by Lilah Pace
The kindness he’s offering Chloe touches me. It would be a treat for me as well—a chance to watch my attacker wilt against Jonah—but if Jonah realizes that, he doesn’t confront my sister with that. He’s even worded his suggestion in a way that will make Libby feel like it’s all about her. For the first time this entire holiday, Chloe’s expression softens until her smile looks real. “That’s all right. I can manage. But I appreciate the offer. ”
Once Chloe and Libby are gone, my father lies down for a nap and my mother begins an array of phone calls to friends and family. Jonah and I are left alone in the living room, on the long velvet sofa, to exchange our own gifts. I bought him a messenger bag large enough to double as a weekender, which seemed about right for a guy who might have to dash off to another country at a moment’s notice—or head out to the cabin where he’ll possess me for three days straight. The honey-colored leather already has the softness of a well-worn antique. When he runs his hands along the strap and smiles, I know I chose well.
“This is perfect,” he says, leaning close to kiss my temple. His eyelashes flutter against my skin; even that small a touch makes me shiver. “You know me. ”
“Better believe it. ”
He kisses my mouth, hardly more than a brush. Even as I lean forward for another, Jonah pulls back and hands me my own gift, a small box wrapped in the kind of shiny white paper only used by good stores. Hmm, promising. I slide a fingernail beneath the tape, and unfold the paper, which is creased as neatly as an origami swan. Then I lift up the lid and see—
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—you know, I’d guessed it was going to be jewelry. Small box, not particularly heavy, yadda yadda. So I’d envisioned a pretty chain, or a bracelet.
Instead I see a pair of earrings, square-cut sapphires that must be a carat each, if not more. Their facets capture the light; the vivid cobalt color is so deep it feels as if I could dive inside. “Jonah,” I whisper. “They’re—oh, my God, they’re so beautiful. ”
He smiles, runs his thumb along one of my earlobes. “Glad you like. ”
Maybe I should be more sophisticated about this, but I can’t help it. I blurt out, “These had to cost more than my car. ”
Jonah laughs out loud. “Do you enjoy them?”
“I love them. I’ve never had anything this beautiful. ”
“Then they’re worth every cent. ” He leans closer and whispers, “I want you to wear them tonight. These and nothing else. ”
Oh, yes. I pull Jonah in for a kiss—but at that moment, his phone rings.
We hesitate, wondering whether or not to ignore it, until Jonah recognizes the ring tone. “It’s Maddox. ”
The guy ought to get to talk to his brother on Christmas. Besides, I’ll have Jonah to myself again later. “Better pick up then. ”
Jonah’s smile gentles as he pulls me against his side with one arm and answers his phone with the other. “Mad! Merry Christmas. How’s it going?”
That’s the most animated I’ve heard Jonah with anyone besides me. Although he’d told me that he and his siblings were close, witnessing it for myself makes me so happy. At least something from Jonah’s early life hasn’t been poisoned. It feels like one more perfect moment in a nearly perfect day—
Before Jonah’s face goes pale, and he whispers, “Shit. ”
“What?” I can resist butting in. “What’s wrong?” Has his mother done something disastrous? Or has someone else in the family been hurt?
Instead Jonah says, “My stepfather found out about the—the situation with the police in Austin. ”
I don’t understand how that happened, but I also don’t understand why it’s so disastrous. “Is he using that against your mother?”
He laughs, and it’s a terrible sound. “Carter’s using it against me. ”
What could Carter Maddox Hale do? What kind of power does he still hold over Jonah?
I realize I’m about to find out.
Eleven
“Chicago? Tomorrow?” Dad still can’t wrap his mind around it. “Awfully late notice. You’ll pay through the nose for the tickets. ”
Jonah gives me a look across the dinner table, through the red candles and glittery gold pinecones my mother considers a centerpiece. “. . . I see Vivienne never told you about my father. ”
“Is he a pilot?” Libby pipes up.
As Jonah begins telling the story of Oceanic Airlines—and Mom starts to glow like she swallowed the Christmas tree lights—my phone buzzes in the pocket of my sweater. I didn’t even remember I’d left it in there instead of my purse. Bad manners to text at the table, but I decide to sneak a quick glimpse. It’s probably a friend wishing me Merry Christmas, just something to bring a smile to my face . . . and make me forget about the dollar signs that seem to be appearing in my mother’s eyes.
But the words on my screen have nothing to do with happy holidays.
It’s from Geordie.
I’m sorry I know you’re busy but I’m having a bad night, Viv, a really bad night and if you get a chance please call.
My gut drops. I tuck the phone back in my pocket, murmur, “Excuse me,” and head for the guest bathroom.
Geordie picks up on the first ring. “Oh, God love you, Viv. ”
I let him get away with the Viv. “What’s wrong? You haven’t—”
“No. But—I’m so fucking embarrassed. ” He speaks so hoarsely that I realize, with a pang, he’s been crying. “I spent the morning with Carmen and Arturo and Shay, and it was great. I mean, really great. And then I came back to my apartment complex, and the neighbors were having a holiday get-together, and they said, ‘Oh, come on inside, have a drink with us!’ And I thought, it would be shitty for me to blow them off on Christmas, wouldn’t it? They wouldn’t understand. So I went in. ”
I lean back against the bathroom door, free hand to my temple. “What then?”
“The usual. Novelty hats and that fucking chipmunk song and—bottles and bottles just lined up for the taking. And I saw a Pepsi can, and just blurted out that I wanted a Pepsi. I loathe Pepsi. ”
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Choked up as I am, I have to laugh. “That’s good, though, right? You were in a dangerous situation. You recognized it, took care of yourself, and when you needed help, you called for it. That’s pretty frickin’ great, actually. ”
“I left after only a few minutes. ” But his voice sounds weak. “The party’s still going on, though. Music and laughter coming through the walls. ”
He can’t stay there by himself; I can’t get to him or stay on the phone for the next few hours.
“You need to call someone. Your AA sponsor? Carmen?”
“Carmen and company have already put up with me for hours today—”
“It’s okay. I promise. ” His sponsor must be out of town for Christmas. “She’ll meet you someplace, even come get you. ”
“They were going to go see a movie. Her and Arturo. The Alamo Drafthouse. ”
Then Carmen’s phone will be off. Nobody texts at the Drafthouse, because management will throw you out on your ass. “Then get in the car and drive to Arturo and Shay’s place. Shay is at home with the baby, right?”
“She’s got one helpless person to look after. She doesn’t need two. ”
“You are not helpless. ” Geordie has to believe me. If he thinks he can’t make it, he won’t. “You can help yourself by getting in the car and driving. I’ll call ahead for you if you want. ”
“And then what, exactly?”
“Then you watch TV! Or you talk. Or, I don’t know, you do some laundry and change some diapers so Shay can sleep for more than two hours in a row. It doesn’t matter as long as you don’t go to that party again. Okay?”
After a moment of silence, he sighs. “Stay on the phone with me until I’m in the car, all right?”
I do. When I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the bathroom mirror, I see how pale I look. How frazzled. Only the sapphires at my ears provide any h
int of how happy this morning was.
Finally I hear the key turn in the ignition, and I let out a heavy breath. “See? You did it. Victory. ”
“Oh, is this what winning feels like?” Geordie’s laugh is weak. “It sucks more than I’d thought it would. ”
But he hangs up to drive, which is when I phone Shay. As I’d known she would, she readily agrees to take him in. “We should’ve insisted he stay. Or I should’ve made Arturo take Geordie to the movies with them. ”
“No, no. You guys have been terrific. Just keep being terrific awhile longer. ” I think fast. “And don’t make plans for New Year’s. Tell everybody I’m going to throw a party without alcohol. ”
“Oh, sure, now that I’ve had the baby and can drink again, that’s when you start having booze-free parties. ” But Shay’s protest is good-natured. She’s on board.
Once I come back to my seat, Jonah gives me an inquisitive glance. I simply shake my head, like, no big deal.
Only then does it occur to me that I haven’t told Jonah about Geordie’s drinking problem, or his decision to quit. Telling Carmen, Arturo, and Shay was one thing; they’re Geordie’s friends too, and needed to know so they’d be able to help him at moments like this. Jonah and Geordie have only met once, and while they were congenial enough, there was no mistaking the ex-boyfriend/new-boyfriend bristling between them.
Although I know Jonah would understand, in the end, this isn’t his business. Geordie deserves some privacy, some dignity. There’s no need to get into it with anyone else.
And it’s not like Jonah and I don’t have enough to worry about already.
• • •
We leave my parents’ house as early as we possibly can, begging off to pack and get ready for the trip tomorrow. “Besides,” I say as we head for the door, “We’ll need to swing by the mall so I can get a coat. Jonah too, I guess. We didn’t bring anything warm enough for Chicago. ”
“Exactly,” Jonah says. Although he smiles, I can see the strain just beneath the surface. I wonder if my family can too. Certainly Chloe’s eyes have taken on an avid gleam of curiosity. But it doesn’t matter. They know nothing; there’s really nothing for them to know; and this will all be over soon.
“It was so lovely to spend more time with you, Jonah,” my mother fawns. Her avarice is so naked as to be humiliating. “Vivienne, you bring him back with you as soon as you can. ”
Dad’s liking is more genuine. “Glad I finally got to talk with you. You have a good trip home now. ”
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“Yes, sir,” Jonah says. It touches me in a way I can’t define to hear him call my father sir, to pay him that small respect.
I kneel at the stoop to hug Libby tightly. As she hugs back, says, “You’ll come home for Carnival, won’t you, Aunt Vivi?”
Normally I try to stay with Liz as much as possible during the Mardi Gras season, but this year I can endure a little more family time. “You know it. You think I’m going to let you get all the beads?”
Libby grins with the confidence of a child in the age range known in New Orleans as “bead bait”—cute enough to throw to, agile enough to catch. “I’m going to get them all. Could I catch beads on your shoulders, Uncle Jonah? You’re so tall that I would be high above everybody!”
“Sure,” he says. “Of course. ”
I don’t think he actually heard a word she said. But he hugs her good-bye too.
Somehow, Jonah holds it together until we’re in the car.
As soon he slams his door shut, though, he leans forward, hands braced against the dash. “Son of a bitch,” he whispers. “Son of a bitch. ”
“What’s going on? How did Carter find out you were, I don’t know, a person of interest or whatever it is?” Kip swore almost nobody in Austin knew, so how could the news have reached Chicago already?
Jonah closes his eyes. “After the police questioned me, I contacted a lawyer with the family firm. If he discussed what I told him with anyone else, the information could’ve gotten back to Carter—if he didn’t just go straight to Carter with it in the first place. ”
“But that’s a breach of confidentiality, isn’t it?”
“Yes. And if that’s how this happened, I’m going to get that guy disbarred. That doesn’t change the fact that the news is out. ”
I search desperately for a bright side. “Hey. This is upsetting, I know, but it’s not like he can do anything to you. Carter Hale doesn’t control the Austin police department. ” Then I remember how I learned about all Jonah’s crazy family drama: CNN. Kip and Carmen already knew tons of details I didn’t simply from reading the tabloids. “Oh, my God. Is Carter talking to the press about this?”
“No. Not yet, anyway. ” Jonah tenses his hands, like he wishes he could punch his way through this problem. “Carter’s going after the only thing he really cares about—the money. ”
I think of the sapphire earrings, notice the heavy gold watch around Jonah’s wrist. Although he leads a fairly normal lifestyle, a handful of his possessions and gifts hint at the incredible wealth he inherited. And yet, I’ve never believed the money meant very much to Jonah.
“You don’t care about the cash,” I said. “You just don’t want Carter to get his hands on one more thing that doesn’t belong to him. ”
Jonah nods without even looking at me. He took it for granted that I’d understand; we’ve built that much trust.
I put one hand on his shoulder. “How does that work, though? The money’s yours. It’s not like you’d lose it if you were convicted of a crime—much less just because someone somewhere suspects you. ”
He slumps back into his seat, as if the weight of three decades with Carter Hale just hit him all at once. Dully he replies, “My inheritance from my father is tied up in a trust. Usually trusts like that expire when the kids turn eighteen or twenty-one, but for some goddamned reason my father made ours contingent on the approval of the executor. ”
“Who’s the executor?” I thought that was always one of the lawyers.
“My mother, who thinks we’d abandon her if we could access the funds ourselves. She might be right. ” Jonah looks over at me, as if he thinks I’ll be horrified by that, and only slowly relaxes as he remembers that I know just how he feels. “So she withholds her approval, and Rebecca and I stay on the leash—at least, that’s how Mom sees it. ”
The trap is laid so perfectly, poised to spring no matter which way Jonah and his sister jump. “If you maintain ties with the trust, your mother and stepfather get to interfere with your life. If you cut ties with the trust, your stepfather wins, and you don’t want to give him the satisfaction. ”
“It’s not that petty. ” Then Jonah catches himself. “When it comes to Carter, I can be petty—but this is important. If I cut myself off from the trust, or if I’m cut off legally, my share of Oceanic stock will be sold. Carter already owns a large block of the airline outright, and if he buys my share, he’ll have authority over the entire company. And that means he’ll effectively control Rebecca’s money from now on. If I walk away, he steals one more thing that should never have been his. No, more than that. He wins. ”
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I know very little about trusts, but what Jonah’s already told me allows me to draw some conclusions. “Trusts sometimes have conditions, don’t they? Certain things the recipients have to do, or not do. ”
He nods. “One of the things we can’t do is ‘engage in morally deviant and criminal behavior. ’ Once that was used to force women to hide their sexual activity, or to keep anyone from openly living with someone of the same sex. These days, no judge would rule that anybody who was gay or living together before marriage was morally deviant, much less criminal. But a rapist? That counts. ”
Carter wants to use the false accusation against Jonah as a way to grab Oceanic Airlines, the family money, and power over Jonah and his sister. And even without having met the man, I know he’ll never, ever let go.
<
br /> “He’ll fail,” I say, sure it must be true. “You haven’t been convicted. You haven’t even been charged, and you won’t be. ”
At last Jonah looks over at me, and the desolation I see in his eyes is terrible. “We know I’m innocent. Carter doesn’t. ”
That’s when it hits me. Carter knows what he did to Jonah’s mother; he knows what he made Jonah watch, over and over and over, for years. So when he heard that Jonah was suspected of rape—he believed he’d made Jonah in his own image. He thinks his conditioning worked. Carter looks at Jonah and sees the reincarnation of his younger self, no longer cruel only to one woman, but unleashed on the world.
To Carter, the mere accusation would have been confirmation. Proof is irrelevant.
I reach across the front seat of the car to take Jonah’s hand. “Carter Hale doesn’t know you. ”
“Oh, yes he does. He knows me in ways no one else does, because he made me what I am. He trained me. He designed me. ” Jonah’s laugh is broken. “No, he’s never made me attack an innocent woman. But he made me dream about it. Made me want it. ”
“Jonah—”
“I have to go to Chicago,” he says. I’m not sure he even noticed interrupting me. Already, his mind has focused wholly on the fight to come. “Carter’s going to press his advantage hard, and immediately. If I don’t head him off now, in person, it’ll be too late. I’m sorry. ”
That makes me frown. “Sorry?”
“That I have to leave you the day after Christmas. ”
“But I’m coming with you. ”
He acts as if I spoke in some unknown language. “We don’t have to explain the trip to your family anymore. You can go home to Austin. ”
“And do what? Spend days panicking about you?” It never occurred to me that Jonah might believe I’d only promised to stay at his side to keep my parents in the dark. “No way. I’m going to Chicago. ”
When I say it, I’m braced for a fight. Jonah seems dead set on a course of action that won’t involve me. He’s plunging into a family drama so byzantine that mine looks almost well-balanced by comparison. All I know about any of this is what he’s told me: I’ve never even been to Chicago. So I expect him to say, You shouldn’t get mixed up in this, you don’t understand, I can do this on my own.