by Linda Ladd
“Did your daddy hurt her?”
“No, she hurt him. She was always slapping him. Real hard, too, in the face, and telling him to get out of her room and leave her alone. She told him that she hated him.” He focused big, confused eyes on Novak. “I really liked Barrett. A whole bunch. He tried to keep her away from me. He really tried. He said he loved her and that we had to try to understand why she acted so bad sometimes. He said that she just needed him to take a firm hand with her and get her some medicine that would calm her down. He said that medicine would bring her down a notch and make her grateful for what she had.”
Yeah, fat chance that was gonna happen, Novak thought. Nothing was gonna bring Emma Adamson down a notch. She was evil and that’s the way she liked it. The world was going to be better with her six feet under. But there were a few things he needed to know. And the kid was the only one who could tell him.
“Did Barrett marry your mom?”
“No, they were just pretending. I think he was afraid she’d kill him, too, and run off with somebody else, just like she ran off with him from my daddy. That’s why he chose you to watch her. He told me he didn’t think you’d run off with her. Or that she could make you do bad things. He didn’t think you’d hurt her, either. He said you took up for her. Did you like her then, Mr. Novak?”
“I didn’t know her then. I thought she was being mistreated and needed protection. She fooled me, too, I guess.”
The boy just nodded and took some time tearing open the package of M&Ms.
“Who do you think took her away that night after she hurt Mariah? Mariah said she heard your mom call somebody. Was there another man at the pool when your mom shot him?”
“Huh-uh. It was just the two of them out there by the pool. I was up on the balcony and I saw them. But I bet it was Jose she went off with. He thinks she’s pretty and nice, and all that. He told me. He really liked her, and stuff. He told me so. She always acted different when he was around, you know, nice and sad and like she was all hurt inside. You know, not yelling or hitting anybody or cussing. She liked to tell people that Barrett was the bad one who hurt her, but he wasn’t. She was. Not unless she made him really angry. And she kept on at him until he got mad. Then he’d hit her. He hit her that night at the pool. More than once, too. He didn’t know she had that gun, I guess. Maybe Jose gave it to her.” The kid kept nodding after he said all that and then looked pretty sad himself.
“I see.”
“Yeah, Barrett took good care of me. I liked him. He let me play Star Wars Angry Birds on his phone sometimes. He kept my mom locked up so she wouldn’t hurt me or anybody else. I felt real bad that she killed him and just left him floating down there in the pool. I don’t understand that, do you, Mr. Novak? Just shooting somebody or sticking a knife in somebody. And then she saw me up there on the deck and told me she was going to go for help and if the cops came, I had to tell them that you killed Barrett. She said that I better do it, or else I’d be sorry. That’s why I said that about you, Mr. Novak. I’m sorry I said it, though. Why does she do stuff like that? Moms aren’t supposed to do stuff like that, are they?”
“I don’t know, son. I just don’t know why she does it.”
“Me, either.” The child gave another huge sigh and poured about ten M&Ms into his hand. He popped them all into his mouth at once. Novak didn’t say anything. The kid deserved something good in his life for a change. And Novak had a huge bag of candy in the pantry. If candy made this kid feel better, he was going to get all the candy he wanted. And there was something else he was going to get.
“Hey, guess what, Ryan? I got you a present.”
The kid liked the sound of that. “Really? What?”
“A cell phone. Just for you. It’s got a charger and everything.”
“Really? Can I play Star Wars Angry Birds on it?”
“Yes, I already downloaded that for you. But there’s a condition.”
“What’s a condition?”
“Something you have to promise me if you want me to give it to you.”
“I promise.”
Novak laughed. “Don’t you want to know what you have to do?”
“Okay.”
“You have to promise me that you’ll keep it with you all the time. No exceptions. That you will keep it in your pocket. It’s got GPS on it so I can find you if you ever get lost. All you have to do is turn it on.” He started to say or if your mom gets you. He didn’t have to.
“Or if my mom gets me again,” Ryan said solemnly.
This kid was nobody’s fool. “That’s right. But if she does, and she won’t, but if she should, you can’t let her see it. It’s very small, and you’ve got to hide it from her. Somewhere nobody will ever find it. Will that make you feel better about things?”
“Yes, sir. A lot better.”
“I gave one to Adonis, too. So she can get hold of me, but the real reason is so that I can find her if she gets lost or anything.”
“Thanks, Mr. Novak. I’ve always wanted a phone like that. You know, just for me to play with.”
The boy seemed relieved, felt safer, and that was Novak’s intention. And he did have a phone to give him. But right now, he had something else in mind.
“Know what, Ryan? I’ve got some toys upstairs in the attic. Want me to get them down and let you play with them?”
Ryan’s eyes lit up. “Yeah, I saw that red bicycle with the training wheels out there in that little hall behind the kitchen. You think I could ride it around the porch some time?”
“Sure you can. You can ride it all you want. You can go get it now.”
Novak smiled when Ryan jumped up and thundered up the steps behind him and into the hall, leaving the front door wide open behind him. Novak had put most of the twins’ toys up in the attic a long time ago. Wept as he’d done it, half drunk and stumbling around, still so grief-stricken that he hardly knew what he was doing. He’d forgotten all about the training bike back in the hall. He could barely remember the night he’d blearily boxed up his family’s possessions and put them away so he didn’t have to look at them or think about them.
It hadn’t worked. It hadn’t worked to this day. He’d done that not long after 9/11. And he hadn’t gone up there since that night or let himself think about those boxed-up toys more than a few minutes, not for years. Maybe it was a good time to get them down. Maybe it would help Ryan cope with the terrible things he’d seen in his young life. Novak stood up and stared out at the garden a few minutes, at the three marble headstones shaped like angels, still hurting for his lost family. Then he headed upstairs to get the poor little kid some toys to play with.
Chapter Twenty-nine
More lazy days passed at Bonne Terre, and the time quietly stretched into weeks with Mariah still laid up and Ryan outside in the yard most of the time, running the plantation grounds with Adonis and her little dog, Toby. Those two were getting along well. Adonis had really taken the younger boy under her own damaged little wings. The three of them, Novak, Mariah, and Ryan, lived in the big house together, almost like a makeshift, temporary little family.
It had been hard at first for Novak to listen to a child’s voice echoing joyfully up into the big, high-ceilinged rooms, or hear his comical laugh ringing out when he was running through the house with Adonis and the little white shepherd. And it was eerie to have his wife’s double in a downstairs bedroom, smiling at him, acting a lot like Sarah now, more than she ever had before. He wasn’t sure if he liked having them inside his private space or not. But they were growing on him. They were definitely growing on him.
Mariah could not yet walk well on her own, not very fast and not very steady, and not without a sturdy walker to lean on. She was stubborn, though, that certainly hadn’t changed. She was almost as stubborn as Novak could be, and he set a high bar. She hobbled around the house some now, refusing his help. She liked to go outside and sit on the wicker swing on the front gallery where the warm sun could slant in on her face, wh
ich was finally getting some color back, and watch the two youngsters run and play. It was a spot that overlooked the rose garden where her sister and her niece and nephew were buried. But she knew her sister wasn’t in that grave under that white marble angel with the spread wings, even though her name and the dates of her life and MOST BELOVED WIFE were all carved there. The people who’d sorted through the ashes had never found any of his family’s DNA. He still checked periodically with the New York authorities to find out if they had found anything, and to this day he still hoped they would.
Unlike Ryan, who seemed to be blossoming now that he was free from the fear of his abusive, insane mother, Novak’s wounded sister-in-law had grown more and more introspective, completely unlike her former outgoing, mouthy self. Novak gave her all the space she apparently needed. She was on the mend, though. But Novak was on the hunt. He had called Claire again and put her on to Emma’s name and any possible aliases, as well as that of her new boyfriend, Jose Madero, aka Emma’s new and besotted victim who’d probably eventually end up dead like all her lovers before him. After talking to Ryan, Novak was almost positive that Madero was the man who gave her the gun and then helped her get away. He probably had turned some of Wilson’s men, too, with either money or Emma’s charm. Emma would need protectors. But there weren’t enough on earth to keep Novak from getting to her.
It still rankled at Novak that she had actually played him for a chump, like all the other men she’d duped. That he had been so stupid in accepting her poor-little-mistreated-me act. Barrett Wilson had told him that himself, during that one dinner they shared with his duplicitous wife. He’d indicated that she was a master of self-victimization. Then Barrett was found shot to death and floating facedown in his own swimming pool, no longer needed and no longer breathing. Novak had bought into her sob story enough to nearly get Mariah killed. He was seething inside with the desire for revenge, lying in bed planning his moves, completely eaten up with the need to find her. How many other people had she ordered murdered or had murdered herself? Her hands were red with blood, all right. The why, the reason, none of that really mattered to him anymore. He just wanted to get his hands on her.
The warm weather continued with daily highs still in the 60s, and Novak sat alone inside his office on one of those pleasant afternoons. He stared at his laptop and tried to come up with answers. He had been researching every single name and address that Harve and Claire had dug up and emailed back to him. Trying hard to put it all together.
Where would Emma go? Why would she go there? Who would give her the kind of shelter she needed? Did she have a safe haven? Somebody who would protect her? He knew her bodyguard was involved. Jose Madero. He had acted upset when Novak had taken over as Emma’s bodyguard. He was as besotted with the woman as all the other men in her life had been. So Novak typed in Madero’s name again, in yet another search engine, hoping it was his real name and not an alias, but before the screen could come back up, a soft voice broke into his concentration.
“What do you do in here all day long? That’s what I want to know.”
Swiveling his chair around, Novak saw Mariah standing in the threshold to the hallway, one hand propped against the doorjamb for support. No walker. “You shouldn’t be up on your feet so much yet. You’re gonna starting bleeding again. And where’s your walker?”
Mariah just laughed at him. “I can’t believe you’re such a mother hen all of a sudden. Who would’ve thought it?”
Novak had to smile. “I’m trying to help you get well. You should listen to me.”
“I am healing up just fine. Feeling much better every single day.” She smiled some more and glanced around his office. “So? May I come in? Or is this your private sanctuary, off-limits to the rest of us?”
“You know you can.”
Novak stood up and pulled an armchair closer to his desk and helped her sit down. She was hobbling slowly, grimacing in pain sometimes, but she really had improved a great deal. He was surprised she wanted to move around so much, not with the kind of wounds she had suffered. But it was good she wanted to and could do it. She needed to get stronger. It was going to be a long and tiring flight back to Australia.
“What are you doing?” She looked at the computer screen behind him.
Novak decided she deserved to know the truth. “I’m trying to find out where Emma is so I can make her pay for what she did to you.”
Their gazes locked for a long moment. “You need to let it go, Will. She’ll surface eventually. She’s on every wanted list in the world now, not just Australia’s. When she does come up for air, the appropriate authorities will get her. I don’t want anything to happen to you. I brought you into this mess. It’s over now. At least, for you, it is. Let it go.”
Novak wasn’t going to argue with her, but he wasn’t going to listen to her, either. And he sure as hell wasn’t going to let it go. He knew what he had to do. He was going to take down Emma Adamson and anybody who tried to stop him.
“Oh, come now, Will, don’t get yourself killed over this. Please. I couldn’t bear to have that on my conscience, too.”
“That’s not gonna happen.”
Mariah held his gaze for so long that Novak finally had to glance away. God, she looked so much like his wife right now, without any makeup, and in the soft late-afternoon light that filtered through the white shutters. He hated it, he loved it. It was like having Sarah back home, in his life again, just like in the good days he remembered so well. Sarah used to scold him the same way. Telling him to back off and quit putting himself in danger.
“I love you, Will. I love you so much. I always have. I always will.”
Novak had not been expecting that. He looked back at Mariah, and her face was so serious that he didn’t doubt that she really believed what she’d said. He didn’t like this turn of the conversation. He did not want to pursue the subject.
“Let’s not go there, Mariah. You know how it is.”
“I can’t help it. That’s why I really came out here to see you. You know that. I know you do. I wanted to show you how much I’d changed. How different I am now than how I used to be. What I’ve accomplished working as an agent. I figured that would impress you.” She smiled, but it was tentative. She was very unsure of herself now. She was right to be. She was making herself very vulnerable. She was forcing an issue that she shouldn’t. One that he sure as hell didn’t want to discuss.
“You do impress me. You’ve shown a lot of guts since you first showed up at Bonne Terre.”
“But not enough?”
“C’mon, let’s just drop this now. You know how I feel.”
Mariah remained silent and simply watched him. “I want to stay here. I don’t want to ever go back home. Just live out here with you where it’s nice and quiet and warm and sunny and peaceful and nobody knows who I am or where I am. That would make me happy, Will. That would’ve made Sarah happy, too. To see us together like this, getting along, working together, living together, you taking care of me while I get well. She’d love it if we hooked up, got old together, ended up buried out there with her and the children. That’s what I want. It would be a poetic ending after all we’ve been through together, don’t you think?”
Novak didn’t think any of it was anywhere near poetic. “Look, Mariah, you almost died. You’re depressed and now you’re examining your life and your future. That’s completely understandable. Anybody would do that. Anybody who went through what you just went through. It’s gonna take you time to get over being attacked with a blade like that. I know. I’ve been there. I know exactly how you feel. It’s different when it’s a knife. It’s more personal. It causes people to do some soul-searching.”
“If you knew how I feel, you’d take me in your arms and hold me and kiss me.”
Novak looked away. He couldn’t quite think straight when he looked into that beloved face that had been ripped away from him. Truth be told, and despite his great reluctance to get involved with her romantically,
the idea had occurred to him, too, since she’d been recuperating at Bonne Terre. She could be his second chance to be with Sarah. That was the solution, and that was the problem. He chose his words carefully, not wanting to hurt her. She didn’t deserve to be hurt. He met her eyes again. “When and if I ever kissed you, I’d be kissing Sarah. I’d always be kissing Sarah. I’d be pretending you were her. That she hadn’t died. That she had miraculously come back to me and that we could be happy again. You don’t want a life like that. As a substitute for the wife I loved. Trust me. That’s no good for either of us.”
Mariah stood up and moved forward until she was leaning against his legs. “I don’t care. You’re the only man I’ve ever truly felt this way about. I know it sounds crazy, corny, unlikely, but we could be happy. The two of us. I’ll be Sarah for you, Will. I will. Gladly. I want to be her. I’ve always wanted to be like her. She was everything that I wasn’t.”
Then she put her hands on his shoulders and pushed between his knees. She sat down on his lap, and when she put her arms around his head and pulled it against her breasts, Novak shut his eyes. He wished he did feel the same way she did. He wished it could work out between them. Wished he could pretend that she was his wife and that would be enough to make him happy again. But he couldn’t do it. It could never happen. He knew that. She would, too, in time. It would be a disaster waiting to happen.
“I’m sorry, Mariah. I really am. I never wanted to hurt you.”
“Kiss me and let me see how it feels. Just one time.”
“I really wish you’d just stop . . .” That’s as far as he got, because she pulled his face up and started kissing him on the mouth, hard and passionate and eager. He resisted for a moment, but then he gave in and kissed her back, his arm pulling her against him, his other hand tangled in her unbelievably soft black hair, releasing all his hunger and needs and desperation in that one devastating kiss. All the desire and loneliness and need to hold Sarah that he’d felt since she’d died so violently came bursting out of him, overwhelming his senses and his mind, all bottled inside him since the day she was taken away from him and he could no longer hold her or touch her or kiss her.