Page 31 of Ink and Ashes
“Um…should we sit?”
She lets out a nervous chuckle and says, “Probably a good idea,” which does nothing to reassure me.
We both take a seat, and I waste no time beating around the bush. “What’s up?”
“Here’s the thing,” she starts. “I know we don’t really know each other, but my brother told me something about you the other day, and it’s been in the back of my mind ever since. I was going to wait until tomorrow to bring it up, but I overheard Dom on the phone with you earlier, so I wanted to come talk to you now.”
My shoulders tense the more she talks, and she doesn’t need to clarify what it was Colson told her. I assumed Dom would be the first he told about my lie considering I’ve been working with him, but apparently I was wrong.
It figures Colson would tell Cass. He probably found out about our budding friendship—or what I was hoping would be one, anyway—and thought telling her this would scare her away. At least Cassidy has the decency to come in here calmly and give me a chance to explain myself, unlike her male counterpart.
“He said you aren’t who you say you are.”
I swallow. “I’m not,” I tell her simply, debating whether or not I should have this conversation with her. “But not in the way you think.”
She gives me a quizzical look.
“What, um…” I pause, trying to tread lightly. I don’t want to share more than I have to. “What did he tell you?”
“Just that he looked you up and couldn’t find anything, claiming you have secrets you don’t want anyone to know and that you’ve been lying about your name, so I should steer clear of you. But I knew as soon as I heard those words that somethingsounded off. I’m hoping you’ll fill me in on the truth.”
I eye her. “We hardly know each other. Why would you care what some random stranger has to say over your own brother?”
Her nervous chuckle returns. “You’re not a random stranger, Holland. We may not know each other very well and I may not know your real name, but I can tell you’re in need of a friend.” She smiles softly. “I’m willing to be that for you, if you want. People don’t use an alias without reason. I don’t need to know your real name to know that whatever your reason may be, it isn’t because you’re the fraud Colson seems to be convinced you are.”
My shoulders fall. I’ve never had a real friend before, and I’m not really sure how to go about this.
I settle on telling her, “I’m not a fraud. I…” I pause, swallowing. “I was framed.”
She doesn’t miss a beat. “For what?”
I tear my gaze away from hers and let out a sigh. I’m not sure how trustworthy she is, but at this point, I have nothing to lose. Colson already knows I’ve been lying, and eventually, I’m sure the rest of the town will too. At least if Cassidy knows bits and pieces of the real story, I might have one person on my side when the news officially breaks.
“Leading a pay-for-publicity scheme.”
The gasp that escapes her makes me chuckle.
“I don’t want to get into the whole story, but someone I worked with had been leading it. I’d noticed some shady dealings and decided to look into them more, and I just so happened to uncover what she was doing in the process. But I didn’t have enough proof to expose her, and she caught onto me before I could gather it. She framed me for the whole thing, which got me fired and blacklisted. I tried to clear my name with what I had, but no one believed me.”
Not even my own parents.
“Oh, my God,” is all Cassidy manages. “That’s…insane?”
I nod. It kind of is. “Sounds like something right out of a movie, doesn’t it?”
“A little bit, yeah.” She huffs a laugh. “So afterthat, you decided to come here to investigate the fires?”
“Being fired was the spark that sent my whole life up in flames—pun not intended. Then everything happened with Gabriel, and that was my breaking point. So yeah, I came here. I figured looking into these fires would distract me from the one my life had become.
“And while I’m hoping that solving this case will prove to everyone back home that I’m not the person they’ve been made to believe I am—that I’m still a good journalist, and that I would never in a million years do something that goes against the ethics of the job—I am here with good intentions. I may have come here to benefit myself, but that doesn’t mean I’m not actually trying to help the town too.”
“Does Colson know any of this?”
I shake my head. “He hardly let me get a word in edgewise when he confronted me, and I honestly didn’t try to explain. He already has his mind made up about me, and the things he’d find online would likely only make his opinion of me worse.”
Cassidy’s face falls. “I’m sorry about him. Like I said, he has problems with the media.”
That’s the third time Colson’s issues have been brought up, but I still have yet to know why. I doubt she’ll tell me, but considering I have no hope of finding out the truth from him anytime soon, I figure it’s worth an ask.
