Page 81 of Dance for Me
Tessa leans down in front of me, heel still pressed into my hand as she picks up my phone, her other hand gripping a tire iron. A tire iron that surely just connected with the back of my head, the end coated in the same blood that has already begun to soak the back of my shirt and coat.
She’s blurring around the edges as she stands up, twirling the bar in her hand like the batons they use on stage while she carries on her conversation on my phone. I hear laughter, and then nothing at all as the tire iron connects with my once angelic face.
41
HARPER
“Wade, go now. Now!” I yell at him when he still doesn’t move. “I’m not in danger right now! Colton is. She’s there with him. Go!”
“Harper, we don’t know where they went. I need to call James,” he whisper-shouts back, trying to keep our voices from carrying through to Tessa on the other end.
I look to Sadie and she immediately turns back to her computer, clacking away before she writes something down on a neon pink sticky note and shoves it at Wade.
Wade looks over the note and then whips his head back up to ping-pong between me and Sadie. We don’t have time to explain to him. I just need him to go.
“Now, Wade!”
I’m gripping the phone so tight against my ear I can hear the glass groan as he nods once and then beelines it for the door, already calling it in to the rest of the security team. Wade was calm on the phone when Colton finally answered. Until he wasn’t. He said Colton’s name twice, and then his eyes connected to mine, and the next thing I knew, the phone waspressed to my ear and I was screaming, only to be met with silence.
I don’t know what’s worse: the silence or hearing Tessa on the other end. Tessa, whom I had trusted. The same Tessa who I watched only a few minutes ago carry a new laptop into my office and leave seconds later, my old one tucked under her arm.
It wasn’t hard for Sadie after that. She was able to get into the security network and unweave the measures Tessa had taken to protect herself. Sadie keeps muttering something about looping, which apparently shows the same video on a never-ending cycle, instead of the live feed we should have been monitoring. It was never something Sadie had considered, since there weren’t any signs the surveillance had been tampered with. After all, there is no evidence your house was broken into when the burglar has the fucking key to the front door. I gave her the key to the front door, and she had access toeverything. She didn’t change anything that made a breach obvious—no money went missing that sent up flags, no orders from places that wouldn’t be part of our regular inventory all she did was intercept the orders she needed, extra ones I wouldn’t be looking at, and then looped the footage during the delivery. So all we would see if we looked was an empty delivery space, while she used her own people to move the shipments around and take their goods.
There is rustling on the other end before I hear her voice. The voice of an employee. Of a friend.
“Hello, sweetie. How is your night going?” asks Tessa,
She was smarter than us. She planned this. She had to have been going into my office and copying over software onto the decoy laptop for months before she finally made the swap.
“Hellooo, Harper? You were so chatty a minute ago,” Tessa whines into the phone, and I can practically hear the pout.
I close my eyes, trying to pretend this isn’t the same girl Iused to comfort when she got overwhelmed and stay up late with, brainstorming new ways to incorporate carnival theme snacks into cocktails. Because fuck, this is Tessa. Sweet, innocent Tessa.
I hear a muffled groan from the other end of the phone and suddenly the picture I have of Tessa is accessorized by a thirty-eight lodged between her brows.
“What do you want, Tessa?” I ask, rage coating my words. “Or should I call you by your official title, Jester? Stupid fucking name, by the way,” I tell her. Not trying to provoke her, but unable to keep the hate to myself.
“Oh Harper, no one likes a sore loser,” she says in a singsong voice, as if this is all a joke.
“What thefuckdo you want, Tessa?”
“Well, you have something of mine and now I have something of yours. I think we should trade.”
“You want to trade?” I repeat, watching Sadie stare at me wide-eyed and point to her ear until I hold the phone out and place the call on speakerphone.
“Yes, I want to trade. God, you’re slow today.”
“And why would I make that trade?” I scoff, hoping she can’t hear the bluff in my voice, or the sound of my heartbeat trying to escape my chest.
“Oh, because you would do anything for this one here. I thought at first you two were just fucking, was trying to get buddy-buddy in the hopes he would let some of your secrets slip. But then his ex-girlfriend shows up, and you absolutely lose your shit?” The memory floods me—Tessa walked outside and caught me letting my rage out with a bat. “Miss high and mighty brought down by a pretty face. Who saw that coming?” I close my eyes, knowing I’m fighting a losing battle. I know there is no choice but to agree, and so does she.
“Fine, meet me back here atCirque,” I tell her. “I’ll have what you want.”
“Ha, I’m not stupid. You have Wade with you. I’ve learned from the best after all, and I’m not dumb enough to get trapped by you.”
“Wade left about five minutes ago with Sadie, headed right to you, Tessa. You learned from the best, but apparently you weren’t paying attention,” I tell her, my voice sweet. “Did you really think he would be important enough to me for you to use as bait, but not important enough to make sure I always know where he is?”
“Even you aren’t crazy enough to put a tracker on your own boyfriend,” she scoffs, not believing I would have done anything I deemed necessary to keep him safe.
