Beneath the Burn

by Pam Godwin

  Jamming alongside his bandmates, he held her around his heart, her strength moving his fingers over the strings. Beneath the heat of the lights, he slapped hands with the fans in the front row, the first time he’d willingly touched them. The interactions shifted something inside him, warming him. She would’ve been proud.

  He remained upstage until the final song, then drifted into the shadowed corner and sat on an Anvil case. From the perch she would’ve been sharing with him, he plucked the notes, leading into the song named after her, and sang the lyrics he’d written in those lonely months after he met her.

  Many people told me what love is

  No I’d never experienced it

  I know a world who thinks love is lust

  The first time I recognized your pain

  I realized it was much like mine

  I’m scared of this thing inside of me

  I can’t bear to see you fade from me

  My world is collapsing inside of yours

  And I want more….of you

  Your world is filled with such regret

  I hate that you were part of it

  I see your eyes staring back at me

  I can’t look away

  94

  Two days later, Jay sat in the backseat of the SUV, anxiety tying his stomach in knots as Vanderschoot parked outside of the San Francisco penthouse. The mirrored windows of the tower reflected the orange glow of the sun setting over the bay, a contradiction to the darkness lurking within its walls.

  Beside him, Tony fiddled with his phone and angled the screen toward him. “The app is running in the background, undetected. It’s recording now, sending live audio to the entire team.” She grabbed her phone from her lap and checked the display. “I’m receiving it. We’ll be listening to every word, ready to move in if necessary.”

  He sucked in a breath and zipped up his leather jacket, slipping the phone in his pocket. Faye had made progress in their prosecution against Roy, but they were missing the irrefutable evidence that would trample his powerful legal team.

  “You shouldn’t go in there alone.” Her eyes softened. “You look…”

  Broken? Lost? He rubbed at the creases around his swollen eyes. “Yeah, and the way I look isn’t changing anytime soon. I’m doing this.” He had to.

  “The risk outweighs the reward. The man is a murderer. You pay me for my advice. Allow me to go with you. Or Nathan could—”

  “Nathan’s not here.” He’d vanished the night Charlee died. Jay didn’t hold it against him. Everyone grieved in his own way, and Tony would look after her lover. “I’m going in alone. I need Roy to feel comfortable enough to talk.”

  Her jaw tightened. “Even if you got a confession out of him, it could get thrown out of court.”

  “Then we’ll distribute it over the Internet and let the court of public opinion destroy him.” He reached for the door handle.

  “You know Roy would squash that before it reached public attention. He’s outmaneuvered every attempt we’ve made to go to the press.”

  He let his breath out. Fuck Roy Oxford and his pristine public image. The reminder only made Jay’s attempt to secure a confession more imperative.

  “Nathan’s connections, all the local detectives he trusts, are waiting nearby.” Tony’s eyes bore into his. “If anything feels off, if you need to abort, say the words Tick Tock. We’ll be there in seconds.”

  He nodded, heart thumping against his chest. What would Roy do? Beat him with a baseball bat?

  “You have to leave the gun. His guards will pat you down at the turnstiles.”

  He pointed at the seat pocket in front of him. “It’s there. If I took it in, I’d blow his fucking head off.” There would’ve been an extraordinary amount of satisfaction in that, but spending the rest of his life in jail wasn’t what Charlee wanted for him.

  He swung open the door and jumped onto the sidewalk. As he strode toward the front doors, he wondered if Charlee’s boots had ever touched down where his did, if she’d walked into her prison either time or if she was carried in through a lower level. The thought incensed him, heating his muscles, and fortifying his backbone.

  Inside, a glass wall blocked the corridor to the elevator and a security guard rose from the desk at the center. “May I help you?”

  “I’m here to see Roy Oxford.”

  “Do you have an appointment?”

  “Tell him Jay Mayard is here.” He let his resolution ripple through him, bracing his feet, raising his chin.

  The guard picked up the phone, pressed a button. “Mr. Oxford…Yes, sir. I’ll send him up.” He swiped a badge on the nearest turnstile. After a pat down and a few passes with a hand held metal detector, he waved Jay through.

  Another guard met him on a waiting elevator, swiped a key card, and punched the button for the sixtieth floor. It lurched up, as did Jay’s stomach. He rolled back his shoulders, determined and clear of mind.

  The elevator doors opened, and a familiar face waited on the other side. The dark-haired, dark-eyed gunman from New York. Jay smirked. “I see the earlobe still hasn’t grown back.”

  The man bared his yellow teeth. “Follow me.”

  Through a formal living room and down a long corridor, Jay’s escort halted at the second door to the last on the right and opened it.

  “Leave us, Salvador.” The voice from inside was cool, soft, and way too fucking calm.

  Jay’s escalating heart rate heated his blood. His muscles went taut. He stretched his fingers at his sides, breathed deeply through his nose, and walked through the door.

  Brown leather wallpaper veneered the walls. Mahogany bookshelves wrapped the huge slab of a desk. Behind it, Roy Oxford sat straight and still. “Have a seat.”

  “I’d rather stand.” An unnecessary rebellion, but he preferred to look down at Charlee’s abuser.

  His black hair was neatly coiffed, smoothed away from his pale face. His shirt buttoned to the collar and pinched with a red tie. Despite his put-together appearance, there was something identifiable in his expression, creasing his eyes and drooping his lips. Seeing his own pain mirrored on Roy’s face would be something to reflect on and savor later.

  Roy brushed a nonexistent hair from his face and returned his hand to his lap. “I saw your concert in St. Louis.”

  A cringe twitched his shoulders. “You were there?”

  “You’re a loyal employee, Mr. Mayard, out there making me money rather than petitioning Human Resources for a bereavement leave.”

  Jay forced back the emotion simmering through his chest.

  “Your tattoo was a nice touch. Windsor Records has seen a thirty-five percent increase in revenues since the show. I made a shrewd call reinitiating production on your albums.” He tapped a finger on the desk. “She limned that design in her little sketchbook. You must’ve been the musician she was penciling it for.”

  She’d drawn it while with Roy? His heart hurtled into his throat, and his hands shook from the ache of it. He shoved them in his jeans pockets. Keep him talking. Get the fucking confession. “I met her the night you killed Noah Winslow. The night you kidnapped her in St. Louis.”

  A dim haze passed over Roy’s eyes, and his fingers circled over a thick bundle of papers on his desk. “You don’t fool me, Mr. Mayard.”

  Ice raced down his spine. He blanked his face and cocked his head.

  “You walk in here with your shoulders back and purpose in your step, but in truth, you’re crawling on your belly, wallowing in your delusions of purpose. It’s only a matter of time before all the what-ifs and should’ve-beens lure you in and smother you.” Roy’s gaze turned inward, and his hand stroked the papers, back and forth.

  A burn tunneled through his sinuses. Why hadn’t he snuck the damn gun in? Fuck the confession. He could’ve ended this with a trigger pull. He steeled his legs, his words powered with impatience. “You enslaved her twice. Raped her repeatedly. Your third attempt killed her.”

  Roy hardened h
is glare. “As long as we live, she will haunt us with her burning eyes.” A tremble rippled through his fingers. He yanked them to his lap, looked up. “I considered the prospect that she’d escaped the fire, impossible as it was, and anticipated you falsifying her death.” He thinned his lips. “I see the romanticism in that now. Your eyes are weighted with reality.”

  A buzz ignited in Jay’s head. He’d shared that hope, but it had crumbled when her remains were excavated. He slapped those thoughts away before they suffocated him, replaced them with the reason he was there. “You might as well have set that fire yourself. You killed her.”

  Roy straightened his back and leveled his gaze. “Mr. Mayard, I am a very wealthy man. I own the largest enterprise in the world, homes on every continent, private jets, and more money than you could aspire to earn in multiple lifetimes. As you are aware, since I invested in your band’s label, I do not back losing schemes. It is unfortunate my most important asset—one you had temporary possession of—was lost in that fire.” He opened a desk drawer and placed a revolver beside the papers, barrel aimed at the chair Jay stood behind. “Have a seat.”

  Resolution descended over him, pulling him toward the imminent outcome. Charlee was gone. Looking down the barrel of Roy’s gun would be numbing. If the hammer came down, the audio recording would capture Jay’s death. He moved around the chair and sat, chin raised and spine braced.

  With one hand stroking the gun’s grip, Roy collected two glasses from the side cabinet and set them on the desk. He poured a finger of amber liquid in each and scooted one to Jay. “I nurtured her, pleasured her, and made her what she was. Tell me. What could you have possibly offered her?”

  Lifting the liquor to his lips, Jay emptied the glass in a burning swallow that wasn’t close to rivaling the fire in his chest. “Happiness.”

  Roy shifted his thumb over the gun’s hammer, cocking it with an empty expression. “Happiness is fleeting. An unquantifiable nonentity. Her real needs were met by my hand. She simply couldn’t live without me.”

  Enough of the fucking mind games. “Is that why you kidnapped and tortured her?” Admit it or pull the trigger, motherfucker.

  Silent seconds lapsed. Roy’s finger traced the trigger guard. “If your eyes weren’t convincing enough, your impudence despite your position—” He glanced at the gun, back at Jay “—is evidence that she isn’t waiting for you. It is done.” He lifted the stack of paperwork and flipped it to face Jay. “A copy of my will. For the inconvenience caused to you and Nathan Winslow by the loss of Noah Winslow and Charlee Grosky, you are both coheirs to my empire. However…” He tossed back the scotch and set the empty glass to the side. “She will always be my beautiful girl, and I will possess her again in the afterlife.” He raised a revolver.

  Jay flinched and his heart stopped, ready, waiting.

  A cackle tumbled from Roy’s chest. “Relax, Mr. Mayard. I will acquire her on the other side before you get the chance.” He shoved the barrel in his mouth and squeezed the trigger.

  The bang reverberated in Jay’s ears and shuddered down his spine. Brain matter spurted on the bookshelves behind Roy’s slumped body.

  Footsteps stomped around him, voices shouted, alarms rent the dense air. A red light blinked in the ceiling. The recordings captured a suicide instead of a confession. It was over.

  It should’ve loosened the fist squeezing Jay’s heart. He stood, moved to the wall, and braced an arm against it, anticipating the retribution to wash over him, to fill the vacuum with…what? Nothing would replace her loss. Not Roy’s billions or his death.

  He pulled out his phone and said with a voice thick with spit, “Charter a jet, Tony. I’m going home. To Canada.” To scrape up what was left and rebuild. For what purpose? The hollowness inside him expanded, crushing his organs, consuming every dream.

  Charlee ended her life knowing it would stop Roy from fucking with his. Had she considered how meaningless it would all be without her? He would’ve gladly spent a lifetime running and fighting if it kept her at his side, her hand in his.

  As he strode from the room, his heart battled between grief and anger, his arms burning to hold her, his hands itching to paddle her ass. But he wouldn’t be able to do either. Never again.

  95

  They say the only thing certain in life is death. As Jay leaned his head against the window of the seven-passenger Beaver floatplane, he felt that certainty like a tumor in his chest. It rooted its stems through his heart and coiled branches around his lungs, constricting, strangling. Her death had no intention of letting go.

  They also say death gets easier. He was much less certain about that. The plan was to spend the next few months oscillating between being pissed off at her and unproductively depressed. Maybe he would write a few angst-filled songs to express the utter helplessness of his mind.

  Tony sat in the front, beside the contracted pilot, her hands folded in her lap. As the plane nosed down for descent, the vivid blues and greens of Birch Lake filled the horizon. The humidity in the air lay in a thin mist over the glassy water. Across the cove, his four-thousand-square-foot lodge stretched along the shoreline, interrupting the tundra of wild shrubs, sedges and pines.

  Isolated and pristine, his corner of the thirty-five mile lake was only accessible by plane or boat. He’d ventured there twice since demolishing the original structures, but his last visit had been before he met Charlee.

  The caretaker had moved into the guesthouse the year the construction completed. Thomas lived there year round, the only person who had resided on the property since Jay was six years old.

  Dipping in for the landing, the floats skidded over the water’s surface, dispersing a flock of ring-necked ducks into the curling fog. When the plane drifted to a stop at the edge of his dock, he grabbed his duffle bag and guitar case and climbed out. Tony’s soft footfalls lagged behind.

  The mustiness of dark rich soil mingled with nearby mint and the floral of woodland laurel, bathing his lungs. Charlee would’ve loved the authenticity of the land, and for a moment, he let himself imagine her walking along the dock with him, smiling as the scenery saturated her brilliant eyes.

  Did her soul exist in an eternal place? He’d hoped so right up until Roy Oxford uttered his despicable final words. But could Jay cope with the alternative? The thought of her dwindling into an airy nothing was more than he could bear.

  Cradled by the low-lying forest, he followed the rocky path to the cabin and stopped.

  Two silhouettes darkened the floor-to-ceiling windows that plated the length of the cabin. He expected Thomas, but his curiosity about the other person prodded his boots into motion, drawing him toward the house.

  The overcast sky muddled the details of the profiles moving past the windows to the backdoor. As he neared, the floatplane’s single engine sounded its departure and gravel crunched behind him.

  He slowed his pace. “Tony, who’s here?”

  Jogging to catch up, she adjusted a large tote on her shoulder. “Nathan.”

  Though Jay had told her not to come, he wasn’t surprised she did and was even less surprised she’d want her lover there, too. Neither he nor Tony had seen Nathan in two weeks.

  The backdoor swung open, and Nathan ran out, tugged her bag to the ground, and pulled her to his chest in an adoring kiss.

  A storm of hunger and loneliness twisted brutally inside Jay. No way would he be able to share the house with the two of them. He swallowed thickly and forced his feet to move.

  “Jay.” Nathan joined his side, his tone hushed with pity. “I’m sorry. That was…insensitive. Listen. We need to talk.” He put a hand on Jay’s arm, staring at it as if the world might come crashing down.

  There wouldn’t be any detonations. The triggers were gone, and Jay was already standing on ground zero. “Can this wait, Nathan? It’s been a long trip.”

  “No. It’s—”

  The drone of a familiar two-stroke engine rumbled in the distance, growing rapidly louder, cl
oser.

  Jay set down his bag and guitar and moved to the side of the house in the direction of the sputtering. “Who’s on my dirt bike?”

  The caretaker was in the house, so it wasn’t him. Jay glanced over his shoulder and caught Nathan’s thinned lips before they relaxed. Tony’s eyebrows pinched together, her eyes narrowed on Nathan.

  What the hell was going on? The croak of the engine labored under whoever was racing it through the forest. The two-stroke was his most reliable bike. He’d had it shipped the twenty-two hundred miles from L.A. the night Roy swallowed the bullet. Three long days ago. “Who’s here, Nathan?”

  The put-put-put of the exhaust popped over the hill, snapping Jay’s head toward it. The orange fender flashed through the woods on the zigzag trail. The rider swung the bike right to left, narrowly missing trees and shrubs, the foliage giving glimpses of a small frame, blue jeans, red hair…Red hair…Oh God, Oh god…Red hair.

  He stopped breathing. A stinging sensation numbed his skin. He clutched his chest, strained his eyes, and realized he was lurching along the path through trees, sprinting toward the bike.

  The rider rocketed around the bend ahead, the wind whipping the tangle of red hair behind huge blue eyes. She skidded to a stop, sliding the bike sideways along the trail.

  “Oh my God. What the fuck is this?” His lungs burned with his whisper, and his tongue felt heavy, numbly expressing his confusion. “Are you real?”

  She let the bike fall as she scrambled off it and launched at his chest. He stumbled back, breathless, dazed, arms around her too-thin waist, and tripped over a branch. His back hit the ground, her body draped over him.

  Then her lips fell upon his, moving desperately, urgently, wet and salty with tears. She scattered kisses across his face, his cheeks frozen in shock. “I didn’t expect you until tonight.” She kissed the corners of his mouth, his chin, his nose. “I’m so sorry, Jay. I’m sorry. I missed you so much.”

  He traced the smatter of freckles on her cheekbone, the satiny skin warm with life. “I don’t understand. How is this real?” He slid his hand through the hair draping her face and watched it fall through his splayed fingers, mesmerized.