Unbind (Sub Rosa Series Book 1)

by Lynch, Sarah Michelle

  My hotel room was a freaking mess and I’d told reception not to let a maid in. I didn’t want my post-its or my boxes moved. I’d never find anything once it was all taken apart. It was organised chaos—everything I felt relating to this mystery written down should I need to pluck a certain piece of information from the archive.

  Meanwhile a nifty bit of digging on the internet produced a number of interesting items. Around the time Jennifer began working at Frame as an assistant editor (a title that was a long way off creative director) much speculation appeared in the gossip columns about Jennifer having had plastic surgery. So, the difference was noticed. It wasn’t frowned upon of course, not in her world. My search also dug up one other interesting feature of Jennifer’s rise to power. Within only a year at Frame, she became Queen Bee. She was described as ‘an unstoppable force of nature… a woman empowered in the wake of the tragic death of sister… her influence overshadowing everyone else’s… the ultimate style guru…’ and the list went on. I got the feeling whoever was the prior incumbent of creative director, had pretty much been pushed out to make way for ‘Jennifer’. I’d seen how people responded to her. I couldn’t even describe it to you but she was so mysterious… it did make you think she was untouchable. Higher. Just, a woman to be reckoned with.

  I also found a public record that revealed the lawyers who’d dealt with the gallery sale before Cai got his hands on the deeds. A bit of grovelling and I was given a description of the man who paid cash, in full, to give that gallery to Cai. The description was unmistakable. Klaus had an unusual look… and when the guy said ‘like Dracula’… I knew. It had to be.

  One, Klaus Häuser.

  A joke, maybe? Why would he give some guy a gallery? Why would Cai hate someone who’d been kind to him… unless of course he was still ignorant of his benefactor’s name? I knew that ‘Jennifer’ and Klaus were acquaintances… but why? How?

  I knew I needed to talk to him so one night, I walked out to some unrecognisable backstreet café that looked like it shouldn’t have had WiFi but did.

  I sat in a scruffy but comfy-as-hell armchair, hidden behind a corner. I drank three lattes before feeling ready. I took out my iPad and Skyped him. After about three missed calls, he finally rang back.

  He appeared flustered, like he’d just been up to no good. He tied a silk dressing gown round his waist and left a bedroom to visit a kitchen in some house, somewhere.

  “I don’t hear from you in ages and then… here you are,” he chuckled. “Mind you, I always expected this call.”

  He placed his corresponding device down on a kitchen island, or something, and I had to watch while he fixed a drink for himself, then returned to the table to talk to me. I knew I didn’t have long before the WiFi gave out so I forgot the trivial.

  “Why did you put me in Cai’s path?” I stared down my nose, not needing condescension.

  “Hmm.” He smiled, his dark eyes shining. “What’s happened?”

  “You don’t get anything until you spill your guts first.”

  He rubbed a hand over his tired face and I guiltily realised it would be late into the night in Europe. I’d completely lost track of time as I worked all hours to find out the truth about that bitch.

  “It’s true, the saying… it’s not what you know, but who you know and knowing who to trust, Chloe. When I first met you, I saw the type of woman men struggle to fathom. You don’t know it but you frighten most men, petal, because you’ve no idea of your own power. However I saw it as soon as we met.”

  I clucked my tongue and rolled my eyes. “We don’t have much time, Klaus. Please get to the point.”

  “An artist needs his muse, Chloe. Placing you there, amongst those stuffed shirts, he was bound to notice you. I knew it. I just had to do a bit of dirty work… get you ready for that world.”

  He wore a smirk I didn’t like, an arrogance I would slap off if he stood before me.

  “You mistake me, Klaus. You think I have called to tell you the secrets you obviously thought I would run tittle-tattling about. I love him and while it irks me that my life has been inveigled by your dirty direction, that is not why I am calling to ask you for help.”

  “Oh, my help? Help, you say?” He mocked, a hand cupping his jaw nonchalantly.

  “Firstly, why did you buy him that gallery?”

  He looked impressed. “Simple. She seemed too eager to control him. Anyone could see he was desperate to run free, especially after the debacle of that marriage. I wanted to know why… why she had him fighting… clawing… for a way out. I wanted to tip the scale… give him some hope of escape, but also something he had to work for. I’m not a selfless man, Chloe… I see his talent like I see yours. I guess I must get that from my father. After all, he dragged Claudia and Jennifer from obscurity. I derive a little pleasure from knowing I helped you both.”

  “You meddled? For what?” I narrowed my eyes on the callous prick. Gawd. Who do these people think they are, ruling the world?

  “Two reasons. Influence… and experimentation. They go hand in hand. She had him so wound tight, didn’t she? ’Til you came along and spoiled all that.” Klaus chuckled mischievously.

  “She tried to ruin me. My nudity on display for everyone to see… it’s not funny, you know? The worst thing is that I didn’t want my name involved… I just wanted people to believe in that shoot. Now everybody just thinks it was a stunt. Or smut.”

  His face crumpled. “No. I know. You know? I know, if you know what I am talking about?”

  I shook my head. “What do you think I know?”

  He threw his head back in frustration. “Let’s just say, when I was a much younger man of 20 and just starting out, I became enamoured with an old acquaintance of my father’s. She was a woman 16 years my senior. We were casual for three or four years before she said she was moving to New York. Suddenly, in the wake of her sister’s death, she called it all off. Out of the blue. We were about to marry… we were going to try and make it work in New York so she could be close to the sister she had missed for so many years. I don’t know why we were so fascinated with each other but the age gap never seemed to matter… until she turned around and said it did.”

  “You and Jennifer? Really?” Wow. Turn up for the books. Small world.

  He nodded slowly and a pause followed. Then I admitted, “I know. I know what you think I know. You know? So… what’s your theory?”

  “My theory? Hmm. Cai knows something and she doesn’t want him to blurt it out. She’s controlled him for that reason. He must know how she killed my Jennifer.”

  I never liked to talk on the phone. It meant I couldn’t psychoanalyse people’s physiognomy. I was glad I could see his expressions because I caught a whiff of something suspicious in his eyes and tried to steer him off course. “She claims he did it. When I went up to Connecticut and endured the Christmas from hell, she claimed he was guilty. She had it investigated and everything, over and over again.”

  One eyebrow of his raised and he laughed, shaking his head. “So that’s why she’s living Jennifer’s life? Hmm? Sure… Jennifer was a bitch, you know? That fraud, however… took it to a whole new level. I knew it wasn’t her the second the reports of plastic surgery hit. You can’t fake the eyes. My father found that Claudia had a propensity for playing different characters so he sent her to a specialist in Prague when she was 21. He never knew which person he was talking to with her. You could say she was his undoing. He was always trying to help her out but at his own expense. He felt sorry for her? I don’t know. I just know she was fucked up.”

  “Multiple personality,” I said, and Klaus nodded.

  “I’ve spent the past week scouring the city and I’ve turned up absolutely nothing, Klaus. She locked this down. She’s got us all caught up in this. Even you?”

  He nodded, annoyed to admit it. “She has me do a favour for her now and again… I do it in the hope it will slip her up. Perhaps she dug a few of my secrets out, you know? She likes
blackmail. That’s her tactic… pulling files on people… their pasts. Uses it against them. I might have had some unlawful connections at one time or another… haven’t we all done it to leverage capital? She probably knew about your dirt before you even slid into his bed.”

  “I know you’re right,” I smirked. “She just likes the game too much?”

  “She loves the game. Loves it.”

  I realised with sadness the reason Klaus never sought any happiness for himself. The love he’d lost… he must have pined for. A sad story.

  “How many other girls did you try to fix him up with?” I said with a hint of distaste.

  Klaus smiled a cocky grin. “I looked for a long time for the right woman with the right skills and an actual heart. Even a heartless pig such as myself who gave up on love long ago had his head turned by you. It was fated, though… don’t you think? The way you like to fight… so does he.”

  I shook my head at him and said in a shaky voice, “She doesn’t know how to fail. She sat there with my heart in her palm and tried to break it. She put all the things I love into one pot… Cai… my work… my battles… and manipulated the lot. She’s lost to whatever drives her. She will never succumb, Klaus. She’s entirely too clever. I’ve not come across a single person yet who views her as anything but a saint. Since she got to the top, she’s held that mantle anyway.”

  Klaus sighed. “I must get back to bed. I rise in 60 minutes apparently… early flight. Listen if you love him, hang onto him. I know from experience all too well how quickly the love you thought you had can be cruelly snatched away. She will come undone but it might be a matter of time. Until then hang onto who you are.”

  “Goodnight, Klaus.”

  “Goodnight.” I feigned a half-hearted smile.

  I sat in that café until I was thrown out at closing time. Braving the chill outside as I walked back to that crummy hotel, it all started to hurt my brain. I was ready to give up. If she thought she’d won, she was yet to gloat. After all, she had my contact details and no doubt a detail on my ass.

  I thought about going back to Cai and trying to salvage some of my dignity. It wasn’t fair, though. I didn’t want to go back to Media Solutions and Cai deserved to flourish without her choking his talent. We’d come too far to turn back now.

  It was when I got back to my hotel that my thoughts turned back to that rose.

  As I paced my room, I said to myself out loud, “Beauty masks a truth sometimes… oh no that’s not it. A rose… is perfect. Everybody loves a rose. The rose is beautiful and inoffensive. It’s love and passion, desire and…romance?”

  Romance, romance, romance. I repeated inside my mind.

  “Nothing sadder than the end of a romance,” I told the room. “When the romance is over, what is there left? Unless you really love that person.”

  It hit me like a sledgehammer.

  She had given me plenty of hints. She wasn’t operating without motive.

  The expense. It wasn’t money. It was the rose… the family rose. A family secret. Some sort of mystery… something.

  I slept fitfully and woke with a mind to end this once and for all. I ordered a car to drive me up to Connecticut later that day and hoped I might find answers there. I needed to find out what was in that house.

  I didn’t intend on staying the night but when Claire greeted me warmly and asked if I would, I sent my car away and agreed to one night. No more. I shouldn’t have even agreed to that—after all, evidence of my investigations languished in that hotel bedroom—unsecured. Yet I knew something rested in that house and if it meant me finally pulling this thing apart, that could only be good, right?

  At dinner that night, which was just Claire, Dirk and me sat in the kitchen eating soup and bread in our skivvies, I watched them both carefully. They must have wondered what I was doing there but neither of them questioned it.

  Finally Dirk said, “Does Cai know you’re here, Chloe?”

  “No, he doesn’t.”

  The elderly people exchanged glances I couldn’t interpret.

  I made small talk. “No wedding or other function this week?”

  “No, darling,” Claire explained. “Slow this time of year. Which is nice. We’re getting old, after all. It’ll soon be time for us to slink off, I think.”

  “I agree, Claire. Not that I think either of you are incapable. Just deserving of a well-earned rest.”

  “Thanks,” she replied warmly, but looking at Dirk, he looked suspicious.

  “Do either of you know where you might retire?” I pushed on with the niceties.

  “Kansas. It’s where Claire’s from,” Dirk began with a smile, finally, “I ought to go with her. After all we’ve been working together all these years and I have no place better to be.”

  “You wouldn’t ever get married, the pair of you?” My smile, genuine.

  Claire giggled. “Oh no. Dirk likes men, dear.”

  “Oh, oh, I see! Oh! Good for you.” I hid behind my hand. I guess there were things that could still shock me.

  Outside, it was a damp, cold March night. We were almost into spring but out in the country, the air seemed much cooler. I watched the elements beat against the windows and tinkles of rain hit panes of thin glass.

  “What have you come to find, Chloe?” Claire smiled, drawing me from my thoughts.

  I smiled back. I couldn’t help but like the woman. “Answers. I think. I’m not sure.”

  “More than they’re worth, Chloe,” Dirk added to the conversation.

  “Perhaps I might agree with you. However, I love Cai. Truly, I do. When you love someone, you know, you can’t help but want to save them.”

  Claire raised her brows whereas Dirk could no longer look at me. Instead, he gazed at the table and his empty plate and bowl.

  I pushed crumbs of crusty bread around my plate and found they wouldn’t form a pattern that pleased me. I lost myself in looking at the dregs of my minestrone, imagining pictures from what was left.

  “Where did you hide her last work?” I lifted my head to look directly at Claire, who was surely friendlier with Claudia than Dirk was.

  How did I know there was a last work? Or that she’d hidden it? Let’s just say, too many things pointed there. Two old people left running an old house… one woman’s reluctance to sell that place. One man’s indifference to what was rightfully his. Too many hints about art hiding history. Secrets.

  “Hmm,” Claire smirked, a genuine fascination in her eyes. “I see why Cai loves you, Chloe. I do. However, your curiosity will only hurt someone in this case.”

  There wasn’t a chill in that room, but there was a barrier put up. By them. Two people put in charge of a secret.

  “You can be sure I won’t ever tell.”

  Claire and Dirk stared at one another, considering their options. Neither of them wanted responsibility, I knew, so I made a guess. I asked them both, “Claudia’s old workroom?”

  They didn’t deny it so we all stood and left the kitchen, heading upstairs together.

  Claire unlocked the room with a skeleton key and I walked around, trying to imagine where you might hide something so precious yet so dangerous.

  The floorboards were my first thought, but as I marched around, I realised they were all too well shined and uniform to have been recently pulled up or put down. They were as original.

  The furniture was so sparse and the room so empty, there weren’t many places it could hide. There was no wood panelling that could perhaps be pulled back to reveal a secret cupboard. The empty easel stood right before the fireplace still and I felt the urge to pull it out of the way, getting Dirk to help me shift the heavy frame.

  When I looked at the fireplace, I really hoped it wasn’t up the chimney. It looked as though a hundred spiders had a home in there.

  I looked at Claire and she was biting her nails. I was close. So close. I knew it.

  Feeling my discovery was near, I stared hard at the wallpaper and on closer inspection
it seemed too much of a botch job. Done in a hurry.

  I pressed a nail to a join in the black paper with white roses and found it was weak, not pasted down to last. I scratched and it peeled away easily to reveal something else beneath. Something much more beautiful. I scrambled fast, pulling and throwing large sheets behind me. Before long, a different picture stared back. I was amazed.

  Chapter 63

  BEHIND THE SUPERFICIAL wallpaper was an image I had to stand back to be able to appreciate. You could see the chimney breast had once been painted grey like the rest of the room but something had been painted on top of that dull background.

  A trompe l’oeil.

  It depicted the biggest, most beautiful bouquet of red roses I had ever seen. It was painted so that it looked real. As if that vase and the roses really were standing on the mantelpiece. The blooms sat in a strange, light-blue porcelain vase which had an exaggerated, curved lip resembling a calla lily—anyone who believed this was real would assume this should surely topple under its own weight. I stared, transfixed. Those roses. The strange thing was that there was a piece of string holding the bouquet tight shut, together. If only I could untie that and let the flowers cascade and flow freely. Even though I knew it wasn’t real, I wanted to interact! The impulse to free those bulbous flowers and let them flow in that extraordinary vase was consuming.

  You should have seen it. It was like you could smell it. The attention to detail was so fine, every little vein in those roses captured. Every thorn, sprouted. Little chips in the vase, even, and the fine threads of wear and tear captured too. The string seemed real! Those beautiful flowers eternalised.

  A 3D illusion! I had to keep telling myself that! It was actually a painting!

  It was magnificent, truly, it was! The attention to detail was the work of a true artist, a perfectionist only satisfied with the real deal. My mind recognised it was an act of creation but my heart felt otherwise. I saw something in that painting, a heartbeat seemingly tangible.

  Unlike Van Gogh, the artist hadn’t written their name on the vase but did seem to have given the painting a title. In scrawl was the word Unbind hidden just beneath the thick lip of that impossible vase.