by Kyra Davis
The ride to the hospital is not pleasant. Twice Lander has to ask his driver to pull over so Jessica can throw up, which really takes the elegance out of riding in a limo. I seriously doubt I’m going to want to have sex in here again.
Of course I’m happy to be away from Travis, but the very fact that I’m taking Jessica to the hospital begins to infuriate me. I’m now fairly sure that Jessica’s not going to die and that Travis was right, she probably would have lived through the night if left to herself. But still, I’ve never seen her this bad before, and if he’s wrong and she is in mortal danger, I may have just blown the best setup I could have asked for. If she had died because her husband wouldn’t help her, all I would have had to do was make it look like Travis had tricked her into taking the meds (snuck them in her Advil bottle, or just emptied a few capsules into her flask). That combined with him refusing to take her to the emergency room when she started turning blue and presto!—instant murder charge.
But no. I got soppy and weak! And now Jessica gets to torment the world for another day and once again I have to reformulate my plan. The absurdity of it affects me like a cheap amphetamine. I’m antsy and irritable and intensely disappointed in myself. I always thought my anger made me tough, mature, efficient . . . but being faced with so many of my own shortcomings brings out another side of me. I don’t feel like a woman who can plan a battle. I feel like a girl who wants to pound her fists against the wall and scream.
And to make matters worse, Travis is onto me and if I don’t figure out an alternative soon, I’ll have to sleep with him or give up on the whole thing.
Of course, he didn’t say I actually had to sleep with him. He just said I had to sleep with someone who isn’t Lander. Theoretically, if we could procure him, I could pass this loyalty check by going down on Ryan Gosling. But here’s another horrible truth: I don’t want to go down on Ryan Gosling. I don’t even want Ryan Gosling to go down on me!
And there are only two kinds of women who don’t want Ryan Gosling to go down on them: lesbians and women who are in love with somebody else.
As Jessica dry heaves in the corner I squeeze my eyes closed, silently cursing her while simultaneously berating myself. How awful is it that deceiving and manipulating Lander makes me feel weak and uncertain, while holding him makes me feel confident and strong? How did this happen?
When we get to the hospital, Lander takes care of everything. He really didn’t need me at all, not even to fill out the paperwork, which he does swiftly and with little emotion.
“All right,” he says, turning to me when they have wheeled Jessica away and hooked her up with the appropriate IVs and whatnot. “Let’s go.”
“We’re not going to wait with her?” I ask with a sigh of relief.
“Good God, no.” He takes my arm and leads me toward the exit. “The woman is a walking, talking public service warning.”
I can’t help but laugh at that.
This man can always make me laugh.
We get in the limo and go back to his place, neither of us speaking. When we eventually get back to his penthouse we both walk, somewhat numbly, to the living room. I have my purse, my shopping bag, and the toiletries I used last night, but I don’t have clothes for work tomorrow, which means that if I stay here I’ll have to get up early and go back to my apartment . . . which is probably good. I have thousands of dollars sitting in there unattended.
“Would it be inappropriate to offer you a drink?” he asks doubtfully.
“I think I’ll stick to Perrier tonight. Public service warning, remember?”
He smiles and excuses himself, returning shortly with two glasses of sparkling water garnished with slices of lime.
I stare down into my drink. “Will they send her to rehab?”
“Well, they’ll suggest it, but they can’t force her. It’s not like she was brought in for disorderly conduct or a DUI. The police have no jurisdiction to get involved in this and Travis will certainly talk her out of it if she’s tempted to get help.”
“He’ll talk her out of it? That’s a pretty damning accusation,” I mutter.
“No.” He sits down on the couch and crosses his ankle over his knee. “It’s just an obvious observation.”
“Why doesn’t he just divorce her?”
Lander doesn’t answer right away and then sips his water before saying, “He has his reasons.”
I stare at Lander and then turn toward the window. He knows his brother is encouraging his wife to kill herself, accidentally or otherwise, and he’s not going to do a thing about it other than take her to the hospital if he happens to get a call. When he told me he was a worse person than I am he might have actually been onto something.
I simply can’t be in love with him.
“What’s in the bag?” he asks, gesturing to it with his glass.
“I got the dress today. The dress you paid for.”
“Can I see it?”
“You’ll see it at the dinner.”
Lander smiles, amused by my refusal. “Did you happen to have the chance to mention Talebi to Travis?”
“Yes . . . it made him very nervous.”
Lander chuckles and takes another sip. “Come here.”
I walk over and sit by his side, staring out at the grayish black sky of the city. So I don’t have the stomach to let Jessica die. I can still go with plan B and help her disappear. I won’t even have to lie. Clearly her husband really does want to kill her, so maybe I just have to point that out and then suggest that it would be a good idea to get the hell out of Dodge. I’m sure I can pin her disappearance on Travis. Trying to make Travis look evil is like trying to make Putin look homophobic. It’s just not hard to do.
And Lander’s complicit in all of it. He’s an accessory, he’s an enabler.
And I don’t care. I don’t want to hurt him. I know he’s not innocent, but he’s not guilty either. Not the way Travis and Jessica are. Not the way his father is. I may not have all the details, but I now know this man. He’s like me. He’ll bend the rules a little to help his family, even when they screw up. He harbors anger and brutality and unwavering ambition; he finds satisfaction in the destruction of his enemies. But when he’s asked to take a woman he dislikes to the hospital, he does it.
We have the same strengths; we have the same weaknesses. We fit.
When he slips his arm over my shoulders, my heart rate immediately increases. I want this man.
“I know you’ve had a hard day,” he murmurs as he kisses my ear, just the way I like it, making me flush.
“Lander,” I whisper, although I don’t actually have anything more to say. He kisses my hair, my shoulder. I close my eyes, allowing myself to get lost in the tenderness of it. It’s going to be okay. I’ve got to believe that. I have to believe that I can have my justice and still find a way to be with him. I have to have this.
Prince Charming may not be forgiving . . . but he doesn’t necessarily have to know that there’s anything to forgive either. I must make this work.
I turn toward him and our eyes lock, and he leans in just as his phone rings. He smiles and rests his forehead against mine. “Just one moment,” he says and gets up to grab the phone, which he left on the bar on the other side of the room. When he stares down at the screen his expression changes.
“Lander?” I ask, but he holds up his hand for silence as he puts the phone to his ear.
“Hello, Father. I didn’t expect to hear from you tonight.”
I’m immediately alert. This is a conversation I want to hear. But Lander walks down the hall, into his office, and closes himself in.
Frustrated, I follow him and press my ear against the door, but all I can hear is murmuring and the sound of rustling papers.
Grudgingly I walk back to the living room and take a seat. It could be that they’re talking about Jessica, or maybe Edmund’s just calling to say hi.
But I doubt it. I’ve seen no evidence that Lander and his father have that kind of relationship.
I stare at the photo. It’s by far the most disturbing of all of Lander’s drawings. The man with the wolflike teeth and eyes is staring down at the other man, who is sleeping at his feet . . . or maybe he’s not sleeping.
Maybe he’s a victim.
I pull out a pen and a discarded receipt from my bag and start to work on it again.
YELLOW FINK DECENCIES.
Probably not.
OWL KNEELS DEFICIENCY.
Unlikely.
It goes on like this for a while. Lander’s conversation stretches on and I try combination after combination. The sense of urgency I had while trying to solve the other anagrams isn’t here now. I don’t want to trap Lander. I don’t even want to believe there’s a reason to. I just want to know him.
When there’s no more room on the receipt paper, I crumple it up, dump it into my purse, and pull out one of Travis’s business cards. I stare at the picture again and then try the word we.
I sigh and glance back toward the hall. What the hell could they be talking about for this long? Lander’s manners normally wouldn’t let him go on like this with a guest waiting.
SILENCED
That sounds promising. I bite my lip and examine the letters that are left. There’s still an O. And an L. And an F and an E . . .
My heart stops and the entire room suddenly gets very, very cold.
I stare down at my hand. I’m shaking . . . more than I was after that confrontation with Micah and Javier. I can barely keep hold of the pen. Still I manage to write the letters down, each one shakier than the next. It’s unlikely that anyone else would be able to even read my handwriting.
But I can read it. I can read each word perfectly. I know the solution to the anagram.
E.’S. W.O.L.F.L.I.K.E. I.N.D.E.C.E.N.C.Y.
WE SILENCED NICK FOLEY.
I feel my stomach lurch in a sudden and violent cramp.
It lurches again and I have to run to the bathroom. Dry-heaving as I kneel over the toilet, I’m unable to purge myself of this new evil. There’s a buzzing in my ears that’s so loud it’s impossible to believe that it exists only in my head.
I was fooling myself. There can be no question about it now. Lander was involved in Nick Foley’s death. He was responsible for setting my mother up. He knew what was happening. He knew the truth.
And he never spoke it.
Sitting on the bathroom floor I find that I can’t get up. My legs have no strength in them. This shouldn’t be affecting me this way. I knew what I was doing when I seduced Lander. I knew who he was, I knew what he did.
But on a very deep level I had stopped believing it. I stopped believing in his guilt.
I was only supposed to have sex with him, but somewhere along the line my heart got involved.
Of all the ways I’ve failed my mother, this is by far my biggest betrayal. It was bad enough when I turned away from her when I thought she was guilty. But now I know that she was innocent and I’ve been fantasizing about riding off into the sunset with a man who is basically her murderer.
“Bell?” I hear Lander’s voice moving down the hallway. I stay curled up in a ball. I know I need to get myself together, but how can I do that? How can I be here? How can I walk out of this room and let that man touch me?
“Bell?” Now his voice is farther away, probably in the living room. I force myself to my feet and lean over the sink before splashing cold water on my face.
Pull it together, pull it together, pull it together.
I look up, stare at my reflection; water is dripping from my chin.
I can’t be here.
I hear footsteps coming back down the hall. Coming toward me.
Quickly I pat my face dry and try to compose myself, only to find that composure is completely beyond my grasp.
I can’t be here.
“Bell?” His voice is soft this time, and it’s right outside the door.
I open my mouth to tell him to wait, but no sound comes out. I watch the doorknob turn, stupefied and almost not understanding what I’m seeing. I take a step back as Lander pushes the door open. His expression is calm, knowing, and almost sympathetic.
“Bell,” he says. And then he holds up my phone, the picture of his anagram still on the screen, and in his other hand is the business card with the solution.
Nick Foley’s name is illegible. But We Silenced isn’t. And that’s all he really needs to see to know that I got the answer.
In a moment of panic I have been inexcusably careless.
And it’s going to cost me everything.
He puts the items down on the bathroom counter and reaches for me, but I step back again. I can’t focus my eyes. Lander is nothing more than a blur of color. He’s a stranger, a dazzling monster. I’ve never known him at all.
“It’s all right, Bell,” he says calmly.
I shake my head, take another step back. I wanted to be with this man.
I thought I loved him . . . I fell in love with a monster.
“Bell?” he says again and then takes a deep breath. “No, that’s wrong. I should call you Adoncia.”
I blanch.
Adoncia. A Spanish name that means sweet. My name.
He’s been playing with me. Toying with the girl whose mother he essentially killed.
He made me fall in love with him when all I wanted was to destroy him.
I look down at his hand, still extended, waiting for me to take it.
And something in me just snaps.
Taking a large step forward, feeling all my rage, gathering up all of my warrior’s heart, I punch him in the face.
Lander reels back in surprise, but I’m not done. I lunge at him, claws out, but he grabs my wrist and we go whirling into the hall. Lander knows how to fight, but I’ve taken him by surprise. And here’s the thing: I know how to fight too.
He presses me against the wall, restraining my arms. “Listen! Not everything is as it seems,” he begins, but before he can finish, I slam my foot down on top of his, aiming for the instep. I can immediately tell that I haven’t quite hit the right spot—nothing breaks—but still he’s clearly in pain and his grip loosens just enough for me to free myself and punch him again, this time in the gut.
Again he grabs me, and as I struggle against him we fall to the floor. In some corner of my mind I’m beginning to understand that my real advantage is that he’s trying not to hurt me. Weakness; his gallantry doesn’t mean a damn thing to me now. We roll around in the narrow hallway as he tries to restrain me and I try to kill him. I scratch at his face, drawing blood. I aim a knee at his groin, but he twists to evade me. I think about the knives in the kitchen. I think about my early fantasies of stabbing him with a corkscrew.
I want his blood on my hands.
I manage to turn on my side and try slipping away to where I can grab a weapon, but Lander’s shock has worn off and he immediately slams me onto my stomach, my cheek pressed hard against the floor. He holds me there as I struggle and growl.
“Adoncia,” he says, breathing heavily. “We need to talk. You will let me talk to you.”
chapter fifteen
In the dining room Lander stands across from me, leaning against the closed door that would give me my freedom, holding an ice pack against the side of his face. He’s brought in his sketchbook, which now sits on the empty table.
Everything in me still screams attack. But I no longer have the element of surprise. I know I can’t beat him head-on. It’s why I’ve been trying for a strike from the shadows.
I’ve truly failed.
“I’d like to leave now,” I say, my voice dripping with anger and frustration.
“No.”
I hate the way he says the word. So calm and matter-of-fact. A
s if he isn’t holding me against my will.
I look around me. It’s not a big mystery why he brought me into this room instead of the others. There’s nothing in here that can be used as a weapon.
“It was about ten years ago,” Lander begins. “That’s when I first met your mother.”
I look down at my nails and think about how lovely it would be to dig them into his skin once more. How lovely it would be to gouge out his eyes.
“My father asked me to come to see him at his town house,” he continues. “He told me ahead of time that if he wasn’t there I should let myself in and wait for him, which I did. A few minutes after I arrived, Nick Foley’s wife, Jenna, showed up. I don’t know why. I hadn’t been expecting her to join us. But she told me that my father had invited her, which was odd because I didn’t realize that she and my father were close.”
I bite down on my lip until I taste the blood. This man needs to pay.
Lander leans his back against the door, reminding me that I’m trapped in here. “I was too distracted by my own problems to give it much thought,” he says. “My father had left my mother a month before, and three weeks after that I learned she had cancer. I had to tell him. I assumed he would help her through it.”
I don’t answer. I don’t really care. I just want to kill him and leave.
“So there I was, making awkward small talk with Jenna while we waited for my father, and then, much to our surprise, in comes my father’s new housekeeper. And as it turns out, she and Jenna knew each other. And that wasn’t a good thing.”
For the first time I look up from my nails.
“I didn’t know their history at the time, but it quickly became clear that Jenna had recently discovered your mother’s affair with Nick . . . Adoncia, I’m sorry, but your mother didn’t handle herself well.”
“Do not call me Adoncia,” I say tersely, hating the way the name sounds on his lips.
“Your mother said things that, well, later would sound incriminating. I had to ask her to leave. A few weeks later Nick was killed and I testified. My testimony only dealt with that one argument. The prosecutors, as they do, helped the jury draw conclusions from that.”
