by Joy Fielding
“He does, yes.”
“Has he been here long?”
Adam Roth says nothing.
I pretend to take a closer look at the granite countertop in the kitchen. “I can’t remember if he said he owned or rented.”
“I’m afraid we don’t give out such information. You’d have to ask him those things yourself.”
“Oh, I doubt I’ll be seeing him again. I was just curious. Guys tell you all sorts of stories these days. You know how it is.”
“Is that what you’re really doing here, Miss Gordon? Checking up on a potential boyfriend?”
“What? No! Of course not. I was actually under the impression that Paul Giller already had a live-in girlfriend.”
“Again, something you’d have to ask him. Now, if we’re done here …” He walks toward the door.
“I guess we are.”
“I assume you’re not interested in seeing any of the other units.”
“No, thank you. I think I have a pretty good idea of what’s available.”
“Should I tell Mr. Giller you were asking after him?” Adam Roth asks as we step inside the elevator.
“I wouldn’t bother.”
“I suspected as much. It was lovely meeting you, Miss Gordon.” The elevator doors open into the lobby. “Oh, look. There’s Mr. Giller now.”
I take a step back, knowing there is nowhere for me to hide and trying to will myself into invisibility.
“Oh, sorry,” Adam Roth says, not even trying to disguise the smirk on his face. “I’m mistaken. It isn’t Mr. Giller after all.”
I stuff my hands into the pockets of my pants, partly so that he won’t see them shaking and partly to keep from wrapping them around his throat. I stare at the floor, afraid to even glance at the man who is not Paul Giller as he walks toward us.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Whiteside,” Adam Roth says in greeting.
“Hardly,” Mr. Whiteside replies, stepping inside the elevator. “Have you seen what it’s doing out there?”
“Good afternoon to be inside,” Adam Roth agrees. “Try not to get too wet, Miss Gordon,” he calls as I step out into the storm.
—
Heath is waiting in the lobby when I get home. “You look like a drowned rat,” he says.
“Where did you disappear to last night?” I ask in response, shaking the rain from my hair and watching him jump to avoid the spray.
He shrugs, all the answer I’m going to get.
“Good afternoon, Miss Carpenter,” Wes calls out as we pass by the concierge desk. “Hope you didn’t get too wet out there.”
“She looks like a drowned rat,” Heath calls back.
“Thank you for that.” I press the call button. “I’m really tired, Heath.” While part of me—the concerned sister part—is relieved to see that he is safe and sound, resplendent in a pair of skinny black jeans and a black silk shirt, another part of me—the exhausted human being part—just wants him to go away so that I can crawl into bed and pretend that today never happened. “Is there something you want?”
He looks hurt, and I feel a stab of guilt. “Why do you always assume I want something? I’m not Claire.…”
“Claire doesn’t want—” I break off. Heath obviously feels jealous and more than a little threatened by my newfound relationship with Claire. There is no point in trying either to explain or defend it. “I’m sorry,” I say again. It’s easier that way.
“Apology accepted,” he says as the elevators doors open and we step inside. “Look. Now that you mention it, there is something you can do for me.”
“Why am I not surprised?”
“I need a favor,” he says. “I meant to talk to you about it last night, but … you kind of passed out on me.”
A middle-aged woman slips inside the elevator just as the doors are closing, smiles at Heath flirtatiously, and presses the button for the fifteenth floor.
“What kind of favor?” I ask as soon as she gets off.
“I need some money.”
“What do you mean, you need some money?”
He says nothing further until we reach my floor.
“Heath?”
“It’s just a loan. I wouldn’t ask you. It’s just that I don’t know where else to turn. I’m in trouble, and I need money.”
“What do you mean, you’re in trouble?”
“Do you think we could talk about this inside your apartment and not out here in the hall?”
“Do you think you could tell me what this is about?” I ask in return, unlocking my apartment door.
“I need thirty thousand dollars.”
“Thirty thousand dollars? Are you kidding?”
“It’s just temporary. You can take it out of my share of the inheritance.”
“There is no inheritance. Not until this lawsuit gets settled. Which, I remind you, could take years.”
“Well, then this could get tricky because I’m pretty much out of cash. And it seems I owe a few people money. People who aren’t nearly as understanding about this sort of thing as you are.”
“What are you saying?”
“It’s pretty simple, Bailey. I made a few bad bets here and there.”
“When did you start gambling?”
“I don’t know. Five, ten years ago? And I’m usually pretty good at it. Just not lately.”
“Are we talking loan sharks?”
“A quaint term, but an essentially accurate one. I paid them back most of what I owed when I sold my condo. For half of what it’s worth, I might add.”
“You sold your condo?”
“Why do you think I was living at Dad’s?”
“I don’t believe this.” I wonder if there could be a connection between Heath’s gambling debts and my assault. Was my rape intended as some kind of warning? Could my brother be responsible, no matter how inadvertently?
“I just owe another twenty thousand,” Heath is saying, “and then I’m in the clear.”
“I thought you said thirty.”
“Well, I could use a little something to live on. Come on, Bailey. Consider it an advance. I’ll pay you back every cent. Please. Don’t make me beg. We’re family. Not like some people I could mention.”
“Can we leave Claire out of this?” I sink to the sofa, burying my head in my hands, partly because I’m reeling, and partly because he’s right. I didn’t think twice about writing Claire that check for ten thousand dollars.
“Careful,” Heath warns. “You’re dripping all over everything.”
“I’ll call the bank,” I tell him. “Have them transfer the money into your account.”
“That’s great.” The relief in his voice is palpable. “You’re the best. You really are. You’re my hero.”
“Your hero,” I repeat and almost laugh. Some hero. “You can’t keep fucking up,” I tell him. “I can’t keep rescuing you. I don’t have the strength.”
“Are you kidding me? You’re stronger than anyone I know.”
I stare at him in disbelief.
“It’s true,” he says.
The phone rings.
“This is Wes, from the concierge desk,” Wes informs me when I pick up the phone in the kitchen. “Your niece is here.”
Jade is here? Why? “Send her up.”
“Don’t tell me,” Heath says from the doorway. “Saint Claire is on her way up with milk and cookies.”
“It’s Jade,” I tell him, wondering what more could possibly happen today.
“I should leave before she gets here.” Heath gives me a big hug. “I love you. Never doubt that.”
“I never do.”
He pulls out of our embrace. “You really should get out of those wet clothes,” he calls back as I watch him walk down the hall. “Call you tonight,” he says, as I’m closing the door.
Seconds later, Jade is knocking.
“Just ran into that gorgeous brother of yours,” she says by way of hello. She is wearing jeans that appear to have been painted on,
a tight blue sweater, and at least three layers of mascara, her blond hair hanging in loose curls around her shoulders. On one side of her four-inch-high espadrilles sits a small suitcase, on the other a large overnight bag.
“What’s this?”
“My mother didn’t tell you? We’re moving in.”
“What?”
“Just for a few days, until things settle down a bit. She’ll explain.” As if on cue, the phone rings. “That’s probably her now. Do you know you’re soaking wet?”
I walk back into the kitchen as Jade wheels her suitcase and overnight bag down the hall. Caller ID informs me that Claire is on the other end of the line. I pick up the phone. “Start talking,” I say.
— TWENTY-EIGHT —
It is eight o’clock Sunday evening, and Jade and her mother have been living here since Thursday night, Jade sleeping on the pullout bed in my office and Claire occupying the empty space beside me in my queen-size bed. Claire informed me—after I told her to start talking—that she’d made the decision to move in after receiving a phone call at work from Detective Castillo, confiding that he was pretty much at his wits’ end as far as I was concerned and that he was counting on her to keep me in check before I did irreparable damage to either myself or my case. Apparently, Adam Roth, Paul Giller’s property manager, contacted the police the minute I left his office, Adam Roth having already been briefed by Paul Giller about my so-called harassment. Detective Castillo told Claire that I was jeopardizing not only the police investigation but my own safety, that my behavior was such that any good defense lawyer would have no trouble getting a jury to question my sanity, and that whoever eventually got charged with my rape could very well end up walking free, especially if I continued to recklessly accuse every man in sight. The end result of this discussion was that Claire called Jade at school and told her to go home, throw a few things into a suitcase, and get over to my apartment, that she’d join us as soon as her shift ended.
When she arrived, I tried to explain what I’d been doing in Adam Roth’s office, but I think whatever rational motives I might have had got lost amid the revelations of my quitting my job and ambushing Colin Lesser. Claire tried not to look too concerned as I was expanding on my meeting with Sean and my lunch with Colin, but I knew what she was thinking: that Detective Castillo was right, that I was out of control, that my credibility, my very sanity, was at risk.
It’s been raining almost constantly since they moved in, so we don’t go out. Instead, our days are filled with computer games and reality TV. We eat ice cream and watch movies and gossip about the newest salacious revelations in the Poppy and Aurora Gomez divorce, and as soon as the sun goes down, we get out the binoculars and take turns spying on my neighbor.
Paul Giller has done little this weekend of either interest or concern. He goes out; he comes home. Sometimes Elena is with him, sometimes she isn’t. There have been no erotic displays, no acts of violence, not so much as a glance in our direction. “He’s become very dull,” Jade remarked after he and Elena came home before midnight last night and climbed straight into bed.
I’m finding it comforting having Claire and Jade around. As much as I initially resisted sharing a bed with my sister, I’ve discovered that there’s something very soothing about having her there. What’s more, she seems blissfully unbothered by my restless sleeping patterns, not scolding me when I get up several times in the night to use the bathroom, not urging me to be still, not telling me to settle down when a nightmare wakes me up. Instead, barely conscious, she pats my back and mutters that it was just a dream, that she’s here and won’t let anything bad happen to me. This seems to do the trick.
Partly out of respect—I know her job requires that she get a good night’s rest—and partly out of fear—I don’t want her to think I’m crazier than I fear she already does—I’ve cut way back on the number of times I search my apartment and the number of showers I take. Amazingly, I feel much less paranoid as a result. I’ll be sorry to see them leave tomorrow, when Claire has to return to work and Jade has to go back to school.
“Here they come,” Jade announces.
Both Claire and I run to the window.
“What are they doing?” Claire asks, straining to see through the rain that hasn’t let up since Thursday.
“Nothing, by the looks of it. Oh, wait. Elena just went into the bathroom. She’s shutting the door. Now Paul’s taking out his cell phone, and he’s looking back over his shoulder, like he’s checking to make sure she can’t hear, and now he’s talking into the phone and smiling and laughing. Very exciting stuff.”
“Let me see.” Claire lifts the binoculars from her daughter’s hands.
“How can you tell he’s smiling?” Claire asks. “I can hardly see anything through this rain.”
“That’s because you’re old and your eyes don’t work so good anymore,” Jade tells her, rolling her own eyes toward the ceiling.
“My eyes don’t work so well anymore,” her mother corrects.
“Exactly,” says Jade.
Claire hands me the binoculars. I peer through them just as Paul is returning his cell phone to his pocket. A few minutes later, the bathroom door opens and Elena comes out, wrapped in several towels, one around her torso, another around her head; clearly, she has just emerged from the shower. She sits down at the vanity table and plugs in her hairdryer as Paul disappears into the bathroom. “Looks like they’re getting ready to go out.”
“Where do they go all the time?” Claire wonders out loud.
“Hello?” Jade says. “It’s Miami. World famous for its nightlife. Not everybody’s in bed by ten o’clock, you know.”
“Gives me a migraine just thinking about going out in this weather,” Claire says as I hand the binoculars back to Jade.
“So, what’s happening with your brother?” my niece asks, returning the binoculars to her eyes. “Haven’t seen him since Thursday.”
“Heath was here?” Claire asks.
“Just briefly.” I haven’t said anything to Claire about Heath’s visit or his request for money. Again I wonder if his gambling debts had anything to do with my rape. But sharing this concern with Claire will only complicate things further.
“This is boring,” Jade says. “Can’t we at least put on the TV?”
“Not till they go out,” Claire tells her. “I don’t want any light on in this room. Nothing that might tip them to the fact we’re watching.”
“I don’t think he cares.” Jade hands me the binoculars, although strictly speaking it’s not my turn.
“Anything?” Claire asks a few minutes later.
“No. Yes! He’s coming out of the bathroom,” I announce. “Towel around his waist. Walking to the window. Oh, my God.”
“What?” Claire and Jade ask together.
“I think he waved.”
“What?” they ask again.
“Let me see that.” Claire grabs the binoculars from my hand, raises them to her eyes.
“Is he waving?” I ask, my heart pounding.
“Not that I can make out. I mean, it’s raining so hard, I can hardly see anything. It looks like he’s just fixing his hair.”
Is that what he’s doing? I replay the motion in my mind, watching Paul Giller lift his hand to his head.
“Let me see,” Jade says, and Claire gives her daughter the binoculars.
“Well … what’s he doing?”
“Just standing there. Wait—he’s taking off the towel. Damn it. He turned around. Nice butt!”
“Jade …”
“Well, it is.”
“What’s happening now?”
“He’s walking into the closet. She’s still drying her hair. Doing a lousy job, by the looks of it.” Jade watches Paul and Elena for the next half hour as they continue getting ready to go out. “Okay. I think we’re finally set to go. Terrible dress she’s wearing.”
Again, Claire commandeers the binoculars. “I think it’s nice.”
“
I rest my case.”
“What do you think of her dress, Bailey?” Claire asks. “Take a look.”
I glance through the binoculars at what Elena is wearing: a sleeveless minidress with a scooped neckline and layers of ruffles at the hips. I search her exposed flesh for any bruises, but even if it weren’t raining, I know I wouldn’t see any, that the beating I was so positive I saw Paul administer happened only in my mind. What other explanation can there be? “She looks nice,” I say as Paul Giller, wearing a print shirt tucked into a tight pair of dark pants, comes up behind her, puts his arms around her waist, and nuzzles his chin into the crook of her neck, his hands reaching up to cup her breasts. Elena playfully bats his hands aside and they head out of the room, both of them laughing.
A few seconds later, Paul Giller walks back into the bedroom to retrieve the cell phone he left on the bed. He approaches the window, staring into the downpour.
Then he lifts his fingers to his lips and blows me a kiss.
I gasp.
“What?” Claire asks as Jade looks at me.
I shake my head. “Nothing.”
—
“That’s it for me, guys,” Claire announces at the conclusion of the eleven o’clock news. She grabs the remote from Jade’s lap and turns off the television over her daughter’s loud protests. “I’m going to sleep. I suggest we all do the same.”
“But it’s so early,” Jade says. She is propped up between us in bed, looking imploringly from her mother to me.
“It’s late,” Claire tells her. “I have to be at work by eight o’clock, and you have school tomorrow.”
“But they haven’t even come home yet.” Jade motions toward Paul Giller’s apartment.
“And who knows when that could be? Go on,” Claire tells her daughter. “You can watch TV in your room.”
Jade groans and crawls over her mother on her way out of bed. “Okay. Have it your way. See you guys in the morning.”
“Good night, sweetie,” Claire and I call after her.
“We don’t have to leave tomorrow, you know,” Claire tells me as soon as Jade has left the room. “We could stay another week. Until you’re feeling …”
“Not so crazy?”