by Skye Warren
My chest tightens. “I can come back.”
“No! She’d feel awful if you left. She really does want to see you.” A melancholy expression crosses Charlotte’s face. “I don’t think you know how much she loved your mother.”
“Okay, if you’re sure.”
And that’s how I end up in a dimly lit room smelling of incense. Wall hangings in jewel tones and damask patterns give the room an intimate feeling. A large bed sits on a platform, but it’s empty. A large fireplace crackles from the side of the room, with two cream-colored armchairs perched nearby.
Nina Thomas looked ageless on her fiftieth birthday, hair and makeup flawless, not a wrinkle that could be seen. Her smile had been brilliant and white, a contrast to her smooth dark skin.
She looks like a different woman now—tired and sad. Frail despite her full body. A large-knit throw covers her legs. Is this how she looks on all her bad days? Or has that much changed in the past couple of years?
“Ms. Thomas?”
“I told you, dear,” she admonishes. “Call me Nina. No Ms. Thomas and definitely no ma’am.”
I’m pleased at the small show of her old spirit. I perch on the other armchair. “Are you sure it’s a good day to visit? I’m sorry I dropped by unannounced. I really can come back.”
“Nonsense. A child of Helen Lancaster is always welcome here.”
My mother’s maiden name. A smile touches my lips. “You were the best of friends, weren’t you?”
She nods toward the leather-bound book clutched in my lap. “If you’ve been reading that, then you know as much. There was no better woman than your mother.”
Grief weighs down my heart that I didn’t know her better. She was the person who cuddled me when I got sick, the person who taught me how to apply lipstick when I begged at age eight. I knew her as a mother, but I never got to know her as a woman.
“Can you…tell me about her?”
A sigh of acquiescence, fond and sad. “Of course she was beautiful. I’m sure people have told you.”
I nod. “We had her portrait above the fireplace.”
“You look like her. I’m sure people have told you that, too.” She studies me with a critical eye. “You’re softer than her. Sweeter. She had a hardness about her.”
I remember that much, the way she could be kind and stern at the same time.
Nina’s dark eyes turn distant. “She was smart, which you weren’t supposed to be back then as a girl. Maybe not even now. With a sharp wit. You didn’t want to get on her bad side.”
That makes me laugh unaccountably. That there was some fault of hers, something still endearing to those who loved her. “Were you ever on her bad side?”
“Oh, plenty. Her family didn’t like me. Said I was a bad influence. They were right.” A husky laugh. “I was what people called a hell-raiser back then.”
“I bet you could still raise hell if you wanted,” I say kindly.
She grins, unrepentant. “True enough. But I think Helen wanted to break out, you know? She had been good for so long, done all the things her mother asked. And she was looking down the barrel of a life as a society wife. When would she have time to be herself except right then? About the same age you are now, I think.”
An ache beats in my heart, steady and familiar. I know what it feels like to do what’s expected of me, to see the future stretch in front of me. To have fleeting moments of freedom.
I hold up the diary. “I read about the canoe.”
“Oh yes. Her father was furious when we dragged ourselves out of the lake, dripping wet and laughing. Who ever heard of a canoe catching fire? In the middle of the water, no less.” She shakes her head, chuckling. “At least it destroyed the evidence of what we were doing.”
Hesitation traps my next words, but I need to know. “There was a man she talked about. Someone who wasn’t my father.”
Grief presses down on her. “Yes, dear.”
“Do you know…do you know who it was?”
Nina studies the fire, rubbing her hand as if her joints ache. “Are you sure you want to go down that path?”
“Daddy warned me away, too. Told me not to read the rest of the diary.”
And now that I think about it, Gabriel Miller had warned me. Did you consider that I might be protecting you? You might not like what you find inside. I hadn’t believed him then, but he might have been telling the truth. What poison does this book hold inside?
Nina’s dark eyes reflecting the flames. “Do you know that I loved your mother?”
That’s what Charlotte said downstairs. “I know.”
“No, I don’t think you do. I loved her. Not as a friend.”
My heart beats faster. Not the way that I care about Harper. “You mean, romantically?”
She nods.
“Did she love you back?”
“I think she did in her own way.” Her gaze is direct. “We were lovers. It would have been scandalous back then, but no one suspected. Not even her parents thought we were anything but friends.”
I don’t think Tanglewood high society has changed that much. It would be scandalous now. “Wow. I never knew that. She didn’t—”
She didn’t mention that she was intimate with Nina, but maybe she was being careful. But then again, she said things her parents wouldn’t have approved of. So why hadn’t she mentioned it?
Sorrow and acceptance flit across Nina’s face. “It didn’t mean the same thing to her. It was a way to rebel against her parents. Something to do for fun.”
“No, I’m positive she cared about you.”
“Oh, she did. But I loved her with all my heart and soul. I knew we’d both have to get married, but we’d still be friends. No one would suspect what we did after, either, and I wanted it to continue.”
I blush, feeling strange talking about my mother’s private relations. Love is one thing. Sex is something else. Gabriel Miller taught me that. “She didn’t?”
She gestures toward the diary in my hands. “Not once she met your mystery man.”
“She loved him?”
A nod. “All the way. She thought about running away with him.”
“And he wasn’t my daddy.” I already know from the diary entries, but I need to be sure. This must be what Daddy didn’t want me to find. I know she didn’t run away with him. She married Daddy, after all. But something happened to make her stay.
“No, he wasn’t.”
“Did Daddy know?”
“Not at first. There were a lot of boys in this town who wanted to marry Helen Lancaster. She would smile her Mona Lisa smile at them, and they’d think they had a chance. The only boy in the running was ever Geoffrey. Your grandmother made sure of that.”
“Because he had money.”
“He didn’t just have money. He had an ungodly amount of money. And your grandmother had expensive tastes. Big ambitions. Nothing less would do.” She laughs without humor. “And it’s ironic, isn’t it? The man she made your mother marry is flat broke. And the man she wanted to marry did well for himself.”
“I really need to know who it was.” Did she mention his name somewhere in this book?
“It wouldn’t have been enough for Maeve Lancaster,” Nina says, still lost in the past. “She wanted standing, too. The kind that only an established family can give you.”
The kind that Justin had, at least before his father disowned him. “Please tell me.”
She shakes her head. “It’s not a good idea to go digging in the past. I heard they auctioned the house. You need to stay away from it.”
Confusion tenses my brow. “I don’t own it anymore. Why would I go there?”
Her gaze holds a warning. “Whatever you read, Avery. Don’t go back.”
My fingers clench around the diary, resolve thick in my throat. “I don’t have any plans to step foot in that house again. But I need to find out what happened.”
“Why?”
I consider that a moment, wanting to be honest with her. “Because
I lived in her house for most of my life. I listened to Daddy talk about her. It’s like everything I knew was a shrine dedicated to her, but it turns out I didn’t know her at all.”
“She had her share of secrets.”
“And because…” My voice catches. “I think in some ways I might be following in her footsteps. And maybe seeing how she settled down, how she found happiness might help me do the same.”
“There’s a flaw in your thinking, dear.”
“What’s that?”
“You’re assuming Helen Lancaster ever found happiness.”
Foreboding runs through me in tangible, almost violent shudders.
A racking cough overtakes Nina. I kneel at her side, clasping her hand. “Is there something I can do?”
“Charlie,” she says, eyes closed, leaning back.
I rush downstairs. “Charlotte? I think Nina needs you.”
Charlotte comes out of the dining room, a grim look on her face. “That’s another reason why I like to spend my weekends here. She doesn’t like to ask for help, but she needs it.”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I might have worn her out.”
“Don’t worry. Talking about Helen always does her good. And she was thrilled when I told her you had come.” Charlotte bites her lip. “I’m not sure she’ll be able to talk more, though. Once the exhaustion sets in—”
“Please don’t worry about me. I’ll show myself out.”
“Okay, thank you. Do come back and visit her. I’m positive she would want to see you again.” Charlotte looks relieved before she hurries up the stairs.
I watch her as she disappears into the top landing. The barest hint of voices trickles down the curving staircase. In my mind I see Charlotte hovering over her mother, Nina insisting that she’s fine despite the fact that she isn’t. Not entirely unlike me and my father, until the secrets started spilling out. Does Charlotte know that her mother was once lovers with mine?
My hand is on the bronze doorknob when I turn sideways.
The stack of papers is a mirage in the desert, the promise of safety. I know that whatever I find there won’t save me, but I can’t stop from walking into the dining room. There are demons that drive me just as they drive Gabriel to seek revenge, to demand the truth.
I take one final glance at the stairway. Empty. Complete silence.
My gaze runs over the papers that I can see. Unfamiliar addresses. Names I haven’t heard before. There’s so much information here. I’m not sure I can narrow it down to a single case in the few minutes I’ll have to look.
I sit down in the formal dining chair at the head of the table, the embroidered cloth still warm from Charlotte’s body. The laptop screen still shows her e-mail application.
My gaze snaps to Gabriel Miller’s name. A double-click.
The previous owner of the home may request information about the winner of the auction. Under no circumstances should you provide it.
Heat floods my cheeks. That’s how much he wants to block me, that he would send a memo?
I know that you have discretion, but I also know your family has a personal connection to this case. I trust that it won’t interfere.
And now remorse burns a hole in my stomach.
I’m exploiting that personal connection right now. And I don’t stop.
To underscore the importance, know that this is a privacy issue as well as a safety concern. My concern is for the well-being of Ms. St. James in light of the recent events.
“Avery?”
I stand up, guilt warring with anger. “What recent events?”
Her dark eyes flash. “You shouldn’t have done that.”
“And you shouldn’t be talking about me with Gabriel Miller, pretending like it’s just business when we both know it’s personal.”
She looks away. “This whole damn city is like a damn Greek tragedy.”
“Tell me what event he’s talking about.”
“Shit.” Her eyes close, and she gives a little shake of her head. When she meets my gaze again, she’s frank and unafraid, so much like Nina. Is this how I look to people who knew my mother? “Someone vandalized the house.”
“What?” Grief squeezes my heart.
“Gabriel will freak out if I tell you, but maybe you should know.” She digs through some of the papers to a file folder at the bottom of a stack. “It’s not like whoever did this can’t find you.”
Pictures appear, large and crude. The front of the house with WHORE written across the front door in bright red spray paint. SLUT scrawled above the fireplace in the empty space where my mother’s portrait used to be. And in my bedroom, taped to the walls beside pictures of kittens and boy bands, are black-and-white pictures. Blown up, grainy like from an old security camera. My eyes, my lips. Breasts that could be mine.
Except I never took my bra off for the photographer.
So where did these pictures come from? The truth hits me like a sledgehammer. Gabriel didn’t just share pictures that we took that day at the Den. He must have taken secret shots of me while I was at his house. When I showered, when I changed my clothes. When we had sex.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The door to the Den doesn’t swing open when I knock this time. No one’s expecting me, but I’m damn well going to come inside. My righteous fury is almost enough to burn down the building. I’m trembling in the cold as I wait with barely leashed rage.
It’s Damon Scott who opens the door, the man I went to for a loan, the one who auctioned me. “Avery. Are you all right?”
A bitter laugh breaks from me. “You’re the second person to ask me that today.”
“I heard what happened, and—”
“Is he here? I know he is.” I push my way past Damon Scott, ready to be a bulldozer if I need to be. Or even a goddamn tank. I’m ready for war. “Gabriel?”
Smoke rises for the circle of men reclining in leather chairs. Dangerous men, all of them powerful, many of them armed. I feel no fear as I face them.
“Where’s Gabriel?”
Some of them look amused, others annoyed. I recognize Ivan from the auction. He gives a cool glance toward the stairs. With a short nod of thanks, I take them two at a time.
Now I understand how Gabriel felt when he took down my father. There’s a burning hunger inside me, to smash things, to ruin them—and that’s exactly what I plan to do.
Gabriel Miller will be broken by the time I’m done with him. He’ll beg me to stop.
There’s only one piece of furniture left in the strange-light room. A chair, plain and made of wood. That’s where Gabriel sits, expression haunted as he stares at a stack of papers in his hand. Before I even reach him, I know what he’s seeing. My defilement.
My shame.
He looks up, and I see the bone-deep weariness in his eyes that matches my own. It’s the kind that comes from a lifetime of secrets, of darkness. Of pretending they can’t hurt you when you’re already bleeding. It doesn’t soften me toward him in the slightest. I’ll twist the knife if I have to.
“Avery,” he mutters, and I’m not sure I’ve ever heard him say my name before.
I won’t let that soften me either.
“You asshole,” I say, trembling with anger. “I knew you were dirty and underhanded. I knew you would purchase a woman rather than winning one the honorable way. But this?”
His brows lower. “Who told you?”
“Where do I even start? You have so many secrets and all of them are vile. Just like you.”
“It might help if you explain,” he says tightly. “So I know what we’re discussing when you insult me.”
“Insult you?” I’m almost breathless with indignation. “Insult you? Fine. I’ll explain what I’m talking about. We’ll play that game as if you don’t know that my house was vandalized.”
“Charlotte.”
“Charlotte. That’s all you have to say about that? That you e-mailed her specifically to tell her not to tell me. Conspiring with h
er to keep me in the dark. For what?”
“Well, because—” His eyes narrow. “How do you know what I e-mailed her? I can’t imagine she would tell you the details of our private correspondence.”
“Correspondence.” I let out a breath. “That’s a pretty fancy term for sabotage. Betrayal. Need I go on?”
“I’d prefer that you didn’t.”
“And for your information, Charlotte didn’t show me the e-mails. I looked at her laptop when she left the room. Yes, I was devious and underhanded. I learned from the best, after all.”
Anger flashes across his golden eyes. “That information is confidential.”
“My body is confidential, you asshole.”
He cocks his head. “The pictures. You saw them.”
It takes everything in me not to launch myself at him, to use my broken nails like claws, to bite him. He makes me savage, like the wild animal that he is. “Yes, the pictures. The pictures you took. The pictures you shared. Did that make you feel better about what my father did? Ruining him wasn’t enough? Deflowering me wasn’t enough?”
“Stop,” he says roughly. “I didn’t share any pictures of you.”
“I saw them!”
“Then you know they don’t match the photos we took in this room. You never took off your panties, your bra. Your face was hidden by your hair.”
My teeth clench so hard I hear grinding. “I know what pictures we took.”
“And I sure as hell didn’t share them, even though I had a right to. Damon gave me hell for not passing them on, but I wasn’t letting anyone see what was mine.”
“Yours? Oh no, I don’t belong to you. Not then, not now.”
“I have a winning bid on an auction that says otherwise. The thirty days aren’t up yet.”
“That can’t come fast enough,” I say, challenging him. I’ve never been this fearless confronting him, facing anyone, but he’s pushed me to the edge. “And I already know those pictures didn’t come from this room, but you could have taken them anytime I was in your house.”
An electric silence fills the space around us, setting the colored light in the room on edge. Blue and yellow dust motes dance around us, energized.
“You think—” His nostrils flare. “You think I took pictures of you while you were in my house, without you knowing?”