“None of the above. I’m Jake Tanner of Tanner Securities. Oliver Graham hired me four weeks ago to discover who’d been stalking and harassing his cousin, Natalie.”
The blood drains from Daphne’s face as she makes the connection. I walk around her office, noting that Natalie’s books are placed in a prominent position, but that those aren’t the only books Daphne edits. “Do you terrorize all your authors or is Natalie a special case?”
“I terrorize them all. It’s how I get the work out of them I do. If authors were left to their own devices, they would dawdle over one sentence a day. They need constant encouragement and motivation. I provide both.” There’s not an ounce of repentance or regret in her voice. It makes my job easier.
“The dog thing was inspired, but you couldn’t secure the silence of the restaurant. Did you really think you were going to get away with it?”
“It was a minor miscalculation.” The fingers around the pencil tighten. “There was every indication our transaction would be kept private.”
“You should have slept with the owner instead of threatening him with exposure to the health department. Love makes you do things that fear won’t or can’t. Take Natalie, for example; she cared for you and worked tirelessly to finish her book because of that love. But you shit on that love and now you’re not going to see a single word.”
She snorts. “You’ve known her for how long? Please. Natalie will deliver that book to me. If not today then next week. She’ll forgive me in the end because she knows I did this for her. Out of love.”
“No, you’re going to announce your retirement today, and your project will be passed on to another editor, one of Natalie’s choosing. After you announce your retirement, you will go home and pack, and then you will get on a plane and fly to Columbia, Missouri, where your parents still live. If you make any attempt to contact Natalie, you will be brought up on embezzlement charges.”
“What? What are you talking about? I’m not an embezzler! I don’t even have access to financial accounts here!” she cries.
I look bemusedly at her. “Really? Because I’m fairly certain your bank account has at least four suspicious deposits from your employer. You should go and try to straighten that out before the information is turned over to the police.”
“Did you plant this on me? Did you?” She screeches. She jumps to her feet and starts shoving things in a bag.
“Let’s just say that building security in New York leaves a lot to be desired. If you were staying, I’d recommend that you look into a security firm to assess the safety and security of your building. And if you’d hired someone like me, I’d tell you that a person would be able to pass by the front-desk security under the guise of delivering flowers and that the two locks on your doors can be bypassed with a bump key and opened in under twenty seconds. Both locks. I’d also tell you that leaving your passwords taped to your desk under your keyboard is practically an invitation for hacking. I’d think it would be hard to get another job in this town with that kind of black mark on your record.”
“Get out,” she snarls as she runs by me.
“Don’t forget,” I call after her. “No contact, or the next person that walks through your door will be wearing a blue uniform.”
She wrenches the door open and runs out. I follow at a sedate pace. Katie is standing beside her office cubicle with a confused look on her face.
“She forgot she left her iron on at home.” I shrug. “Another time.”
“Oh, okay. Do you want me to reschedule?”
“No, I’ve changed my mind. I don’t think a memoir is in the cards for me.”
I call Mike to let him know that Daphne has twenty-four hours to quit her job and get out of New York before we leak the information planted in her bank account. I climb into my car and drive to Tribeca. I flash my lights at the car parked across the street from Natalie’s building and Rondell pulls out, leaving me the empty parking space. I park, push back the seat, and pull out my laptop. For as long as it takes, this car will be my office.
Around four, Oliver exits the building and walks across the street toward the car. I get out, needing to stretch anyway.
“You planning on sitting here all day?” he asks.
“Yes.”
“She got an email that Daphne quit her job. You have something to do with that?”
“Yes.”
He nods with approval. “I’d been thinking of contacting her publisher and saying that I’d write a memoir for them if they’d fire her. What was your take?”
“Her bank records reveal several large financial transfers from her publisher into her private account. If she steps out of line, that information will be provided to the police.”
He whistles. “That’s better than my idea.”
“It appears to be working. Although I don’t mind if she sticks around, because her ass belongs in prison. I tried to make it easy on her for Natalie’s sake.” I tilt my head up to look at her third-story balcony.
“She’s doing okay,” Oliver says, answering my unspoken question. “She’s hurting, but I think if you give her time . . .” He trails off.
“I’ll wait for her as long as it takes.”
He looks surprised, but pleased. “I don’t know what that feels like.”
“What?”
“To care about a person outside my family that strongly. Is it a good feeling?”
I rub a hand across my chest where the ache set in and hasn’t left. Then I remember the short time we were together. The pleasure we had in bed and the time we spent out of it, just talking. “It’s worth the pain,” I finally say.
“Kind of like the game.”
I nod in agreement and we stand in silence for a few minutes watching the balcony. He breaks the silence. “This is some kind of Romeo and Juliet shit, isn’t it?”
“I hope not, since they ended up dead.”
“Yeah, but Natalie’s safe now. She’ll come around.” He doesn’t say it with confidence, though. I don’t care. I have enough confidence for the two of us. I have enough belief for everyone.
“I know.”
“You going to sleep in the car tonight? You can come upstairs and stay at my place.”
“She won’t be able to see me then.”
“You think she’s watching?”
He stares up at the balcony again, where there’s been no movement.
“I know she is.”
Oliver shakes his head. Whether in dismay or disbelief, I’m not sure. He slaps me on the back and jogs back inside.
At six that night, I text her.
Going home for the night. The car out here has two women—Chloe and Elaine. They’ll watch over you until the morning. I love you.
There’s no response. Not an immediate one and not one when I get home.
There’s not a response two hours later.
I break out the whiskey at the three-hour mark. Maybe I should have used a winky face.
Ian and Kaga arrive at ten. Sabrina must have called them. They step into the pink bedroom, where I’ve been sleeping since Natalie left.
“It’s late,” I note sourly.
“Heard you broke out the reserve. You can’t drink that alone,” Kaga protests. He settles into one of the two pink velvet chairs flanking the front window.
“Jesus. Did Barbie throw up in here?” Ian takes a seat in the other chair. “Why do these chairs have no arms? Where are you supposed to rest your elbows while you’re drinking?”
I glare at both of them. “I haven’t drunk enough to tolerate you two jackasses.”
Ian shifts, uncomfortable in the armless chairs. “I can’t get comfortable. Can we go to the den?”
“You can, but it’s now Natalie’s office.”
“Fuck.” He takes a glass of Kaga’s special reserve and downs half of it. I tip my now-empty glass toward Kaga, who provides me a refill.
We sit silently staring at the liquor as if it holds the answers to the world’s que
stions.
“Don’t bite my head off,” Ian says, “but Natalie sounds like a lot of work. She worth it?”
“Yes.” I don’t have to think twice about it.
“Okay.” He accepts it without more interrogation. “What can I do to help?”
The chill that set in when Natalie left eases a bit. I’ve got good friends who’ll help me drink my sorrows away and who’ll open their wallets, if necessary. To show them how much I appreciate them both, I kick my legs out and lean back. “Armless chairs are good for fucking.”
Ian leaps out of the chair, as if I told him there was a snake underneath. Kaga just smirks.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
NATALIE
On the seventh day, my prescription runs out and I can’t sleep. I toss and turn all night long. Worse, whenever I close my eyes, I see Jake. I see him standing above me, one hand gripped around his shaft and the other in my hair as he holds my head steady while he feeds me his big, swollen cock one delicious inch at a time. I see him underneath me and feel his muscles bunch and flex as I ride him. My body aches with the memory of him next to me, under me, over me, inside of me.
I pull out my phone and read his text messages and emails. My favorite is the winky face. No, my favorite is the one where he tells me that someday my fear will be the thing that keeps me sharp instead of making me bleed. I’m bleeding now because I don’t have him next to me, holding me in his arms while we fall asleep. I don’t have his sunny smiles to greet me every morning. I don’t hear his deep laugh or the loving concern in his voice when he speaks of his sister.
Every day and every night that I look out of my balcony, the black Audi is there. I know that it’s not him all the time. He texts me when he comes and goes. He has things to do, but he’s always back. I wonder that he hasn’t gotten a ticket yet, or a cop hasn’t stopped to warn him that he can’t sit outside the same apartment building for seven days straight. I guess he’s right. The security in this neighborhood really does suck.
The nights with the sleeping pills are dreamless and I feel calmer than I have in a while. It’s making me think more clearly. When I ran out of Jake’s home, my mind was a whirlwind of competing emotions—fear, anger, sadness. I was already feeling the loss before I’d even walked out the door. Since then I’ve had time to think about being alone in this place that I’ve called home for the last three years.
It’s no longer the haven that I once thought it was. I keep looking outside, but not because I’m wistfully longing to join the masses. Instead I look toward Jake, and all my reasons for leaving him seem hollow now.
Both Dr. Crist and Dr. Terrance are right. I can’t get better for Jake. That’s a fruitless goal. I have to get better for myself, but truly, that’s always been my desire. I’ve wanted to get better so that I could live a fuller, richer life. But that full, rich life of going to museums and restaurants and movies and riding the subway isn’t appealing if there’s no Jake there.
In my office, I open my laptop. The large blank space under the centered all-caps word DEDICATION stares back at me. I deleted the dedication to Daphne. She doesn’t deserve it. At this point, I don’t know what she deserves. She never did me any physical harm. For anyone else, the pranks would be laughed off. I wish I could laugh it off, but it’s more my problem than hers. I should have answered her emails instead of ignoring them. I should have been more open about how I was creatively depleted while I was trying to get better. But Daphne shouldn’t have jumped off the deep end either.
We were both at fault, but that didn’t mean I could forgive her, not yet.
But I need to forgive myself and accept myself for who and what I am. I’m full of anxiety and I will always be a little fearful. Right now, I prefer to stay inside my home. But this apartment isn’t my home anymore.
After some time, I allow myself to write what’s in my heart.
When I was lost, you found me.
When I needed safety, you protected me.
When I fell, you caught me.
When I needed time, you stopped the clocks.
Wait for me. I’m coming.
I take two of my diazepam. It’s what I took when I left Jake’s townhouse, and I figure any larger a dose I may just pass out on the street. According to Jake’s text, he had to go see a client, and Mike and Rondell are watching the condo. I wait until the car service pulls up, and then I start to count. It’s ten steps to the entry and five more to the door. It’s twenty steps from the door to the elevator. There are forty-seven steps from the elevator to the exterior doors. I don’t look up. I keep counting.
My heart is racing and my palms are so sweaty I can barely keep a hold of my breathing bag. Once outside, I put it up to my mouth and start panting into it. The crinkle of the bag reassures me in the same way the counting does.
“You sick, lady?” the driver asks. I don’t look up at his face. Sweat pours down my back and covers my forehead. Despite that I’m cold as ice. “I ain’t an ambulance.”
“No.” I shake my head. “Allergies.”
I don’t give him time to refuse me. I climb into the back of the car and buckle my seatbelt. I throw two hundred-dollar bills over the seat. That’s enough for the driver. I make it four blocks before I have him stop the car. I stumble out and retch on the sidewalk.
“Gross.”
“That’s disgusting.”
“God, I thought these homeless people were supposed to be in shelters.”
Behind me I hear the car squealing away. I crawl toward the side of the building and pull out my phone. My shaky hands prevent me from dialing so I use the voice command.
Thankfully it works and the phone starts ringing.
“Natalie, where are you?” he answers immediately, and I almost start sobbing in relief. “Mike and Rondell saw you leave, but lost you in traffic.”
“I’m at . . .” I struggle to sit up and look around. “I’m at Leonard and Hudson, I think. On the east side of the street.”
“Are you alone?”
A gurgly sob breaks loose. “I wish.”
“I’m coming, sweetheart. I’m at Rector and Greenwich. I’m fifteen minutes, at the most. Stay strong.”
I nod even though he can’t see me and then bring the breathing bag up to my face again. Those fifteen minutes stretch like a canyon. I labor into the bag and count the seconds, literally.
A nudge against my foot causes me to look up. The silhouette of a beat cop is outlined by the sun. “You need to get up. There’s no loitering.”
I should say something and explain my predicament, but I’m afraid if I stop breathing into my bag, I’ll barf all over this cop’s shoes. That would probably get me arrested. My folded legs begin bouncing rapidly. He leans over me and grabs my arm. “I said move.”
Dizzy and shivering violently, I allow him to push me down the sidewalk. I stumble and catch myself against another building. My legs are too weak to hold me up and I start to crumple again. The cop shouts something, and then I hear a screech of brakes and a slamming of a car door. Heavy footsteps pound toward me, but his uneven tread is something I recognize instinctively.
“Jake?” I mewl.
He reaches down and picks me up as if I’m a child weighing no more than an ounce or two. “I have her, officer, thank you.”
“I’m going to have to take her in for questioning. She looks like she’s on drugs.”
I burrow into Jake and clutch him to me. I can’t leave him.
“She’s agoraphobic and is having a panic attack.” I feel him shift under me. “Here’s my card. You can follow me home and question her there.”
“Oh, hey, sorry, man. Did you lose your arm in service?”
“Yeah, army. Ranger out of Fort Benning.”
“Okay. Just take her away and make sure she’s not wandering around by herself anymore.”
“No problem, and thank you, officer.”
Jake slides me into the back of the car and taps on the window. It takes off. He does
n’t stop holding me. The whole way up Hudson, he strokes my back and whispers into my ear. The sixty blocks up Hudson to Jake’s townhouse seems endless. I puke another time into the breathing bag. The sour smell of vomit fills the car, and a moment later, wind whips through the enclosed space as Jake and the driver lower the windows.
I sob into his chest, humiliated but weirdly happy. I couldn’t make it back to Jake on my own, but I didn’t have to. He met me more than halfway. His embrace feels strong and reassuring.
He carries me into the house, up the stairs to the third floor, and into my new bedroom. The shades are drawn and it’s blessedly cool and dark. Jake lays me on the bed, and then hustles away. I hear the faucet in the bathroom turn on and off. When he returns he has a tall glass of water. I take it with shaking hands.
“What were you doing? Why didn’t you call me?”
I look like shit. My nose is full of snot and my eyes are red from my crying. I can barely hold the glass in my hands. “I don’t want to lose you,” I say.
“You aren’t going to lose me. I’m not going anywhere.” He bends down to try to kiss me, but I avert my face.
“Don’t kiss me. I puked a couple of times. I have vomit mouth.”
He chuckles. “All right, but even your vomit mouth isn’t going to turn me off.”
He settles for kissing my forehead. He helps me off with my clothes and then takes off his own, including his prosthetics, and then climbs in bed with me. His body is so deliciously warm. I curl into it, seeking to draw as much heat from him as I can and absorb it into my own body.
When I inhale, I no longer smell the sour of my sickness but his warm, earthy male scent. The one that covered my sheets for too short a period. Behind me I can feel his arm moving up and down in long languid strokes. His hair-roughened limbs rub against mine. All the sources of friction are heating me from the inside. Instinctively, I shift toward him. He runs a hand along my thigh and then lifts it to drape over his hip. I’m open to him and he takes wonderful advantage. He licks his fingers and then spreads the moisture between my legs. One finger slides inside me.
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