“That’s impossible,” Jeremy says. “That technology has only been shared with a few, privileged individuals—all of whom I trust with my life. I don’t have extra collars just floating around, Lilly.”
“Then explain what I saw,” I challenge.
Jeremy exhales and rubs the bridge of his nose. “I don’t know what you saw,” he says. “But I have a way of finding out.” His eyes move to the corner of the ceiling.
“You have cameras in here?” I exclaim. “That means they just recorded everything…everything you and I did?”
“Oh, don’t act so affronted,” he snarls. “Of course I have cameras here. Security is vital. I have cameras on every floor, in every room, of this building. I gave you control over the inside of my house. Don’t expect me to do the same here.”
“I don’t’ expect that,” I say softly, looking at my feet.
“Then when you’re done playing games with me—when you’re done trying to test me—we can go and see exactly what got you so riled up.”
“Okay,” I say. “Let’s do it. Maybe then you’ll believe me.”
Jeremy leads us out the back door, down a series of halls, and into a small surveillance room. It’s locked away behind two heavy metal doors.
The room is dark. The only illumination comes from the screens glowing around me. They cast a blue hue over the space.
Jeremy approaches one and keys in his access code.
“Now,” he says, turning to me, “when did this happen? When did the man approach you?”
“Just before I came to you,” I say.
“Where?”
“By the elevators on the 18th floor. I was about to leave.”
“Hmm,” Jeremy’s fingers make a few keystrokes, and the main display goes to the camera overlooking the elevators on the 18th floor. He rewinds the tape and points to the screen. “There you are,” he says.
“Just wait,” I tell him.
I watch, scanning the people milling around me on the screen for sign of Hugh. The elevator doors open. Some people get in; some get out.
I remember the moment. I almost stepped onto the elevator before realizing it was going up, not down. It wasn’t long after that I felt that hand touch my arm.
I go up on my toes, anticipation building. “There!” I say, spotting a man moving through the crowd toward me. “There! That’s him.”
Sure enough, the man reaches me and touches my arm. His back is to the camera, so we can’t see his face.
Jeremy looks over his shoulder at me. His forehead is marred by a deep frown line.
“Lilly,” he says slowly. “That’s Simon, my driver.”
“What? No it’s—” I cut off. The Lilly on the screen starts to follow the man. Together, they turn toward the camera. I see his face.
Jeremy is right. It is Simon. It is his driver.
But that’s not who I was speaking to!
The surveillance room spins. I feel dizzy. Short of breath. Like I’ve been submerged in a pool of thick, murky liquid, and am looking out at the world from behind an aquarium lens.
Jeremy taps a few keys. The video display changes to track my progress with Simon down the hall.
We walk into a room. Not the one I remember entering.
Jeremy pauses the tape and looks at me. “This is what had you upset?” he asks. There’s an undertone of grave disappointment in his voice.
I try to steady my nerves, but they’re beyond frazzled. “I…I don’t know what to say,” I blubber.
“I sent Simon to get you, Lilly. He was supposed to relay a message to you that I would be delayed tonight. That I wouldn’t make the trip home.” Jeremy’s eyes narrow oh-so-slightly. “Let’s see what happens next.”
The camera showing the inside of the room lights up the screen. There’s Simon, sitting behind a desk…A small one, not nearly so grand as I remember. And there—my stomach gives an uneasy lurch—am I, sitting across from him, both our faces clear as day in the recording.
I watch in silence, dumbfounded. It feels like I’m losing my grip on reality. In my mind’s eye, I have no recollection of what is transpiring on-screen. I remember Hugh—what he said, what he told me, his office, his face—not Simon.
Then why the hell is the video showing something else entirely?
There’s no audio, but Simon and I are conversing. It’s a conversation that does not exist in my head. He slides something across the table to me. My eyes latch onto the object—and some small degree of faith in my own sanity is restored.
The thing he slides across the table—the thing that I pick up—is a rectangular manila envelope.
The one with all the photographs inside.
“There,” I exclaim. “There, you see that? That envelope held the photographs I was telling you about. The ones of us on the beach, on the island!”
“Yes, that’s right,” Jeremy says. Letting the tape pause, he reaches into his jacket and takes out the exact same rectangular, manila envelope. “Photographs that I had made as a souvenir for you.”
He extends it to me. I take it from him in a daze. My fingers brush the outside paper lining, but they feel like someone else’s fingers. Someone else’s hands.
“I asked Simon,” Jeremy says patiently, “to give those to you so you could choose your favorites. I was intending on having them blown up and framed.”
I take the photographs out. I flip through them, searching for the lewd night vision ones.
There are none.
Jeremy glances at the screen. It shows me, collected, composed, shaking hands with Simon and exiting the room.
He switches cameras. This one shows me walking calmly toward the elevators, envelope tucked under one arm. I hit the call button and get in. The doors close, hiding me from view. And the camera of the hallway continues to play.
Jeremy turns to me. I stare.
“Is that all, Lilly?” he asks.
I…I don’t know what to say. Have I completely lost it? Have I cracked, mentally, and gone insane?
Have I plummeted into the same dark void that holds my father?
I need…I don’t know what I need. A reprieve. Solace. Isolation, where I can think. Because the memories in my head are both clear and vivid. I remember meeting Hugh. I remember going into his office. I remember his warning to me.
Most of all, I remember the raw shock and horror I felt when he revealed the collar.
But none of that matches what I just saw on screen.
“This is crazy,” I murmur.
“Is it?” Jeremy asks. He crosses his arms and looks me up and down. “I think you’ve just had a long couple of days. I told you before what can happen when you internalize too much. There’s pressure building inside you, Lilly. Even if you can’t see it, I can. It’s taking hold of you. You mustn’t let it. You mustn’t let it consume you. You’re stronger than that, I know.
“But you can’t do it on your own. You need my help. You need to tell me what’s really wrong. You need to trust me. These fits of hysteria are not you. They are not the woman I fell in love with.”
“Don’t!” I jab an angry finger at him. My world feels like it’s collapsing on all sides. “Don’t say that! Remember your promise to me!”
Jeremy holds his hands up, palms facing me, in a placating gesture. “I’m sorry. That was a slip…intentional, perhaps, but a slip nonetheless. But why am I so bound to my word, when you so easily disregard yours?”
“What are you talking about?” I ask.
“About the truth,” he emphasizes. “You still have not told me where you learned that name. Blackthorne.”
“I did—“
“You did not!” he snaps. “I’ve given you chances, Lilly, time and time again. Still you insist on perpetrating the lie. Look at your phone.”
“What?”
“Look at your fucking phone!”
I cower back. With trembling hands I take out my cell phone.
“It’s still routed to mine,” Jere
my says. “Every text you receive, every call you make, I see. I may have lifted your restrictions, Lilly, but I am no fool. I know there are times when you still need to be watched.
“Turn it on,” he demands. “The last text you got, from your friend Fey. Open it, and tell me what it says. Read it out to me, Lilly. There’s no more hiding, for you.”
My fingers fumble over the touch screen. I manage to pull up the messaging app.
There’s a text, sitting there, marked as ‘read’. From Fey. But I have no recollection of ever opening it. Of even receiving it.
It consists of a single line:
Jeremy’s father: Hugh Blackthorne.
Chapter Six
The ride back to the mansion is long and silent.
Jeremy sits across from me in the back. He stares out the window the whole time, lost in deep contemplation.
Something far worse than mere tension pervades the car. It’s almost as if Jeremy is just as aware of my crumbling sanity as I am. It feels like we’re both in mourning. Mourning what, I don’t know: perhaps a loss of the woman I am supposed to be.
But something doesn’t feel right. It’s not just the tingling discomfort from knowing what I thought I experienced and what actually occurred were two disparate things.
Does an insane woman realize that she’s insane? Or is it like Jeremy told me: more of a gradual build-up, like a festering disease inside you? Manifested in episodes such as the one I’ve just had that come up without warning?
Mentally, I keep going over everything that happened after I felt that tug on my elbow. I’ve done it so many times, and considered what the tape showed so many times, that the two occurrences are starting to blur. The video tells me that one set of events happened. My memory tells me something else.
It feels like I’m lost in a lucid dream. But I’m only barely aware whether I am dreaming or not. Physical things—the car seat against my back, the purse under my legs—feel like they might evaporate at a single touch.
It’s almost like I’m floating. Going through the motions, affecting a normal exterior, but inside?
Inside, I’m drowning.
It’s not because of Jeremy, either. Other than that outburst in the surveillance room, the worst I’ve gotten from him is silence.
I look at him surreptitiously. What must he think of me right now? That I’m a liar and a fraud, that’s what. That the strength he found so alluring was nothing more than an illusion. A façade. A charade. That he made a mistake bringing me into his company. That he made a mistake setting me free.
My thoughts, right now, are far worse. I can’t get over the crushing feeling that I’ve blundered badly and lost my chance. One week was all I had to worm my way into Stonehart Industries, and I screwed it up.
I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. For Jeremy to inform me that somebody of my limited mental capacity does not belong in his company. For him to simply burn my employment contract the way he did my surety one.
We arrive at the mansion. I haven’t been here for so long that it feels like I’m a stranger. Jeremy opens the door for me, still silent, still brooding. The tension grows.
I can smell food aromas from the dining room. They make my mouth water and I realize I haven’t eaten all day. Maybe it’s lack of nourishment that’s playing tricks with my mind.
Then again: no. I know it’s not. I’ve been hungry before. I’ve been starved before. All at the hands of the man I’m now trailing, entirely of my own free will, through his mansion.
We sit at the table and eat. All through the silence, I can feel Jeremy’s eyes on me. Weighing. Considering. Deliberating.
I can’t take it anymore. “Where’s Rose?” I blurt out suddenly. She and I still have unfinished business from way back when.
“I sent Rose and Charles home so that we wouldn’t be bothered when we returned,” Jeremy tells me. “I didn’t want you to feel the added pressure of dealing with Rose in your current…” His lips twist in slight distaste. “…Fragility.”
The urge to disagree, to protest that I’m not ‘fragile’, surges up inside of me. I almost act on it, too, before letting it fall by the wayside.
I let it go because I haven’t a clue of what’s going on. I thought that when I was released from the contract, I’d be free, but now I find myself in shackles much worse: I am a prisoner of my own mind.
“Hmm,” Jeremy intones, in thought. Maybe his comment was meant as a provocation. Maybe he was trying to get a rise out of me.
Whatever. I can’t read into what he wants. Not when I harbor so much uncertainty about my own judgment.
We finish eating. He stands. I do the same.
Without a word, he starts toward the stairs. I get there before him. They are closer to me, from my side of the table.
Just as I place my foot on the first step, I feel Jeremy pause.
“I have to do work,” he says. “I won’t be coming up. Sleep. Get some rest. I can tell that you need it.”
He reaches up, and places one hand on my shoulder in an uncomfortably father-like gesture of compassion. He pats the spot.
“Don’t worry about what happened,” he says. “Tomorrow is a new day. I’m sure you’ll be up to par once more when the sun rises.”
And then he turns and walks away. I’m left standing, alone and dazed, looking after him.
Chapter Seven
Nightmares fill my sleep.
All of them center around the collar, and Hugh. Then my father comes up, too. I dream it’s Paul sitting across from me at the table, that it’s Paul who offers the collar to me.
Is what I experienced the first step into his mental state of being? Is the delusion I saw and confused for reality the same as what he sees, when he plays with his imaginary tea sets?
Am I breaking because of external circumstances…or am I breaking simply because I am his daughter, and thus predisposed to it?
I wake up in a cold sweat. The rest of the night passes in thin, uneasy rest.
***
I open my eyes to bright sunlight flooding the room.
“Shit!” I curse, bolting up in bed. I overslept. What time is it? How late am I?
I start to scramble out of the sheets, when a familiar-though-unexpected voice greets me.
“You can relax, Miss Ryder. Mr. Stonehart took the courtesy of giving you a day off.”
My heart stops in my chest. Rose!
“He also told me,” she continues calmly, though clearly struggling to contain her distaste, “that I was to spend the day at your disposal, in order for us to work out—” She takes a deep, shuddery breath, “—lingering unpleasantness that I may have introduced into our relationship.”
I turn to her. She’s looking out the window as she speaks. “You hold the keys to the castle now. So to speak,” she tells me. “Although I obey only Mr. Stonehart, I cannot deny your new position of power in his home.”
“Are you going to tell me who you are, then?” I ask. “How you came to work for Jere—”
“Mr. Stonehart!” she hisses.
I raise my chin. “He’s Jeremy to me,” I proclaim. “If you still have a problem with that, then we have a long way to go.”
Rose sniffs.
I get out of bed, head held high, and regally walk to the bathroom. “I want to shower, first,” I announce. “Rose, I’m going to need a robe.”
I hold out one arm, not looking at her, either. A few seconds later, I feel the heavy wool deposited into my hand.
“Thank you,” I say formally. “You may wait in the kitchen for me. I’d like a fresh-brewed coffee when I come down.”
“Certainly, Miss Ryder,” Rose says, all-too-sweetly.
“Oh, and Rose?” I add before she leaves. “When I’m done, I expect to hear a full explanation of your behavior last time we saw each other. You’ve had enough time and space to consider what happened. I want to know the extent of your involvement in bringing me to Jeremy’s home.”
With that,
I walk into the bathroom and close the door, not waiting for her reply.
***
I take an extra-hot, extra-long shower. I’d like to think I do it to give Rose the courtesy to prepare, but I think the truth is: I’m just stalling.
A part of it is that I’m afraid. I’m afraid of finding out Rose’s true involvement in what’s happened to me. I’m afraid because if things are as I suspect—if she knew about what Jeremy was doing while he was still Stonehart—that it gives very little credit to my ability to make judgment calls about people. If she duped me—and I think she did—how can I trust my ability to get revenge?
Does it also mean that I have two people whom I must hold accountable for all the horrible things that I’ve experienced?
But worse than that—more frightening than all that—is where I stand in regards to…
Myself.
Jeremy obviously deems me incapable of returning to work. I hope the day off does not transition into two days, then three, then a week. I need to be within Stonehart Industries. I need to be there, to ingratiate myself into the company. I need to prove to Jeremy that I am strong, that I am capable, that he can trust me…
But, how many steps did I take back yesterday? He wouldn’t even speak to me after we left the office! The text from Fey, the one I have no recollection of getting, is the final, tangible bit of proof that whatever I think happened—as opposed to what actually happened—were two very, very different things.
Why would she text me that? After the way we left things, I doubted she would want to speak to me again. Besides, what difference does it make what Jeremy’s father’s name is? How would she even know that I didn’t know it?
Am I still meant to be her bridesmaid? Hah! I snort a laugh. That should be the absolute last concern on my mind.
The only semi-logical explanation I can come up with, regarding what happened to me yesterday, involves a toxic mix slowly building up inside me.
Stress and nerves were the first ingredients. I did not react well to Fey’s revelation on the phone Friday night. Jeremy was right: I internalized it. I spent the weekend locked away, refusing to acknowledge the implications of what I’d learned. Okay, so I was the victim of a revenge plot. The worst had already been done to me. Jeremy and I have moved on from there. Knowing the reason why I was taken did not have the effect I thought it would, back when I was first released from the dark. It did not make me hate Jeremy any more.
Uncovering You: The Complete Series (Mega Box Set) Page 62
