by Olga Bicos
He told her, “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You never did.”
Samuel pushed past her, looking so smug. A man with a secret. She stared at the hearth and the broken glass.
“You’ve made a mess, Samuel,” she said, feeling cold and used up.
Of everything.
He wanted to call her again. Desperately. But he settled on his friend, Macallan, of single malt fame.
“Shh,” Samuel told the whiskey glass. “Mustn’t tell.”
He crept into Ryan’s old room and crawled up on the bed, careful not to spill. So the old bat had overheard. Not that it mattered, he told himself. She didn’t know the truth, no one did. Just you wait, Van. Samuel Cutty could still give them what for.
He fell back on the pillows, trying to catch his breath, the job of lying down almost too much for him these days. Vanessa, that controlling bitch. She’d long given up on him, but there was still Ryan to manipulate. The architect was just another angle to suck him back into the fold. Oh, maybe it started as Daniel’s idea, sure. But Samuel knew his wife. Van couldn’t help herself. She’d see a chance and she’d take it.
As for Holly Fairfield, he’d let Daniel and Ryan fight over her. He had the real thing now and that’s all that mattered. That in the end, she’d chosen him.
She’ll leave you. As if Van knew anything.
He devoured the Scotch. Vanessa didn’t understand. She thought he was just a drunk. That he hadn’t accomplished anything other than to ruin his business, steal her money and run off their son.
“She never believed in me,” he told the ceiling.
None of them had. Foster, damn him, always bitching about money. Holding back. Making him beg. Even his own father had waited to die before giving him control of the business.
Only Gil ever had faith. “Good old Gil.” And how had he repaid his friend?
“Don’t think about that,” he told himself, shutting his eyes as if he could block out the memory. “Don’t think, don’t think, don’t think.”
He reached for the phone, suddenly itching to call her again. But, no. She’d never let him come over, not after the fight they’d had. He’d better wait. Tomorrow morning, he’d call. Or maybe he’d just show up, a dozen roses in hand. Two dozen bloodred roses.
He yawned, his hand still wrapped around the empty glass. He could feel himself slipping into that lovely oblivion. Mr. Macallan, I thank you. He kicked off his shoes.
So Van wanted his opinion about the architect? Well, she might be right; the girl was going to be a problem. Might have to do something. He yawned again, reaching to set the glass on the bedside table. Missing. He watched the tumbler roll across the carpet.
Drifting into a hazy sleep, he blinked at the glass, looking forward to making yet another mess.
12
The summer of his eleventh birthday, Ryan built a sailboat with his grandfather. That had been something, him and Foster working on that clinker-built dinghy. Seven feet, six inches. Big red sail. And when they’d taken it out, aiming the flat pram bow in the direction of Alcatraz, nothing had ever felt that good again.
Foster died the following summer. Heart attack. But Ryan had always wondered if it wasn’t his father who’d finally done Foster in. The way they fought about the business. Foster never could let go, and Vanessa was always talking him into giving Samuel another chance.
If Ryan had been a normal kid, maybe he would have made a different promise to his grandfather at the hospital. Watching Foster struggle for breath, machines clicking and beeping along with the soft whir of oxygen from the plastic mask, he might have told Foster that he’d make good on everything his father ruined, the expected vow.
Instead, he’d told his grandfather he’d build another sailboat. A schooner this time, with tropical hardwoods and copper rivets. Even at twelve, he’d figured it was the story he’d want to hear facing the same odds. Just imagine, Grandpa…. He’d sail around the world, sending postcards home from exotic ports of call. Even halfway to heaven, he thought Foster understood because he’d smiled, giving Ryan’s hand a squeeze.
The night Nina died, Ryan knew he’d never make good on that promise. Only by then, he’d figured he didn’t owe anybody anything. Except Gil. Because he’d killed his daughter, he’d always owe Gil.
That’s what he was thinking racing down Highway One in the Aston Martin. What it might do to Gil if Ryan kept this up, flying off the same road that had killed his daughter.
They dressed her up like a doll. They cut her hair so that she’d look like Nina.
When he’d seen her standing next to Daniel at the club, he couldn’t breathe. It hadn’t gotten any better up close. Like they’d taken Holly to one of those celebrity artists who could make anyone look like Madonna or Gwyneth Paltrow. Only, they’d been holding a photograph of Nina, telling Holly, hold still….
He pushed the gas pedal, shifted and heard the engine roar. He told himself: Just a little farther.
When she opened her mouth, she wasn’t anything like Nina. Holly Fairfield talked faster than anyone he knew, as if afraid he’d cut her off if she didn’t just spill it out in one breath. And he had, covering her mouth, liking the feel of her lips against his hand, too much. The whole thing was making him a little crazy, bringing back ghosts he’d thought long dead.
He hit the brakes and dove into the next curve, fish-tailing out. Gravel flew out from under the wheel. Just ahead a mile or so, Nina had sailed over the embankment. Not so foggy tonight. Twelve years ago, he’d been chasing her taillights.
He could almost see her just ahead, those red lights weaving in and out of the mist, teasing him.
Hurry up! Catch me!
Ryan spun the car to a stop, the tires squealing as he hung on to the steering wheel, his foot smashed against the brake. He managed to keep control, the car doing a one-eighty so that it faced the wrong direction.
He sat with his hands shaking on the steering wheel, breathing hard. He cut the engine.
This was what Daniel wanted. He’d planted the seeds of the nightmare, was waiting for them to grow, hoping they’d bear fruit. If Ryan drove off that cliff, drenched in sweat and guilt, Daniel would win.
Ryan smiled, catching his breath. “Sorry, Dan. I can’t give you that satisfaction. Not tonight.”
Two minutes later, Ryan turned on the engine and headed for home.
She’d been at the computer a good half hour—the wine bottle now half empty and Holly unfortunately sober—when her brother walked through the door. She gave him a look of utter frustration and pointed to the computer screen.
“I’ve tried most of the papers and a couple of search engines, Google, Yahoo, whatever,” she said, hopelessly lost on the Internet. Again the finger pointed at the laptop in accusation. “Zip, zero, nada. And I know it’s in there.” She slapped her hand on the table.
Harris shooed her aside and took her chair. She tapped on the screen where she’d written the name she’d seen engraved on the plaque, Nina Travers, and poured herself another glass of wine. “Old stuff. At least ten years back. A car accident or something. I want anything you can find on her.”
Her brother’s fingers flew over the keyboard. She read over his shoulder. “Flipper.com?”
“It’s a search engine I use that can access the Deep Web.” And when she gave him a look, he explained. “The spiders on most search engines only crawl around the surface web. Any major content sites, like the Library of Congress, are hidden in an invisible web, the Deep Web. Thing is, that’s where you find the high quality stuff. The invisible web is about 500 times bigger.”
In an instant, he had a newspaper article front and center on the screen. No slouch on the uptake, he zeroed in on Nina’s photograph, clicking to enlarge the frame.
“Well, hell,” he said, a master of understatement as he pushed away from the computer.
“Print out the article,” she said.
The photograph looked like a high-school graduation picture
, all diffused lighting and muted background. Even in black and white, the resemblance was strange and disturbing.
She could hear the printer humming to life. She remembered what her brother said: All quality stuff.
He lost everything. The girl, the money. He totally flipped after that. Emma telling the story, setting Holly up. She wondered now if Emma had exaggerated a little, giving the facts her own special spin.
They say I ran her off the road. It was the only thing Ryan had admitted.
“Holly?” Harris was picking up the articles as they spilled out, holding them up so she could read.
The headlines: Community Mourns…Candlelight Vigil On Highway One…Fiancée Questioned In Death.
She looked away. “I’ll read it later.”
Maybe it was all those pages spitting out of the printer. Maybe with the story at her fingertips, that fire to know every detail had all but burned out. Maybe it was something else.
She sipped the wine, wondering what it would take to get some sleep tonight, deciding it wasn’t so important. It wasn’t as if she had to have a sharp mind come morning for work.
She stepped closer, staring at the photograph still on the screen. She reached out to touch it. Nina looked all of eighteen.
Her brother held up more pages, a prosecutor waving Exhibit A. “We leave now, right? No more second-guessing. We’re on the same page, you and me?”
She nodded, transfixed by Nina’s smile. “I never smile like that. As if I own the world.”
Harris came to stand beside her. “You smile twice as big, given the right circumstances. None of which we are currently living. Leave the sick bastards to their games, Hol. This has nothing to do with you and everything to do with them. I know these people. They think the world owes them. In the end, they’ll tear each other apart over a dog bone.”
She squeezed her brother’s shoulder. “Nice of you not to say ‘I told you so.’ Not that I don’t deserve it.”
“It’s not what I wanted.” Rushing in, filling the silence, he added, “I’ll get my job back. I’m good at eating crow. Done it plenty of times. You have me, Hol. We have each other.”
He was quiet then, as if he knew he’d said enough. They both stared at the woman on the screen.
A picture speaks a thousand words.
This one said too much.
13
Not so long ago, Holly remembered feeling as if she held the world in the palm of her hand. Hubris, the Greeks called it. The past years had chipped away at that intoxicating confidence. And she’d missed it—those lovely highs of success. Hard to believe she could find herself here, back to square one.
The room was on the third floor. In the light of day, creepy transformed into old and musty. Holly found Nina’s portrait propped against the wall, right where Ryan had left her.
It wasn’t even difficult to lift off the sheet and look. She wanted to see her face again, give more definition to the memory. Not a dream, after all.
The morning after, the articles Harris had printed out lay unread on her nightstand back home. Even after a second cup of coffee, she hadn’t wanted to explore those details. Plenty of time to know the ugly truth later, she figured. And how much would the newspapers really know? They could surmise and conjecture the heck out of the story and never touch on what it was about Nina that drove the men of Cutty House.
“You wanted to see me?”
She turned to find Daniel in the doorway. He didn’t even act surprised. He sauntered in, owning the room as he slipped off his sunglasses and flashed a smile.
She’d asked to meet here not for the drama but because she’d been half afraid she’d slink away without this evidence, giving some lame excuse about why she needed to leave. A big part of her wanted to avoid this confrontation with Daniel, take the easy way out. I’m homesick…Harris has this great job offer…sorry, gotta book.
But she’d signed a contract. She needed the job to end with Daniel admitting what he’d done.
Holly focused on the painting, saying in a voice that didn’t sound so much like hers, “I’d always heard that everyone has a double somewhere. And then there are those celebrity look-alike segments on TV.”
She could hear Daniel walking up behind her. He came to a stop alongside, staring at the painting of Nina Travers.
He took her hand in his as if to comfort her. She jerked away, appalled.
“The hair is a little different.” She had to say something, even something silly. “A little shorter. I really fought Emma there. It had to touch my shoulders, I told her. I was very firm. And the eyes. I don’t know if I’ve ever had that expression.”
“Don’t leave me,” he said.
“You brought me here to impersonate a dead woman.”
“That’s not how—”
“How is it, then, Daniel?” she asked, turning on him. “How is it that I suddenly have this wonderful job for which I am clearly not qualified—but, surprise! I look exactly like your cousin’s dead fiancée?”
“Okay. At first. Yes, I saw your photograph. I saw how much you looked like Nina. I wanted—”
“I know what you wanted, Daniel. But here’s a news flash. I’m just an architect. I can’t bring back the dead.”
“I can’t do this without you, Holly. Please don’t leave me.”
She closed her eyes. She hated the pleading, hated even more his choice of words. He gave so much away.
“My name is Holly Fairfield. I am an architect. A damn fine one. What you need is an actress. Or maybe a psychic.”
“No,” he said, his hand on her shoulder, keeping her there. “I need you. And it has nothing to do with Nina.”
“Oh, I understand that much,” she said, pushing his hand away. “It has to do with Ryan. Some weird competition that you have with your cousin.”
“I don’t give a shit about Ryan.”
She slapped him hard across the face. She had never hit anyone in her life. She was trying desperately not to cry.
All that interest she’d seen in Ryan’s eyes. The softness in his voice, his touch.
“You dressed me up to look like her, you piece of shit.”
“I deserve that.”
“And so much more.”
“Holly, those plans you showed me.” He was talking fast, stepping in front of her to get in that last plea. “I’ve been thinking about them, talking to Emma. I don’t know why I didn’t see it before. Emma says I’m pigheaded, yeah? But I think your ideas are the way to go. Everything you want, exactly how you want it. You call the shots. Your way. No more interference.”
She looked back at him, shocked. “Oh, you’re good.”
“Listen to me.” He had an edge to his voice now. For the first time, she felt she was seeing the real man. “What if I did think it was some stupid sign, you looking like Nina? Good karma for Cutty House. Or maybe you’re right, maybe I did want to mess with Ryan’s head a little. Does it really matter how I found you or why I brought you here? Tell me you’ve ever done anything like those plans?” He was giving it all he had. “I saw it in your eyes, Holly. The pride. Cutty House brought that out in you.”
She stepped around him, trying not to listen as she headed for the door, but he caught up with her, swinging her back around.
“You can save my house. And that, my dear, is the only revenge I want.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Then believe in your talent. Give me a month. That’s all. One little month. And I swear you can walk away from the whole deal and I’ll pay off the contract. But I’m betting you won’t leave. This is right, you coming here. For whatever reason, I found you. It’s right, and you know it.”
“I feel like I’m doing business with the devil.” She hadn’t meant to say it out loud.
“I’m not the devil. But I will tell you he’s here. Ryan. Okay, I messed up. No more stupid games, Holly. Scout’s honor. I can protect you from him. I swear.”
“Like you protected Nina?” Some
thing else she hadn’t meant to say.
“I wasn’t part of that. I didn’t know how bad things had gotten between them.” He scrubbed his face with his hands. “I can’t even say the bastard did it, though we all suspected he ran her off the road. Look, not a lot of people know this, but the autopsy—” He turned away, actually pulling off a look of reluctance. “Let’s just say they were engaged, but Ryan wasn’t stepping up to the plate while Nina had her reasons to speed things up.”
But she wasn’t listening to his version. “And who keeps me safe from you?”
He shook his head. “You have the wrong guy. I only want Cutty House. Give her back to me. I know you can.”
She stared at him for a good long while. “Well, for once, you may have spoken the truth.”
She walked past him, into the hall.
“What are you going to do?” he called after her.
“Damned if I know.”
At day’s end, she still didn’t know.
Holly sat perched on the couch, taking in the sacrilege of the previous architect’s ideas juxtaposed with her design sketches. Left to his own devices, Daniel would destroy Cutty House, historical context be damned.
Was it simply ego, then? Coming here, thinking she could take on a project of this magnitude on her own? Before Drew, she’d never experienced defeat. She’d passed all nine parts of the architectural exam the first time out. She’d been recruited by one of the top firms in the Pacific Northwest, licensed to practice in both Washington and California. Within a year, she’d been in charge of her first big project, a terminal at SeaTac airport, a huge commercial enterprise—every architect’s definition of “you’ve arrived!” That kind of success could be intoxicating.
And all of it vanished in a wisp of smoke when she started sleeping with one of the firm’s partners, Drew Manticore.
She remembered one day in particular. Evelyn, a woman on the rise who’d made no bones about her competition with Holly, had met up with her in the ladies’ room. Evelyn had been fixing her lipstick in front of the mirror as Holly washed her hands.