Page 66 of Ink and Ashes
Exhaling deeply, I make my way deeper into the room. Holland has her back to me, distracted by something on her computer when I approach.
“Hey,” I say to her.
She startles slightly before turning around.
“Hey,” she states, returning her attention to her laptop. I take a seat next to her at the table, my eyes flashing over everything laid out in front of me.
The extent of all this is way more than I’d prepared myself for.
Needing a minute before we jump into everything, I glance at Holland. “Dom is going to come by later today.”
Her brows pull together. “Really? He’s been ignoring me all week.”
I chuckle nervously. “That’s my fault. After I read your article last weekend, I was so angry that I impulsively told him you aren’t who you say you are. He doesn’t like being lied to.”
She swallows roughly. “I figured.”
I wince slightly. “I convinced him to come by so we can fill him in on your car. I know he believes your theory, so he’ll get over the lying.”
She rolls her lips together and looks back to her computer with a nod.
When she doesn’t say anything more, I add, “Now that you’ve managed to get me on your side, are you going to sharewhyyou’re lying about who you are?”
The question catches her off guard, her cheeks flushing pink again. Fuck if seeing her nervous and flustered doesn’t make me that much more curious about her.
“Cassidy didn’t tell you?”
I shake my head. “I asked, but she refused.”
Holland’s lip quirks up at the side momentarily before she masks it and turns to me again. “It’s…a long story.”
“So give me the CliffsNotes version,” I insist.
She eyes me cautiously. “If I tell you, you have to promise not to go look me up.”
My brows furrow, but I reluctantly agree.
“And I’m not going to tell you my real name.”
I huff a laugh. “Good thing I’m not asking for it,” I say honestly. As much as I’d love to know, I’m trying to believe that the version of the woman sitting in front of me is all real aside from her name. I want to give her the benefit of the doubt and believe she’ll tell me the whole story when she’s ready.
She pulls her bottom lip between her teeth, tearing her gaze from mine. Then on an exhale, she says, “I was framed for a case and got blacklisted by the entire journalism industry in Toronto.”
I rear back. “Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
I’m silent for a moment as I ponder her admission. I can understand wanting to escape a situation like that, but it doesn’t explain why she came here using an alias.
“If you were framed, why hide your real identity?”
Her shoulders fall. “Because there are articles littering the internet that discuss the case, and every single one points its metaphorical finger at me. I knew if I came here using my real name, no one would trust me. No one who actually knows me believed me when I told them I’d been framed, so why would a town of strangers? I’ve had a hard enough time getting people on my side as it is.”
I nod in understanding. I don’t know what it is she was framed for, but if it was bad enough that she was blacklisted from the industry, she’s likely right to think that we—I—would’ve trusted her even less.
“You realize hiding your true identity from me is part of what made it so hard for me to trust you too, right?”
She huffs a laugh. “I know. But it was either lie about my name or let you look me up and see all those articles naming me as a fraud, as someone who betrayed her community, as someone corrupt. You may not even believe me now, but that isn’t who I am. I had to decide what would give me a better shot of getting people to trust me, and lying about my name was it.”
