eyelash. In my former life as a lowly bank teller, I’d barely been able to struggle through forty hours, consistently with my mind out the door even when my body was still firmly located at my position in the drive up window.

  “You’ve got time?” A question, not a statement.

  “I do. But not all day. I can’t play hooky. I really want my car back.”

  “I’m sure Chris would trade you. Even up.”

  In my haste to follow Will after he’d dropped the bombshell of being in love with me, then fled my house, I’d taken Blake’s husband’s Honda Civic since it blocked my Lexus in the driveway. While I trusted both Blake and Chris with my life by this point - and rightfully so, on a couple different levels - there was no comparison between a compact car the wrong side of a decade old and a brand new luxury sedan.

  “He can buy his own. I don’t like him that much. And the Civic holds sentimental value for him. I’d ruin that with my taint.”

  “Your taint?”

  “I’m not exactly his type.”

  It was true. Though Blake and I were relatively of the same stature, we were polar opposites in other aspects of the looks department. And if there was one throughline in the person that was Chris, it was his utter devotion to a particular blond haired, blue eyed beauty. My jet black hair and chocolate brown eyes didn’t match his picture of attractiveness, though he’d gone on the record numerous times confirming my hotness.