“What is it?” she asked impatiently. She had to meet with Trey’s speech therapist, the laundry had to be done, and her life had to go on. He was wasting her time.
“It’s about that stalker.”
Her angry emotions dissipated instantly, leaving her feeling dazed and bewildered. Could it be that she was actually relieved? The stalker was definitely not good news, but at least it wasn’t adios, amiga
Her tone softened. “What about the stalker?”
“Just listen. I know you are going to be upset…and you have the right, but please hear me out.” He took a deep breath. “As a precaution, I have hired bodyguards to look out for you and Trey.” He went on to tell her everything about the disturbing events.
Nicole’s relief transformed into fear. “Oh, God.” For a few moments she was absolutely speechless, and then she started babbling incoherently. “This can’t be. I can’t have this happen to Trey, not again. He knew something was wrong. I never saw anything the day that picture was taken but Trey saw it. My son saw it.” She laced and unlaced her fingers, stood up and paced nervously around.
Julian sat up straighter. “Did you say that Trey saw this person? Do you think he could identify him?”
Nicole didn’t hear a word he said. Images of hideous events, past and present, were swirling in her mind—threats, stalkers, bodyguards. She could not allow this. They had escaped from under the shadow of the evil predators of Chicago and now it was starting up again. Trey had to be protected above all else, including from her own selfish desires. If she had never met Julian none of this would be happening.
“Nicole.” Julian stood beside her and placed his hand on her shoulder. “I know this is awful, but please listen. Did Trey see the person?”
She spun out on him. “Do you think I’m going to allow my son, who doesn’t talk, to be interrogated by some investigators? This is your problem. If you had taken care of it sooner, it probably wouldn’t have come to this!”
The wounded look in his eyes tore at her. “No, I didn’t mean it like that,” she stammered. “Please…I’m upset and I…I have to think.”
Nicole rushed down the short hall and went into her bedroom, closing the door. If only she could just blink her eyes and erase the last few minutes.
“That’s not what I was implying,” Julian said from outside the door. “I certainly wasn’t intending to have Trey interrogated about this. It’s not even going to come to that. I have a plan that might work.”
“What plan?” Nicole asked, refusing to come out of the room. “Bodyguards following me and my child around? We’re not celebrities and we didn’t ask for this. There’s only one plan I can think of and that’s ending our friendship.”
“I agree with you.”
“You do?” She slowly opened the door a little and Julian gently but firmly opened it wider and stepped into the bedroom. They stood face-to-face again, in the most intimate room of her home.
“I agree that we should stop seeing each other temporarily. My plan is to start being seen with a lot of other women again.” He took a deep breath. “I don’t want it that way, but it should throw the stalker off track. As far as all the security is concerned, it’s really just a precaution. These people are very good. You won’t even know they’re around.” He sighed. “Nicole, I feel terrible about this. What more can I do?”
“Nothing,” Nicole said in a hollow tone. “There is nothing you can do because it’s up to me.”
“Please give my plan a chance,” he whispered. He was standing so close that she could smell the warm, minty scent of his breath. “We won’t see each other for awhile, but I’ll still call you. Just one chance.” His lips brushed hers.
Nicole felt the betraying waves of passion coursing through her soul. Julian was a victim. It was not his fault that there were lunatics in the world. It also dawned on her that had he been a lesser man he could have just kept the whole thing a secret and she would have been none the wiser. If they did go their separate ways, how would she explain the end of their friendship to Trey in a way that he would understand? He had been inquiring about Julian’s whereabouts everyday while he’d been in Spain. And if she abruptly decided to send him back to Chicago to stay with his grandparents, how would his fragile psyche handle that? She had to face it; neither she nor her son was prepared to sever the bond at this point.
“Nothing bad will happen,” Julian said urgently, persuasively. His arms enfolded her once more and she melted against his sinewy form.
In the midst of the emotional turmoil, her body was sabotaging her mind so much that she wished she could separate herself from it. She tilted her head up and started to speak, but his mouth bonded tightly with hers and they seemed to breathe as one. His tongue slid sensually across her anticipating lips. She tried to step back a little, but the calves of her legs brushed up against the bed. If he moved forward just an inch, she’d collapse right onto it.
“I’ll go along with it,” she whispered, her voice quavering.
Julian felt the heat. Go along with what? The plan or what we’re doing right now? He wanted to close his eyes, shut out the world and break the crumbling walls that barricaded her heart. He wanted to give her that final push that would send her hopelessly into oblivion—the place where he wanted to be right now.
They moved sideways in a mesmerizing dance to music that played in their heads. He kissed her again and felt her urgent response, but he knew the dilemma facing them was far too real. He had to stay focused. Experience told him that she would only hate him later if they took that final step. The motion stopped and he leveled his eyes on her.
“This is going to be so hard,” he said.
“What is?”
“Having to do the party scene again.”
Nicole smiled sadly. She was aware that he had been the one to put the brakes on their little love dance and she was grateful—disappointed, but grateful.
“Well, as long as you don’t start enjoying it,” she said, taking his hand and leading him back into the living room. “I’ll go along with what you’re saying as long as you keep in mind that Trey is the top priority here, not the two of us. If he notices anything else and it starts to affect him, I’ll—”
“You don’t have to worry,” he interrupted. “Trey will always come first. I understand that.”
“I’m not sure what I should tell him about us,” she said.
“Nothing. You don’t have to tell him anything. He already knows that I have to travel a lot. That should explain why I’m not around that often.” He noted the doubt lingering in her eyes. “Look, I’m in no way trying to make light of the situation, but I think we’re both blowing it out of proportion.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“I know I am.”
Julian lingered for a few minutes and then announced that he had to be at a meeting in fifteen minutes. He kissed her goodbye. It was another long, desperately passionate kiss, which she reciprocated because she did not know when she would see him again.
When he left, Nicole tried to refocus on what she had been doing before he had arrived, but she couldn’t. Something had definitely changed in the relationship. While she had been with him in the bedroom, she had not once thought about Warren and she didn’t even feel guilty about not feeling guilty. The relationship between Julian and her was definitely evolving and that was disturbing, because she didn’t trust him completely, even though she wanted to. He still had his way of stirring up a lot of turmoil and unrequited passion and then casually slipping back into his separate world, the one she did not belong in. She sensed that their two worlds were either about to converge or explode in the very near future and the realization was terrifying.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
It was the last week of October and the holiday season was just around the corner. Nicole could feel it even in the balmy Miami air. Stores were actively hiring people in anticipation of more customers. Children and adults were chattering about Halloween, a
nd in the hospital, as well as on the street, people were buzzing about how quickly the year had passed.
Nicole counted the days with eager anticipation that things would work out, and with an acute fear of the unknown. She had met the two bodyguards assigned to her and Trey, and had been surprised to discover that they were female. Julian had informed her that despite their low-key appearance, they were fully capable of handling any situation, and they were sensitively inconspicuous. Also true to his word, Julian did call, whenever he could. She was grateful that he always took time out to speak to Trey, even though he knew the child wouldn’t answer. The one-sided conversation would have made someone else feel foolish.
The most difficult aspect of the separation was the weird sense of unreality that would consume her whenever she went shopping and noticed that almost every Spanish-language tabloid heralded Julian’s escapades. She would stare at his handsome face smiling vapidly from the pages as he escorted an equally vapid-faced young beauty. Unfortunately, the prying press had also picked up the story of the stalker. It reported the increased security Julian had lately, and it also went on to tell tales about other stars who had been stalked in the past, some with tragic outcomes. Nicole made a concentrated effort not to look at the tabloids, but it was difficult when they were always right in front of her.
There were increasing moments when she would wonder how it was even possible that she knew the man. It sometimes seemed that he’d always been a figment of her imagination, created to ease the pain of a broken heart.
He was very real to Trey, though. She knew that her son eagerly anticipated seeing him again. It showed in the way his face lit up every time Julian called, and whenever his name was mentioned. Allyson had also informed her that Trey still played the guitar every night, and that he even slept with the instrument until she removed it from the bed.
It distressed Nicole greatly to see how much Trey wanted a father and that he was substituting a most unlikely candidate. She wanted to believe that it was just a case of hero worship, but she knew it was much deeper than that. Like mother, like son.
She watched Trey now, sitting at the kitchen table with a very serious expression on his face. He was drawing a picture and concentrating on which colors to use. He inspected the drawing, scowled, and then added some more detail.
“What’re you drawing, Trey?”
He frowned and positioned his arms so that the sketch was concealed from her sight.
“Oh, come on. Why don’t you let me see? I know it’s good.”
Trey slid the picture off the table, hiding it completely. It’s for Julian, he signed and mouthed the words.
She hesitated for a moment. “Well, it might be a while before Julian gets to see it. Maybe I can just have a quick peek and tell you what he’ll think.”
Trey took a deep breath and reluctantly surrendered the drawing. Nicole gazed at a huge, green blob of a monster with wide, bulging red eyes, yellow fangs and fearsome claws. Very appropriate for Halloween. She smiled.
“That’s quite a monster, hon. You’re such a great artist.” She studied it some more and added enthusiastically, “Such amazing detail. Julian will love this.”
Trey scowled at her as if she had told him that the drawing was worthless garbage. She immediately concluded that her praise had not been adequate, and fought for the right words that would please him.
“I would give anything to be able to draw pictures like this,” she gushed. “It deserves to be seen, so I’m going to put it right here.” She hung the drawing in the center of the refrigerator, along with some of his other creative endeavors, securing it with a magnet.
He folded his arms across his chest, rolled his eyes, and shook his head incredulously. While she was trying to figure out what his negative body language meant, the telephone rang and the call turned out to be an old friend from Chicago whom she had not heard from in a while. She became absorbed in the conversation, but not so absorbed that she didn’t notice Trey silently remove the picture from the refrigerator and rip it into tiny pieces that fluttered like weary moths into the garbage.
* * *
Trey hated the monster. It lived inside him. It was real tiny and squished up, stuck inside his throat, but if it ever got out, it would be enormous and slimy with fiery red eyes, like the picture he had drawn. The monster was very powerful and it could hurt people, even kill them.
The monster had taken away all his words. He would stand in front of the mirror sometimes and open his mouth trying to force them out, but the only sounds that would come were squeaks. The monster’s grip was too tight.
When he was really little, right after it had killed Daddy, the monster was even more powerful than it was now. Back then, it wouldn’t even let him cry. But Trey knew that the bigger and stronger he became, the weaker the monster was getting, and that was making the monster very angry. The monster didn’t like it that he could laugh and that he could play the guitar. The monster didn’t like it when he played with other kids, or when his mommy smiled. It did not want him to be happy, ever.
The monster hated Julian most of all because Julian knew all about it and was not scared. Trey liked it a lot when Julian made his mommy laugh, and when he talked to him as if he were a real boy instead of a weird one with a monster. He did not look at him in the funny way that other people did. When Julian talked to him, he would look at his eyes and stand close to him, because he wasn’t afraid of catching the monster, like catching a cold. He didn’t shout real loud as though Trey couldn’t hear, and he didn’t think it was so strange or terrible that he couldn’t answer back. He knew about the monster. Trey was sure of that.
The stupid doctors his mommy made him go to did not know. They would ask him to play silly games with dolls and try to make him remember the bad thing that had happened a long time ago. Some of them would talk a lot, but they didn’t act like they were really talking to him. Others would just sit back and stare at him and write down words on paper that they would not let him see. It made him angry. Once he had gotten so angry that he’d just sat on the chair and rocked back and forth, screaming with his eyes squeezed shut so he couldn’t see or hear. Mommy had gotten very upset when the doctor told her that he was ortistic and should be sent to a special school that was far away.
Trey did not like to see his mommy sad, and he wished she could know that the monster was the one who made him do crazy things, like screaming while the teacher was talking, and fighting with the kids in the regular school who laughed at him. He wished she knew that it was all the monster’s fault, but she thought he was just being bad, and that’s why he now had to go to school with the deaf kids and learn sign language. He wasn’t angry at Mommy, though, because she was a girl, and girls just did not understand monsters the way guys did.
A long time ago, he had gotten a really bad sore throat and Mommy had looked inside his mouth with a flashlight. He had held his breath and squeezed his eyes shut real tight, hoping she would finally see it. But the monster had made itself invisible. All she had seen were little white spots, and then she had given him some yucky medicine that he hated and the monster liked. Even now, she still didn’t get it. She’d hung the monster’s picture on the refrigerator as if it was something nice. Julian would not have done that.
* * *
On the first of November, Nicole awakened in the dark of night, to the sound of the phone ringing. Still half asleep, she reached for it.
“Did you hear?” Julian’s voice came through. He sounded excited.
“Huh? What?” Nicole sat up straight. It was about two o’clock in the morning and she’d just gotten to bed an hour ago.
“I’m sorry,” he said, realizing. “Didn’t mean to wake you. It’s not all that late where I am.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m in LA. Did you hear about the stalker?”
She was wide-awake now. “I haven’t heard anything. Tell me.”
“Last week, some maniac scaled the wall of my pla
ce, armed with a machete. One of my security guards shot him. Don’t you listen to the news?”
Nicole was too stunned to reply. She could feel her heart pounding wildly and she wasn’t sure if her reaction was from relief that the stalker had been caught, or fear over the violent nature of the event.
“Nicole, are you still…”
“Yes. Yes, I heard you. Is the stalker dead?”
“No. He was wounded, but he’ll live. Turns out he’s some kind of paranoid schizophrenic who escaped from a mental institution in Georgia five years ago.”
“Are you sure he’s the one?”
“Well, I’ve been getting those love letters every week for at least five years, and this week there were none, so I’m kind of reaching a conclusion. I would have told you sooner, but I thought you might have heard.” He hesitated because Nicole’s silence unnerved him. Had she decided that their relationship wasn’t worth all the drama? “So, what do you think? Good news or no?”
She laughed, a short nervous laugh. “Don’t pay any attention to me. I’m just kind of overwhelmed. Of course it’s good news, but it’s also horrible. Did you say he had a machete?”
“Yeah. Huge blade too.” Julian laughed. “Guess he was looking forward to lopping my head off with one swipe.”
“That’s not funny.”
“Sorry.” He took a deep breath. “When I get back home I’ll start downsizing the security troops. How’s Trey?”
“Eagerly awaiting your return.”
“Is Mommy eagerly awaiting too?”
Before replying, she laughed at the beseeching, childlike tone of his voice. “Yes, Mommy’s eager too.”
“Did you take my buddy out for Halloween?”
“No. My family doesn’t do that ritual. Never did.”
She wished she could have seen his expression when she said that, because he got really quiet. Then he laughed. “Baby, I like your family, but that attitude is totally un-American. What I’m hearing is that your family doesn’t do fun.”
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