by Brown, Tara
“Your brother’s right. This has gone on for too long. Your dad’s at the Jacobi mansion now. He left here in a fuss this morning. Ranting about a red sports car. You all need to let this settle.”
“Red sports car?” I asked Deborah as Paige appeared behind her. I recoiled a little, fighting it but also getting used to seeing her.
“Indeed. He was livid. Red sports car and something about betrayal,” Deborah spoke as Paige lifted her fingers at my brother, pointing at him again.
“Oh God,” I whispered and glanced at Laertes. “We have to go over there now!” I jumped up and ran for the door. “Get keys!”
“What?” Laertes shouted behind me, following but not nearly fast enough. “You’re in Panama’s and a robe, O.”
“Run!” I screamed at him, startling everyone within earshot.
Laertes jumped to life, rushing after me. He grabbed keys from the table in the main hall, and we ran to one of the cars in the driveway. He started it and looked at me. “Where the bloody hell am I going?”
“Lucas’, hurry!”
He raced away from the house, down the long drive, but it didn’t feel fast enough. The guard opened the gate and we sped away. My insides felt like stress was eating me alive.
“What are you doing, O?” Laertes asked again.
“Father knows who the affair was with.” My words felt wrong but the images were playing out in my mind. The red car when I was fourteen. If I focused on the memory, could the person in the sunglasses be him? He was the right build. Same hair color. Same height. Loved weird old cars. But the clincher was the old photo, the group photo. Everyone else was smiling at the camera but Claudius Jacobi was smiling at Laertes.
The way he looked at him, of course!
Paige hadn’t been pointing at the pictures in Laertes’ hands. She was pointing at my brother. Paige somehow knew my mother had an affair with Claudius, which in our world was a perfect reason to commit murder. Especially, when your son wasn’t your husband’s child.
“It’s Claudius Jacobi and I bet you, you’re his son,” I muttered, taking a moment before explaining my thoughts.
“Impossible,” Laertes whispered as he pulled into the Jacobi driveway and raced toward the mansion. I realized now the fire was a metaphor. Elsinore wasn’t going to burn, but the family was in ruin.
“Claudius is your father. I will bet you everything Mother has been having an affair with him since day one. And Paige knew. And that’s why Mother killed her.” A strange coldness had taken over me. “And maybe Hamlet figures it out and that’s why he’s dead too.”
Laertes parked next to Father’s jaguar. “There’s no way.”
I got out of the car in a hurry. The valet came running out, but Laertes waved him off. “I’ll leave it there.” He kept his keys, no doubt afraid to part with our way out of here.
We ran up the stairs to the large front arched doors, not waiting for the butler or an announcement.
My skin crawled with an unnatural chill as we entered the marble hall. Angry voices drew our gaze to the left, and we ran for the music room where we found Father and Claudius, and Gertrude, Lucas’ mother. She was sobbing and shaking her head. Father was holding a gun on Claudius whose face was twisted in a violent rage. “You're being ridiculous!” he shouted at Father.
“You fucked my wife for twenty-five years, you son of a bitch. Is this why your brother’s dead?” He jerked the gun as if he might pull the trigger. “Did he find out?”
Claudius recoiled.
“Father!” I cried, rushing in.
“Ophelia, thank God,” Gertrude hurried to my side, hugging me.
“Go home!” Father barked at Laertes and me.
“We want the truth!” Laertes tried to reason with him, “We know Mother had an affair. Put the gun down so we can all talk about this, rationally.”
“I am rational!” my father snapped. “As rational as I can be with the knife in my back. They murdered Hamlet, and I suspect Paige.”
“We know, Father.” I held Lucas’ sobbing mother, trying to keep her calm. “But murdering him won’t bring them back. You’ll go to jail. Mother will win.”
Claudius’ eyes flickered to mine. “Listen to your daughter, Polly.” He used my father’s nickname.
“Don’t you dare speak to her. I know you’re part of the reason Ophelia was tortured by that bitch, your bitch.” My father had gone mad.
“I swear I had no idea what Jane was up to. I believed her lies too,” Claudius pleaded. “I didn’t know she was capable of such evil.”
“Lies!” my father’s voice cracked. “I should make you watch the video so you can see what you did.”
The need to shut down, to hide or run shot through me, begging me to leave this place. Escape this horrible reminder. But I didn’t. I walked to my father, placing a gentle hand on his shoulder, a touch that made him flinch until he realized it was me. “Father, let’s go home. Please,” I begged softly.
“Listen to your daughter.”
“Are you my biological father?” Laertes asked Claudius boldly.
“Does it matter?” Claudius answered with his own question. He didn’t look the part of the corrupt man I knew him to be. He was tired, with huge bags under his eyes and a pallor to his skin that couldn’t be healthy. Exhaustion and sleeplessness owned him. I knew the look well.
“No. Polonius has raised me, loved me, and now he is trying to protect my sister and me from your corruption and perversion.” Laertes walked to our father, placing his hand on the other shoulder. “He will always be my father.”
His words were the ones my father needed to hear. He lowered his gun, but something went wrong. The moment it pointed at the floor, a shot ripped through the air. Father jerked, staggering back, jerking again when another shot rang out.
Chaos ensued.
Gertrude rushed us, grabbing my father as he began to fall. Laertes pushed me to the floor. Claudius ran, sprinting to the hallway where the gallery was. I tried to reach my father, but my brother held me tightly.
The whole room, maybe the world, became black-and-white except the spot on the front of my father’s rumpled suit. It bloomed with color, crimson so bright it blinded me.
My fingers clawed at the marble, sticking with clammy uneasiness and creating traction. I dragged Laertes and me to our father. Gertrude sobbed over him, clinging to his chest.
My hands covered the spot where the blood was gushing, but it came up through my fingers, a geyser of blood like the fountain in our front yard. “No!” I sobbed.
“Father!” Laertes grabbed his face, turning it to see if his eyes were open, as he fumbled for his phone, dialing and screaming into it. “My father has been shot. The Jacobi mansion. Hurry!”
I blocked everything out, convinced this was it. This was my last moment with my father. I held him tightly, whispering, “I love you. I love you. I love you.” I didn’t think he heard, so I chanted it, in case one “I love you” made it in.
He reached for me, his hands covered in blood. “Run,” he said softly. “She will never stop.”
Gertrude turned to the right, taking my gaze with hers. I suppose she imagined she would find my mother on the balcony with a smoking gun in her hands. But it was Lucas we saw holding the gun, staring down on us with the strangest look on his face.
Chapter 16
“Lucas Jacobi, the crowned prince to the notorious Jacobi family, which has run New Denmark since its infancy, is missing. He’s wanted in connection to the murder of Polonius Agard, the well-known defense lawyer for the Jacobi family. Allegedly, Agard was shot in the Jacobi mansion, Elsinore, earlier this morning. Lucas Jacobi is armed and considered extremely dangerous. Police are asking anyone who—”
Laertes turned the TV off and continued pacing the living room in his blood-stained clothes.
Neither of us had changed or washed off our dead father’s blood. After we were questioned, we came home and watched our world fall apart. Worrying, we
were somehow silent victims of a conspiracy older than both of us.
A knock at the window made us both jump. Laertes pulled the gun from the back of his pants, where he’d put it upon arriving home, and walked to the window, flicking on the lights outside. Horatio stared back at us. He lifted his hand, revealing something small and dark.
I got up and walked to the French doors that led outside and unlocked one, opening it. “What is it?”
“Footage from the docks.” Horatio placed a USB in my hand.
“Did it have the night of the murder?” Laertes asked.
“When I got to the docks, the footage was gone—missing. One lady who works the security cameras said there’d been a glitch for that night. Another guy said someone had done a purge, and even he thought it was suspicious. But then I remembered, the king had a new system put in place right before he died. He had just computerized the security system and made it so the memory was stored as a backup in a different location. In case of sabotage or fire or accident.” Horatio sounded smugly angry. “I’m guessing he never got around to telling anyone important about it. When I got to the warehouse, the geeky girl running the database said Claudius hadn’t been down to meet her. She seemed insulted that he wouldn’t care to see our backups since taking over the kingdom.”
“That’s a bit of luck on our side,” I said as I moved over so he could come inside.
His jaw dropped when he saw us both in the light of the room. “Do we have a body to hide?”
“You haven’t seen the news I take it?” Laertes asked as he closed the door and locked it again.
“I’ve been busy.” He swallowed hard. “What happened? Is Lucas okay?”
Laertes clenched his jaw when Horatio said that name.
“Father is dead,” I managed to get out without crying as I put the USB in my pocket.
“Your mom?”
“It appears Lucas shot him,” Laertes growled. “We’ve discovered a few things. Unsavory things.”
“I’ll get us some drinks,” I left the room as Laertes began explaining our findings. My heart was broken, and I couldn’t bear to listen again.
Seeing it all unfold was more than enough.
And for some twisted reason, I couldn’t convince myself he did it. There was no way Lucas shot my father. Not when he was lowering his gun. I wouldn’t believe it. Something else had to have happened. I imagined that he walked to the balcony, saw the gun, picked it up foolishly, and peered over the railing. He looked guilty, but it was the shots that brought him to that place, not murder.
“What can I get you, my poor girl?” Deborah asked as I entered the kitchen.
“Something warm but maybe boozy,” I said, not sure what that would be.
“Spiked hot cocoa?” she asked.
“Sounds lovely. We’ll take it in the TV room, please. Horatio is with us.”
“Are you going to shower or change perhaps?” Deborah’s voice cracked. Her red eyes matched mine, as did the haunted disbelief lingering on her face.
“It’s all I have left.” I looked down at the blood on my hands and clothes.
“Oh, my dear,” she said, rushing me. She started to cry again but I couldn’t. The tears were gone, dried up. I’d overused my rations of misery in the last month. “You have his heart and soul and his love. He wasn’t good at showing it or paying attention, but he loved you kids.”
I nodded, agreeing he wasn’t good at showing it. In my numb state, I could see that clearly.
“I’ll get that cocoa.” She patted me on the cheek and turned back to the stove.
Lost and drifting, I made my way to the TV room. Horatio was shaking his head, taking his turn pacing as Laertes sat on the arm of the large sectional. “Impossible. Lucas wouldn’t. I don’t believe it.”
“We saw it with our own eyes, didn’t we, O?” Laertes asked me to verify his story.
“We saw him come after the fact. A moment later. We didn’t see him pull the trigger,” I whispered.
“O!” Horatio opened his arms and pulled me in. The warmth of him made me shiver. “This is fucking crazy.”
“Fucking crazy,” I repeated.
“You guys need to get cleaned up. We gotta get outta here. There’s no way your mom isn’t part of this plot. And she is coming, for sure.”
“This is the safest place we could be. The guards are tripled. Mother’s loyalists have been fired. Locks and codes are all changed. And everyone is instructed to shoot first ask questions later.” Laertes was smug but it was fake. Truly he was scared and it was taking him to a place of control. He needed to govern everything to feel safe. Even with the house under his command, I doubted he’d ever relax here again.
Like me, he wasn’t feeling the loss, not yet. It was going to hit hard. The kind of sorrow that crippled you. For a second, I contemplated returning to the retreat. Or even calling Dr. Graves. I imagined she would welcome me back with open arms. The question of whether she was the only safe place for me to be, rolled through my mind.
It was in that second, I felt it.
I was alone.
Motherless.
Fatherless.
Lucas’ possible betrayal added weight to that discomfort.
I gasped for air as tears choked me up, refusing to leave my throat.
“I’m going to change,” I managed to get out as I hurried from the room, running for my bedroom through the dark halls of the mansion until I reached the window seat. I sat and sobbed into my hands. Tearless agony tormented me.
My father was gone.
His shroud of protection went with him, but so was the love I’d never really felt. Our chance was over before we’d had it.
Cold air came out of nowhere, prickling my skin, making me pause. I glanced to the left and saw Paige screaming! She was frantic, swirling the air left and right like a vortex. My hair lifted in the wind she made as she pointed like a crazy person down the dark hall. I followed her fingers into the abyss.
Glistening eyes were the first thing I saw as someone stepped from a shadow, a woman in a black dress. There was a gun in her hand, next to her leg as if she were trying to conceal it. Though makeup streaked her face as if her tears were made of ashes and coal, I recognized her.
“Mother?” I whispered.
“This is all your fault,” she said in a soft tone. A voice I’d never heard before. “You’re evil, Ophelia. From the moment I became pregnant with you, I felt it. An evil force inside me.”
Her words were nothing, the same as the ashes she cried.
“I tried to help you but you wouldn’t do the one thing I needed you to do,” she spat her vile hatred at me from across the long hall.
Paige was panicking still, blowing the wind around Mother and me, making our hair flutter. She was screaming for me to run.
“I hate you,” my mother said. “I wished so hard that you died.” She laughed like a crazy person might. “And nothing worked!” She screamed at me, leaning forward as she took another step.
The large framed family photo of us in Spain changed as she walked past where it hung on the wall. Our faces were burned, just like the Jacobis’ in my dream.
Death was back and he was warning me.
I darted right, running down the stairs as a shot was fired, hitting the wall next to me. But I didn’t stop, I jumped the last few stairs and escaped to the right as another shot fired.
“Come back here, you little bitch!” she raged like a banshee. “Come and avenge your friend. I killed her!”
“RUN!” I screamed, warning everyone in the house.
Guards rushed toward me.
“She’s got a gun! Mother’s here in the house, get out!” I sprinted for the TV room, not bothering to explain. I unlocked the French door and bolted, screaming, “Runnnnnn!”
When I was far enough away that I could see her coming if she chased me, I turned around. Laertes was with me but Horatio wasn’t. I scanned in the other direction, checking for him, but all I found was s
moke coming from the far wing where my bedroom was. The dream clicked in my mind. It had never been Elsinore burning.
It was my house.
I assumed it was Elsinore because of the portrait.
The Jacobis were linked to this, I didn’t know how, but they were.
Shots rang out in the distance, but Laertes and I didn’t budge. “Is that a fire?” he asked, running his hands through his hair and trying to catch his breath. “The crazy bitch lit the house on fire!”
“She wanted me to die,” I repeated her words with no emotion.
“I’ll kill her first.” Laertes held me to him and we watched as the flames became higher and brighter in the windows. Glass smashed. People ran every which way, screaming and fleeing from the doors and balconies.
But not Horatio.
Or Mother.
“Where’s Horatio? I thought he was right behind me. We need to go get him,” Laertes said and started to walk to the house.
“I can’t go back,” I admitted though it hurt to see him going bravely toward the fire. I was a coward. A fact I already knew.
Laertes dialed 911 for the second time in a day as he continued walking.
“You guys okay?” one of the guards called out to us as he ran in our direction.
“My friend Horatio is inside still.” Laertes shrieked.
“We’ll get him out! You stay here!” he shouted and ran back toward the house.
Laertes paused, glancing back at me. Neither of us moved. I couldn’t. Fear mixed with a disgusting little piece of hope that my own mother might burn to death in our house and slithered about inside me.
And just like the nightmare, I was standing on the grass in my bare feet. The house was burning, and I felt indifferent. Numb and lost and detached.
I reached down into my pocket, feeling the USB Horatio had given us. It was there.
Paige appeared next to me. She flickered the same way as always, but there was something different about her.
“You okay?” I asked quietly so Laertes wouldn’t hear.
