Page 23 of Love and Lies

It was Wednesday evening, and I was outside Simon Foster’s martial arts club, where my appointment was about to start. Luckily, my parents had separate business dinners to attend and needed their chauffeurs themselves, so I’d ordered a taxi, telling them I was going to chill at Malia’s for the evening. The driver didn’t speak much English, so I’d risked a call to Malia on the way to Brooklyn, asking her to cover for me. She already knew what I was planning—I’d told her what I was hoping to gain from talking to Simon.

“I have a bad feeling about this, Len.” Malia’s skepticism was clear. She sounded like my mom.

I rolled my eyes good-naturedly. “Malia, come on—this isn’t some kind of underground fight club where people beat each other to death smeared in blood. It’s a martial-arts training studio, that’s all.”

“Which you’re intending to infiltrate so you can get to the owner—who is, presumably, a martial-arts expert himself,” she reminded me.

“Right. But it’s not going to be a problem. Trust me.” I was hoping I could count on Simon’s support, so I was just going to be friendly and ask for his help. If I got the sense he wasn’t interested, I’d simply leave and come up with something else.

All the same, Malia muttered that she’d swing by with a unit if she didn’t hear from me in two hours max. Then we hung up.

I put my phone away and pushed open the door. I made my way down a hall with exposed brickwork until I reached an open-plan reception area, with a counter that seemed to be made of welded metal. There was nobody there, so I waited, looking around inquisitively.

The club consisted principally of one big hall divided into different areas—there were several boxing rings, an MMA cage, and various other zones with mats. Some of them were occupied by people practicing various kicks and blows with a trainer, or taking part in practice fights. Ropes and punching balls hung around the bare, untreated walls, along with punch bags that seemed to be waiting for someone to set upon them. Despite the raw vibe of the place, it felt like coming home. The equipment, the sound of shoes on the gym floor and fists on leather, the smell of fresh sweat and rubber—all of it had become so familiar in the last few years. I almost felt something like homesickness for England then. I hadn’t enjoyed being so far away from New York, but at the sports club in Cambridge, where I worked out three times a week, I’d been happy.

“Hey, you must be Helen, right?” The young woman with the Afro who’d just come back to the reception desk flashed me a smile. I was glad she did; she had such a well-toned figure that I wouldn’t want to get on her bad side. “Sorry to keep you waiting. It’s all a bit mad today.”

“No worries, it gave me a chance to look around. Pretty cool place you’ve got here.”

“Yeah, we’re pretty proud of Tough Rock.” She beamed. “I’m Demi; the owner, Simon, is my big brother. Good to have you here.” She passed me a clipboard with a form attached to it. “Can you sign this for me? It’s for the insurance, so you can’t sue us if someone breaks your nose.” She grinned.

I nodded. “Sure.” My signature had never been very legible, so I didn’t need to disguise it to pass myself off as Helen Miller on the form. I passed it back to her, and she placed it in a filing tray.

“Any questions?” she asked.

“No, I don’t think so.” I didn’t ask for Simon—that would be too conspicuous. Demi would want to know how I knew her brother, and I’d be at a loss to explain myself right away. I’d rather keep my eyes peeled and see if I could spot him; I knew what he looked like from articles and photos about the night Valerie and Adam died.

“Great.” Demi’s reply was friendly, but she looked a little sheepish. “Listen, normally at this point I’d give you the tour, and show you where you can get changed and warm up, but we’re down a trainer today, and I have to take over his session in a minute. So I’ve asked one of our regular clients to jump in and show you around instead. Believe me, it’s a good deal.” She turned around. “Oh, here he is.”

From out of the shadows at the back of the club, a tall man with a toned body came toward us, just like in the movies. He was wearing knee-length gym shorts and one of those tank tops with huge arm holes—typical getup for a place like Tough Rock. As he walked lithely over and I took in the definition on his upper arms, I was inclined to agree with Demi.

Until his face came into the light, and I froze.

Oh no. Please no. Not him.

“Damn,” I muttered, suppressing an aggravated sigh. Jessiah Coldwell came here too? And not only that, he was supposed to show me around? Great. What the hell had I done to deserve this from the universe?

Demi totally misread my reaction. “Ugh, I hear you. He’s so hot.”

She was right, purely objectively speaking. But I was the least objective person of all time right now, and for a minute I forgot that I was supposed to be playing a role, and that Helen Miller would be delighted that a good-looking guy like Jessiah Coldwell was showing her the ropes. But the real me was winning out, and I simply didn’t want to be in the same room as that guy for a single second, not even a room as big as this. The look on his face when he recognized me told me it was clear he felt the same.

Demi didn’t pick up on anything. “Jess, this is Helen Miller,” she introduced me. “She was supposed to have her first session with Rafe today, but he’s had to take on Aaron’s fighters and won’t be done for another twenty minutes. Show her around until then, and let her know where she can warm up, yeah?”

“Helen Miller?” Jessiah’s eyes narrowed.

Fuck.

I swallowed. If he told Demi who I really was, I’d be in trouble long before I could ever talk to Simon.

But that didn’t happen. After a brief moment, Jessiah’s face softened, and he reached out a hand. “Nice to meet you, Helen.”

I shook it, letting go again as soon as possible. “Yeah, likewise.” It was a good thing I’d gotten so good at lying.

“Well, come on, then.” He went around the counter and headed back in the direction he’d come from.

“Somebody’s a long way from the palace,” he remarked as soon as we were out of Demi’s earshot. “Hence the sneaky alias, right? You like getting into fights but don’t want your family to know about it?” He sounded amused.

“You have no idea how much I want to get into a fight right now,” I mumbled softly, though not quietly enough.