Public Secrets

by Nora Roberts

  glimpse in the hallway mirror. The deep, bold blue of the suede picked up the color of her eyes. “I have the last lot of prints from the tour. Da’s meeting me there so we can all argue about which ones are best.”

  “I’ve got a meeting with Lady Annabelle.” Bev rolled her eyes. Behind Emma, she glanced in the mirror, pausing to tighten her left earring. “I’m not sure if she wants me to decorate her parlor, or just pump me for information about how P.M. is in bed.”

  Emma tucked her portfolio under her arm. “You don’t think she already knows?”

  Bev considered, then grinned. “I’ll certainly find out soon enough.” She gave Emma a quick kiss on the cheek, then dashed.

  Moments later, Emma popped into her Aston Martin. She tried to imagine sweet, self-effacing P.M. with the brash, overdressed Lady Annabelle. She couldn’t. Then again, she’d never been able to see him with Angie Parks.

  She fought the traffic in grim, British style. She was glad that Drew and his band had signed with Pete Page. If anyone could help push Birdcage Walk to the top, it was Pete. Look what he’d done for Blackpool, she thought with a sneer. The man was making a bloody fortune doing commercials. She was well aware how furious Pete had been when Brian had refused to endorse products or lend his music to television ads—tossing away worldwide exposure and millions of pounds. But she was proud of him. Leave it to Blackpool, she thought nastily, then pulled into Stevie’s estate.

  She’d been pleased when he’d bought the old Victorian home and rolling grounds. He’d even taken up gardening and had appeared on Bev’s doorstep with book after book on roses, soil, and rock gardens. It was no longer a secret that his health was poor, but Pete, being Pete, had managed to keep the cause of it out of the press.

  Emma had been afraid the tour would exhaust Stevie, but he’d made it through. Now he was writing again, and gearing up to join Brian at some of the benefits her father could never say no to.

  Emma thought Brian was truly in his element now. Rock had embraced causes to its gritty bosom. In Europe and America, musicians were organizing to do something new with their talents. Benefits to aid causes from drought-ridden Ethiopia to the struggling farmers in America were as much a part of the eighties scene as political rallies and love-ins had been in the sixties. The glory, and arguably self-indulgent days, of Woodstock were over. Rockers had taken up the cause of humanity and were clasping it to their sweaty bosoms. She was proud to be a part of it, to record the changes, and her view of them.

  At the end of the walk a barrel of violas drooped in the full sun. With a shake of her head, Emma shifted them under the slanted shade of the eaves. Apparently, Stevie hadn’t read his garden books carefully enough.

  She pressed the doorbell. Since her father’s car was nowhere in sight, she hoped Stevie might feel up to taking her for a tour of his gardens.

  The housekeeper opened the door and eyed Emma with both impatience and distrust.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Freemont.”

  Mrs. Freemont’s dusty brown hair was secured in a no-nonsense bun. She might have been anywhere from forty to sixty and kept her sturdy, bullet-shaped body primly attired in good black wool. She had done day work for Stevie for over five years, mopped up his blood and vomit, carted out his empty bottles, and looked the other way when her housekeeping duties brought her in contact with suspicious-looking vials.

  Some might have been duped into believing she was devoted to her employer. The staunch Mrs. Freemont was only devoted to the hefty salary Stevie paid her in return for minding her own business.

  She sniffed as she opened the door for Emma. “He’s around somewhere. Probably bed. I ain’t got to the upstairs yet.”

  Old bat, Emma thought, but smiled politely. “That’s all right. He’s expecting me.”

  “None of my concern,” Mrs. Freemont said righteously and went off to attack some defenseless table with her dustcloth.

  “Don’t worry about a thing,” Emma said to the empty hall. “I’ll just find my own way up.”

  She started up the old oak stairs, unbuttoning her jacket as she went. “Stevie! Make yourself decent. I haven’t all day.”

  It was a huge barn of a house, which was one of the reasons it appealed to Emma. The paneling along the wide second-floor corridor was mahogany; the gleaming brass fixtures and glass globes bolted to it had once burned gas. It made her think of the old Ingrid Bergman movie in which Boyer, playing against type, had plotted to drive his innocent wife mad. The comparison might have been apt, but for the fact that Stevie had amused himself by hanging Warhol and Dalí lithographs between the lights.

  She could hear the music, and with a sigh, Emma knocked, shook her stinging knuckles, and knocked again.

  “Come on, Stevie. Rise and shine.”

  When he didn’t answer, she sent up one quick but fervent prayer that he was alone, then pushed open the door.

  “Stevie?”

  The room was empty—the shades drawn and the air stale. She frowned at the rumpled bed, and at the half bottle of Jack Daniel’s on the eighteenth-century table beside it. Swearing, she marched over and lifted it, but she was too late to save the glossy old cherry from the white ring. Still, she set the bottle on a crumpled copy of Billboard before she put her hands on her hips.

  All the progress he’d made, she thought, and now he’d pumped whiskey into his belly. Why couldn’t he understand that he’d already damaged himself so badly that the booze was just as much a killer to him as the drugs.

  So he’d gotten drunk last night, she thought as she sent the shades flapping up and pushed windows open. Then he’d probably crawled off to be sick. Asleep on the bathroom floor, she decided. And if he’d caught his death of cold, it would be well deserved. She’d be damned if she’d feel sorry for him.

  She pushed open the adjoining door.

  Blood. And sickness. And urine. The stench had her stumbling back, gagging. She felt the bile rush up her throat, stared at the red and gray spots that danced in front of her eyes. She fell against the stereo, sending the needle raking across the vinyl. The sudden silence hit her like a slap. On a cry of alarm, she rushed forward to bend over the body sprawled on the floor.

  He was naked, and so cold. Terrified, she heaved until she turned him onto his back. She saw the syringe, and the revolver.

  “No. Oh God, no.” Panicked, she searched for a wound, then for a pulse. She found the first, but it was only the tragic marks of the needle. The sob burst out of her when she found the second, faint and delicate, at his throat.

  “Stevie, oh God, Stevie, what have you done?”

  She raced to the doorway, to the top of the stairs. “Call an ambulance!” she screamed. “Call a bloody ambulance, and hurry!”

  As she ran back, she tore the quilt from the bed to cover him. His face was the color of paste made from water and ashes. The sight of it, of his skin still smeared with blood from the needle, terrified her more than his deathlike stillness. On his forehead, just above his eyebrows, was a nasty gash. Snatching a washcloth, she pressed it against the wound.

  When he was covered, she began to slap her open palm over his face.

  “Wake up, goddamn you, Stevie. Wake up. I’m not going to let you die this way.” She shook him, slapped him, then broke down and wept against his chest. Her stomach pitched and she bit down furiously on nausea. “Please, please, please,” she repeated, like a chant. She remembered how Darren had been found, lying alone, a syringe on the turkey rug. “No. No. You’re not going to die on me.” She stroked his hair, then pressed her fingers against his throat again. This time there was nothing.

  “Bastard!” She shouted at him, then tossed the quilt aside and began pumping on his frail chest. “You’re not going to do this to me, to Da, to all of us.” She pulled his mouth open to breathe into it, then shifted back to push with the heels of her hands. “You hear me? Stevie,” she panted. “You come back.”

  She pushed the air from her lungs to his, pumped the thin and
frail area between his breasts. Threatening, pleading, cursing, she fought to pull him back. The tile bit into her knees, but she didn’t notice. So intent was she on his face, on praying for one flicker of life, that she forgot where she was. Memories scrambled through her head—of Stevie in white, singing in the garden. Of him standing onstage, colored lights and smoke, dragging feverish music from a six-string guitar. Board games in front of the fire. An arm around her shoulders, and a teasing question.

  Who’s the best, Emmy luv?

  Only one dear thought ran over and over in her mind. She would not lose someone else she loved this way, this useless way.

  The sweat was rolling off her when she heard the footsteps running up the stairs.

  “In here. Hurry. Oh God, Da!”

  “Oh sweet Jesus.” He was down beside her in an instant.

  “I found him—he was alive. Then he stopped breathing.” The muscles in her arms screamed as she continued to pump. “The ambulance. Did she call the ambulance?”

  “She called Pete. Got us on his car phone.”

  “Goddammit. I told her to call an ambulance. He needs an ambulance.” Her head flashed up, her eyes met Pete’s. “Damn you, can’t you see he’s going to die if he doesn’t get help? Call.”

  He nodded. He had no intention of calling an ambulance. A public ambulance. But instead, walked quickly to phone a discreet and very private clinic.

  “Stop, Emma. Stop, he’s breathing.” I can’t—

  Brian took her arms, felt the muscles tremble. “You’ve done it, baby. He’s breathing.”

  Dazed, she stared down at the shallow but steady rise and fall of Stevie’s chest.

  SOMETIMES HE SCREAMED. Sometimes he cried. While Stevie’s body detoxed, new pains snuck in. Little imps of torment, pulsing in the abscesses along his arms, in the tender flesh he’d abused—between his toes, in his groin. They capered along his skin, first hot, then cold. He could see them, sometimes he could actually see them, with their tiny red eyes and hungry mouths, tap-dancing over his body before they plunged their teeth into him.

  Hysteria would follow, with a manic strength that forced the staff to restrain him to the bed. Then he would become quiet, descend into an almost trancelike state where he would stare for hours on end at a single spot on the wall.

  When he lapsed into those long silences, he would remember drifting, peacefully, painlessly. Then Emma’s voice, angry, hurt, frightened, demanding that he come back. And he had. Then there had been pain again, and no peace at all.

  He begged whoever was in the room with him to let him go, to score for him. He promised outrageous amounts of money then swore viciously when his demands went unanswered. He didn’t want to come back to the world of the living. When he refused to eat, they fed him through a tube.

  They used an antihypertensive medication to trick his brain into believing he wasn’t going cold turkey. With that they mixed naltrexone, a nonaddicting opiate antagonist to make his body believe he wasn’t getting high. Stevie craved the seductive hazy escape of heroin and the quick buzz of cocaine.

  He was rarely alone, but detested and feared even a ten-minute span of solitude. In those moments, it would be only him and the machines that hummed and grumbled in response to his vital signs.

  After two weeks he quieted. But he also became sly. He would wait them out—the tight-lipped bastards that had put him here. He would eat his fruit and vegetables, he would smile and answer all their questions. He would lie to the pretty, cool-eyed psychiatrist. Then he would get out.

  He dreamed of scoring again, of filling his veins with that glorious combination of Chinese white and top-grade snow. All that beautiful white powder. He fantasized about it—huge, mountainous piles of beautiful white powder heaped on silver platters. He would scoop it up with both hands, fill himself with it.

  He dreamed of killing them, the doctors, the nurses. He dreamed of killing himself Then he would weep again.

  They said he’d damaged his heart, and his liver. They said he was anemic and were ruthlessly dealing with that, and his cross-addiction to heroin and coke. No one called him a junkie. They said he had an addictive personality.

  It had been hard not to laugh at that. So he had an addictive personality. No shit, Sherlock. All he wanted was for them to leave him and his personality alone. He was the best fucking guitarist in the world, and had been for twenty years. He was forty-five and twenty-year-old girls still wanted the honor of a few hours in his bed. He was rich, filthy rich. He had a Lamborghini, a Rolls. He bought motorcycles like potato chips. He had a twenty-acre estate in London, a villa in Paris, and a hilltop hideaway in San Francisco. He’d like to see any of the smart-mouthed nurses or holier-than-thou doctors top that.

  Had they ever stood onstage and had ten thousand people scream for them? No. But he had. They were jealous, all of them jealous. That’s why they kept him here, away from his fans, away from his music, away from his drugs.

  Wallowing in self-pity, he stared at the room. The walls were papered in a soft blue and gray floral. A thick gray carpet covered the floor, and the windows faced south. The matching drapes tried to disguise the fact that the windows were barred. There was a color-coordinated sitting area across the room, two cushioned sofas, and a spoon-back chair. Festive fall flowers sat in a wicker basket on the coffee table. A tasteful reproduction of a nineteenth-century wardrobe held a television, VCR, and stereo system. An entertainment center, Stevie thought bitterly. He wasn’t entertained.

  Why had they left him alone so long? Why was he alone?

  He felt his breath back up, then release slowly as the door opened.

  Visit after visit, Brian tried not to be shocked by his friend’s appearance. He didn’t want to dwell on the limp, graying hair, the lines sunk deep around Stevie’s eyes and mouth. He didn’t want to look at the thin, brittle body—a body that had shrunken with misuse as a man’s shrinks with age.

  Most of all, he didn’t want to look at Stevie and see his own future. A rich, pampered, and helpless old man.

  “How’s it going?”

  Because he was grateful for the company, Stevie’s smile was genuine. “Oh, it’s a barrel of laughs in here. You ought to join me.”

  The idea sent a slice of fear up Brian’s spine. “Then you’d have competition for all these long-legged nurses.” He offered a five-pound box of Godiva, a fix for the junkie’s notorious sweet tooth. “You’re looking almost human, son.”

  “Yeah. I think Dr. Matthews’s real name is Frankenstein. So what’s going on in the real world?”

  They talked uneasily, and much too politely, while Stevie worked his way steadily through the chocolate-coated creams and nuts in the box.

  “Pete hasn’t been by in a while,” Stevie said at length.

  “He’s pretty tied up.” There was no use mentioning that Pete had his hands full dealing with the press, and the promoters. Devastation’s American leg of the tour had been canceled.

  “You mean he’s pissed.”

  “Some.” Brian smiled and wished desperately for a cigarette. And a drink. “When has that ever bothered you?”

  “It doesn’t.” But it did. Every slight hurt like a seeping wound. “I don’t know what he’s being so tight-assed about. He got out the press release. Viral pneumonia complicated by exhaustion, right?”

  “It seemed the best way,” Brian began.

  “Sure, sure, no problem. No fucking problem. Wouldn’t want the public to know old Stevie mixed one speedball too many and thought about blowing his brains out.”

  “Come on, Stevie.”

  “Hey, it’s cool.” He blinked back tears of self-pity. “Only it burns me, Bri, really burns me. He doesn’t want to come see the junkie. He doled out the smack when he was afraid I couldn’t perform without it, but now he doesn’t want to see me.”

  “You never told me Pete scored drugs for you.”

  Stevie dropped his eyes. That had been a little secret. There was always one more litt
le secret. “Now and then, when things got tight and my sources dried up. The show must go on, right? The fucking show always goes on. So he’d score a little H for me, all very disapproving, then when the show was over, he’d put me back in one of these places.”

  “None of us knew it was going to get this bad.”

  “No, none of us knew.” He began to drum his fingers on the top of the candy box. “Remember Woodstock, Bri? Christ, what a time. You and me sitting in the woods, dropping acid, tripping out, listening to the music. Jesus, what music. How’d we get here?”

  “I wish I knew.” Brian dug his hands out of his pockets, then pushed them in again. “Look, Stevie, you’re going to pull out of this. Hell, you’re right in fashion now. Everybody’s drying out, cleaning out.” He worked up another smile. “It’s the eighties thing to do.”

  “That’s me, always on the cutting edge.” He grabbed Brian’s hand. “Listen, it’s hard, you know. Man, it’s really hard.”

  “I know.”

  “Man, you can’t know ’cause you’re not here.” He swallowed the anger and resentment. He couldn’t afford to show either now. “Maybe I’ll do it this time, Bri, but I need help.”

  “That’s why you’re here.”

  “Okay, okay, so I’m here.” Goddammit, he was sick of platitudes and good wishes. “But it’s not enough. I need something, Bri, just a taste of something. You could slip in a couple grams of coke—just to get me through.”

  It wasn’t the first time he’d asked. With a sinking heart, Brian knew it wouldn’t be the last. “I can’t do it, Stevie.”

  “Christ, Bri, just a couple grams. Nothing major. All they give