The Girl in the Mirror (Sand & Fog #3)

by Susan Ward

  “Krystal”

  I stare at Jacob. “What do you mean, coming back?”

  “Oh yeah, Krystal. This isn’t over. Not by a long shot. You and me got a few things to talk about.”

  He hauls Daryl from the room as if it’s a decided thing. I count to fifty in my head, just to make sure he’s not coming back and then I scramble from the bed.

  Ouch!

  My foot makes contact with something sharp. On the ground is my silly jewelry box I’ve had since I was four. The one most girls get as their first, that pink flowery square of wood with the shiny gold latch with the ballerina inside that pops up when you open it and twirls in circles as music plays.

  I lift my leg and underneath my toes I see the ballerina on the carpet next to the box.

  It’s ruined.

  Broken.

  Oh crap, what if Jacob lied and tells my parents everything? He could be talking to my mother now. If he breathes a word of this to Chrissie, the ballerina on the floor won’t be the only one he broke tonight because the shit will hit the fan.

  I’ll never be able to face my parents again. There’s no chance either of them will let me take off to Juilliard next week. I’ll be lucky if they ever let me out of the house.

  Jacob can crush my life with a few words just like he destroyed my pretty box.

  Sinking down, I pick up the tiny ballerina, and I don’t know why but my tears give way.

  Throughout the awful scene of Jacob busting into the bedroom, the humiliating moment of making contact with his eyes and knowing he’d seen me nude, the terrifying moment when he attacked Daryl, the ghastly sounds of his fist crashing into my boyfriend’s face, somehow I managed to hold it together.

  No, I watched it all feeling spacey and almost like I wasn’t really here and none of it was really happening.

  Drops of blood drip from the ball of my foot to the floor. My gaze locks on the red.

  Real, very real.

  Oh fuck.

  I hobble into the bathroom, sit on the edge of the tub, and grab a towel, pushing as hard as I can into the cut. What should I do now? I can’t just wait for Jacob, cowering in my bedroom, because if I do it’s a dead giveaway how afraid I am of him telling what happened here tonight.

  What if he tries to use it against me?

  I don’t know Jacob well enough to be certain he won’t.

  He has power over me now.

  Damn, damn, damn.

  My heart accelerates—does he know that?

  My tears turn scalding as they pour down my cheeks.

  Frantically, I replay the minutes in my head, hoping to find something to make me less afraid of what he might do. I curl into a tight ball, clutching fiercely on the towel, trying to stop my tears and the bleeding. My gaze darts around the bathroom. Maybe I should dress, pack, and get home before he returns.

  Oh crap, I’m too unsure of what he’ll do if I defy him, but I don’t want to stay here, humiliated, to listen to whatever he has to say to me when he returns.

  I hear sound from the bedroom, and I toss aside the towel and rush out of the bathroom.

  Madison is standing in the center of the room, eyes wide, face alarmed, and she’s visibly shaking.

  “Krystal, what the hell happened here?” she exclaims, darting toward me. Her fingers close on my arms. “Who broke all this stuff? Where’s Daryl? Oh God, why are you staring at me that way? Are you OK?”

  I quickly assess her expression.

  Oh thank God, she doesn’t know what happened here.

  She takes me in a tight, protective hug. “Talk to me. You’re scaring the hell out of me. What happened here?”

  “Nothing and I’m all right.”

  She tenses and jerks back, her gaze searching my face. “Nothing! It looks like there was a brawl here, Daryl’s missing, and you look half out of your mind. Don’t tell me nothing happened here.”

  I don’t know what to say.

  I can’t tell her the truth.

  I sink down on my bed, bury my face in my hands, and start crying again. It’s stupid and pathetic and really wrong, but I can’t think of another way to get her to stop questioning me.

  “Oh, Krystal,” she moans, dropping heavily down on the bed beside me and wrapping her arm around my shoulders. “You’ve got to tell me what happened. I’m freaking out here. Did you and Daryl have some kind of a fight? Is that how the room got broken up? Is that why he’s gone and you’re bleeding?”

  Bleeding?

  I follow the direction of her gaze.

  Oh damn, my foot, spilling blood on the carpet.

  I shake my head.

  She goes into the bathroom. I hear cabinets opening and closing. “Did Daryl do this?” she calls out to me.

  “No. Please, Maddy, I can’t talk about it. Not any of it.”

  Band-Aid in hand, she returns, drops onto her knees next to the bed, and grabs my leg. As she carefully covers my cut, hurt flashes on her tense features.

  “Who’s the guy in the living room?”

  Oh no, don’t tell me he’s still here.

  “Brayden.”

  Her brows hitch up. “OK, but who is he?”

  “He works for my dad. He’s from the security company.”

  She drops my ankle and sits back on her heels. Her eyes grow huge. “Did he do this? Are you guys involved or is he some kind of crazy stalker guy? Did he find you and Daryl in here and—”

  “No,” I say before I can stop myself—or realize she’s weaving a really good story and I should run with it.

  “Then what’s he doing here and why wouldn’t he let us come into the bedroom?”

  “He’s following orders.”

  “Whose orders?”

  Oh crap, that sounded dumb. I’m never getting out of this. No way.

  “Whose orders?” she repeats fiercely.

  “Damn it, Maddy, Jacob Merrick did this and if you tell a soul, I’ll be humiliated for the rest of my life.”

  I can feel her heavy stare. “The security person? That Jacob?”

  I nod. “I can’t talk about it, Maddy.”

  “Why would he get into a fight with Daryl? What are you not telling me?”

  Crap. Don’t have an answer for that one.

  “Krystal Harris, you had better tell me everything right now.” Her voice intensifies like she’s getting even more anxious. “I’m calling my sister.”

  “No,” I snap as she swipes on her phone. “If you do that I’ll never talk to you again. I swear. You have to never tell anyone about this.”

  My alarm—genuine—stops her.

  “OK. OK. OK, I promise.” Her hand starts moving against my back in gentle, comforting motions. “Just explain one thing. Why would Jacob come here and beat up Daryl?”

  I blurt out the first words that come to me. “Why do you think?”

  Her jaw drops.

  “You’ve been seeing him behind Daryl’s back? How could you do that, Krystal? How long? Why didn’t you tell me?” she asks heatedly.

  “I didn’t want anyone to know.”

  I almost think I’m home free when she frowns.

  Oh crap, what’s tripped me up this time?

  Her eyes narrow. “Wait. That doesn’t make sense. At lunch you said he hardly talks to you and now you’re trying to make me believe you’ve got something going on with him and that’s why he beat up Daryl.” She shakes her head at me. “No, Krystal, not buying it. Why are you lying?”

  “This is the truth. I lied at lunch. I didn’t want my dad to find out I’ve been seeing one of the security guys. He’d explode. Overreact. You know how my dad is, Maddy.”

  She nods as if she gets that, and I can’t believe I said such an untrue thing about Alan and managed to do it with sincerity.

  Madison’s eyes cloud over. “But that doesn’t explain why you didn’t tell me. We’re best friends. You tell me everything.”

 
“I didn’t want you to tell Nick and have Daryl find out.”

  Her expression tightens like I slapped her. “I wouldn’t have done that. Not if you asked me not to.”

  “I know, Maddy. This whole Jacob thing has got me all fouled up. It’s been so hard trying to figure out what to do.”

  She takes her lower lip in her teeth, sucking as she studies me. I can’t tell how if this is working.

  “Can we not talk about this anymore?” I plead.

  I wait, trying to let nothing betray me on my face. Slowly, she looks around the room and then her blue orbs lock on me. “Something is going on here, Krystal. And I’m going to find out what it is.”

  She springs from the bed and slams the door behind her. I should have done what Jacob told me. Not said a word and let him clean up this mess. I’ve made it worse.

  I already have enough problems to manage. I don’t need this one, and Madison isn’t going to let up until she knows everything.

  I start picking up the junk from the floor and toss it into my trash can.

  I pick up my broken box and the ballerina, and sink to sit on the bed. I study the pieces. I wonder if I can fix it, maybe superglue the dancer back on her perch.

  No, it’s ruined forever.

  The metal stand is bent.

  One side is busted in.

  The music doesn’t play.

  Hot tears pour from my eyes. It’s so odd that this should be the thing tonight to make me cry the hardest. Just an ordinary present that lots of little girls get.

  But it wasn’t ordinary.

  Not to me.

  It was my Christmas gift from Alan when I was four, and while it might look like the same box every other girl gets, it’s not. He had it custom made for me. The shiny gold latch is real gold, the ballerina is made of crystal with dark hair like mine, the music that plays when the lid is lifted he recorded himself, and inside it says I love you, sunshine.

  I trace the letters in my dad’s neat, precise printing.

  My muscles start to quake.

  My dad would be so hurt and afraid if he knew things.

  He’s not really tough.

  Not really mean.

  It’s only an image he pretends for his fans, but he doesn’t have any of us kids fooled. Alan is the sweetest person ever.

  No, I can’t let my dad find out any of it—tonight or the other stuff I don’t want him to know—but I haven’t a clue how to prevent it.

  Chapter Twelve

  I lie on my bed as the minutes tick by, agonizing in that waiting type of silence.

  What’s taking Jacob so long to get back?

  My stomach churns from how he’s dragging this out. Why am I continuing to do what he told me to? He’s just some guy who works for my dad and I don’t even have to listen to him if I don’t want to.

  I check the clock. Over an hour. Maybe he took Daryl to the hospital. I hope Daryl isn’t really hurt. I toy with the idea of texting him to find out if he’s OK, then I stop myself. Daryl’s got to be pissed. I should give him a few days before I try to smooth things over.

  I go to my bedroom door, straining to hear through the heavy wood. Why isn’t there any sound from the house?

  Ding.

  I grab my cell off my night table. My heart accelerates as I type in my password.

  Mom: U forgot to text me when you got to the beach. ET phone home.

  ET phone home.

  Mom being comical.

  Peachy. Now I have Chrissie to deal with on top of all the other junk I’m dealing with. Her timing is always brilliant. It’s like she has some sort of maternal radar and always knows when something is going on with one of us.

  Crap.

  It’d be wonderful if I could ignore it.

  But that’s not how things work with my parents.

  ET phone home.

  Concern hides behind three dorky words coined from a movie from the last century. But I can’t ignore it, because it works every time Mom does that. I don’t know why but immediately obedience rears up inside me, squashing my right to ignore my mother.

  I hit the cell icon and listen to it ring.

  “You don’t call. You don’t write,” I hear through the receiver. “I’m not happy with you.”

  A humorous Chrissie chide.

  She’s upset.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t call. I forgot. You know how Madison is. It’s hard to keep up with her and stay focused.”

  “Yes, I know how my sister is. Still, with freedom comes responsibility. Just a call like I asked and I won’t worry or bug you.”

  The with freedom comes responsibility speech. Groovy—she complained to Grandpa Jack before she called me. Yes, that’s one of his lines. You’d think my mom could invent her own after five kids. Even Dad’s talks would be preferable to this. Don’t be a fuckup. Clear and to the point.

  This makes me feel even more terrible than I already do. I sit on the bed and lie back. “Sorry.”

  “Is everything OK?” she probes.

  “Sure. Why wouldn’t it be? I’m only thirty minutes from home, Mom, in Malibu. What could happen to me here?”

  She makes a nervous laugh.

  “No reason. I thought…actually, it sounds quieter in Malibu than it does at home…maybe I should join you.” More laughter. “Sorry, bad joke. I’ll let you get back to Madison. I only wanted to check on you. Check done. Have a fun weekend, baby girl.”

  Click.

  Mom babbling, followed by a fast retreat and hanging up before I can get a word in.

  Oh yes, she knows something.

  A call from Dad is imminent.

  This is going to be a winner of a weekend.

  Musical phone calls with my parents. Exactly what every girl wants on a weekend with her boyfriend—

  Oh no.

  This isn’t couples anymore.

  I’m trapped here three days and I don’t have a date.

  How the hell did that one escape me?

  This is now Madison, Nick, and me.

  Thank you, Jacob Merrick, for ruining my last weekend home. Humiliating me. Tossing out my boyfriend. Damn it, I wonder if he also ran to my mother with everything and if that’s why she called me.

  I turn my cell phone in my hand.

  No, she wouldn’t have hung up so quickly if Jacob had called her. She wouldn’t have called either. She would’ve shown up here without warning.

  The front door slams.

  Heavy stomping feet—Madison’s—it always sounds like she has lead in her toes.

  “You asshole!” I hear her scream before I reach my door.

  I hurry into the hall and freeze near the entryway.

  “What did you do to Krystal?”

  Oh no. She’s in attack mode, hitting Jacob.

  “Nothing. Stop it. I didn’t do anything to Krystal. I wouldn’t hurt that girl for the world.”

  Madison shoves her face into his. “We get back from the beach to find that person standing guard in the living room saying we can’t see Krystal, and when Nick tackles him so I get past him to make sure she’s OK, I find her bleeding and the room busted up. She’s so upset she can’t even talk to me. What did you do to her? Where’s Daryl? You better explain fast, security person, or I’m calling her father.”

  My eyes narrow. She’s such a sneaky girl. She’s playing him, pretending not to know that garbage I told her in the bedroom, hoping he’ll spill the beans on what he knows.

  I need to stop this before Jacob says anything to her.

  How do I stop this?

  I rush into the room and put my body between them, Jacob behind me and Madison facing me. “That’s it, Madison. Enough. Don’t hit my boyfriend again. You’ve got everything wrong, like always.”

  Her blue eyes turn into giant saucers.

  Her mouth drops.

  “So now that person is your boyfriend?” She crosses her arms and shakes her head
at us. “Would someone tell me what’s going on here? I don’t get anything that’s happened tonight, and one of you had better start explaining fast.”

  Even as I only think it, it feels dreadful how easy lying has become a part of me. I push away all the painful nuances of that admission, shrug, and say, “What’s to get, Maddy? I dumped Daryl. I’m with Jacob now.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  The silence in the room is crushing.

  Slowly, Madison lifts a brow. “Is that the story you want me to believe this time around? That he’s your boyfriend?”

  “It’s the truth.”

  As hard as it is, I manage to meet her stare for stare, feeling the heavy pressure of eyes from every direction.

  Jacob’s sudden harsh breathing warns me that this little creative variation isn’t going over well with him, and I’m more than a little nervous he’s going to blow my lie sky high.

  Though, why would he?

  It helps us both.

  At least I think it does.

  Madison’s pretty face grows suspicious as her gaze shifts to Jacob. “What do you have to say for yourself? You’ve been a jerk tonight, totaling flipping out, ruining everyone’s fun, and now hiding behind your girlfriend. I don’t think I like you.”

  I peek over my shoulder to look directly at him for the first time since I joined the melee.

  Jacob looks flustered, like he doesn’t know what to do, and, damn, it doesn’t look like he’s going to say anything anytime soon. Thick tension swirls around us and he has that guard-at-Buckingham-Palace expression.

  Seriously, what’s wrong with the guy? Either he talks too much, like his lecture in the bedroom, or he talks not at all—like every other moment of his life.

  I snort. “God, Jacob, say something. This is really embarrassing.”

  His fingers curl on my shoulder. Then he leans into me. “Way to warn me, Krystal. You could have texted me to give a heads-up before I walked into this. I thought we were going to keep us private. Did you tell everyone about us?”

  He smiles, and I’m torn between relief and wanting to hit him since he managed to make me look bad even coming through for me.

  Madison’s eyes narrow. “You expect me to believe this nonsense?”

  Jacob shrugs. “I don’t care what you believe.” He holds his hand out to me. “Can we go somewhere to talk, babe?”