by L. A. Sable
Liam loiters in the darkened part of the hallway nearest my room as if he knows I’m coming after him.
“Have you been here before?” I ask, my voice carrying in the silence. The party is taking place on the other side of the house so any sounds are muted.
Liam shrugs. “All these build-a-mansions start to feel the same after a bit, but no. I was looking for a bathroom.”
There are at least a dozen bathrooms in the house, more if you count half-baths. “There’s one two doors down on the right.”
But he doesn’t make any effort to move. “Are you enjoying your party?”
“Not really.” There isn’t any reason to be dishonest, not with him. “This place could burn to the ground and there are very people in it that I would miss.”
“Wow, harsh.”
“Okay, maybe I didn’t mean that. Things have just been weird.”
He looks genuinely interested. “How so?”
But I can’t confide in Liam. Even if I didn’t suspect him of being involved with blackmailing us, it isn’t worth the risk of bringing anyone else into this. “It’s Black Lake Prep. What else is there to say about it?”
“True enough. You made more than a few waves at the alumni mixer.”
Curiosity rises in me despite my best intentions to fight it. “In what way?”
“Well, you’re the first student to transfer in and make it to Diamond status before the year is out, that’s for sure. Some very important people know your name.”
“People like Asher’s father?” I ask, my gaze probing his. “You never explained why he decided to help you get your job back, especially considering how suspicious you were of him at one point.”
“Oh, that.” Liam has the grace to look embarrassed. “I was hoping we could just forget about all that. Losing my job sort of sent me for a loop and I was chasing after shadows. Frank Bellamy isn’t a perfect person, but he isn’t all bad.”
“What about that blood test you found, the one that says Frank can’t be Asher’s father?”
Liam doesn’t meet my gaze as he answers. “That was a mistake. It’s been cleared up, and I was an idiot for chasing after conspiracies like that.”
I don’t believe him, I realize. Even if he isn’t lying, Liam is definitely hiding something from me. “I should get back to the party.”
“Wait.”
I’m forced to stop when he grabs my arm. “What?”
But before he can answer, I see lights coming up the long driveway through the bay window at the end of the hall. They’re from more than one car, so it can’t be Trish coming back from the store. That sense of foreboding that I’ve spent the entire night trying to ignore works its way up my spine like an ice cube sliding along my skin.
Something terrible is about to happen.
Red and blue lights shining through the window at the end of the hallway is my first warning that something is very wrong. There aren’t any sirens which only makes a visit by the police even more foreboding. Whatever brought them here, they aren’t in any particular hurry.
By the time I hear the loud pounding on the front door, I’m already halfway down the stairs. A crowd of people have gathered in the entryway, but none of them have opened the heavy wooden doors. It’s like moving through a gauntlet of nervous faces as I finally reach the portal and throw the double doors wide.
Two police officers stand on the porch, one of them slightly behind the other on the lower step. Their cruiser still has its lights on, flashing blue and red across their faces like something out of a surrealist painting.
“Can I help you?” I ask, working to keep my voice even.
“Are you Lily Murphy, daughter of Tricia Murphy Carter.”
My hands tighten on the door frame as their faces swim in my vision. Somehow, I just know that whatever is coming out of their mouths next will shatter my entire world. “Is there a problem?”
“Carter Bellamy is listed as next-of-kin, but we’ve had trouble getting into contact with him so dispatch sent us out here.” The first office glances back at the second before turning back to me. It makes me wonder if this is his first time doing something like this. “There’s been an accident on the highway. Your mother’s car jumped the median and was struck head-on by a tractor trailer.”
I grab for one of the coats hung up on a stand next to the door, not even caring if it’s mine or not. “Which hospital did she get taken to? We can go right now.”
But the police officers don’t make a move, instead they just continue to look at me with unreadable expressions. Nothing about them is hurried. I understand what that means, even if I don’t want to accept it.
“I’m so sorry.” The second officer says, expression grave. He looks older than the first, like he has a family to go home to and forty years of world weariness on his brow. “Paramedics responded to the scene, but there was nothing they could do.”
“We need to go,” I say. Even though I understand their words, the meaning of it refuses to filter in. “I have to see her.”
Someone comes to stand at my back, several of them in fact. One of the guys places a hand on my shoulder, but their collective support isn’t enough to make a difference, not right now.
The first officer seems to realize that beating around the bush isn’t going to cut it, he has to be explicit if he wants me to understand.
“Your mother did not survive the crash, despite every effort to resuscitate her. She’s dead. Your mother is dead.”
Your mother is dead.
Chapter 10
My mother is dead.
I have to keep that sentence rolling over and over in my mind because I don’t quite believe it. At any moment, part of me expects my phone to ring with Trish’s name and picture on the screen. But she isn’t ever going to call me again. She isn’t going to do anything ever again.
The police officers gave me more information, although I wasn’t in any position to hear it at the time. There was something about how her car accelerated too fast down a hill and ended up in oncoming traffic. But they assured me that colliding with the big rig truck had been quick. She was gone from the impact before the wreckage of her car skidded to a stop in the middle of the highway.
I’d heard all of it, but nothing matters. Not anymore.
My phone has been pinging with messages for days, but I’ve ignored all of them. I haven’t gone back to Black Lake so I’ve missed almost a week of classes, not that I care about something as trivial as my education. Carter returned from his business trip the day after the party, but he didn’t make any noise about insisting I go back. He packed Asher off to campus on Monday, but he seems to recognize that if I get behind the wheel of a car right now, then I’m driving until I hit something solid.
I’m barely even aware that Carter is in the house with me. I haven’t left my room in the 72 hours, 18 minutes and 27 seconds since I found out that Trish is dead. For his part, Carter leaves me alone to stew in my own miserable juices. Whatever arrangements are being made for the funeral don’t concern me much and it’s hard to imagine that we have anything else to talk about.
Mostly, I wonder how long is a suitable amount of time for him to wait before telling me that it’s time for me to go. Without Trish around, Carter doesn’t have any reason to keep housing and feeding me, much less pay the tuition at a school as expensive as Black Lake. That’s at least part of the reason that I haven’t gone back. I don’t want to return to school and pretend like anything still matters, but even more than that I don’t want to be escorted off campus when Carter inevitably pulls his support.
I’m lying on the bed and staring up at the ceiling when someone knocks nervously at the door. When I don’t bother to respond, a maid pokes her head in and murmurs that Mr. Carter would like to see me in his study.
When I press play on my phone, my mother’s voice floats out from the tinny speakers for the dozenth time. I’ve played and replayed the last message she left on my voicemail, telling me how excit
ed she is for the party and that she can’t wait to see me.
I’m never going to hear the real thing again.
Despite the regret and grief washing over me, I know that the worst is yet to come. It hasn’t hit me yet, that the one person who has always been a fixture in my life is gone, but it will. The pain of it might be enough to well and truly kill me.
Finally forcing myself off the bed, I trudge down the hallway toward Carter’s office. With each step, my legs feel like they weigh a hundred pounds more than they did with the previous one. This stupid house has never seemed so large and cavernous, too much for a dozen families, much less one. Sympathy for Trish wells up in me as I think about what it must have been like for her, roaming these empty hallways in silence. I’m surprised that it didn’t drive her completely mad.
The police asked me about any history of mental illness, but I’d been too overwhelmed to get offended by it. In hindsight, the question makes me angry, but it also makes me wonder. It burrows in my mind like some insidious thing, making me second guess everything I thought I knew about the world.
Trish wouldn’t kill herself, I know that as certainly as I know my own name. But the police had discovered interesting things when they investigated the scene. There hadn’t been any skid marks on the road coming down the hill, as if Trish hadn’t even tried to brake as the car accelerated recklessly fast.
But they haven’t officially declared a cause of death, accidental or deliberate.
I tell myself that it doesn’t matter one way or the other, dead is dead. But I don’t want to believe that she would leave me like this, no matter what had been going on in her life.
She wouldn’t leave me like this.
Carter is sitting behind a gigantic mahogany desk when I enter the office. The room is so aggressively masculine that for a minute I’m almost taken aback. Dark wood paneling accents walls painted a deep burgundy. Paintings hang of men in various sorts of aggressive poses, most of them riding horses or holding rifles aloft above the corpses of dead animals.
“The door was open,” I say lamely as he raises his head to look at me. “So I just came in.”
It’s impossible know if he’s been crying, but Carter’s eyes are bloodshot. When he sighs, the sound is heavy enough to collapse under the weight of it. “Have a seat, Lily.”
I collapse into one of the leather armchairs in front of the desk. The smell of my own unwashed body wafts up over me and I try to remember how long it’s been since I last showered. “Sorry it took so long, I was taking a nap.”
The corner of his lips lift slightly, not enough to call it a smile. “There seems to be a bit of that going around. It’s hard to see the point in even waking up some days.”
I don’t know why, but I’m surprised to hear him say that. Even though Carter married my mother and I assume he must have loved her, it’s hard for me to imagine him grieving for her, at least in the way I am.
But now that I’m staring into his drawn face, I realize that may be an unfair assessment.
“What did you want to talk to me about?” I ask, finally.
“Your mother’s untimely death has left things a bit in limbo.” Carter gathers the heap of papers in front of him into a neat pile. “Although grief can cast a pall over things, I wanted to make sure we tied loose ends up as soon as possible.”
I cross my arms over my chest and wait, anticipating whatever bad news is going to come next. Hopefully, he’s going to give me enough time to figure out where I’m going before kicking me out of the house. But let’s be honest, he doesn’t have to. I am eighteen, after all.
Happy fucking birthday to me.
“If you can give me a little time to get myself together, I’d appreciate it.” Grief keeps any concern for myself at bay, but I can see the wave looming over me about to crash down and destroy everything. “I have an uncle in Yonkers who might let me stay with him, but I’d like to finish this year of school if I can. But I get it if you don’t want to help me, you’ve already done more than most people would.”
An expression of confusion descends over Carter’s face. “You think I’m kicking you out?”
Hope flares in my chest before I force myself to tamp down on it. “If you’ll let me stay here for a little while longer, I would really appreciate it.”
Carter lets out a surprised laugh that sounds more like he’s choking. “I’d be offended if I didn’t know how difficult this must be for you. But you’ve misunderstood things completely. I’m not kicking you out, quite the opposite in fact. I’m trying, quite badly apparently, to explain that I’ve had you added to my will.”
A record scratch wouldn’t be out of place. “Wait, what?”
Carter clears his throat and holds up the thick stack of papers. “I’ve just had my lawyers in to draw up the necessary documents, so it’s all signed and sealed. As of today, you and Asher are the sole beneficiaries to my estate.”
The feeling that washes over me is one of reality turned on its side and then blown up. This is the polar opposite of what I’d been expecting from him. Hope is painful, because it leaves you vulnerable to being hurt all over again. “Are you sure that you want to do that?”
“It’s already done.” He smiles gently, but the expression is tinged with sadness. “Lord knows that I have more than enough money to spare. And Trish would have wanted you to be taken care of. It’s the least that I can do.”
The least he could do is considerably less than this, but I don’t tell him that. Not that I think Carter would abruptly change his mind, but I don’t exactly want to risk it.
“Thank you for this,” I say, voice solemn. “I don’t really know what else to say. This is more than I ever expected.”
“This is a rough time for all of us, but we’re in it together.” Carter brushes at his eyes before the tears there can fall, and he quickly looks down at the papers in his hand. “I think returning to school would be a good idea, if just to give yourself something to occupy your mind. I have to leave tomorrow night for Brussels, but I’ll be back for your mother’s service this weekend. If you don’t feel up to going back, I understand. But I do think it would be good for you.”
My mother is dead.
I’m going to inherit half of a billion dollars.
Both of those things are true and I don’t want either one of them.
Life has to go on, is the subtext of all this. Carter has business meetings and I have an education to get back to. I wonder if he’ll be faking it, the way that I know I will. Trish’s death isn’t something I will ever get over, but I know she wouldn’t want me to crawl into a hole and slowly be buried alive under my own grief.
“Thank you, sir. You’re almost certainly right.” I push myself up from the chair with arms that are shaking. “I’ll drive back to campus tonight.”
“No need to rush—”
“It’s the best thing to do. I’ve wallowed for long enough.”
“Of course.” Carter stands, but doesn’t come out from behind the desk. “If there’s anything you need, by all means let me know.”
I thank him, but the words sound empty even to my own ears. Even with all the money in the world, Carter Bellamy can’t give me what I need.
Not when what I really need is to forget.
It’s the middle of the night when I get back to Black Lake.
Everything is quiet and still as I make my way down the path toward the Pavilion. I don’t want to go back to my room and pretend to sleep, like I’ve been doing for the past several days. If I’ve slept at all since those policemen came to my door, it was really more a function of my brain shutting down and forcing me to pass out.
I don’t want to sleep because then I’ll dream, imagining the pain and fear on my mother’s face as her car went careening out of control. But I also don’t want to think and the only escape from my own thoughts is some sort of oblivion.
It isn’t until I’m mounting the steps of the Tower that I realize I completely bypassed m
y own room. My mind might be on autopilot, but my subconscious knows precisely what it wants.
Asher doesn’t even seem surprised to see me at his door. He opens it wide enough for me to step inside and then closes it softly behind me.
“You okay,” he asks, voice muted.
I just shake my head with a choked sort of laugh. “Next question.”
“Yeah, I guess the answer to that one is pretty obvious.”
The last thing I want to engage in is small talk, I don’t want to be talking at all. I sit down on the bed, noticing that the comforter is smooth without even a dent in the fabric. Obviously, he hasn’t been to bed yet. “Are you holding anything? I’m out.”
His eyebrows go up. “I just gave you more last week. How are you out already?”
“You know I’m no good at math. But last week minus this week equals zero. Do you have something, or not?”
“Maybe.” But he doesn’t move away from the door, leaning back against it as if he’s worried I’ll make a run for it. “Do you want to talk about what happened?”
“I don’t want to talk about my mother, no.” My fingers clench into fists on the comforter as I resist the violent urges welling up in me. Everyone acts like talking will change this, but all the words in the world won’t bring Trish back from the dead. “Did you know that Carter put me in his will? We’re splitting the estate when he dies.”
Asher shifts his weight from one foot to the other, but his expression remains unreadable. “He talked to me about it before he drew up the paperwork, wanted to make sure that I wouldn’t be upset.”
There is an obvious challenge in my voice. “Are you?”
“It’s only money,” he replies with a shrug. “And there’s plenty to go around.”
“That isn’t what you would have said when we first met. What is it that you used to call me: Goldie, short for gold digger?”
“Things change.”
I shift forward on the bed, letting the fabric of my top fall away from my chest so he has a nearly unobstructed view. “Not you, Asher. You don’t change. Through everything, you’ve always been the asshole. Steady like a rock that never tips. Every interaction that we’ve ever had has been based on some sort of transaction. You’re not the type of guy who has a change of heart. Stop pretending to be something you’re not. Neither of us are the good guy here.”