Master of Salt & Bones

by Keri Lake

  “One of those pay-by-week things.”

  Unless I got bits of the story wrong, I was certain Nell had her own place. “What about her son?”

  “Son? I wasn’t aware she had a son.”

  Maybe she didn’t talk about him much, or didn’t divulge anything personal like that. “Was it in town? On the island?”

  “The motel? Yes, it’s, ah …” He taps his finger to his chin, contemplative for a moment. “Crow’s Nest Motel.”

  I know that one. About a mile and a half from where Aunt Midge works. They not only rent by the week, but by the hour, as I understand. “I can’t believe she’d throw everything away.”

  And yet, I absolutely can, because that’s how junkies work. There is nothing more valuable than the drug. Not even a child. I know that from firsthand experience, which is how I got dumped on my aunt’s doorstep.

  “Well, she was always a little shady. Used to hang out at some skeevy bar. She liked picking up the locals to take back to the motel and shoot up.”

  “The Shoal?”

  “Pretty sure that’s the one.”

  Sure, there are some interesting characters that end up at The Shoal, but I’ve grown up with a lot of those guys. Worked summers with some of them. They’re not the most upstanding citizens on the island, but I can’t imagine any of the regulars taking a young girl back to a motel to shoot up drugs. I’ve seen much skeevier places than that bar.

  Then again, maybe I don’t know any of them any more than I thought I knew Nell.

  “Anyway, I need to go, or I’ll be late. I just wanted to let you know.”

  “I appreciate it. Thanks.”

  I head back into Laura’s bedroom, where she sits with one eyebrow quirked, and I shake my head. “Just giving me some info on your new meds.”

  “So, it was about me. That man is such a liar,” she says with a smile.

  I want to ask her if that’s true, and to what extent would he lie. “It’s beautiful outside. I was thinking maybe we could sit in the garden and read.”

  “What garden? You mean the cemetery of vines and shrubbery in the yard?”

  “Yes. Unless you’re up for a game of basketball, or something.”

  Her face scrunches to a frown. “Reading, it is.”

  I wheel her down to the first level, and out into the ruins, as I call them. The sun is bright today, but the news of Nell somehow dulls its warmth. Taking a seat on a stone bench half covered in bird crap, I flip the book open to where we last left off, the picture of young Lucian and his friend acting as the bookmark.

  “I think I’d prefer to hear your story, instead, today.”

  Peeling my attention from the new chapter, I frown. “Mine?”

  “Yes. Have you always lived on the island?”

  I don’t know why I hesitate to answer her at first. “No. My mother and I moved around a lot when I was little. Every month, it felt like.”

  “Was she in the military? Or business? Engineers move around quite a bit, don’t they?”

  Engineer. The only thing my mother managed to engineer was a shit life for both of us. “She was neither of those.”

  “Well, what did she do to keep moving you around so much?”

  “Drugs. She was a junkie, and … we ran quite a bit.”

  The sidelong glance she shoots back at me is overflowing with judgement, but I don’t care. Hiding my past has become an exhausting exercise as of late. “That doesn’t sound like a healthy environment for a young girl.”

  “Not at all.”

  “And your father?”

  “He died before I had the chance to meet him.”

  “So, how did you manage to avoid following your mother footsteps in life?”

  “My Aunt Midge raised me from the time I was ten.”

  “It took ten years for your mother to decide she couldn’t manage? Or did something precipitate the decision.”

  In the pause that follows her question, a flickering image flashes through my head.

  A child holding a glowing heart. Darkness all around. But the child’s face practically glows. It’s sad eyes. Gentle hands. A red heart. Deep breaths. Red. Everywhere, it’s red.

  I blink out of the thoughts, the book in my lap coming back into focus.

  “Well?” The expectant tone in Laura’s voice carries an air of annoyance. “Why ten years?”

  “I don’t know. I guess she just gave up.”

  “That’s not how mothers operate, darling. My guess is, you’ll never know. Women do what they have to do, sometimes. Even at the risk of unimaginable pain.”

  There’s a very lucid texture to her voice, and I have to look away from her eyes, which seem to be searching me for something, though I can’t say what.

  “Is that why you and Lucian don’t communicate much?” It’s a tricky question with Laura, given the way she obviously feels about her son.

  Instead, she sneers at my question, staring off toward the yard. “He resents me. He felt I forced him into marriage.” Rolling her shoulders back, she lowers her gaze toward her hands resting in her lap. “As if I had a choice.”

  “You loved Amelia, though. Didn’t you?”

  “Love is a strong word, child. Best saved for your own children.”

  “You don’t believe in romantic love, then?”

  “If I did, I suppose my husband might still be alive, assuming the heart grows stronger when you love.” She rubs her hands together and tips her head. “Has my son fucked you yet?”

  My God, her blunt questions will never cease to keep me on edge. Even now, there’s a thrum of anxiety beating through me.

  While my mind scrambles for something to say, short of lying right to her face, she waves her hand in the air. “Never mind that. I’m sure he will eventually. A young thing like you is far too much temptation for the appetite of a Blackthorne man. His father was the same way. The younger ones always seemed to draw his attention most. Disturbing really. Had Lucian been a daughter, instead of a son …” She seems to stare off for a moment, her eyes glassing over with each passing second, brows creeping toward a frown. “I’m tired. I’d like to go lie down now.”

  Chapter 52

  Lucian

  Four years ago …

  A rush of cold air casts a chill across my skin and drags me out of the void. At the sound of wind, I push up onto my good elbow and double blink the sleep away. Across my dark bedroom, the door to the balcony stands open, fluttering the sheer white curtain beneath the drawn drapes.

  ‘The hell?

  I roll to my side and clamber out of bed, the frigid ambient air becoming painfully apparent outside of the covers. The cast on my right side was finally removed, but the ache of pins and plates seems more intense in these cooler temperatures. As if the cold has an affinity for the metal through my layers of skin and flesh.

  Hobbling toward the door, I notice the flickering movement on the balcony, and find Amelia standing there in nothing but a silk, pink nightgown, her blonde hair dancing in the breeze.

  “What are you doing?” Sleep still clings to my voice as I approach her from behind, and I rub my eyes, to be sure this isn’t some strange nightmare. It wouldn’t be the first, but they’ve settled some in recent weeks.

  “Do you remember that night in the atrium … when we kissed?” she asks, not bothering to turn around.

  Rubbing the back of my neck, I blink hard to focus. “Yes.”

  “It was the best kiss I’ve ever had. For weeks, I dreamed about it. About you. I was certain that I was going to be the girl who won Lucian Blackthorne’s cold, unattainable heart.”

  Though the anger that I feel toward Amelia still courses through me, it’s lessened with time, as I’ve watched her slip into depression alongside me. I know now that it was a mistake on her part, leaving those pills out. A simple, human error. But I can’t bring myself to forgive her, and whatever this is she’s doing, it only solidifies my feelings, as I can’t bring myself to care about a childish kiss,
either.

  The death of my son has turned me into a broken husk of a man. If ever I was capable of such frivolities as love, that time has long since passed.

  “When I got pregnant with Roark, I had a choice. Keep the baby, the son of the man that I knew I was destined to marry. Or destroy it and, along with that, all ties to you.” Her hands reach out, gripping the railing of the balcony, and she stares downward, the sight of which sets my teeth on edge.

  “Why don’t we talk in here?”

  “This is what excites you, isn’t it? Staring death in the face?”

  “Amelia. C’mon. Talk inside.”

  She turns around, and with the red, puffiness of her eyes, I can see she’s been crying. “I loved Roark. I know you don’t believe that, but I did. Every morning, I woke up and thought, Today is the day I’m going to be the mother he deserves.” The crack of her voice sets off another round of tears that she quickly wipes from her cheeks. “And every day I failed him. I failed him because I was distraught over how to understand and please my husband.”

  Of course, she’d blame that on me, but I don’t risk igniting her mood, seeing as I don’t know what the hell she came to do out on my balcony yet. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I didn’t give you a chance. Come inside.” I hold out my hand to her, flicking my fingers. “We’ll talk about this in here. In my room.”

  “I think I get it now, though,” she says, continuing to ignore my request. “That freedom of knowing that, in the next breath, you could easily cease to exist. Do you think Roark felt that?”

  Heart pounding in my throat, I step toward her, and that’s when she hikes her leg over the railing, literally straddling the line between life and death.

  “Amelia, don’t do this. You don’t have to do this. Let’s talk. We can start over.” I don’t even know what I’m saying to her, or if I even believe such a thing is possible, but the urgency to get her back on this side of the balcony seems to have taken over my vocal chords. I take another step, and she shifts, the abrupt movement forcing me back to keep her from doing something stupid.

  “There’s no starting over. The night Roark died? I saw pure hatred in your eyes. If you ever felt anything for me, it died alongside him. And I don’t blame you.” Her gaze lowers from mine, as she seems to catch her breath. “But I kept loving you in spite of it. There’s never been a time when I stopped loving you, Lucian.” She slips, tumbling over the edge of the railing, and panic explodes through my muscles, jerking me forward on instinct as I reach out and grab her arm. It’s not until I capture her hand that I realize my mistake. Pain bullets up my wrist and into my shoulder, while the full weight of her dangles from my once-broken arm.

  “Ah, fuck!” I grit out through the agony tearing up my muscles. “Somebody, help me!”

  Tears shine in her eyes, as she stares up at me, captured only by her delicate wrist. “You can let me go now.”

  “No.” Bracing my foot against the edge of the railing, I reach out with my good arm. “Take my other hand. Please, Amelia. I can pull you up with this hand.”

  “I want you to let me go. I want to be with Roark. I promise I’ll be a good mother to him this time. You won’t have to worry.”

  My arm trembles as I lean further over the railing and attempt to reach for her with my stronger arm. I can’t even lift her enough to capture her wrist. “Please, take my hand. I’m begging you.”

  With intense focus, I try to flex my shoulder, to pull her up so I can grab her, but an agonizing sensation tears through my muscles, as if it’s separating from my body.

  She manages to wriggle loose.

  A sound of excruciating pain rips through my chest, echoing in the night.

  In seconds, she hits the pavement, and a red pool crawls over the cement creating a halo of blood around her head that’s visible in the triggered floodlights.

  Balling my trembling hands into tight fists, I rest them against my temples and slide down the edge of the wall. The world slices me open once again, and I bleed out the misery trapped inside of me.

  Chapter 53

  Isadora

  Present day …

  I have to know. It’s a nagging, needling thought inside my head that won’t go away. Did Nell really overdose? Was she a regular at my aunt’s bar? Was she lying the whole time? What the hell was the warning before she left all about? And why was she working with a private investigator?

  So many questions slamming around inside my head.

  If I come right out and tell Aunt Midge about what happened, it’ll just be more gossip about the Blackthornes. She’ll warn me to stay away from this place, and tell me I’m asking for trouble with Lucian.

  But what if Nell didn’t overdose? What if something happened to her? Maybe Aunt Midge saw her at the bar. Maybe she saw her leave with someone.

  I can at least put my mind at ease a little by asking.

  I’m sure, by now, the whole town knows a woman was found dead in a motel room. That kind of thing just doesn’t happen frequently enough in Tempest Cove to get swept under the rug entirely. And if there’s one person I know who’s gotten the skinny on it, particularly as it’s only a little over a mile up the road, it’s Aunt Midge.

  I shove a couple outfits into my bag for the weekend, my mind made up about taking a couple days away from this place, but pause at a knock at the door.

  Shit. Lucian.

  He seemed insistent earlier that I stay, and I’ve been trying to formulate a non-suspicious excuse for him for the last hour.

  “Isa?” Giulia’s voice bleeds through the door, and I exhale a relieved breath.

  “Come in.”

  The door clicks as she enters the room, her face etched with worry. “You heard the news of Nell?”

  Nodding, I sit down on the bed, resting my hands in my lap. “I can’t believe it.”

  “I can’t believe it, either.” The skepticism in her voice proves the point. “I’ve known Nell for a couple years now. There’s no way she would’ve thrown everything away. I watched her work so hard through school.”

  Unfortunately, I happen to know how easily an addict will throw everything away to feed their craving. Even at the expense of losing what they love most. I wish that was the most troubling part about this, because at least I’d be able to dismiss that. It’d make sense to me. The problem is, if Nell was just another junkie out to ruin what she worked hard for, why would she go out of her way to work with a private investigator, and to warn me away from the Blackthornes? Addicts don’t give a shit about anything but their next fix.

  “She was fired last week. Maybe that triggered a craving.”

  “Maybe.” After glancing back at the door, she shuffles across the room and sits beside me on the bed. “Can I tell you something? You have to promise me you won’t say a word.”

  “Yeah. Sure.”

  The way she glances around the room makes her look almost paranoid, but then again, maybe rightly so after the nights I’ve spent here. “I told her things,” she whispers. “Things I shouldn’t have talked about. She asked me about that secret group and the men involved. What if they found out?” Wringing the apron of her dress, she lowers her head and exhales a sharp breath. “What if they come for me next?”

  “Why would they come for you?”

  “You don’t know who these men are, Isa. What they’ll do to remain anonymous. To protect their identity. What they do. And they know everything about me. And Jackie.” Face screwed up in panic, she clutches her stomach and leans forward as if she might throw up. “Oh, God, what if they go after my daughter?”

  Go after her daughter? “Lucian is part of this group, as well?”

  “Yes. But it’s different with Lucian. He doesn’t entirely share their philosophies.”

  “On what?”

  Releasing a sharp exhale, she looks up at me. “They pay money to torture others.”

  Tendrils of ice crawl up my spine. “What do you mean? Like … hurt people?” All this time, I was
under the impression they were some high-rolling escort service.

  “People come to them with problems. Say me, for example. I needed a way out. So some, they physically hurt for money. Others might be used in other ways.” She casts her gaze from mine, as if she can’t look at me. “For money. The common thread is pain. These men get off on doling it out and watching it.”

  What she’s saying makes no sense. A group that pays to torture people? It’s the kind of thing that only happens in the dark recesses of the internet. Not here. Not in a small fishing community like Tempest Cove.

  “People come to them to be hurt? You went to them for this? And worse yet, you suggested I go to them for this?”

  “Remember how desperate you were? Imagine thousands of dollars paid to you. Money you don’t have to pay back. All your debts and problems? Gone.”

  “Desperate, or not, I was trying to avoid being tortured and killed.”

  “Because you didn’t know the terms, or the limits.” She turns toward me, her eyes imploring. “But imagine if that drug dealer had outlined exactly what he would do to you, and afterward, your debts were clear. You never had to see him again.”

  Maybe. Maybe I was desperate in the moment. Who knows? I was certainly willing, at the time, to proposition the Devil of Bonesalt.

  “Lucian does this? He pays to hurt people?”

  “I don’t think he participates. I think he’s just one who provides the funding.”

  “Why? What could he possibly get in return for that?”

  “I don’t know, okay? I shouldn’t even be telling you.”

  “How did you even learn about this group?”

  “I heard through someone else about them. On the streets, they’re like … gods.” There’s a sparkle in her eyes when she says it, as if she believes it herself. “To be chosen is a lifesaver, for some.”

  “They tortured you?”

  “My circumstances were such that … they weren’t interested. I was a single mother with a child. For what I was willing to do, they weren’t willing to take both of us in. I’ll admit, it was stupid. But we were starving, and you don’t realize the depths you’ll sink to when you have a hungry child. Had Rand not approached me, I’d be walking the streets of Boston looking for Johns. I’m not proud of that, but I’ll do anything for my little girl. Anything.”