All the Missing Pieces - Julianna Keyes Page 0,102

slouch into that same leather seat and fumble beneath the drawer for the key I know waits there, stuck to a tiny magnet. Alex and I found it when I was ten, playing a game of hide and seek, though we’d always been forbidden from playing in the office. I was thirteen the first time I tried the tequila; sixteen before I developed a taste for it. My dad must have known, but he never moved the key.

He keeps shot glasses in the same drawer, so I pull out the bottle and fill two glasses to the brim. Part of me is desperately praying Alex will come home and help sort this out. That my father will walk through the door, laughing with Linc, and say it was all a misunderstanding, those stupid cops don’t know what they’re talking about, Reese, get out of the office I told you not to play in there.

But that wasn’t what he said when he hugged me.

I drink.

The alcohol burns on the way down and doesn’t stop my hands from shaking. I’m sweating behind my knees and my hair feels too heavy for my head. I’ve never had a panic attack and I’m determined not to start, even though I’m pretty sure the choice isn’t mine anymore. There’s only one choice tonight and I cannot make it. I don’t care what they say in the press. I’m not just a dumb blonde. I’m not the product of nepotism. I’m not an accomplice.

My phone rings, and I snatch it up, stopping just before I accept the call. It’s not Alex or Linc. It’s Josie. Where the fuck are you? she texts when I don’t pick up. The party’s awesome and you’re missing everything!!!

I don’t reply. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know anything.

I down the second shot, but it doesn’t make me feel any better. I stash the bottle back in the drawer and return the key to the magnet, then stare at the desk, three gleaming computer monitors, neat stacks of paper, a hefty paperweight made from a piece of meteorite recovered from Siberia. I turn slowly in the chair, absorbing the bookshelves, the locked drawers, the panel under the Persian rug that no one knows holds the real family jewels, the DaVinci sketch on the wall that everyone knows hides a safe.

But he didn’t tell me to empty the safe.

Or the floor panel.

Because that’s too obvious.

Those are the first places anyone would look. The penthouse, our primary residence. Then the beach house, the brownstone, the yacht, the plane. My mother’s apartment. The theater.

I take the shot glasses to the kitchen and peer out the window at the street below, now just a giant, swarming mass of lights and bodies. It’s like the view from a concert stage, except I’m not a performer and no one asked if I wanted a part in the play. They just thrust a script into my hands and told me to read.

Frustrated tears fill my eyes when I call Alex again and get no response. I stopped leaving voice messages after the first four, worried I might say something that makes everything worse. “Did you know dad was stealing from everyone?” I imagine myself saying. “Hey, can you quickly check the crawl space in the basement of the theater to see if there’s any cash stashed down there? I don’t want to do it myself because of the rats.”

My phone beeps with another text, and I sigh when I see the message is from a blocked number. Hey, whore. Heard your money’s as dirty as your cunt.

If I were at the restaurant with Josie, we’d read this out loud and laugh hysterically before deleting it. Because it’s different when you know in your heart it’s not true.

Now I’m not so sure.

Another text. You lying bitch. You’re going to prison.

Another one. Rot in hell with your mother, thief.

The screen lights up with message after message, so many I can’t keep up. The words swim together, a sea of hate, so heavy and seething I turn off the phone completely, something I haven’t done in years. I stumble down the hall to my bedroom, where I catch a glimpse of myself in the sparkly dress and yank it off. A strap tears, but I don’t care, sobbing as I pull on a black T-shirt and a pair of dark jeans. I find sneakers I haven’t worn in eons and a black baseball cap. Alex has random costumes in