Unbind (Sub Rosa Series Book 1)

by Lynch, Sarah Michelle

  “Fuck you,” he said, the brandy talking.

  “I will not have you disrespecting me. I gave you a roof over your head when those backward hicks would have had you still eating horse feed the rest of your life.”

  He stood up in a rush, the glass spilling some of its contents. “Don’t talk about those people. Don’t. They gave me more than you ever have. Don’t go there. Just, don’t.”

  Cai still thought of Claire and Dirk as the only two people to ever show him any kind of true humanity.

  “Whatever,” Jennifer turned her back on him, “you are not staying married to that trollop. You’re not going to art school… you are going to stop fighting and you are going to grow up.”

  Cai slammed his glass on the table and rushed toward Jennifer. He wrapped a hand around her neck and squeezed. “Don’t push me. I know my mother killed Philippe alright, so don’t you think I’m not capable too. You fucking bitch… you’re trying to ruin my life. Not any more.”

  She lost footing and fell to the floor, even his strength unable to hold her up just by the neck. He stood without emotion, staring down at her crumpled form. A few minutes passed before he panicked, realising even though it would solve problems if she were dead, he didn’t need that hanging over his head. He reached down and found her breathing—maybe just passed out.

  He left her there and went back to the sitting area again, taking another brandy. He checked his phone and found several messages from Jackie, all saying roughly the same thing. I love you. I will wait. My parents hate me, too. This is awful. I want to kill myself.

  He sent a reply: My aunt is going to file for an annulment. I think it’s best, actually. You don’t want to be mixed up in our lives, Jackie. I’m so sorry. I don’t know what else to say.

  JACKIE: We made love, though?

  CAI: No we didn’t. I don’t know how to love. I am sorry.

  He placed the phone in a glass of water and watched the screen go blank. This was a mess he would have to shut himself off from, just like the death of his parents. When he was 14, he didn’t think there was anything or anyone to mourn. Only now he was 18, he was even angrier and getting angrier by the minute.

  Jennifer groaned and stood straight, holding her head. “God, I feel awful.”

  “You probably need to take your painkillers and those other pills Claire still sends you. You know, for the arthritis? Even though she’s a hick, you know, she’s kind enough to get your pharmaceuticals so nobody knows you’re fucked up. Huh?” He looked at his lap the whole time he talked.

  “What are you talking about? Cai, where am I?” A subtle softness in her voice alerted him, made him suspicious.

  “Did you hit your head that hard, huh?”

  “Why are you grown up?”

  “What?” His speech lingered on the ‘t’.

  “I remember, I think…” she looked at her clothes, confused, “…I was talking to Jennifer. I had the gun… and then it went off.”

  Cai’s breath left him and he panicked. No.

  “Jennifer… is she okay?”

  “You’re Jennifer.”

  “No, I’m your mum.” She stared around the room, still.

  Cai examined her carefully and she stood just like his mother once had, her arms folded tightly against her body in defence. Her fingers weren’t clutched together, gnarled like Jennifer’s were. Her eyes darted faster around the room and she didn’t become the outfit she was wearing, nor the make-up. She had that tick of a nervous disposition, her neck clicking every minute or so.

  “This is definitely a place Jenny would have. Look at all this wood… these mirrors. She liked a good carpet, our Jenny. Ha. I even look like I’m wearing her—”

  A small, primal scream came from her mouth. Her whole form began shaking. Cai and Claudia looked at one another, some recognition setting in. He was an adult. She was his actual mother. He could see it now: the softness of her speech and stare, the gentleness of her stance and appearance. He always thought it was just that his aunt and mother looked so similar but the personalities, so different. In every way.

  “Oh god,” cried Cai.

  “It… happened… again, didn’t it? This time… I became her. I don’t want to be. I…”

  She wrapped her own hands around her neck and within moments, she was out of it again. A defence mechanism—forcing herself to pass out. Cai checked she was still breathing and then thought of a course of action.

  He reached for the landline, calling Sub Rosa.

  “Hello?” answered Claire.

  “It’s me, Cai. Oh god… why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Oh. Cai… what happened, dear?”

  “It’s… Mom. It’s… it was Mom. I dunno… how. I can’t. She just choked herself and went out of it again.”

  “Damn it. Oh, damn it.” Claire seemed panicky. “Listen, Cai, listen to everything I have to say. This won’t be easy, but just listen… you have to do exactly as I say.”

  Chapter 46

  Past

  CAI PANICKED, HE didn’t know what Claire was telling him. “When she wakes, ask her to find a safe place, ask her… to… to… take herself to a safe place!” Her voice was fraught. “I can’t believe this has happened! I can’t believe it! Oh my god. All these years, what happened? Something must have happened to have made her switch after all these damn years?”

  “We had a big fight, alright? I got married today and she went ballistic!”

  “Oh, you silly boy. Married! You’re only 18!”

  “Listen Claire, you don’t know what it has been like. How could you not tell me? Why did nobody tell me?”

  “We were only trying to protect you, Cai. You know it.”

  “How did this happen? How did this happen?” He clutched his hair and began crying. Claire listened for several minutes while he sobbed his heart out. “I thought my own damn mother was dead! When she woke up then, Claire… it was like a minute had passed since four years ago. A minute. I was under that damn window seat, Claire! Okay! I thought my mother had killed herself! I truly thought she had! I thought it was just that Jennifer and my mother looked so much the same! Why did you damn fools not tell me!”

  He finished barking, still disbelieving, and cried while Claire told him, “When she wakes, you have to hope and pray she returns as Jennifer. If not, if she is Claudia again, tell her to take herself to a safe place. Remind her she has a job to do, remind her she’s Jennifer. Remind her to look after you. Just do those things and let her be. I don’t know what else to do, Cai. I don’t know what else to do. She might kill herself if she turns back into your mother. I just don’t know what else to do.”

  He hung up the phone and watched while his mother laid on the floor, her breathing deep. Still under. He couldn’t help but wish for his mother to come back to him. While he waited an agonising hour and a half for her to come round, he thought about his father and realised he wasn’t all that bad. He must have known his mother’s secret and carried it.

  Jennifer didn’t have many friends and had never encouraged Cai to have any either. He knew from watching her over the years that she had gotten calmer as time went on but she was still aggressive in her tactics when she wanted to be. The sudden thought of Cai leaving her must have tripped her fragile mind. He was her Achilles heel, a motherly love more powerful than any other emotion.

  “For god’s sake, these bloody headaches! Did I pass out? What the hell am I doing on the floor?” She complained as she woke, as Jennifer. He ran for the pills on her desk and passed them to her.

  “I don’t know which you need. Tell me and I’ll get some water.”

  “Just the painkillers. I only need those strange vitamins Claire sends me once a day. By the way, I think they’re not doing anything for my skin. I need more botox. I don’t look at all how I should do. It’s getting out of hand.”

  “You look okay to me.”

  She shot him a look. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten about your mistake. We need to cal
l Klaus and have him lock this down, no media coverage. I need to get Wally on the line and ask him to start scrubbing this off the records immediately. No marriage ever existed.”

  “Jennifer, you were passed out a couple hours. Time has passed. People are bound to have spotted the commotion you caused earlier. It’ll be difficult to make this go away, you know?”

  “This is your fault!” she shouted at him.

  “I know. I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  “You didn’t screw the little harlot?” Jennifer chomped on her tongue.

  “No. No.”

  “Good. Don’t bother with little troublemakers like her. Just get yourself a woman of the night if you need that sort of thing, okay? I understand, you know? Don’t think I’m ignorant there… I know you’re grown now. You have hormones and urges. You’re a man after all, but these women only want your money or a route to me. Just get yourself laid, I’ll pay if it means you’re not going down City Hall every Saturday.”

  “I don’t need you to pay.” He looked down at the floor, so saddened. He had to remind himself she was ill, she didn’t know what she was saying. It still hurt to think that was all she thought of him. He was a teenager with a need to screw, according to her. That was all. Not someone in desperate need of a love he was convinced just didn’t exist.

  “Go to your room while I make these calls now,” she ordered.

  He began to make his way there but then held back, deciding to listen for a minute. He stood in the hallway and heard her speak with Klaus, the man who still loved Jennifer but had been put in his place.

  If only… Cai thought, if only he could just have one more moment with his mother, just to tell her that everything would be okay, if she would just let Cai help her… he wanted just one more minute, an hour. Maybe a day.

  He could search for a girlfriend and make Jennifer mad, make Claudia come back again. He could do that! Then again, Claudia might be a worse scenario to deal with.

  Cai heard her phone the family attorney, Wally, and arrange proceedings for an annulment. Then he heard her ask at the last minute, “Wally, I have this hunch about something else, too. My sister’s death… I want it looked into again. No… cost is not an issue. Go deeper this time. There is something about it. I don’t know what but if he’s this desperate for the money, don’t you think it could be possible… no, I know… I know,” Wally said something on the line, “but a doubt is a doubt. At least if he is innocent, then he’s innocent, okay…? I want it looked into some more… I don’t care how much it costs, it’s not as if I need the money, after all I have all these politicians in my pockets. Silly men.”

  Part Three: Unbind

  “How often have I said to you

  that when you have eliminated the

  impossible, whatever remains, however

  improbable, must be the truth?”

  Sherlock Holmes, The Sign of Four

  Chapter 47

  CAI TOLD ME in his own words what he knew… He contacted Jennifer over email and put the idea in her head that Claudia was missing her. So then Jennifer came over to the US after Philippe’s possible death/disappearance, proclaiming they could be close again. She was getting a job in New York. However, by this point Claudia was already intent on killing herself and nothing Jennifer could do would change that—Cai described how his mother sounded sure of her intent to finally end it all. When he was describing how he felt beneath that window seat, I was crying my eyes out.

  He told me that he never understood why Jennifer chased the truth of his mother’s death… because she was actually there at the scene! Until he got married and she blew up—and showed her true self. All that I was struggling with… multiple personality? I wasn’t quite onboard with that, yet. I knew I’d have to see it for myself. Perhaps I was disbelieving but it was the middle of the night by the time he told me about that part of the story.

  He only briefly mentioned Klaus… only that Jennifer and Klaus were in cahoots in keeping certain headlines out of the news.

  “You lied to me,” I told him.

  “I wasn’t a virgin, I know… but Jackie’s the only other, I swear. I was just so ashamed. I hurt her, I know I did… I was embarrassed, too. This is where it gets complicated,” he said, opening his hands with a look on his face I didn’t like.

  “Complicated?”

  “Yeah,” he said, his face wrinkling with some memory.

  It was a guess… “You had to lie about not having sex with her, to get the annulment rushed through… to keep her appeased?”

  Just the thought of that woman—Jennifer—made me feel thunderous.

  “Yeah I had to lie and do what she wanted me to. That’s not what I’m saying though.”

  I didn’t want to know, suddenly, I didn’t want to know any more! He stood and left my side, walking to the window to tell me the rest.

  “Chloe, if Jennifer is actually my mother… she could be violent. Homicidal. I have kept so much bound tight inside me to protect you from hurt. It wasn’t as if I didn’t know that keeping this all from you was wrong. I did know. I just—”

  “Yes?”

  “Claire has a friend who has a friend in pharmaceuticals and they sell her the stuff under the table. They’re improving the drugs all the time and Claire gets the best, always the best. No questions asked. She’s been dipping her hand in the household budget to pay for the damn stuff which isn’t cheap.”

  “I imagine not.”

  “Jennifer seems balanced, most of the time. Doesn’t she? Yet this drives me mad. The lies. Underhanded tactics to keep her stable. Those other people involved in this do not understand what it is like to be me. She won’t let me be happy, she won’t.”

  “What do you mean, Cai?”

  “The marriage was the start… it got worse after that. She had me followed everywhere I went. She had my mother’s death looked into again and even though nothing new came to light, she was intolerable. She sat me down night after night, going through the whole case again and again, testing me to see if I would cave, asking me the same questions to see if I would give her the same answers.”

  “She’s paranoid, then?” Some part of Claudia’s subconscious was aware.

  “Yeah. Totally. She went bat-shit crazy when I met you.”

  “Oh.” I wondered what was next, because across the room, Cai’s head bowed.

  “When I told Jackie I was unable to love, I really was. In fact, I didn’t realise I was capable of love, not until this week.”

  Blood drained from my face. Except my heart was thumping in my ears.

  “Sometimes, before… when we were making love, I was telling myself I was in love. I thought I was. I wondered though, deep down, whether I was deficient.”

  No!!!! My insides screamed but I couldn’t move a muscle… shocked, stunned, my mind racing but my limbs useless.

  “There were other chicks. None of them as kind as Jackie. Jackie tried, you know? She understood. She gave me a chance. When I met you, all the physical stuff was there, sure… but inside it was still pretty cold in here. I played my part. I tried to reassure you. Maybe I thought you deserved better and I knew you wanted more than just fucking. I admit… it crossed my mind to marry you and finally get the money. You know, it has never been the house, Sub Rosa. That is inconsequential. My mother’s uncle put some investments in Silicon Valley into a trust fund for the next male Matthews to inherit. It’s worth more than 50 million dollars. Payable on marriage or my 25th birthday. Except… Jennifer is the executor and pulled up some small print… so I don’t own a god damn thing. Except my Brooklyn gallery.”

  It weighed on me like a sinking ship.

  “Oh. My. God.” I could hardly breathe.

  He was rolling with this sick confession and continued, “That rose. It was like whoever sent it was warning you… warning me… nothing good can come of all that, you know? Romance is for fools. I ran… I ran at the sight of that rose. Then you came to New York, so
desperate. I thought it was kinder to just do you and it was so goddamned nice to have you. I wanted more.

  “I got Jennifer to give you a job, arguing you satisfied my sexual needs. She understands that, you know? She approves bodily needs, just none of the rest. We signed a contract, too. I promised to calm down and stop brawling all over Manhattan, if she gave you a job. She seemed pleased when I started behaving and stopped showing her up. My aim wasn’t just to piss her off and screw you over, however. I saw to it that two birds could be killed with one stone. I knew your propensity for truth seeking and hoped while working at Frame you might find something, anything, suspicious about Jennifer. Yet now I know, she’s too lost in playing the part and she will never give herself away. I know that she’s got herself bound so tight.”

  I was utterly devastated. Our love was a lie.

  “I’m lost, I’m so lost,” I said in a numb voice.

  He turned to me, fear in his eyes, tears blotting his beautiful face.

  “You don’t know what it was like growing up like that, Chloe. At least you had a mother’s love. I had nothing but two old cronies who couldn’t protect me from what I knew to be the truth.”

  “I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe.”

  He came over and suggested, “Put your head between your legs. Please. C’mon. Breathe.”

  I started hyperventilating but when I was calm, he started kissing my face all over.

  “I love you… I love you like I never thought I could. I want to explain. I want to tell you everything and I want to be with you, I don’t care what it takes.”

  I cried through bitter tears, willing myself to believe what he was saying. He pressed his plump lips to mine and kissed me through tears of his own, and mine. He held me tight, relieved to know I would still let him kiss me.

  He walked over to the entranceway sideboard and picked up his phone.

  “Here, check my messages. See for yourself.”