by Selena Kitt
“Where are you leading me, siren?” Rob teased as I kept myself just out of his reach, following the curve of the infinity pool toward the other side of the house, away from the people and the lights and the noise. The water was deeper here, and I had to tread to stay afloat.
Rob finally caught up to me, grabbing me around the waist and pulling me close. He could still stand here, and I wrapped my arms around his neck, breathing him in as we floated together in the water. The sounds of the party were distant here, the stars brighter, the moon a silver coin in the sky above our heads.
“You’ve made her very happy.” I kissed the side of his throat, water beading on his skin, and felt his arms tighten around me.
“How about you?” Rob slid his hands down over my hips, pulling my pelvis in toward his so I could wrap my legs around his waist. “Are you happy?”
“You make me happy.” I pressed my lips to his, feeling him soften, the tension in his body slowly ebbing away as we drifted around the pool toward the front of the house.
I wanted it to be like this forever, just him and me, drifting together, contented, buoyant. I remembered what Celeste had said about Rob, how he would rip out his own heart to make someone else happy. We’d talked about my going out on tour with Jimmy Voss, and every time we did, Rob always said it was up to me, that he would support me, no matter what I decided. And of course, he would—even if that meant ripping out his own heart.
I couldn’t do that to him, I thought, feeling his breath on my shoulder as we clung together, his heart beating steady and strong against my own. His fingers twined in my wet hair, pulling my head back so he could trail kisses down my throat. My thighs tightened around him, an involuntary response, always. He made my body do things, all on its own. Just being near him was enough to make my breath catch, my heart race. You’d think I would get used to him, like married couples were supposed to, but I suppose that’s what made him a star.
Like Tyler had said—Rob was meant to be a super star. Arnie had known it, Trouble’s record label knew it, their legions of fans proved it year after year, pushing them to higher and higher heights. But what about Rob? Had he always known he was meant to be here, rich, famous, the object of desire for millions of women? Or had it all been a means to an end?
“Rob?”
“Hm?”
“When did you know you wanted to be a rock star?”
“I don’t know any boy who doesn’t dream about being a rock star.” He chuckled, sinking deeper into the water with me, his tongue licking at my collarbone, sending shivery waves through my body.
“Did you ever… not want to?” I tried not to let him distract me, but it wasn’t easy with him nuzzling my breasts.
Rob hesitated, cocking his head at me before gathering me into him, foreplay abandoned for the comfort of his arms around me.
“Sabrina, I love you,” he whispered into my ear as we drifted under the footbridge that led to the front door. “I will love you no matter what happens. You could become more famous than Trouble ever thought about being—and it wouldn’t change anything. Not for me.”
“Me either,” I assured him. The truth was, I wasn’t afraid he would leave me, or that the separation of going on tour would tear us apart, in the end. I was afraid of his sacrifice, always giving up something for everyone else. He had risked the future of Trouble—for me. He did so much for everyone else.
“You have to decide if it’s what you want, baby.” His eyes were dark in the moonlight, glinting silver.
“I just know I want you,” I whispered, feeling tears choking my voice. The truth was, I didn’t want to be away from him, ever. Not even for a minute, let alone for two months.
“You’ve got me, sweetheart.” He reassured me with kisses, his lips soft and wet. “Now and forever, remember?”
“Let’s go upstairs,” I said, my thighs tightening around his waist, fingers tangled in his wet hair.
We snuck into our own front door like thieves, giggling and shushing each other as we crept up the stairs, leaving puddles wherever we stepped, all the way down the long hallway to our room. Rob closed the French doors that led out onto the patio, blocking out most of the sound of the concert and the crowd.
I don’t know how long we made love—first in the warm steam of a shower, and then in bed, after we’d dried off under the heat lamp—but the clock read two a.m. when I drifted off. Below, the band had stopped, the noise of the crowd fading to just a small group of voices, enough that we could both fall asleep.
It wasn’t noise that woke me. It was the silence. My unconscious had grown used to and had assimilated the noise of the party into my dreams, so that when it disappeared, my mind rebelled and I startled awake in the darkness. I listened for the sweet sound of Rob’s deep, even breathing, but there was nothing. Reaching across our silk sheets—they were real silk, so soft it was like sleeping on clouds—I found his pillow dented but empty. Still warm though. He hadn’t been gone long. Probably just in the bathroom—which reminded me I had to pee.
“Rob?” I sat up, shivering. I was still completely naked, and the covers fell away as I swung my legs over the side of the bed and reached for my robe. That was real silk too, such a decadence.
There was no light on in the bathroom and I tried the door. It opened, the motion detector night light going on. No Rob. Where was he? I peed and washed my hands, knowing I should just go back to bed and wait. He had a habit of getting up in the middle of the night, especially when he was stressed. Bouts of insomnia would usually send him to the music room, where he would work for an hour or two, composing.
But instead, I turned on the light next to his side of the bed and saw his phone was missing. I hadn’t heard it ring, but I was a pretty sound sleeper. So, someone had called or texted and Rob had run off to the rescue again. That was my guess. Damn him.
I decided to go get my husband and bring him back to bed.
The house was quiet. I stood in the hallway and listened, cocking my head to the side, straining to hear the sound of a keyboard or the strum of a guitar from the music room. If he was composing, I would leave him be. Then I heard Rob’s voice, faint but it was him, and he sounded angry.
I crept forward toward the sound, down the hall. At the end of the long hallway was an open space with a leather couch, a television, and a balcony overlooking the foyer and that’s where Rob was, pacing back and forth, talking into his phone.
“Goddamned, Celeste, there has to be a way!” he snapped.
I swallowed, inching back into the shadows, not wanting him to see me, not now.
“She can’t know,” Rob insisted. “I can’t have her finding out and… I know… I know… I know that!”
He practically yelled the last, sinking onto the leather couch, phone pressed to one ear, his other hand running through his hair. My heart hammered in my chest, breath caught in my throat. She can’t know. Who? Sarah? I remembered the last conversation I’d overheard, how angry Sarah had been with him. But I had never asked or brought it up again. Whatever was going on, he didn’t want me to know. It was between them. Besides, if tonight was any indication, all had been forgiven. I turned, starting back to our room, when something he said stopped me cold.
“When does she get out of jail?”
Catherine.
It came back in an instant. I felt a sharp pain under my scar, a tug, a flash in my head at the memory. So much blood. So much pain. I covered my scar—and the tattoo of Esther’s tiny little hand—closing my eyes, feeling tears sting. In my mind, I could see her like it was yesterday, so tiny and frail, struggling to breathe with lungs too small to work. It had been Catherine’s jealousy, Catherine’s crazed rage that had sent a bullet in my direction. She had come to kill Rob, but she had ended up nearly killing me and ending the brief life of our baby.
“A week?” Rob exploded, bolting up again, pacing back and forth. “No, Celeste, she can’t… that’s not possible…”
He was right. It wasn’t p
ossible. Catherine couldn’t be getting out of jail, could she?
Well, technically, she was in an institute for the criminally insane. Which meant, if they deemed her well enough, I suppose they could release her. Maybe it was possible? Had she convinced them she was “cured?” Whatever act she was putting on, I knew better. Celeste did too, on the other end of the phone. She’d warned us Catherine was crazy, that she would do anything in her jealous rage. And she had.
What would stop her from doing it again, if she was out?
A slow, creeping terror filled my throat, cutting off my air supply. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t think. I barely made it back down the hallway and into our bed. I huddled in the darkness, shivering uncontrollably, trying to calm my racing heart. It beat so fast I could barely keep up, and it seemed to pound out a warning—Catherine, Catherine, Catherine.
She was coming. She was coming for us.
Coming for Rob.
Rob, who did everything for everyone, who was always trying to protect me, who wouldn’t be watching his own back.
I couldn’t let her hurt him.
I wouldn’t let that happen.
Rob came back to bed and found me shivering. He put his arms around me, murmuring sweetness against my ear that made tears come to my eyes. I didn’t ask him, because I knew he wouldn’t tell me. He wanted to protect me.
But in the end, I knew I needed to protect him.
Chapter Six
It was more like a country club than jail. Yes, there was a high brick wall with barbed wire scaling the top surrounding the property, but it was hidden amidst the trees framing it. Wrought iron gates opened up as I entered on the bus—the only way in or out was by the shuttle bus, even the employees had to park in the lot down the street and take it. It was like something out of an old black and white movie. The lawn was as green—and well-kept—as a golf course. I felt my stomach clench as the bus took us down the winding drive, right up to the front entrance of the hospital.
There were people strolling on walking paths, some of them in street clothes, others in gray jumpsuits. It seemed surreal, although I shouldn’t have been surprised. It was Saturday—visiting day—after all. And not everyone here was violent or in need of being locked up twenty-four seven. Even Catherine wasn’t that bad, at least according to the state of California. Catherine had a room—yes, there were bars on the windows, but there was sunlight during the day—and a bed, and had earned privileges, they told me, like the privilege of having visitors.
My hands shook as I stepped off the bus behind an elderly couple who held hands as they went into the building. We had been through a humiliating search of our property and persons already, and I tucked my purse under my arm as I followed the old couple, wondering who they were here to see. A relative? A friend? The place was full of sad stories. Mine was just one of them.
“Hello, I’m here to see Dr. Klein,” I said, stopping at the front desk and showing them my arm band. They had snapped that on me after the inspection but before we got on the bus. I had made the call in secret, of course, my voice shaking so much it was hard to talk, but it had been far easier than I expected. Catherine’s therapist said she was a major fan of Trouble—and she was, apparently, also a major fan of money. Rob kept an account funded for me, and I knew he would notice a check written out to her, so I just withdrew cash. They obviously didn’t pay therapists very much, and Dr. Klein was happy to accept my little bribe in exchange for a meeting with the woman who had nearly shot me to death.
She even justified it therapeutically—and said she would be there just in case something happened. The thing that surprised me the most was, I hadn’t realized Catherine would need to agree to see me. But in the end, Dr. Klein said she had. Maybe because she was so close to being released, I thought, as the nurse directed me down the hall, giving me instructions I knew I’d never remember. I walked on wobbly legs, hoping there would be more checkpoints on the way.
If Rob knew I was there, he would have been livid. I knew it was a risk. But I had to talk to her. I had to try to reason with her. If they really believed she was well enough to be released, maybe we could sit down and talk like reasonable human beings. Maybe she was truly remorseful. Maybe, I thought, turning the corner and finding another nurse’s desk where I could ask for directions, we could have some closure to the whole mess.
I knew it was probably more than I could hope for.
All I really wanted was to let her know I wasn’t afraid of her, and that if she came near Rob, I would kill her myself. I just hoped she wouldn’t call my bluff, because in reality, I was afraid of her. But the last—that wasn’t a bluff. I’d die before I let anything happen to Rob.
“Dr. Klein” I inquired at the desk.
“Room eleven” The nurse pointed down the hallway. “Down there on the left.”
“Dr. Klein?” I knocked on the open door. A short, stout little woman wearing a white coat looked up from her laptop. She closed it and smiled at me as she stood, holding out her hand.
“You must be Sabrina Taylor.”
Burns, I thought, but of course, didn’t say.
I took her hand and shook it. She offered me a seat and I took that too. We exchanged a few pleasantries, and I handed over an envelope full of cash that I’d been nervous about carrying with me since I’d left the bank. And that was pretty much it. She told me Catherine was expecting me as we headed down yet another hallway. This one was tiled, not carpeted, stark white walls and rooms with not just numbers on them, but keypad locks as well.
“Down there,” Dr. Klein instructed. “Last door on the left. Room number twenty-seven.”
I forced myself to keep walking, although my pace slowed as I got closer. Some doors were closed—and locked, each had a keypad entry—but some were open. Catherine’s door was open. I paused at the doorway, seeing her sitting on a small twin bed, a book in her hand. She wasn’t reading it though. She was staring out the window. There were bars on it, but still, it was a window. It looked out onto the front lawn.
She hadn’t seen me yet and I took that moment to really study her. Gone were the stylish clothes, the perfectly cut and colored hair. Her roots were growing out dark, a good two inches at least, and I wondered who was coloring her hair blonde in there. Someone clearly was—although not as often as they should have. Her nails, usually French manicured, were ragged, bitten. She had no makeup on, and there were dark circles, faint silver half-moons, showing under her eyes.
I stood in the doorway, perfectly coiffed and dressed, thanks to Arnie and his team, realizing just how much the tables had turned. I was Rob’s wife now. I was the woman in his life, the woman in his bed. I had my freedom, I had her ex-husband, and I had her former life. I had taken her place.
As she sensed my presence and turned her head toward me, I knew how foolish I’d been, thinking I could come here and reason with this woman. I saw it the instant our eyes met, the hatred, the rage. She hadn’t changed. No matter what she’d done to convince her doctors or any other official here that she was sane, I knew the truth. I saw the madness in her eyes.
What had I been thinking? Why would she want to talk to me in the first place, other than to try to hurt me in some way? I took an involuntary step back, knees weak, ready to run as far and as fast as I could, back down the maze of hallways, back into the bus, back home. Home to Rob, home to my little makeshift family. I didn’t belong here. This was a mistake.
“Sabrina.” Her voice was as smooth as the silk sheets we slept on every night. “Come on in.”
She would come for Rob. I saw it on her face, the way her lip twitched in a half-sneer. She covered it quickly with a smile, but it was a smile filled with malice. She hated me and, even if she had loved him once, she would take him from me before she’d let me live her life. I didn’t have to talk to her to know any of that. It was all over her face.
I couldn’t run away. I couldn’t be a coward. I had to do this. For Rob.
“Catherine.”
I tried out my voice, proud it didn’t tremble, giving her what I hoped was a short, cool nod. I took a step into the room. She waved me toward a white plastic chair in the corner. It was the kind you found out on patios in the suburbs. I perched on the edge, as prim as an old-fashioned schoolmarm, clutching my purse on my knees.
“So, what brings you here?” She put her book on the bed. I saw a man on the cover—Dr. Phil—and glimpsed the word “relationship.” Her sheets were bleached white—I could smell it, the scent permeated the place and made me wonder if they washed the inmates in the stuff—a long cry from the silk she used to sleep on. The silk I now slept on.
“I think you know.” I kept my gaze steady.
“So… you finally want to know the truth.” That smile spread, like a disease, across her face. There was acne sprouting over her dark, unplucked brows. The food here must have been vastly different from her usual organic, vegan fare. The fifteen pounds I’d lost, Catherine had gained. We had truly switched places. “I thought you might come to me, someday, asking for the real story.”
I blinked at her, too surprised to respond. I didn’t have any idea what she was talking about. Was this some part of her crazy ramblings? Had her mind completely snapped? She seemed to know who I was, so she wasn’t that far gone.
“Did he leave you?” The sheer delight on her face made me feel sick to my stomach. “Is that why you came?”
“No.” My voice hardened, and I clutched my purse so hard my knuckles turned white. “Rob and I are…”
Married.
I almost said it. But it wouldn’t do me any good to tell her, when we hadn’t told anyone else.
“We’re fine,” I finished.
“Oh no, I don’t think so.” She laughed. It was soft, almost a chuckle, far more menacing than any maniacal laugh I’d ever heard. “You wouldn’t be here if everything was fine, now would you?”
“You’re wrong.” My spine straightened, stiffened. “Rob and I are great. We’re very much in love. In fact, we—”