Lavish Obsession

by Charlotte Byrd

  I take a few deep breaths and stop shouting. If whatever I say will be used against me, then I will not say another word until I speak with my lawyer.

  As they take me to one holding cell and then move me to another, they treat me with kid gloves. It doesn’t feel like it at the time, but in retrospect, I know that they aren’t being hard on me.

  Not yet.

  They want me to confess.

  They bring me hot tea and biscuits and when I say that I’m hungry for something more substantial, they even bring me lobster ravioli.

  As I eat, the first detective comes in and tries to become my friend. He’s friendly and nice, kind even.

  He wants me to trust him.

  I do, but that doesn’t mean that I would go so far as to give him any information.

  When he sees that his approach isn’t working, another one comes in.

  This one is old and tough and the kind that doesn’t seem to have much energy for bullshit.

  Not that I’m into bullshitting myself. Before completely angering him by shutting down his line of questioning, I simply listen and eat, fast.

  When I take my last bite and down a few sips of tea, I finally look up to him and tell him that I have nothing to say to him and that I want to talk to a lawyer.

  His anger explodes out of him, and he grabs my plate and smashes it against the wall. I’m glad that I got to finish my meal first.

  Another detective comes in.

  This time it’s a woman.

  She’s tall and gorgeous and looks a bit like an actress.

  She may very well be a real police officer, but I wouldn’t put anything past my father.

  She flirts with me. Touches my arm. Sympathizes with me.

  Again, I don’t fall for the bait.

  They all have different approaches, but they all have the same purpose, to get me to talk.

  They need my confession to seal the deal.

  No, thank you.

  If they want my blood, they will have to work for it, much harder than this.

  My attorney finally comes to see me hours later, maybe even a whole day later. I’m not really sure.

  Time back there in the holding area was even more confusing.

  Looking back, I now know that it was the waiting that made it so difficult.

  When you are waiting for something and you have no idea how long you will have to wait, time becomes interminable.

  All I wanted was to go back to the hour before they came for me.

  What would I change if I could?

  Everything.

  For one thing, I wouldn’t be there.

  As soon as we were alone, I’d take Everly and run as far away from this place as I could.

  I’d take one of the boats to the neighboring island of Hamilton and then catch a flight from there. They have a few each day and they aren’t as closely tracked as the flights from York. I’d also pay the pilot extra to keep quiet.

  Why didn’t I do this earlier?

  I have asked myself this question a number of times before and I don’t really have an answer.

  Fear is a part of it.

  But it’s also something else.

  Faith.

  Belief.

  Despite everything, I still had the trust that my father felt something for me.

  Despite everything, a part of me believed that my father could never hurt me. Oh, how foolish I was.

  My throat tingles again and I let out a cough.

  I hope it doesn’t turn into a spell and, for once, it doesn’t.

  I cough twice and then it’s over.

  I can breathe again, even though my chest feels tight.

  A few days ago, I t here running a fever, covered in sweat.

  At home, I would’ve changed the sheets and my clothes and taken a shower to make myself feel a little better.

  But here, I just wrapped myself up in the threadbare blanket and waited for the shakes to go away.

  In the throes of the fever, my mind focuses on only one thing, Everly.

  She is my everything.

  She is the only reason I keep going.

  Besides my pangs of regret, which creep up into my thoughts every now and then, there are other things, too.

  There are the questions of what could’ve happened.

  How is it that Dagger is dead if I wasn’t the one who killed him?

  I know why they think it’s me.

  I’m the one with the motive.

  If they think that I found out the truth about Alicia’s death, then I would be their number one suspect.

  But I know for certain that I didn’t kill him.

  So, how did he die?

  And why?

  Chapter 6 - Everly

  While I wait…

  The walls are closing in around me.

  I sit on the edge of my bed with my arms planted firmly around my knees.

  Then I feel the texture of my leggings in between my fingertips.

  It’s soft and elastic, bouncing back with each motion as I pull it away and snap it back in place.

  It’s strange to say, but I feel like there’s a sense of hopefulness to this elasticity.

  It’s the ability to take a hit and bounce back.

  It’s the kind of hopefulness that I thought I had only a bit ago.

  I place my head on top of my knees and close my eyes.

  The scene in the shower keeps running over and over again in my head.

  They came for him.

  They barged in.

  They arrested him.

  It has to be a mistake, but it sure doesn’t feel like it.

  You do not just barge in on the Prince of York in a compromising position with his fiancée unless you are sure that you are arresting the right person.

  My thoughts run in circles over everything that happened.

  Mirabelle was so sure when she said what she said.

  Her words come back to me immediately.

  I didn’t know who Christopher Weider was until she told me that his nickname was Dagger.

  “Easton killed him to avenge the death of his ex, Alicia,” she said.

  I broke down when I heard that, and tears started to roll down my cheeks as my thoughts went back to that moment.

  Why would he do that?

  He made a promise to me.

  I hear Easton’s voice in my head.

  “There is no point in revenge,” he said.

  He is certain, and confident, and self-assured.

  I believe him.

  I trust him.

  I think that he is being wise and above all this.

  But what if there was another reason for him saying that?

  What if he said that because Dagger was dead already?

  That thought had occurred to me briefly before.

  It was the flash of a realization that I had while Mirabelle had her body draped around mine for comfort.

  And now that I’m alone in my room, it comes back again.

  It’s haunting me, trying to make me dwell on something I don’t want to think about.

  I want to believe that I know Easton.

  I want to believe that because I love him.

  But how well do we really know the ones who we are closest to?

  Some people say that everyone has secrets.

  Perhaps, that’s true.

  The only problem is that I don’t really have any from him.

  I was never one to keep secrets from those I loved and it’s hard for me to imagine someone doing that to me.

  But what do I really know about Easton?

  We haven’t had enough time together in the real world to really get to know each other as people.

  There’s yet another alternative, of course.

  He may not be a liar in general.

  He may be the person that I got to know and love.

  And he may have this one secret.

  Perhaps he did kill Dagger to avenge his first love, and, perhaps, h
e didn’t tell me about it to protect me.

  What good was it for me to know something like that?

  I take a deep breath.

  My tears have dried.

  My thoughts are becoming more clear.

  I still don’t know the truth, but I am eager to find out.

  I want to be angry with him for doing this to me, to us, for dashing my hopes of being happy - as happy as someone could be in York.

  But I can’t.

  The one thing that I do know about Easton is he isn’t a hothead.

  Whatever he did or didn’t do, he did with thought and deliberateness. And that’s what scares me.

  A knock at the door breaks me out of my trance.

  “Come in!”

  The door opens and Mirabelle comes in with a tray of food and a small teapot. She places it on the bed and sits down next to me.

  “Are you okay?”

  She puts her hand on top of mine.

  I shrug and reach for a piece of toast.

  It feels unfamiliar and almost tangy on my tongue.

  I haven’t had anything to eat in hours.

  “It’s going to be okay, right?” I ask, looking up at her for comfort.

  Somehow, over the last few weeks, Mirabelle has become something of a mother figure to me.

  She works for the King, but she has always shown me kindness and has given me sound advice and I really appreciate that.

  Besides some friends I have made here, who have become eliminated, she is probably the one who I am closest to of everyone.

  “It’s going to be okay, right?” I ask again, looking for some level of hope.

  She doesn’t make eye contact with me.

  Instead, she just squeezes my hand and looks away.

  She is getting on in years, but it is only around her eyes where her real age is somewhat visible.

  Looking at her now, she seemed to have aged overnight.

  “What’s wrong?” I demand to know.

  My whole body is starting to shake and I can’t make it stop.

  I shake her hand, but she still doesn’t respond.

  “Tell me!”

  Mirabelle takes a deep breath.

  “There’s going to be a trial,” she finally says. “I’m sorry.”

  I hear the words that she is saying, but I don’t understand.

  “What do you mean? What kind of trial?”

  “They are going to have a trial to determine if he is guilty or not guilty of killing Dagger.”

  “And is that…bad?” I ask.

  “It’s not good,” she says, shaking her head. “The jurors aren’t going to be exactly non-biased. His father is going to pick the presiding judge.”

  “But his father…the King…he surely doesn’t want his son, of all people, to be found guilty of killing someone. Right? I mean, Easton is the Prince of York.”

  “He is, yes. But Dagger was one of the King’s closest confidants. They go way back.”

  “But Easton is his son,” I whisper. “He won’t let his son be convicted.”

  Mirabelle shrugs, and in that shrug I see that she is on the verge of giving up hope.

  “I’m sorry, Everly,” she says, taking my hand in hers.

  Chapter 7 - Everly

  While we wait…

  Mirabelle stays with me even though she doesn’t have to.

  She wraps her arms around me and finally tells me that it’s all going to be okay.

  Of course, now it’s too late.

  I needed to hear that right in the beginning, then maybe I would’ve believed her.

  But now?

  What’s there to say now?

  “So, what do I do now?” I ask, pouring myself a cup of tea.

  I bite into a biscuit and look at her.

  The lines around her face straighten out, relaxing the tension.

  “You are not a suspect, of course.”

  I nod as if I understand, but in reality, this means very little to me.

  “You are a part of the court for now. So, you will get the chance to socialize and live here until…the trial.”

  “And then?”

  Mirabelle looks away.

  I take another bite of my biscuit and wait.

  She’s refusing to meet my eyes.

  Wait, a second. What’s going on here?

  “You are a very desirable woman,” she says after a few moments.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, that men want you.”

  “That has hardly ever been the case,” I say, waving my hand in her direction.

  “Well, you are here.”

  “What are you getting at?”

  “I’ve heard some rumors,” Mirabelle finally says. “Abbott has his eye on you.”

  I shake my head.

  “What do you mean?” I ask with my mouth full of food.

  “People are saying that if Easton is found guilty, then you will likely have to marry Abbott.”

  Abbott?

  No, no, no.

  Abbott is horrible.

  He’s menacing and dangerous and not in any of those good ways.

  He is the devil incarnate.

  He is capable of the darkest acts.

  “It’s just a rumor, but that’s what I heard. Please, let’s just take this one day at a time.”

  My whole body starts to shake.

  I can’t deal with this again.

  Suddenly, everything that happened to me in the dungeons comes flooding back.

  Every stare.

  Every move.

  Every stranger.

  They come in flashes and I cower into myself.

  I wrap my arms around my knees and bury my head in between.

  “It’s going to be okay, Everly,” Mirabelle says over and over again.

  She’s right next to me, but I can barely hear her.

  A loud alert goes off on her phone. She looks down at the screen and says that she has to go.

  I don’t stop rocking my body as I watch her leave the room.

  When the door closes behind her, it makes a loud clinking sound, which somehow pushes me out of my trance.

  No, I say to myself. No, hell, no.

  There’s no way in hell I’m marrying that sadist. But what can I do?

  I find myself pacing the room, trying to think of the possibilities.

  For one, I have to get out of this room.

  I have to stop acting as if I were guilty of something, and I have to stop bringing suspicion onto Easton.

  No, I will go downstairs and hold my head up high.

  He did nothing wrong because I know that he didn’t.

  I don’t know if I will be able to convince the king of this matter, but at least I will convince the others.

  The last thing I want to do is to go downstairs and talk to anyone about anything.

  But I have to.

  I need to pretend that everything is fine.

  And I need to start making my own connections in this place.

  Mirabelle tells me a lot, but I can’t just rely on her.

  All walls have ears, especially those with many rooms and many servants.

  People talk, and I need to hear them talking.

  I need friends.

  I can’t be a recluse if I want to survive.

  Information is power.

  Knowledge is power.

  I desperately need both.

  I take a deep breath and head straight to the bathroom.

  There I run a brush through my hair, toss on some dry shampoo so it actually looks moderately clean, and start putting on my face.

  Makeup has the ability to transform my mood and that’s exactly what I need.

  I need to feel beautiful because it’s the only way I’m going to exude that for others to feel as well.

  Foundation goes on first, followed by eyebrow tint, eyeliner, and mascara.

  I don’t know how to do false lashes, but I really wish I did.

  This time I
even opt for lipstick and a bit of blush.

  I look at myself in the mirror.

  I look pretty.

  Confident.

  If you look closely, you can probably see the remnants of tears, but only if you know what you’re looking for.

  I head to the closet and change into a different pair of yoga pants, the ones with the crisscross pattern at the bottom, as well as a clean tank top.

  I pull on a new long sleeve blouse, which hangs open at the bottom, to keep myself warm in the air-conditioned air.

  The clothes aren’t dramatically different, but they are new and clean and a sign that I’m not moping around in bed.

  I give myself one more glance over in the mirror.

  The outfit is casual, but well put together and my makeup is my warpaint.

  “You’re ready,” I say to myself. “Now, go kick some ass.”

  Chapter 8 - Everly

  While we compare stories…

  Of course, the idea of kicking ass and actually kicking ass are quite different creatures.

  I don’t have a plan.

  My goal is to just go mingle and make friends and talk to people I haven’t talked to yet.

  As an introvert who has a high level of anxiety when it comes to talking to people, this is quite a difficult task, but it’s enough for now.

  I am in the information gathering stage.

  I need to know things that I can’t possibly know unless I talk to them.

  The first person I encounter is one of the older female servants dressed in a gray jumpsuit with her hair up in a bun.

  I saw her before serving us dinner and collecting plates.

  I don’t know her name and she avoids eye contact with me.

  When I slow down to say something to her, she speeds up her walking pace and rushes past me.

  A moment later, she’s at the other side of the hallway.

  That went well, I say to myself.

  Luckily, in the large-open-floorplan kitchen, dining room, living room area I find my girls. Olivia is lying on the couch watching television.

  Savannah is making a shake and writing down food in her food journal and Teal is curled up with a book in a recliner.

  When I come in, Catalina comes from behind me and throws her arms around me.

  “Hey!” she whispers into my ear. “How are you?”