by Kyra Davis
I knew White from the arrest.
I knew Edmund Gable from the time he had urged my mother to publicly fight for Nick Foley . . . a few weeks before she found Nick’s body.
Three separate events that all led to my mother’s downfall.
And now there they were, all together, their hands in their pockets, in their gorgeous suits, free in the streets—laughing.
And for the first time since the trial I began to wonder about my mother’s supposed guilt.
Lander is moving slowly, each careful step bringing him a little bit closer. I back up a little more so that I’m now standing under the edge of a scaffold, making my position all the more discreet.
I can feel suspicion and concern emanating from him in equal measure. They vibrate through the narrow alley, bouncing off the graffitied walls like the echoes of a scream.
After I saw Lander and his crew outside HGVB, I started doing research. I spent hours in front of the library computer, poring over articles and court documents. Memories I had long since discarded found their way back to the forefront of my mind, but now they were weighted with new meaning and significance. Details that I hadn’t been able to make sense of when I was ten set off new alarm bells.
And slowly a new, horrible idea took hold:
What if my mother was innocent? What if I had wrongly turned on the one person in this world who loved me?
Yes, I had been fighting a one-woman war . . . but perhaps my mother had been an innocent civilian who’d been caught in the cross fire.
I could blame the Gables for giving me the ammunition to fight, but I’m the one who pulled the trigger.
If she was innocent, I was guilty.
I was the monster.
Lander is only a few feet away now. He reaches out to me in the shadows, stroking my cheek. So gentle, so sweet.
I close my eyes, my mind still in the past.
I became determined to set things right. I would get my mother an appeal. I vowed that when I visited her again it would be with news that I had found her a path to freedom. And maybe . . . maybe then she would forgive me. Or if not, then maybe at least she could recapture some of that love she once felt for me. Maybe I could scrape off this feeling of self-loathing with the edge of justice.
Maybe . . . maybe there was still hope.
Lander’s hands are in my hair. “What is it, Bell?” he asks softly, his voice barely carrying over the noise of the street only half a block away. “Where are you?” he asks.
I keep my eyes closed as I remember what it was like . . .
I took mountains of circumstantial evidence to the police. Evidence that pointed toward the Gables and away from my mother. I remember what it was like to be scorned by those officers. I remember the very moment they swept aside all my research and told me that my claims and accusations were nothing more than the wishful thinking of a child. I remember what it was like when lawyer after lawyer dismissed me, often refusing to see me at all. I remember how the ones who did see me smiled as they told me how much they charged, knowing damn well I couldn’t pay. I remember all the unanswered messages I left for my mother’s public defender.
I remember the feeling of failure and shame. I couldn’t face my mom—and just when I thought I could, just when I thought I had built up the nerve . . .
. . . she died.
She hung herself in her cell.
When I look down at my hands, it’s her blood I see, staining my nails, darkening my frustratingly long life line.
I trusted the word of strangers over my own mother’s pleas. I was just as guilty as Lander and Travis and Edmund. In a very real way we were all killers.
And now we all have to go.
My eyes fly open as Lander continues to stroke my hair. His brow is creased as he studies me, his eyes imploring me to explain the pain he sees in my expression.
With all my strength I push against his chest, taking him off guard. He falls back against the wall and I’m immediately on him, tearing at his shirt, biting at his neck. Around us are the ghosts of the past, the bones of the city, the reality behind the façades. And as Lander grabs me and whirls us around so that now I’m the one against the wall, I’m the one immobilized as he presses my arms above my head.
This is the violence of us.
His mouth is crushed against mine, hungry and needing. His hands reach under my skirt, pulling my panties down, letting them drop to my ankles where I impatiently kick them away. A cacophony of sound rolls down the alley from the street, encircling us and filling us with an energy much more primitive than the sophisticated restaurants and cocktail lounges only steps away.
But those things are the façades—the city’s pretenders. Lander and I can play the game, but we aren’t pretending tonight. We’re here, in the stripped-down, raw ruthlessness of the city—embracing the brutality that scores of mayors and gentrifiers have tried to erase.
But they can’t. They can hide the truth, dress up the history, cover up the savagery . . . but they can’t erase the past. You can’t erase what’s real.
I bite down gently on his lower lip. His hands slide down my arms, releasing some of the pressure. I take the opportunity to weave my fingers into his hair and then I pull, forcing him to look me in the eyes, just as he has so often asked me to do.
But there will be no asking tonight.
“We’re two of a kind,” I whisper, softening my grip, running my hands under his shirt, digging in my nails as he lifts me up. My hips are pressing into his hips, my feet supported on the shaky bars of the scaffolding as he holds me to him.
“Yes,” he breathes. “And that’s the danger of it.”
I smile, raising one hand to his neck as the other works on his belt. I can feel his erection underneath the fabric, and then I pull the fabric away and feel his length pressing against the inside of my thigh.
Ah, Lander, always ready to lend a hand to poor souls in need of delicious self-destruction.
I grab him by the shoulders as he enters me right here, in this alley, pressed up against the bones of the city as the sounds of the night vibrate through me.
My feet still on the scaffolding, I use my leverage to lift myself up and then press myself down onto him, arching my back, feeling him rubbing against me. He swiftly turns us around and I find myself having to wrap my legs around him in order to keep my balance. In seconds my back is once more pressed against the wall. I’m shaking as I continue to claw and bite. I hear him moaning as he thrusts inside me deeper and deeper.
How can people not see the brutal romance that beats through this city? How can they not see the raw strength and the bitter carnage? How can they not see the cruel history and the passionate victories? The lust, the desire, the anger?
How can they not see us?
But it doesn’t matter. In this moment, in the illuminating darkness, I see him. And he sees me.
He pushes even deeper inside and I call out, knowing that the city will absorb my cries, adding them to its own rhythmic melody. And I feel Lander fill me, feel him explode. I feel . . .
. . . everything.
In a moment I will have to lie to Lander. I will answer to my made-up name. I’ll hide my intentions and my ambitions.
But right now? Right now he’s holding me. Not some pseudonym. Me.
And I’m holding him.
In the city of the blind, we see.
chapter eight
Lander wanted me to go home with him, but I refused.
For just a moment everything had felt so raw, so real. If I were to lie next to him in his bed, we’d start to talk, and with the words would come all the old manipulations and deceptions. Just for one night I want to put all those words aside and savor this feeling. It’s funny because Micah knows my story but he doesn’t know anything about who I am. Lander doesn’t know a damn thing about my history . . . and yet he sees me with clearer eyes than anyone ever has. Sometimes I think that if all my interactions with Lander were in silence, he would
know everything. But with words I can throw him off and distract him from the truth he so clearly senses but can’t yet pinpoint.
So I sit in the back of a cab, replaying the events of the night as the driver rushes through the busy streets, breaking traffic laws like they’re nothing more than false promises.
I spent so much time studying Lander from afar, but none of that prepared me for the man he is. I don’t know if I hate him or love him . . . but then, I feel the same way about myself.
My cell rings in my handbag, and reluctantly I fish it out. Travis’s number flashes across the screen. I know I have to answer but I really don’t want to.
I let it ring again. When I started this game I had lumped all the Gables together. They were a singular enemy. But now I can see that my categorization of these men was much too simplistic. They’re all charged with the same crime, but if I were Lander I’d want to be tried separately.
My phone rings again. I squeeze my eyes closed and pick up, pressing it against my ear without saying a word.
“Bell? Is that you?”
No! I want to scream. I am not Bell! But instead I put a smile in my voice as I answer, “Yes, Mr. Gable, it’s me.”
“What did he say?”
I look out the window of the cab. On the sidewalk a woman laughs as a man waves his hands about, desperately trying to make some point. And over there is another man who looks homeless. He’s trying to sell a knockoff purse to a pampered child.
“Bell?”
The cab keeps moving and the faces keep changing. I spot a woman crying as she taps out a message on her phone. There’s a man in a suit walking past her, not seeing her at all.
Winners and losers. It’s the formula for the world.
“Bell, can you hear me?”
“Yes,” I say, my voice soft and appeasing. “But I think our connection is weak because you don’t seem to be able to hear me. I just said that Lander asked if you mentioned any names in my presence. He specifically asked if I’ve heard you mention the name Talebi.”
“Talebi?” His tone sounds more worried than confused . . . I’m definitely onto something.
“He thinks you’re involved with some people you shouldn’t be. But of course I didn’t tell him anything. Besides, you didn’t mention any names . . . except for L.J., of course, and I didn’t tell him anything about that.”
There’s a long silence on the phone.
“Oh,” I add as I look down at my nails. “He also asked me to check into your HGVB files . . . see if I can find any business correspondence in your private email account. I really think I should leave him.”
“No, no, he trusts you,” Travis says quietly. “The appointment I need you to accompany me to . . . the one at eight . . . I’m going to pick you up early so we can get a drink first and talk a few things over.”
“No need, Mr. Gable. I promise I won’t ever tell Lander a thing.”
“It’s more complicated than that, Bell.”
Now it’s my turn to fall silent as I wait for him to explain. But instead he just clears his throat. “I’ll pick you up at six forty-five from my place. Be sure Jessica doesn’t send you out on any errands at that time.”
“Very well, Mr. Gable.”
I hang up and turn my eyes back to the window. By the time I’m done, there will be so much distrust between the two brothers they won’t even consider turning to each other in their hour of need. They certainly won’t compare notes.
I lean back into the fake leather seat and close my eyes.
I like Lander. I really do. But we’re two of a kind. And so I believe, with all my heart, that he should know what it means to truly be like me.
And that means learning how to lose.
The next day, I spend the afternoon sorting through Jessica’s appointments, brainstorming ideas for a charity auction, and responding to the various invitations sent to her from assorted organizations. In the beginning of the day she reminds me a little bit of Pigpen, except instead of a haze of dirt around her she has this miasma of intoxication. Whether it’s only the prescription drugs that are allowing her to float through her sorrows or she’s adding a little something else to the mix is an open question. But as the afternoon wears on, she comes a bit closer to earth. And when she’s a little more lucid I begin to realize that Jessica is capable of being rational. She’s even got a sharp wit, with a sadness and bitterness that are even more mind-bending than the high she clearly prefers. At five, we’re in her home office and she’s listening to me read off her calendar for the next week.
“I can’t possibly go to David’s party,” she explains with a sigh as I list off yet another event she’s been invited to. “He’s in recovery and doesn’t serve alcohol at his events—and none of his friends are bearable when they’re sober. They’re not great when they’re drunk either, but at least then you can insult them without worrying about anyone remembering it in the morning.”
I laugh as I make a note to send her regrets.
Jessica cocks her head to the side as I turn back to the calendar. “Travis tells me that he’s taking you to dinner tonight?”
I look up from my work, surprised . . . although I shouldn’t be. Travis isn’t the kind of guy who would feel the need to offer any kind of reassurances to his wife, even when there’s nothing of note to hide.
“Mr. Gable is interested in investing in some Spanish start-up, but the CEO isn’t fluent in English so he’s bringing me along to translate,” I explain. “That’s all he told me, but it’s certainly not a social thing.”
Who knows, I think, it might be true. Although the litmus test he used to make the decision to bring me to this meeting—putting me through all that to see if I would buy cocaine for him without question or hesitation—suggests that the agenda will be a little darker than what one would normally expect to find in an investment meeting. At least I hope so.
Jessica smiles weakly and turns her eyes to the floor. “He made it seem like a date. Funny, isn’t it? That a husband would purposefully make a business meeting sound like a date when talking to his wife?” She laughs and smooths her white skirt with her perfectly manicured hands. “I suppose it’s also funny that I trust what you’re telling me more than I trust what he says. But then, you don’t seem to make a sport of hurting me. That makes you a more reliable source.”
I let her statement hang in the air between us for a moment before scooting my chair a little closer to hers. “Has he ever raised a hand to you, Jessica?”
Jessica looks up quickly. “No one’s ever asked me that.”
“Has he?”
She sucks in a sharp breath and looks away. “Once. He was . . . frustrated with me. Perhaps I was genuinely being frustrating . . . So hard to remember how these things start. But then he slapped me. Open hand, not a bruise to speak of. He just slapped me to get me in hand.”
“‘To get you in hand,’” I repeat.
Again Jessica laughs. “The way you say it . . . it all sounds so ominous. But that slap has never bothered me much. If another man had slapped me like that I could still love him. It’s the poison in his words . . . That’s what I can’t recover from.”
“Does he trust you?” I ask.
This time her laughter fills the room.
“But he used to trust you,” I press, “back in the beginning?”
The memory seems to quiet her. “Yes,” she finally says. “Once upon a time in a land far, far away.”
He trusted you when you lived in Brooklyn Heights, I think. Back when he asked you to testify against my mother and rewarded you with marriage into the family. Or is Brooklyn now a land far, far away?
But to her face I smile. “What would he do if you gave up his secrets now?”
She furrows her brow as if confused by the question.
“He’s awful to you,” I continue. “Surely you’ve thought about hitting back at least once. You don’t have a lot of ammunition and you’re not built for a brawl. But every woman know
s how to spill a secret. Just some embarrassing little detail whispered into the ear of the wife of some business associate? Just enough to make him squirm a little. God knows he’s earned it.”
The perpetually foggy expression Jessica wears clears; her eyes seem to sharpen as her mouth sets in a thin line.
“He’d kill me,” she says simply.
“I didn’t mean that you would have to spill a big secret . . . or even that he would ever have to find out that you were the leak . . .”
“He’d find out it was me. And it wouldn’t matter how big or small the secret was.” She leans forward, her eyes still on mine. “Do you think I’m telling you secrets, Bell? All my complaints about my husband, all the sad stories about my marriage, do you think I’m telling you anything the whole world can’t already see? Even the gossip columnists know it, but Travis has his connections. My little tragedies will never be printed, so I might as well sing them to whoever will listen. I can do that because my husband doesn’t care about those stories. Travis may not trust me, but that doesn’t mean I’m not trustworthy. I keep the secrets I’m entrusted with.”
“Because if you didn’t . . . he’d kill you?”
Again she looks away.
“Are you scared of him, Mrs. Gable?”
“Silly,” she says, her tone returning to the light notes of a few minutes ago. “Everybody should be scared of my husband.”
I nod and, given the change in her mood, turn back to the calendar. As I do so, I discreetly reach into my purse for my phone and turn off the record button.
Less than an hour later Travis arrives, and with barely a word to his wife he whisks me away to his “appointment.” We don’t speak on the limo ride up and out of the Upper East Side into neighborhoods that I know too well, but that Travis shouldn’t know at all. He’s on one side of the bench seat and I’m on the other, more than arm’s length from each other. He may like to leer but he has no interest in touching me here, in view of his driver.
So different from his brother. But I suspect that Travis finds his adventures through more troubling means.
