Crow’s Row

by Julie Hockley

  I tried to push my family’s history of adultery out of my head. “Do you really think that I would kiss you and turn to someone else on the same night? What kind of person do you take me for?”

  “That thing last night—”

  “That thing?” I should have braced myself, but I never got the chance.

  “The kiss was just a kiss. It didn’t mean anything. I was really tired and you were drinking … It should have never happened. Let’s forget about it.”

  I couldn’t tell if he had meant his words; his expression, his tone were so well hidden behind the mask. It didn’t matter much. The words had already done their damage, leaving a deep gash in their path.

  I took a long, ragged breath.

  “But … you told me you loved me,” I argued, my voice barely a whisper.

  “No. I never said that,” he reminded me coldly.

  My heart was already plastered with wounds; most were mended, the rest were well calloused scars. I doubted the one that Cameron had freshly carved would ever fully heal. It had reached my core. What I didn’t know yet was that everything had started to harden around my broken heart again—a well-practiced reflex.

  I could hardly breathe, could hardly hold on. I pulled myself out of the pool and wrapped a towel tightly around me.

  “Just so you know,” I told him, my voice shaking, “Griff and I didn’t do anything. We talked. Well, he talked mostly, and I listened.”

  “What did he talk about?”

  “He thought that you were going to kill him,” I spilled, eying him to see whether I would be able to figure out the truth from his face.

  He didn’t flinch.

  “He also told me that I should be scared of you. That you were going to kill me too,” I fired back, hoping it would hurt someone else for once.

  Cameron cruelly remained unchanged. “And you believe that?”

  I had no answer to give him.

  I walked away.

  I held on while I climbed the first staircase. I still held on as I made it up the second staircase. When I was safely concealed behind Cameron’s bedroom door, I let it go, let myself fall apart. Cameron … Griff … Cameron … it was all too much. I wasn’t sure of anything anymore.

  Chapter Seventeen:

  Different Worlds

  I didn’t want to open my eyes. I could feel the warmth of the sun on my face—which was the last thing I wanted. Why couldn’t it just rain today? Part of me wished that I would open my eyes and find myself back in my tiny room in Callister, living an ordinary life where people like Cameron remained unseen and definitely unfelt. But the other part, that bigger part again, knew that I didn’t want to go back to my former life, no matter what mean things Cameron Hillard could find to say to me. I threw the blanket over my head with the hopes that if I waited in the darkness long enough, clouds would come, to match my mood. But I could feel the bed shake as Meatball was wagging his tail wildly. He knew that I was awake now.

  “Not yet, Meatball, please …” I whined.

  “You’re going to have to get up eventually.” I didn’t have to pull the blankets away to know that it was Cameron. I hadn’t heard him come in, yet there he was. “Anyway, Meatball won’t go back to sleep if he knows you’re up.”

  His chilled tone hadn’t improved. It was going to be another one of those days. I stayed hidden.

  “Don’t you have anything better to do than watch me sleep?” I complained from under the blankets, trying to keep my voice as cool as his, even though my somersaulting heart had silently betrayed me. I hated that he had this kind of power.

  Something thumped next to me. I peeked out—Cameron had thrown a shiny silver object at me. It was a cell phone—my cell phone.

  “Call your mother,” he ordered.

  Call my mother? That was probably the last thing I felt like doing in that moment. It was definitely not what I had ever expected Cameron to say. “Why?”

  “She left you three messages. Sounded urgent.” His voice seemed unnecessarily guarded.

  “You’ve been listening to my phone messages?” I didn’t know what made me more upset: the fact that he had totally violated my privacy, or the fact that I had probably only missed three calls—from my mother, nonetheless—since disappearing from the face of the earth and that Cameron now knew how pathetic my other life was.

  He lifted one eyebrow and nudged me to pick up the phone. In order words, he wasn’t asking me to call my mother. Sighing, I climbed out of hibernation and picked up the phone. I went down the list of missed calls and found that my mother hadn’t been the only one who had called. I couldn’t help but casually bring this to Cameron’s attention.

  “Looks like Jeremy called a bunch of times too. Did he leave any messages?” I feigned innocence.

  He glowered in an affirmative response. The fact that my heart leapt at that precise moment had nothing to do with this Jeremy guy.

  “And?” I continued, growing amused by his scowl.

  “And nothing. He left a bunch of messages asking why you were mad at him … the guy sounds like a doorknob, if you ask me.”

  “I didn’t know that doorknobs could talk.”

  “They don’t. They just squeak and spin in a circle.”

  I tried to not dignify his response with a further reply, but I just couldn’t contain myself. “So, I should probably call him back too, then. It might be urgent.”

  He grinned even wider; like I had fallen for the trap—hook, line, and sinker. “No worries. He’ll never call you again.”

  Horrific thoughts suddenly ran through my head. “Oh my God, Cameron! What did you do to him!”

  Cameron eyed me, and his face contorted as he understood my meaning. “Definitely not what you apparently think I’m capable of.” He was offended. I was afraid that I had ruined his good mood—but he quickly regained his grin, antsy to finish his story. “I got Rocco to call this Jeremy guy last night and pretend to be calling from a hospital in … Sweden or Switzerland, I forget … I was laughing so hard … something about you having a highly contagious rash that made your ears swell up … that he should run to a hospital right away to get his ears checked.”

  I couldn’t imagine Rocco pulling off any believable accent—but then again, Jeremy had probably been the vainest guy that I had ever met and the mere possibility that his ears could enlarge would have certainly distracted, devastated him.

  “And Jeremy bought it?”

  Cameron shrugged. “Like I said, your boyfriend’s a doorknob. Don’t know what you see in that guy.”

  “He’s a nice and normal guy,” I emphasized, for his benefit. He winced. “Anyway, he’s not my boyfriend.”

  “Well he was, wasn’t he?” he urged dryly.

  I narrowed my eyes. “What difference does it make?”

  “It doesn’t,” Cameron responded abruptly. “Call your mother.” He had quickly regained control over himself.

  I dialed my mother’s mobile number, and the line rang over and over. I hoped … and grimaced when she finally picked up. All hopes were dashed.

  “Emily? Is that you, honey?” my mom almost sweetly asked. Honey? There were so many things wrong with that statement that I couldn’t even begin to analyze it.

  “Hi, Mom.”

  “Honey, where have you been? I’ve been trying to reach you for the last two weeks.”

  The fact that I’ve been kidnapped and I’m being held against my will by a gang of drug dealers in their million-dollar compound out in the middle of nowhere came to mind. “Er, sorry. I’ve been really busy. What’s up?” was what I actually said.

  I could hear the clinging and clanging of dishes and silverware in the background. It was close to dinnertime in France.

  “Well, you’ll never guess who we ran into.” Drumrolls played in my head as I paused for the incredible revelation. “Mr. and Mrs. Jacobsons. You remember them don’t you?”

  No. “Uh-huh,” I lied to keep things simple and quick.

 
; “Well, imagine the coincidence of them meeting us … here! And guess what,”—more drumrolls—“They brought their wonderful son Damien with them,” she gushed.

  “Is that what you wanted to talk to me about?”

  “Yes, honey. What else is there?”

  “Nothing,” I grumbled. “So what were you saying about the Jacobsons?”

  Cameron had settled himself by the couch, leaning against the back and watching me with hilarity while my mom carried on about the Jacobsons and their son: they were pronounced to be such a good family, and Damien was absolutely delightful and well-bred and … not to mention that he was staked to succeed his father in taking over the family empire. I was biting my tongue a lot.

  “I’ve been talking to Damien, and he is just dying to see you. How quickly can you catch a plane to come meet us?”

  There it was—the reason for the niceties. The only time my mother was ever “motherly” was when she wanted something. The only time my mother spoke English to me and didn’t force me to speak French to her was when she was trying to impress someone who was listening. This time I assumed it was both. I couldn’t imagine what embellishments my mom had told Damien for him to be just dying to meet me. The truth was that I remembered Damien Jacobsons all too well. We were seven years old, and I had been forced to go to one of those stupid family picnics for one of my dad’s clients. Damien had decided it would be good fun to play connect the dots with my freckles—when I dared to protest, he stabbed me in the back of the arm with a pencil. I still had the scar to prove it. I doubted that someone like Damien Jacobsons would remember that small fact, but, unfortunately for him, I never forgot and I was really good at holding a grudge.

  “Mom, Europe is just not an option right now and—” Cameron had curiously raised an eyebrow.

  But my mom didn’t let me finish with my attempts at finding more excuses. “Oh, here he comes now. He wants to talk to you.”

  “No. Mom! I don’t want to talk to this Damien—”

  “Hello? Emily?” A deep voice rang through the phone.

  I cringed. “Yes. Hi. Damien.” Cameron’s interest had picked up when I had said Damien’s name.

  The clanging and chatter noises became more distant on the other side of the line. Damien had clearly walked away from the rest of the party. “So did you ever grow out of your polka dots?” he said.

  So he remembered me—and had apparently not matured past the age of seven. “No. I haven’t—actually, it’s gotten worse. Much worse. How about you? Are you still eating your snots when you think no one is looking?” I wondered out loud.

  Cameron practically choked on his own saliva.

  There was awkward silence on the other end of the phone. Damien then cleared his throat and continued the conversation, unfortunately. “So … you should totally come meet us here. A bunch of us are spending the summer chill-axing in the Riviera. The whole gang is here—Chuck, Jimmy, Lance, Chrissy, Angela …”

  Images of the “whole gang” came into my head—all of them had, at one point or another, pulled my hair or taunted me in some horrible way when I was a kid. “Sorry, I’m really tied up right now.”

  Damien wasn’t listening. “My Dad had the yacht sailed to port in Monaco. I’ll take you sailing—just you and me. Come on … it’ll be great!”

  Nothing about being alone with him where the only way to escape was to drown trying to swim to shore sounded fun. I would have picked drowning any day. “Damien, sorry, my phone is about to die. I’ll get back to you on the boat thing. Say—bye—to—my Mom—for me …” I hung up and threw the phone at the foot of the bed. I fell back onto my pillow, worn out.

  “Emergency averted. Happy?” I said to Cameron.

  “Yeah. I am,” he said with a grin that almost reached his eyes. “That was more entertaining than I thought it would be. I didn’t know Europe could be an emergency.”

  When you’ve had everything handed to you on a silver platter, it was surprising the things that became a crisis. “Weren’t you afraid that I would tell my mother where I was?” Not that I had any idea where I was.

  “Would she have believed you?”

  He had a point.

  I heard music booming in the distance. “You’re working today,” I mused, surprised by my automatic connection.

  He nodded yes, but didn’t look like he was in a big hurry to go. “So, who was this Damien fellow you were talking to?” I thought I had glimpsed jealousy—or maybe it was just wishful thinking.

  “His parents’ money is friends with my parents’ money,” I explained wryly, but Cameron looked lost. I sighed. “Just some boy my parents would love to see me settle down with.” As I said this, another thought occurred to me. “You know, you and my parents would probably get along quite well.”

  “Oh?” Cameron fell into my ambush this time.

  “You both try to control my life and seem to think I’m better off sticking with my own kind, whatever that is.” I threw the blanket back over my head before he had time to respond. “Do you have any more orders, or can I go back to sleep?”

  “I wasn’t ordering you. I was just concerned that—”

  “Whatever,” I interrupted coolly. Now I was in a really bad mood—a common side effect of my mother. “Can you let Meatball out when you leave?”

  I exhaled loudly—my indication that the conversation was over.

  The room was silent. He remained still. I imagined that he was staring at the big bulge that was under the blanket, considering his next move. After a minute, I heard him walk with insistence past the bed, and he left the room, calling Meatball to follow him.

  As soon as I heard the door click and confirmed the noise of his steps down the stairs, I ripped the blanket off me. I had an idea where Cameron was going—and I had a plan. With record speed, I was dressed and ready to execute. I crouched by the bedroom door and listened. After what seemed like forever, I heard what I was waiting for: the muffled voices of Cameron, Spider, and Carly as they walked out the front door. I waited a few more minutes after I heard the door close and then headed out to follow them. I slightly opened the front door, peeking to make sure they were out of sight.

  My encounter with Roach had taught me that wandering around the grounds was a dangerous thing, especially now that Griff was gone. I glanced around and didn’t see Roach; I was safe enough—for a while anyway. I made my way down to the garage, stopping as I neared the corner. There was a guard walking by the entrance of the pathway where I had seen Carly trek through the day before. So I waited for my opportunity.

  The guard walked back and forth by the path’s entrance; he got bored after a few minutes of having nothing to look at but the back of the garage and kept marching down the line until he disappeared around the corner. This was my chance. With as much speed as I could rally, I ran straight for the pathway and didn’t look back until I was sure to be hidden in the trees.

  There I stopped and listened: rustling of leaves and creaking and cracking of branches, all above my head. I breathed again when I was sure no one was running in after me.

  I warily continued on the beaten path. I had no idea how far the path went, or how far I would be able to go before I was discovered—then who knew what would happen. I tried not to think about that, and focused on getting moving instead.

  The dirt line seemed to go on forever. With every step I took, I was losing my nerve. I was starting to consider turning around when I hit a green brick wall. Strangely erected, tightly up to the tree line was the back of a one-story building that had no windows facing out and the beaten path ended directly under its metal door that had been left ajar.

  I stood by the door and listened for voices—I heard nothing. I gulped and, with the speed of a snail, softly treaded in.

  Inside was a small office—or at least it looked like it was supposed to be an office. At the farthest end of the room was an oversized wooden desk with a sleek, black leather chair half hidden behind it. In the middle was a bur
gundy rawhide couch and a ratty blanket pitched upon it. There were two wood-burning stoves stuffed in a corner, but no wood.

  The floor and desk were spilling over with disarrayed piles of clothes. Recognizing some of Cameron’s wrinkled T-shirts, I realized that this was where he had been sleeping since I had taken over his room. I glanced at the stiff-looking couch and the yellowed pillow and felt a bit guilty—I couldn’t imagine having to sleep on that every night.

  I moved toward the large desk. Apart from Cameron’s improvised bedroom, there was something else that made this room seem like just the shell of an office—its emptiness. The floor-to-ceiling bookcases were, for the most part, empty of normal office stuff. There were no pictures, papers, pens, computer, files, or anything else that would make this office an office.

  When I heard quick footsteps, I froze.

  Next to Cameron’s improvised sleeping quarters was a closed door. The footsteps seemed to be approaching from the other side of it, and getting closer fast. I pushed the leather chair aside and hid under the desk, peering through the hairline cracks between the wood planks that faced the desk.

  There I held my breath and watched Carly speed across the room and exit outside, closing the heavy door behind her.

  My heart was wildly thumping. I took a few seconds to calm myself and puffed. This had been a close call. Too close. Ghastly thoughts of what Carly would have done had she discovered me went through my head. Somehow I knew that I was not welcome to snoop here.

  I crawled out from under the desk and headed for the metal door. Whatever this place was, it wasn’t worth getting in trouble for … or worse.

  But when I pushed on the heavy door—nothing happened.

  I pulled, and then I pushed, using my whole body, but the door still did not budge.

  It was stuck—and so was I.

  When I heard unrecognizable voices through the other door, I froze in place again, terrified, listening. There were several voices echoing in the distance, yet none seemed to be coming closer.