Page 117 of Promising You
“I’m not giving up on this. I’m going to keep digging until I find out the truth about these people.” He holds the elevator door open for me.
As we ride up to the third floor, I hear Garret’s warnings in my head. The warnings he gave me last semester when I was determined to learn the truth about my mother. He told me to never dig up the past. That it could be dangerous and could get me killed. That people like his family will do anything to keep their secrets buried. And after what I’ve seen, I know that it’s true.
“Carson, you really need to let this go. If you think doing this is going to get me to break up with Garret, you’re wrong. I love him, and nothing you say is going to change that.”
“Garret is a Kensington. Do you really think he’s not involved in whatever it is his family is doing? Or doesn’t at least know about it?”
I turn to face him. “We’re done talking about this. Garret is not doing whatever bad things you think he’s doing and neither is his family.” I step off the elevator with Carson right next to me. “And if you want us to still be friends, you’ll drop this. Otherwise, our friendship ends right now. I won’t even talk to you anymore outside of class.”
He holds my backpack strap so I can’t move forward. “I have a whole file of stuff about the Kensington family and the people they associate with. If you’d just look at the file, you’d see. There’s something strange going on with them. If you only consider a single incident, then no, you wouldn’t suspect anything. But when you look at everything together, things look much different. Just come to my room tonight and I’ll show you.”
I tug on my backpack, but he keeps hold of the strap. “I’m not going to your room. I told you, I’m not interested in dating you. And this is the last time I’m going to say it.”
“Jade, I just want you to see the file. If you don’t want to come to my room, then we’ll go to the library. Or we’ll go to that coffee shop again.”
“I don’t care about your stupid file! Now let me go. I mean it.”
He finally lets go of my backpack, then walks ahead of me to open the door to the physics classroom. He keeps quiet as he waits for me to walk in.
When I’m in my seat I send a text to Garret letting him know I made it, then I flip through my physics book refusing to look at Carson sitting beside me. I’ve had it with him. I’m sick of his accusations and his attempts to get me to break up with Garret. And now he’s got me wondering what exactly he has in that file, which pisses me off because I’m finally starting to like Garret’s dad. I even trust him a little.
Mr. Kensington saved my life when he killed Royce Sinclair. And he’s been kind and generous to me ever since then. He’s supportive of my relationship with Garret. He stuck up for me with Katherine. He’s paying for my tuition. He bought me a car. He paid for my medical care. Plus he’s paying for that doctor to help Frank. How bad could the guy be?
It just takes one seed of doubt to wipe all that away. And that idiot Carson has done just that. Now, as I think back to what Mr. Kensington has done for me and the timing of it, part of me wonders if he’s paying for my loyalty. Paying me to keep quiet. Making me so enmeshed with his family that I can’t ever get out.
That night when I overheard Garret’s dad fighting with Katherine, he said I’d seen too much. That I was one of them. So is his kindness only due to the fact that I know their secrets? Am I being rewarded for keeping those secrets?
Carson’s accusations have me so flustered that I can’t concentrate and I miss most of physics class. Afterward he insists on walking me back to my room, but I lie and tell him I have to go to Student Services. He heads back without me.
The Student Services building is a few buildings down from the science building and the opposite direction from my dorm. Carson walks across the open quad, looking back to check that I’m really going where I said I was going. He’s walking super slow and I actually reach Student Services while he’s still only halfway to the dorms. Tired of having him check up on me, I walk to the side of the building by the parking lot so I’m out of his sight. I take a seat at a picnic table and rest for a moment. The sun is really warm today and it feels good soaking into my black coat.
As I sit there, I notice that I don’t feel very good. I put my arms on the table and rest my head on them, closing my eyes. After a few minutes, I still don’t feel good. I’m really dizzy and I think I might pass out. It must be complications from the concussion.
“Jade?” A man is speaking. He sounds older and I assume he’s one of my professors asking me if I need help. And I think I do. The dizzy feeling is getting worse.
I slowly lift my head, squinting in the bright sun. I sit up and see two tall, very large men next to me. My heart lurches against the wall of my chest in complete panic as I realize that I can’t escape whatever this is. Even if I didn’t have the crutches to deal with, I still couldn’t get away.
An older man, probably in his seventies, is sitting across from me. He’s wearing a suit and a long black overcoat.
“Jade, I need to talk to you,” he says.
His face is very familiar. The way he looks at me is familiar, too. I feel like I know him.
“Who are you?” As soon as the words leave my mouth, I realize where I saw him. New York. Rockefeller Center. He’s the old man who bumped into me. The man I saw on TV with Royce Sinclair. But who is he and why is he here? My mind barely gets the question formed before he answers.
“I’m Arlin Sinclair. Royce’s father. Your grandfather.”
I glance at the large men blocking me on each side, then across to the man who is claiming to be my grandfather.
I have no words because I can’t breathe. I think I’m holding my breath, but I’m not sure. It doesn’t matter because soon I’ll have no breath at all. The old man is obviously here to kill me. Here to finish the job his son didn’t complete. Get rid of the evidence. Get rid of me.
I don’t know why he’s doing this. It shouldn’t matter now. His son is dead. Nobody cares what he did.
But his father must. Because here he is, sitting across from me, prepared to bury this deep, dark family secret once and for all.
CHAPTERTWENTY-NINE
“Jade, you’re awake.”The man’s voice is familiar. He comes up next to me and I see it’s Dr. Cunningham, the doctor who took care of me after I fell and hit my head in the woods behind Garret’s house. “How are you feeling?”
