by Selena Kitt
“He didn’t like to talk about it.” Leanne looked quietly down at her plate.
“Hey, Mom made dessert.” Sarah got up from the table to bring a tray over from the kitchen counter. She put it in the middle with a smile. “Lemon bars.”
“I’m not supposed to but…” Tyler grinned, grabbing one. “What the hell.”
“Ty!” I sighed. “Sarah, I said no gluten.”
“Why can’t you have lemon bars?” Leanne frowned at me like I’d just stolen candy from a baby. “And what in the hell is gluten?”
That made all of us laugh. I let Tyler have a lemon bar—one wasn’t going to kill him.
“It’s this new diet the doc’s got me on.” Tyler licked lemon off his fingers. “I’ve already lost five pounds. Gotta cut out refined sugar. Which means no more Twizzlers.”
“Those are your favorite!” his mother exclaimed. “Or they used to be.”
“Yeah, still are.” Tyler gave a heavy sigh. “I miss those ropey red bastards.”
That made us all laugh, too.
After dinner, Sarah’s roommate, Anne, came home. Anne was a goth sort of girl with tattoos and piercings. She hated Trouble’s music and had no problem saying so, a fact that amused Tyler to no end, for some reason. She was just an outspoken sort of girl, and I had a feeling that Anne and Sarah were sort of a couple, although nothing had been officially announced.
Both Sarah’s brothers knew she was a lesbian—but I wasn’t so sure Sarah had told her mother yet.
We were playing a game of Jenga when Anne came home, and she kicked off her motorcycle boots, got a non-alcoholic beer out of the fridge, and jumped right in without missing a beat.
She was in the middle of taking a piece from the bottom of the stack, a ballsy move, when Anne asked Tyler’s mother, “Hey, can I ask… what happened?”
It took Leanne a moment to realize that the goth was talking to her. Anne pointed to the side of her own face to give her a clue while Sarah nudged and shushed her, nearly making the whole Jenga puzzle topple over.
“Oh, I don’t mind,” Leanne said, touching the scarred side of her face. Her gaze skipped from Sarah over to Tyler, and I saw the way Ty’s jaw tightened. “This was a warning.”
“A warning?” I glanced at Tyler, then Sarah. He looked angry. Sarah just looked pale and a little scared.
“Tyler told you about his father?” Leanne asked, glancing around our little circle. “He was a dealer, which is basically why I was with him in the first place. By the time I was really hooked, I found out he also ran a child prostitution ring. But he was sort of lower on the ladder. Kind of a little fish? There were much bigger fish over his head.”
I looked at Tyler again, feeling him stiffen beside me. Was this part of the story he hadn’t told me? He hadn’t mentioned his mother’s disfigurement—or how she came by it.
“About six months before my husband… died.” Leanne didn’t look at Tyler when she said that. “We got a visit from one of those big fish. He’d heard rumors that one of his best girls was thinking about leaving.”
Catherine, I thought. I knew from the look on Tyler’s face—and Sarah’s—that I’d guessed right.
“He came in and he threatened Joe, he threatened me. This big fish was… getting bigger all the time,” Leanne explained. “He was moving up the political ranks, and he didn’t want people to know all the dirty pies he had his fingers in.”
Tyler got up from the couch and his mother glanced up at him, frowning. He left the room, mumbling something about the bathroom, but I could tell he just didn’t want to hear the rest of the story.
“Anyway, this was our warning.” Leanne touched her cheek. “He put my face to the stove. And told us that if we ever told anyone that he was involved, he’d do much worse.”
“Wow.” Anne hugged her knees, contemplative. “So, did you ever tell?”
“No.” Leanne shook her head, giving a little, bitter laugh as she took a cigarette out and lit it. Sarah frowned at that, but she didn’t protest. “They offered me a deal, but I wouldn’t tell. I knew if I did, he’d just go after the kids.”
I looked at Leanne a little differently after that. She glanced down the hall, where Tyler had disappeared. Then she blew smoke out the side of her mouth and glanced at her daughter. Sarah sat cross-legged on the floor next to Anne, on the other side of the coffee table.
“He can’t hurt us anymore,” Sarah said, although the look on her face said something different. “Dante… that was his name, wasn’t it?”
“You remember him, Sarah?” Leanne’s eyebrows went up.
“He came around a lot when I was really little, I think.” Sarah mused. “Then he stopped. But I remember that time. When he burned you.”
“Yeah.” Leanne sighed. “Hard to forget.”
“Dante Marotta.” Tyler appeared at the end of the hallway, coming out of the shadows. I wondered what he’d overheard. “He’s the state prosecutor now, isn’t he?”
I gasped, covering my mouth with my hand at the sound. I’d just read something about him in the news, although I couldn’t remember what. Leanne stared at her son, incredulous. Had she thought they hadn’t remembered?
“Pretty sure he’s still got his sticky fingers in all those pies,” Tyler said bitterly, crossing the room to come sit by me on the couch. “Come on, let’s play Jenga.”
Later that night, after we’d come home from Sarah’s and showered off the smoke-smell—his mother had smoked like a chimney after she told us that story about how she got her scars—Tyler traced letters around my navel in bed and tried to make me guess what he was spelling.
“Klingon?” I guessed, giggling when he tickled me. “Come on, give me a hint!”
“Okay… the hint is… beautiful.” He rubbed his stubbly cheek on my belly, as if erasing the word. Then he traced it again.
“It’s not Klingon?”
He snorted, rolling his eyes.
“What? I’m sure to other Klingons, Lieutenant Worf is a hottie.”
“It’s Katie.” He traced it again and I smiled, watching his fingers make the letters around my belly button. “Now what’s this?”
I closed my eyes, concentrating, seeing the letters behind closed eyelids, feeling them leaving hot trails over my skin.
I-L-O-V-E-Y-O-U
All capitals.
“I love you, too,” I said, opening my eyes to meet his. “More than words.”
He came up to kiss me, soft and sweet, then he rested his head on my breasts, letting me stroke his hair.
“What a day.” He sighed, eyes closing.
“A good day?” I asked softly, probing just a little. We hadn’t talked about his reunion with his mother, and while I thought it had gone exceptionally well, I wanted to hear what he thought.
“I was gonna yell at her.” Tyler didn’t open his eyes, but a small smile turned up the corners of his mouth. “I had all this stuff in my head I wanted to say, about how it was her fault, how bad she fucked us all up. But when I saw her, I just…”
I nodded, remembering. “She’s your mother. And she loves you.”
“I didn’t know they offered her a deal,” he said, opening his eyes to look at me. So, he had heard that part of the conversation. “She could have given up Marotta and they would have let her walk.”
“But she didn’t.” I traced my fingers along his jawline. “I think, in her own way, she was trying to protect all of you. Even if she couldn’t stop using, you know?”
“Maybe.” His look was distant, thoughtful.
“Do you forgive her?” I asked softly. “I know she said some pretty awful things, after… the shooting.”
“I guess.” He shrugged one shoulder. “Honestly, I think I forgave her a long time ago. She was using, and in a lot of pain, emotionally. She didn’t have the easiest time, growing up.”
“It’s not really an excuse…” I made a face when he looked at me.
“No,” he agreed. “Not an excuse. Just
… spilled milk. That part of the past is over. I know she wishes she’d done things differently. We all do. But now what, you know?”
I nodded. Where did they all go from here? When Sarah had talked to me about it, she’d said something like, “I could hold a grudge… or I could have a mother. I have to decide which I want more.” And clearly, she’d made that choice.
“So, you’ve forgiven her,” I mused. “Now the question is, can you forgive yourself?”
“Ah.” Tyler lifted his head and looked at me. “There’s the rub.”
“I think it’s about time, don’t you?”
“For a rub?” His eyes sparkled as he grabbed my hips, moving so he was between my legs. “Oh yes, most definitely.”
I laughed. “Not that kind of rub!”
But then Tyler’s face was buried between my thighs, creating so much heat and friction I thought I would explode, and that was all the rub we could think about after that.
Chapter Nine
I saw the headline while I was out window shopping for a wedding dress, of all things. I hadn’t meant to stop. I met Sarah at the movies, after I’d gone to see the interior decorator—we went to see Magic Mike XXL—and then we drove to Starbucks.
While we were sitting there, drinking our lattes, we got to talking about the possibility of upcoming weddings. Between me and Tyler, Rob and Sabrina—which was still up in the air because Sabrina said she hadn’t talked to Rob since she went out on tour with Jimmy Voss.
“Let’s go look at wedding dresses,” Sarah suggested. “Panache Bridal is just down the street—and they have the new Vera Wang in the window!”
“I can’t afford Vera Wang,” I said, and that made her laugh.
“Trust me, you can afford it. Come on, we’ll just look!”
That’s how we ended up in the bridal shop, flipping through the dresses on the rack, occasionally pulling one down so I could hold it up and look at it against me in the mirror. There was another girl there with her mother, doing the same thing—flipping through dresses, taking one down on occasion. Her mother didn’t seem that interested though. She was too busy reading a tabloid newspaper, the kind you picked up on the end cap at the supermarket. I was surprised they still printed them—since everyone seemed to get their “news,” such as it was, from the Internet these days—but apparently some people still liked to read things in print.
“Do you think it’s true?” the mother asked the daughter.
“What?” The daughter didn’t even look back from the rack she was sorting through.
“Rob Burns. Says here they’ve uncovered some sort of juvenile record.”
“Rob Burns… from Trouble?” The daughter, who was about my age, looked back over her shoulder. “What kind of record?”
I met Sarah’s eyes, my heart stopping completely in my chest. This wasn’t happening. Not now. This couldn’t be happening. Things were finally looking up. Tyler had a series, he’d patched things up with his mother, we were planning a wedding. Granted, Sabrina and Rob were shaky, but we all knew it was just a matter of time before they made up again.
Sarah shook her head imperceptibly, but I had to look. I had to know.
“I’m sorry… did you say Rob Burns?” I asked the woman politely. “From Trouble?”
“Right here.” She folded the paper over and showed me the headline.
Trouble! Rock Star Rob Burns Kills Father!
“Can you believe it?” The woman shook her head. “Says here he was twelve-years-old. And his father ran some kind of… child prostitution ring?”
“What?” That got the daughter’s attention and she came over to look at the paper.
I had to get out of there. I dropped the ten-thousand-dollar dress I was holding in my hands—I didn’t even bother to hang it back up—and bolted. Sarah followed me, but I was halfway down the street, blindly looking for my car, trying to remember where I parked, when she caught up with me.
“This is bad,” I whispered, leaning against the side of a building. “Sarah, this is… really bad.”
“I know.” She looked as pale as I felt. “I’ll… I’ll call Rob. You…”
“Tyler,” I said, grabbing for my purse to dig out my cell phone. I had forgotten I set it on silent while we were in the movies. There were missed texts and calls by the dozens—from Rob, Arnie, Celeste. Even from Daisy. But nothing from Tyler. Just silence.
I called his cell phone first.
It rang. And rang. Then it went to message.
“Ty, baby, it’s me, it’s Katie.” I swallowed. Jesus Christ, what was I going to say? “Call me as soon as you get this. As soon as you get this!”
I hung up and tried calling the home phone.
It just rang, too. Tyler couldn’t be out. I had the damned car! He’d been asleep when I left. Had he called Jesse? Had Rob gone over to see him? I looked over at Sarah, wild-eyed, but she didn’t seem to be having any luck getting hold of anyone either.
He’s just taking a swim. That’s what I told myself as I tried to catch my breath. The ocean was right outside our back door, and he’d mumbled something about wanting to go for a swim when I left him this morning to meet Sarah at the movies. He hadn’t been at all interested in meeting with the interior decorator or going to see Magic Mike XXL. Go figure.
“I can’t reach Tyler,” I told Sarah, putting my phone back into my purse, but making sure the ringer was on now. “I’m going home.”
“I’ll follow you.” She looked sick to her stomach, which is exactly how I was feeling. The popcorn and latte mixture in my stomach was preparing to revolt.
I told myself, all the way home, that I was panicking for no reason. Tyler was fine. I’d burst into our bedroom and find him taking a nap. Or coming out of the shower, wrapped in a towel. Or maybe coming in with sand on his feet from a walk on the beach. He’d smile at me and cock his head and ask, “What’s up, baby?”
Oh hell, I didn’t want to tell him. But I also didn’t want him to find out from TMZ. I was going to have to break it to him, somehow. What would he do, how would he react? Rob was known for his outbursts. He kept a level head, most of the time, but when he got pushed to the edge, he just went ballistic. That was how he’d ruined a fifty-thousand-dollar guitar.
But Tyler was different. Tyler went quiet. He went inside. After his father’s death, he’d gone mute for almost a year. He didn’t say a word to anyone. Trauma forced Tyler to retreat. To escape.
No!
I refused to believe it, even as I pulled up to our security gate and punched in the code. Sarah was right behind me and pulled in, too, parking beside me on the driveway.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Sarah asked as we both went up the wide front steps. The front door wasn’t locked.
“Don’t say it,” I murmured, calling for Tyler as I opened the door.
“Ty!” Sarah called for him, too.
We’d hired a cleaning service who came in once a week, but we hadn’t gone so far as hiring a cook or a driver or any extra security, so I didn’t expect anyone but Tyler to be home.
“Check the kitchen and outside,” I told her, pointing toward the back of the house. “I’ll check our room.”
“Text me if you find him,” she called, already heading down the hall.
“Tyler!” I called his name, sprinting up the stairs, panting when I reached the top, telling myself I needed to find a good hot yoga class to get in better shape. “Ty!”
I listened for his answer, but there was none.
The master suite was at the end of the long hallway. The door was open. I went in, glancing around, looking for any signs of him, but it was quiet. His phone was sitting on the night table, and it vibrated. I went over to check it, and found my voice message, unheard, along with a bunch of other calls and texts. I hadn’t been the only one who’d been trying to reach him.
He must be in the water, I reasoned. That’s why the phone was still here. It was the only explanation. Relaxing, I sank
down onto the edge of our bed with a sigh, seeing his jeans on the floor, his shirt, too—another good sign he’d stripped down to go for a swim.
That’s when I saw the spoon sitting on the dresser.
Yogurt, I told myself. Or ice cream. Something sweet. He snuck it in here and…
I gave a low moan when I saw the needle next to the spoon.
I bolted for the bathroom, grabbing the handle, but it was locked.
Locked!
Sonofabitch!
“Ty!” I screamed his name. “Ty! Open the door!”
But there was no sound on the other side of it.
“Nooooo!” I screamed, bruising the hell out of my shoulder when I slammed against it. Then I remembered the paperclip. I’d accidentally locked myself out of the bathroom the first week we were here, and I’d fashioned a tool out of a big paperclip to stick through the little hole in the doorknob and trip open the lock.
I found it right where I’d left it, in my night table drawer. Except my hands were shaking, and I could barely thread the paperclip into the hole. Then, it felt like years before I felt something in the mechanism give and the lock pop.
“Tyler!” I cried, throwing open the door, and that’s when the world ended.
He probably would have died if Sarah hadn’t been there.
Or, rather, he probably would have stayed dead.
Because he was dead already.
I think it was my scream that brought Sarah running up the stairs. I couldn’t move. I was paralyzed with terror, like a mouse or rabbit cornered by a predator, unsure which way to go. The sight of Tyler on the tile, stretched out on his belly in front of the sink, foam coming from his mouth and nose, his eyes not fully closed, but partially open, was my death sentence. I couldn’t live without him. I didn’t know what to do.
“Katie!” The sharp sound of Sarah’s voice cut through my paralysis. She’d already called 911—she was still on the phone with them, talking to them and me at the same time. “Help me!”
Sarah pushed past me, putting her phone on the edge of the bathroom counter, feeling for Tyler’s pulse at his neck.
