Page 72 of The Cinderella Secret
“Ohhhhhkay,” said Jackson, looking in dismay at the wall. “I can see why Aiden said it would take two of us.”
“Yeah,” said Evan. “The ones we want are the boxes with the yellow tags. Those are all DevEntier.”
“All right. So…” Jackson found himself flipping through various scenarios of how he would steal the boxes without anyone knowing, and then realized that was unnecessary. “How about we take those trunks and we layer them up like stairs? Then we’ll take off the top layer of wicker and then I can climb down the shelves to the boxes.”
Evan gave him a look that said his suggestion was insane. Jackson thought about it again—it still seemed viable.
“No?”
“Whatever you think,” said Evan with a shrug.
Jackson put his plan into action and soon was handing down a wicker coffee table and then a rocking chair. The chaise lounge took a bit of levering, but they managed it. Jackson then went over the summit and crawled along the shelf to the DevEntier boxes.
“OK,” he called to Evan. “I think I can get it out the side, can you wedge over there and grab it from me?”
“Working on it,” called Evan.
Jackson shoved the box along the lids of the row of boxes and then out to Evan’s waiting hands. Evan grabbed the box and Jackson was just about to go back and grab the next one when he saw an orange folder poking out from between two boxes.
“Huh,” said Jackson, bracing himself and pulling the folder out.
“Huh?” asked Evan, his head appearing over a piece of furniture.
“It’s a Pete folder,” said Jackson, flipping it open. Evan made an inquiring noise and then belly flopped further over the end of a wicker couch, perching there like some sort of awkward red-headed bird.
“Pete gives everything to Eleanor in orange folders. FYI—in case you’re ever trying to get a read on her desk. Huh. This must be how they found me.”
“What do you mean?” asked Evan, craning to look.
“They’re custody papers from Randall. It looks like he was filing for custody and requesting a paternity test. It looks like he never got around to filing them.” He looked up at Evan and saw that his cousin’s face looked stricken. “What?”
“I knew,” said Evan, his voice hoarse. “Randall, he came over one day and said he was going to bring me a brother. Which, I know, I know, sounds insane.” Jackson hadn’t said anything, so he suspected that the commentary was a reaction to someone else, most likely Evan’s therapist. “But Randall always assumed he owned everything of Dad’s, so that probably included me. I think that’s partly why Randall freaked out when Dad moved us out.” Evan looked as if he weren’t sure how he’d ended up at this fork in the conversation.
“When did you and Owen move out of Randall’s?” asked Jackson, trying to slide the question in without disrupting Evan’s tumble of thoughts.
“When I was like seven? It was about the time Dad left DevEntier, which probably was the real reason for the freak out. I mean, it was another unit in the same building, but you would have thought Dad had moved us across the country.”
Jackson smiled. “Why do you think Owen left DevEntier?”
Evan hesitated. “Randall said it was because…” Evan’s cheeks flushed.
“What?”
“When I was six, I came to work with Dad, and I was wandering around doing whatever. And then I went to Randall’s office. Only Randall was not alone.”
“Oh, ugh,” said Jackson, sympathetically.
“No, I mean, really not alone. Randall had someone bent over a desk and Dad was watching them.”
“Ohhhh,” groaned Jackson. “I won’t be able to wash that out of my brain out.”
“And you think I can? Anyway, Randall said Dad was overreacting. And Dad said some separation would be better for me. He did try sometimes. I mean, not very often. But he had periodic bouts of fatherliness. He wasn’t horrible all the time. It’s just that the scales on horrible and not-horrible don’t balance out.”
“Sorry,” said Jackson, and Evan shrugged.
“In hindsight, I think he also wanted his own life. I think that’s probably why he had me to begin with—he wanted something that was only his. And why he sent my mom away. I think he wanted freedom from Grandpa and Grandma and eventually even Randall. Only I think he had no fucking clue how to do that.”
Jackson nodded. That sounded about realistic.
