“I’m not Keeley Chambers. I’m Rosie Nyman. Or, I was. When I was born in a slummy part of Chicago.”
Jude is sitting with his knees up, his fists resting on either one. He’s only a few feet away, but by his expression, it might as well be miles. His frown deepens—not with anger. With sadness. “You lied to me? I tried to do something wonderful for us and you were, what, revisiting old times?”
“It wasn’t like that. I only lived there for seven years. Then I was Sara Dawson and Lila Reuther . . . all because of my birth parents.”
“Birth parents?”
“Clair and John Chambers were my foster parents until they adopted me. But for most of my childhood, I lived on the run.”
“When did you choose to be Keeley? When they made you pick a new alias?”
“They never let me choose a damn thing,” I say, my throat burning. “I picked it when I was placed with Clair and John. We moved to Baton Rouge just after my father was sentenced. They got me out of the state and nearer her family. Keeley Chambers is fiction.”
“Go back.” His voice is quiet, but there’s steel beneath the easy drawl. “When your dad was sentenced. Sentenced for what?”
“Second degree murder. He killed my mom.”
He jerks. I’m so calm it’s scary, like I can take refuge from the present by telling the bare facts of the past.
“I found her body in our kitchen in some backwater trailer park in San Joaquin. He’d stabbed her.” There’s a scuff mark on the floor, so I fix my eyes on that and don’t look away. “A woman has roughly eight pints of blood running through her veins. That’s a whole gallon. Imagine a gallon of milk busting on the kitchen floor. Then imagine that gush completely red with a body in the middle of it all. That was her. The cops had already caught Dad, staked out in a nearby vineyard. I’d just gotten off the school bus before they cordoned off the crime scene. They took me away in a different ambulance from hers.”
There’s craziness in me. I don’t realize just how much until I start laughing. I’m hysterical. Jude’s joined me against the wall, and I’m smacking his chest and thrashing my head. “She was going to give it up, go to the police. Turn state’s evidence. She’d threatened it before, but maybe he really thought she meant it that time. I don’t believe it. She was dead on the ground holding her open switchblade. She could’ve just gotten away. She could’ve just rescued me.”
Jude holds me. I don’t know how long I cry, but there’s not much left inside me when I finally quiet. My eyes sting. My chest aches. I’ve worn raw crescents in my palms—my fingernails clenched too tight.
“Then what is all this? The reporters?”
“He’s been accused of killing two inmates.” I hiccup in some air. “The case is pretty solid, but they still need to prove it to a jury. That means physical evidence, but also establishing character stuff. They want me to go to California and make a statement.”
“Will he be there?”
“They didn’t know policy out there.” I shiver. “He could be.”
“Christ, sugar. No way. The police will have enough evidence or they won’t. The prosecution won’t be able to submit a character statement unless the defense brings up the issue first.”
“They could,” I say. “What if he’s been a model prisoner all this time? No history of violence? Lots of people could come forward and say that, even guards and cops. What if there’s no one to say he’s a murdering bastard? I have to be that person! Again!”
He frames my face in his hands, which are—I’m really surprised—shaking as badly as I am. “You will not sit in the same room as that man.”
“You just don’t want me to leave.”
“Because you’ve suffered enough! You’re actually considering this? Your recital is in less than two weeks. Leave that monster in the past, where he belongs.”
“If he’s done two more murders, he’ll rot in prison forever.” I speak with more certainty. Each passing word is stronger and clearer. My brain is stitching together again. Too bad about the rest of my life. “He was only convicted of second degree murder because Mom fought back. I didn’t realize when I testified back then how short twenty-five years can be, in the scheme of things.”
He goes still. “You testified against him? How old were you?”
“Fifteen.” I shrug stiffly. “See? I’ve faced him down before.”
“And you’ve hidden this? That’s one of the bravest things I’ve ever heard.”
“I had to! No stranger has known who I am since then. Now what if he learns my new name and where I live? Jude, I plan on playing piano for a living, and the press will eat it up about us. He’ll find out eventually! I have to make sure he never gets out!”
He grabs my wrists in one of his big hands, then catches my chin with his other. “Sugar, the company I run just edged to a net worth of over two billion dollars. Do you think I’d ever let anything happen to you? Ever? ”
“Are you saying you can protect me forever? One day, I’ll be forty. I’ll have a family and a life well earned, and that motherfucker could be released. I can keep that from happening. I can help make sure he’s three strikes and out, that he’ll never be able to come after me. I won’t need to look over my shoulder ever again. I won’t have to keep hiding.”
He shoves me away. “What’s to say you’ll stop hiding? You have one incredible fucktard of a dad, but talent, support, and very worried friends. Friends you let down tonight.” He huffs air out of his nose. “You were the one to help Adelaide through the bullshit with that professor. What would you think if she’d gone quiet rather than come to you?”
I swallow a roll of nausea. “Be disappointed.”
“Back at’cha, sugar.”
“I needed to get away from what I knew was coming. The stares. Questions. Pity.”
“Not pity.” He jabs a finger at me. “Not pity. Sympathy—and there’s a big difference. Do you think I wanted pity after my parents died? Did Adelaide? Did everyone in this city whose life was smashed to dust by Katrina? We didn’t want pity. We wanted help to get through it. You haven’t even given us a chance to help. You haven’t given me a chance.”
“I love you,” I whisper. “I’d give you anything . . . if I could.”
His eyes are unfathomable—so dark and hostile, and still layered with that hurt I caused. “Anything? Define that.”
“I’d have been perfect for you. Like you said. You and perfect go together. I’m not. I tried not to live in fear, but there was always that chance. Someday I’d get found out and everyone would judge me for it.”
“They didn’t need to,” he says harshly. “You’ve already judged yourself. Since you’re so big on making choices for yourself, is this the punishment you chose?”
“I didn’t—”
“You chose your name and your hometown. You chose to be with me—although apparently with conditions. You chose to be a friend to my sister. You helped Janissa choose that quilt she loves. But you don’t get to choose how other people respond to things. That’s not your right. I get a say in this too.”
“I bet Addie would have something to say about that—your reactions to her life.”
“She did, in fact. She and I had a long talk when we were waiting for you to call, or waiting to call the police—whatever we debated doing. And you were right. She confided in me. It felt amazing. I kept thinking . . . I held her hand and she finally came to me, just like Keeley said. So forgive me for being overprotective. I have a history that makes it a little hard not to be.” He scowls at me, when I should be stroking away the pain etched at the corners of his eyes, or celebrating the connection he’s made with Adelaide.
“And if you think you’re the only one walking around pretending,” he says, “then that cloud around you is pretty thick. I pretend every day I sit in my dead father’s chair. But somewhere between then and n
ow, my faking it became real.” He shakes his head and looks away. “I can’t believe I trusted you with all that—the night you came to play piano. I told you everything. You didn’t think it was time to open up and give me something in return? Jesus, did you ever think you could hurt other people this much?”
Ow. Just . . . fuck.
He waits. I know he wants me to say something, but my words are all used up. I can’t think. All I know is that Jude and I are hurting—that I’ve hurt him—but I’m not in his arms and I’m not begging his forgiveness. Is that how it’s come to be between us? I’m supposed to snuggle deep in his embrace, happy and loved and safe.
Instead he’s got barbed wire and Do Not Cross signs all around him.
“Next time you need some distance,” he says so quietly, “a text or two would keep your nearest and dearest from tearing their hair out. But . . .” He looks at me with his intensely probing eyes. “You don’t believe that, do you? Not really. You try, but you don’t believe there are people in this world who give a shit what happens to you.”
“I know it so much that I don’t want anyone else tainted by my father. He’s poison. You seem to think I’m some sort of masochist for doing this, but I’m not. I need rid of him. For good. I’m . . . I’m sorry, Jude.” If I’m going to do this alone, I might as well start now. I step away from the wall on knees made of steam. “So . . . that’s it.”
“That’s it? Are you high? Do you think I’d be here if I didn’t love you?”
“You love me?” I about gag on the words. “It took my asshole of a father to bring you to say it?”
“It took a bunch of reporters to get you to say it?” he counters. “So, yeah, the timing is shit, but that doesn’t make it less real. It doesn’t mean I haven’t been thinking it and feeling it for weeks.”
He’s so tall, like a god above scared supplicants. He looks ravaged, with dark circles beneath his lids and his mouth set in a grim line. His suit has disintegrated down to a pair of slacks and a half done up shirt.
He’s even wearing running shoes.
Tears prick behind my eyelids. He put on comfy shoes to come look for me.
“But what will your company say about all this?”
“The company?” His voice booms. “I’m the company, sugar.”
“Then you should go.”
“What? Why?”
“Because you need to meet with your lawyers. Damage control. Isn’t that right?” My gut shrivels into a pebble when he looks away. “Come up with something that saves what you’ve worked for. You owe it to the people who depend on you.”
“That doesn’t get to include you?”
“It can’t include me. This is my horror show.” I touch his face. He presses my fingers against his skin, warming us both, but I pull away. “I have to . . . go.”
“You don’t just mean California, do you?”
“You’ll see,” I say, my soul shriveling into dust. “It was always going to end this way.”
“You know . . .” He punches his hands into his pants pockets with a curse. “I thought you were somebody different.”
“I told you who—”
“I heard what you’ve said, but I also know who I fell in love with.” He gives me a harsh look, up and down. “What’s that called in music when it sounds all wrong?”
“Dissonance.”
“That’s the word for it.”
My body vibrates from the effort of not grabbing hold of him and begging him to take me home. To his home. To the place that feels like it could be my home forever.
He calms some, then shakes his head. “You were so angry, asking why your mom didn’t try to rescue you.” He spreads his hands. “I’ve been right here, Keeley. And from what you’ve told me, Clair and John did a pretty damn good job of saving you too. I don’t think this is what they wanted for you. This . . . self-pity.”
“This is self-pity because I have to say goodbye to you. It’s the hardest thing I’ll ever have to do.”
For a moment he looks confused, maybe even sympathetic. “Face your father?”
“No, that’ll be number two.” The pain in my chest—it’s a screaming, flaming pain that refuses to end. I have to let it burn. For his sake. “I won’t ruin your life by clinging to a romance that never had a future. We might have imagined one, privately. I know I did. But how likely was that ever gonna be? Time for us to bow out before it gets any worse.”
I can’t look at him anymore. That’s when I leave my heart behind, with Jude still standing there, hands in his pockets, head bowed. I need to forget that he ever said he loves me, although I already know that’ll be impossible.
Nothing that happens between my father and me will ever be this hard.
Thirty-Seven
I wish I could’ve taken the train.
I wish I could stop thinking like that, searching for Jude in everything as I fly west to some strange destiny I can’t escape.
The economy cabin is cramped, just like my stomach. I’m crunched into a ball of fear. Not all of it has to do with facing my father again. I’m afraid, so afraid that I’ve thrown away the best thing to come into my life since my foster parents. Jude Villars. I adore him. I hurt him because fear has been a part of me for longer than my deepest memories.
I was stronger with him than I’ve ever been. Now I’m alone and I still have to be strong.
I lock my seatback table as the plane begins to descend. It would be so easy to let him do it—just make it go away. Clair and John did that for me. They gave me a stable, safe place to come into my own, sheltering me from the worst as I struggled to find my feet. They even offered to fly out with me, to wait in a hotel while I made my statement, just like all those years ago. I ask them to understand why I need to go alone. I’ve grown up, and this is a fight I need to take on by myself.
This was supposed to be the year I set out on my own, for real this time. But who did I find within weeks on campus? Only one of the richest guys in Louisiana, maybe even the country.
And he fell in love with me.
Me.
He was right to think that he’s never met the real me. I don’t think I’ve met her yet. All those niches I’ve constructed to lock the bad, the really bad, and the unimaginable—they’re bursting open. What will be left of me when I’ve got Pandora’s open box slicing holes in my soul? Nothing Jude would want. I already feel like a husk filled with other people’s ideas of who I am. I go to Tulane. I play the piano. Is that enough to define a whole person? Is that enough to love?
The man next to me on the plane folds a copy of the Times-Picayune and shoves it into the accordion thingie on his seatback. I catch sight of “Villars.” My heart becomes a Thoroughbred jolting out of the gates.
“May I?” I ask, pointing to the paper.
He shrugs and hands it over. “Keep it. I’m finished.”
My ears are popping from the cabin pressure. I catch streaks of scenery out the window to my left, but the bulk of my attention is on the front page article.
“Jude Villars Convict Scandal.”
Could they have concocted a more ridiculous sham of a headline? But isn’t that how I’d framed it in my head—as if he was dating a real con, not the innocent daughter of one? There’s a photo of me fleeing in the taxi outside Dixon, my face contorted with the best sort of newsworthy angst.
Only then do I notice the photo credit. Brandon Dorne? Seriously? Did he tip off the press about my real name, maybe even let them have a copy of my schedule? I wouldn’t put it past him to keep track of my comings and goings. This must’ve been his personal lotto ticket—and some personal revenge, all in one.
I’m going to throw up. Maybe explode.
But I don’t. That doesn’t mean I torture myself with the article. I shove it in the passing stewardess’s bag as she collects the last of the tr
ash.
There’s a man in a black suit and sunglasses waiting beside the baggage claim with “Chambers” on a sign. At least they’re using my real name.
I’m whisked away by a secret ops–style black cruiser to a prison facility. I’ve never seen it. I only ever saw the inside of the courtroom, and that was intimidating enough. Being admitted past the barbed wire and armed guards is enough to make my skin try to slough off. I want to be a puddle of leftover parts that’ll slink onto the floor of the anonymous car, waiting like gum to get stuck to the bottom of a shoe.
I’m met by DAs and lawyers whose names I forget as soon as we’re introduced. All I force myself to remember is that these are the good guys, like Ursula was a long time ago. I memorize their faces. There’s about six of them by the time we walk through a secure hallway and down a flight of stairs. Each possible throughway is locked, with a guard to permit us passage. The basement hall is austere and lined with a series of doors. In some weird way, it reminds me of the rehearsal rooms at Dixon. Plain spaces. Very different purposes.
I pinch and pull at my clothes. They fit just fine a few minutes ago. Now everything is two sizes too small. Black dress slacks. A raging purple dress shirt. A looped silver necklace Janey made me take. I remember her concern, her parting hug, and how heavily she collapsed onto her periodic chart quilt just before I closed the door. I remember Adelaide meeting me downstairs, telling off the cabbie when he honked. “Gimme a minute, asshole!”
More hugs.
“Come back to us, y’hear?” she’d said. “You don’t belong in California. We got work to do here, you and me.”
And I remember Clair’s and John’s worried voices when they talked on speakerphone earlier that morning. “You sure you don’t want us to come with you?” Clair had asked.
“No. Just me. I don’t want you to worry too much.”
“We have your back, Keeley. No matter what.” That from John. He wasn’t a man of many words, but I soaked up each one. Their love still felt so incredible, even after all this time.
Blue Notes Page 26