The Family Cross

by Gabrielle Ash

  “It’s okay,” the voice said. “I told Richard to get lost. Take your time.”

  I closed my eyes and focused. Popped Collar was dead. If he had been following me, he obviously no longer could. The teeth weren’t real. They couldn’t have been real because human beings didn’t have teeth like that.

  The blood had been real. The teeth were not, could not be, real.

  As the thought sank deeper into the wrinkles of my brain, my breathing slowed. Blood was human. While still horrific, I understood it.

  I pulled my gaze from the granite and looked in the mirror. Eliza, my secretary, held the wet towel to my neck.

  “Thank you,” I said and replaced her hand to hold the towel. More droplets slid down my back, and a piano solo drifted from the speaker overhead. “Did Richard tell you?”

  “Yeah.” Eliza leaned against the counter, teetering on the spikes of her stilettos. She had followed the dress code and wore a white dress: a slinky boat neck with a side pleat. It looked amazing against her cool umber skin, whereas mine only served to wash me out. “Well, he said you were overreacting about something. And he mentioned his mother. Not sure what that’s about.”

  I stood straight, pulling my shoulders back, and took a slow, steady stream of air into my nostrils. “Someone was murdered outside my condo.”

  Eliza’s amber eyes glistened beneath the fluorescents as she adjusted her glasses, tight curls bouncing on her head. “Excuse me? Murdered?”

  I nodded.

  “And Richard said you overreacted? Really?” Eliza rubbed her temples. She held no love for Richard, and unlike me, she wasn’t compelled to keep her feelings to herself. “God. What a jerk.”

  I pulled the towel off my neck. He had been more unpleasant than usual.

  “Do you want me to drive you home?” she asked.

  “I appreciate the offer, but my father will kill me if I don’t stay.” It was the truth. My friends growing up had all said that about their parents in jest, but a part of me always truly believed my father really would try to kill me. I never broke curfew or failed exams for this reason, and that fear had, unfortunately, followed me through college and into adulthood.

  “Did Mr. Ashby find a corpse? I don’t think so.” One of Eliza’s eyebrows shot up her forehead, and she pinned me with a hard stare. “He’ll get over it.”

  He wouldn’t.

  “I’m all right.” I wiped under my eyes. “Or, at least, I will be. Going home and stewing over it won’t make me feel better. And this is part of my job, so I need to stay.”

  Eliza snorted, walked over to the bathroom door, and threw the door open, almost sending the handle through the wall. She put a comforting hand on my back as we walked out, not batting an eye at the damage she’d almost done to the drywall.

  Unfortunately, Eliza had been mistaken, and she hadn’t run Richard off. He stood outside the bathroom door beside a six-foot flower arrangement of Easter lilies, yellow roses, and vines, glancing at the Rolex on his wrist with his jaw clenched. He wasn’t alone either.

  Fate saw fit to saddle me with two siblings. My oldest brother, Hudson, was everything I hated in a man: self-assured in a position he didn’t earn and had no business being in. The only thing he’d ever earned in his entire life was the boot he got from Dartmouth. His grades were so bad they couldn’t keep him, and that meant something when the student in question came from old money. The sexual assault accusation likely hadn’t helped him either.

  Hudson flashed his pearly whites and clapped a hand on Richard’s shoulder. I’d come to loathe his smile over the years. It was insincere and almost always accompanied by an unreasonable demand, and I was willing to bet it had been that way from the womb.

  “Done burying your head in the toilet?” Hudson asked with a chuckle. His honey-blond hair was mussed in that purposeful sort of way models wore in magazines. Hudson was an attractive person; I’d give him that. He had a certain way with words too, but not in a capacity that would help him in his day job.

  Eliza bristled beside me, but she kept her mouth shut because Hudson was her boss. While he was my boss too, he couldn’t fire me. My father wouldn’t let him.

  “Someone was murdered outside my home,” I said with a pointed stare, but it didn’t faze him. He slowly blinked and kept his lazy grin. “I don’t think it’s unreasonable to be upset.”

  “Upset? Sure. But you’re being dramatic.”

  “Someone was murdered,” I said again. “I’m not going to apologize for having a soul.”

  “You also have a brain, but don’t apologize for that either,” a new voice said. Hudson rolled his eyes. Richard’s hands stilled at his sides. “Hudson’s just jealous all he has to his name is a record and a child support payment every month.”

  My other sibling, Gerard, stopped walking when he reached my side. Unlike everyone else in my field of vision, his tuxedo was black.

  “Tell me, Hudson,” Gerard said after a long drink from the glass in his hand. Scotch. The burn in my nose was unmistakable. “Have you looked over my contracts yet? Or did you force them onto your intern?”

  Hudson’s eyes narrowed a fraction.

  “Oh, sorry, I meant delegate,” Gerard said. “Did you delegate my contracts to the intern? I know how you feel about that word.”

  The corner of Gerard’s mouth quirked, and he brought his glass to his lips again. He had a way with words too, but his particular brand was ruthless.

  He had reason to feel slighted. Our older sibling had gotten our father’s name, his position as chief operating officer, and more forgiveness than we’d ever received combined just for being born first. And, in my case, male. I had a suspicion my father would’ve liked me better if I had a Y-chromosome.

  “I’ll get to them on Monday,” Hudson said.

  “Sure you will.” Gerard turned his attention to me instead. His gaze shot from my shoes to my hair, finally stopping to linger on my eyes. His intervention shouldn’t have been surprising. Gerard had stumbled upon a corpse before, and he’d never gotten over it.

  Gerard’s gaze swung over to Richard, and his golden-brown hair grazed his chin. He’d gotten his darker hair from our mother and kept it long to irritate our father.

  “Oh, it’s you.” Gerard’s nose scrunched up a bit. If Richard’s body language bothered him, Gerard didn’t let it stop him. “You botched another account I secured two weeks ago. I got an email about it. I get all the contracts the company could ever need, and for some godforsaken reason, you’re always the accountant that gets my customers.”

  Gerard’s scathing tone had pulled both Hudson and Richard’s attention from me for the moment. I could’ve lit myself on fire, and I’m pretty sure all three of them would’ve remained unaware. Not that it really mattered. I wanted to leave all of them here and go home.

  The idea of home, my private and safe sanctuary, didn’t elicit the comfort I’d hoped for. The memory of what lay in wait outside my condominium violated that comfort and replaced it with an insidious fear, a darkness that swallowed the security one usually found in the familiar. Now home was where the body was slumped over. Right outside my building with teeth like needles and holes in his chest.

  Bile shot into my throat again.

  “Matilda.” Richard’s voice sliced through my subconscious. “We need to see my mother.”

  My shoulder jolted at his touch, like a pair of fangs had sunk into my skin.

  Teeth. Monster’s teeth.

  “Matilda.” Richard put his hand on my shoulder again as I realized what I’d done. Richard wasn’t Popped Collar. Richard didn’t have inhuman teeth. The furious burn under my eyes was probably the only thing that kept me from looking like a corpse.

  Richard, unperturbed, wrapped his fingers around my hand, and the soft skin of his palms reminded me of Coat Guy’s rough ones. What would Coat Guy say if he knew I was out in public after seeing my would-be stalker dead outside my home?

  I fought the urge to snort. Coat Guy w
ould probably tell me I was a stuck-up idiot, and given the circumstances, I’d probably deserve it.

  I muttered a quick good-bye to my brothers and Eliza before Richard pulled me away. He moved his fingers around my wrist and pulled my hand to his arm, tucking it right around his elbow like he always did. He looked over at me with a small smile.

  “You saw them, right?” I didn’t realize I had actually asked until Richard’s bicep tensed beneath my palm.

  “Saw what?” he asked, voice edged with annoyance.

  “You know,” I said right before an involuntary swallow. My throat was so unbearably dry. “The body. His teeth.”

  “Teeth? Most people have teeth, Matilda—”

  “No,” I interrupted. “They were sharp. Like a monster. I know you saw them too.”

  “A monster?” Richard scoffed and turned a little from his previous path along the wall, dragging me deeper into the ballroom and farther into the crowd of bustling people. “Are you listening to yourself?”

  My eyes burned, and my bottom lip puckered. The cool air from an overhead vent hit my cheeks, yet it did nothing to cool the hot scorch underneath my lashes. He saw it. He was right there.

  “Um,” I choked out as my heart threatened to bust right through my sternum. Spending one more moment with Richard’s insufferable ass was out of the question. “I need to throw up.”

  My Jimmy Choos scraped against the tile as I jerked my arm away from Richard. Oh, there would be consequences, but I’d deal with them later. My head wasn’t screwed on right, and the last thing I needed to do was make a mistake on company time out of fear.

  The room was too small, and there wasn’t anywhere to hide. The dead body was at home, but it was in the alley. I could run up to my condo and lock the door. A corpse couldn’t follow me into an elevator. Richard could, but I doubted he could break through a deadbolt.

  My arms scraped against several people as I strode through the ballroom. They might’ve noticed the shake in my chin, maybe not. I didn’t care. I couldn’t care, not after the night I had.

  I dodged another waiter, and a hand circled around my bicep.

  “You okay?”

  Gerard had never expressed concern on anyone’s behalf in my presence before, so I thought my panic had gotten the better of me when I heard his voice. But there he was—mouth pressed into a tight line and unkempt hair. There must’ve been something about my face that said I wasn’t okay because he put a hand on my lower back and pushed me toward the door.

  “I’m going to take you home,” he said, voice low.

  “No. You can’t,” I argued, but my feet didn’t stop moving. “You know what Father will do if two of his three children leave our biggest charity fundraiser of the year. I’ll take a cab.”

  “Like I give a damn what Milton says.” Gerard followed me across the threshold that led to the lobby with a hand still on my back.

  The summer heat thickened the air the closer we got to the coat check, but something else with an unpleasant edge came with it. Maybe it was the fear that long teeth were about to sink into my jugular, but the feeling of eyes drilling into my back made me turn my head toward the ballroom one last time.

  His presence had instilled a fear in me so deep, it was of little surprise I’d felt my father’s gaze. A white tuxedo, pressed and tailored to perfection, didn’t detract from the dread creeping upon my heart. His eyes, the same brown as mine, watched me intently from the threshold. The wrinkles pinched around his eyebrows and flexed tendons in his neck told me exactly how he felt about our leaving.

  The frown as I met his gaze sealed the deal.

  Four

  The crime scene was gone when Gerard’s Mercedes slowed to a stop in front of my condominium. Unlike most of the men in my life, he drove himself places. He’d spent quite a bit of money modifying his car, installing all sorts of upgrades like dark window tint and luxury rims. The slick leather underneath my thighs was custom, as was the paint job.

  I didn’t really care about his car though. It transported humans from point A to point B. Nothing a taxi couldn’t do.

  There were more important things to worry about.

  Milton Ashby wasn’t a forgiving man, and I’d pay for leaving the benefit with Gerard. Then there was stupid Richard treating me like an infant, something he’d only been able to attempt because I had allowed my father to interfere in my life. Then, more notably than all of it, was the corpse I stumbled upon less than an hour ago.

  I didn’t notice Gerard had gotten out of the car until he opened my door.

  “I guess they got it cleaned up,” Gerard said, words barely audible above the rush of cars driving past. It took me a moment to realize he was looking at the alley. He adjusted his glasses and raised his eyebrows at me.

  I stared at the alley. If I didn’t go look at the spot I’d left Popped Collar in, then I would worry about it all night. Gerard said nothing as I walked over to investigate, although I wouldn’t be surprised if he were devising ways to have me committed to the hospital without our father finding out.

  The pressure behind my sternum lessened when an empty alley greeted my eyeballs. Popped Collar and his teeth were gone.

  “Do you want me to take you up?” Gerard asked as he walked toward me. He stayed a few feet away, stiff in his movements, clearly uncomfortable. Truthfully, I was still shocked he’d offered to take me home. It had been at least a decade since we spent time together alone, so his awkward attempts at compassion were a surprise.

  “That’s all right,” I said, risking another look at the empty alley and committing it to memory. He was gone. Really gone. Stop worrying about it.

  “If you’re having second thoughts, you can stay at my place,” Gerard said, rubbing the back of his neck. His eyes were soft, pained, and I knew that even though we stood outside my condo, he’d been transported back to our family home and seventeen years into the past. “A few nights, if you need to.”

  Even though fear had overtaken most of my mind, I managed a small smile. We’d both stumbled upon the dead, and even though Gerard had a tendency to be a huge jerk, he wanted to make sure I had the care no one had bothered to bestow upon him. While the bloodied corpse of Popped Collar had rattled me to the core, I couldn’t fathom the emotional toll of finding the body of a parent.

  “I’ve probably gotten you in trouble. I don’t want to put you out any more than I already have.” I started my slow stride to the door of my building. It suddenly opened, and the night doorman poked his head out, black cap on his head. He’d been watching us through a window, although his attention was now on Gerard’s car.

  “I’ve already told you I don’t care what Milton thinks, and honestly, I appreciated the excuse to leave. I just wish you cared less,” Gerard said with an indifferent shrug. His gaze flickered up to look at my condominium sitting in the sky. “Since you’re set on staying here, are you sure you don’t want me to go up?”

  The doorman’s head still stuck out of the crack in the door. He was young, probably my age, and his toothy grin wouldn’t do much to deter any criminals. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. It didn’t matter. The criminal that had been following me, allegedly anyway, had been murdered a few hours ago. The toothy, baby-faced night doorman could protect my home from the more benign predators. He’d done it since I moved in.

  “No, it’s all right.” I reached forward to grab the hand hanging limp at his side. He didn’t pull away like I expected him to. He squeezed the ends of my fingers instead. “I really do appreciate you bringing me home.”

  Gerard sighed and pulled his hand away, strolling back over to the driver’s seat of his Mercedes without another word. A limp wave and unnecessary rev of his engine before he sped off were the only means of salutation I got.

  The doorman escorted me inside and to the elevator. He didn’t know it, but I was so thankful. Perhaps thankful wasn’t the right word. On a normal day I would’ve been thankful. Women were assaulted in broad daylight
all the time with no consequences, and it was always nice to know someone had your back, especially at night.

  Today I was relieved.

  The lack of the doorman’s presence left a lonely ache where confidence should’ve been as the elevator doors closed, and once alone inside my portable box, I fell into the wall with an embarrassing amount of force. Between Popped Collar and Richard, the day had been the worst in recent memory, and I was confident it would be for a long while.

  “You’re so stupid, Tilly,” I said to myself before I focused on maintaining a steady inhale and exhale. While Popped Collar being dead wasn’t my fault, the same couldn’t be said for my involvement with Richard. What I had hoped to deter from dating him, I wasn’t sure, but I knew it couldn’t be worth a lifetime of watching his jaw drop open and cringing every time he touched me.

  I’d just have to break it off with Richard, and my father would get over it.

  A sickness bloomed in the depths of my stomach at the thought of my father. Milton Ashby didn’t get over things. Milton Ashby hid his displeasure for years, waiting for the opportune moment to bring it up again to tear someone’s life apart. Sharing blood and a last name wouldn’t save me either.

  The elevator doors peeled apart, and I trotted out as quickly as I could manage in my stilettos. There was only one other condo on my floor, and the woman who owned it wasn’t there often. I should’ve been alone. I usually was, but the weight of eyes on my back and raised hair on my neck said otherwise.

  Or maybe it was just crippling paranoia.

  I pulled my key from my clutch and stuck it in the lock. The long whine of wood creaking beneath weight sent my heart in my throat as I continued to wrestle with the doorknob. I looked behind me, both relieved and surprised to see nothing there. I’d grown up in an old home in the Upper East Side, a monstrous townhome originally built in the early nineteen hundreds. I knew what footsteps on wood floors sounded like.