The Obsession

by Nora Roberts

  than two years. He sent me papers from a lawyer for a divorce, and a letter that said such cruel and awful things. But some of those things are true. I am weak and stupid. I am useless. I didn’t protect my children when I had the chance. Seth, you did that. You did that, Harry. You gave us a home, and I know you’ll look after Naomi and Mason, do right by them as I never have. Mason, you’re so smart, and you made me proud every day. I hope one day you’ll understand why Mama had to go away. Naomi, I’m not strong and brave like you. It’s so hard to try to be. I’m so tired, honey. I just want to go to sleep. You’ll look after Mason, and both of you will listen to Seth and Harry. You’ll have a better life now. One day you’ll know that’s true. One day you’ll forgive me.

  “Why should I forgive her? She left us because he didn’t want her anymore? She came home and took all those pills because she was tired?”

  “Naomi—”

  “No, no! Don’t make excuses. You’re the police. You didn’t know her, you don’t know me or any of us. But you know what this is?” She threw the bag on her bed, fisted her hands as if she could fight something. “It’s what a coward does. He killed her. He killed her just like he killed all those other women. But they didn’t have a choice. She did. She let it happen. She let him kill her when we were all right here.”

  “You’re right. I think you’re right. But there are other means of torture besides physical. I can’t tell you how to feel, but I can tell you I think you have a right to be angry. You have a right to be mad as hell. When some of the mad wears off, I hope you’ll talk to someone.”

  “Another therapist. I’m done with that. Done. A lot of good it did her.”

  “You’re not your mother. But if you don’t want to talk to a therapist, to a friend, to a priest, to your uncle.” She took a card out of her pocket. “You can talk to me.”

  “You’re the second cop who’s given me a card and said that.”

  “Did you talk to the other cop?”

  “We moved away.”

  “Well.” Rossini set the card on Naomi’s dresser, then walked over and picked up the evidence bag. “Cops are good listeners. Detective Angela Rossini. Anytime.”

  —

  So three days later, Naomi put on the black dress. She used the curling iron because her mother had liked it best when she wore her hair long with some waves in it. She didn’t give any of her angry words to Seth—he looked sickly and shaken. She didn’t give them to Mason, not with the hollow look in his eyes. Or to Harry, who seemed to need to tend to all of them at once.

  She kept them inside, where they crawled through her like fiery ants, and went to the restaurant.

  They’d closed for the day to hold the memorial. Harry had done most of the work—insisted on it. Putting out flowers and photos, choosing music, preparing food.

  Her grandparents came. She and Mason saw them several times a year since they’d moved out of Pine Meadows, and it hadn’t taken long to understand that all the hard things their father had said about their mother’s parents had been more lies.

  They were kind and loving—forgiving, she thought. They’d forgiven the daughter who’d cut them out of her life and kept their only grandchildren from them. They’d paid for all the therapy, and never—at least not in her hearing—said an unkind word about their daughter.

  They never spoke of Thomas David Bowes.

  Everyone who worked at the restaurant came, and so many of Seth’s and Harry’s friends. Some of her teachers, some of Mason’s came. Some parents brought some of their friends, at least for a short time.

  And Detective Rossini came.

  “I didn’t know the police came to funerals like this.”

  “I wanted to pay my respects. And to see how you were doing.”

  “I’m all right. It’s hardest, I think, on my uncle. Even harder than it is on my grandparents. He thought he could save her. He thought he had. He tried, every day. Harry, he tried, too. But right now he’s mostly worried about his Seth. About Mason and me, too, but mostly about his Seth. Harry worked hard to put all this together, to make it look so nice, to try to make it that celebration of life people talk about. But she didn’t have much of a life to celebrate.”

  “I think you’re wrong. She had you and Mason, and that’s a celebration.”

  “That’s a nice thing to say.”

  “It’s a true thing. Did you take that picture?”

  Naomi glanced at the photo of her mother dancing with Seth. “How did you know?”

  “I’m the police.” Rossini smiled a little. “It’s a happy moment, and you knew how to capture it. But that’s my favorite.”

  Rossini stepped over to the photo Naomi had taken with a timer. Her mother flanked by her children. Harry had set it in front of a big vase of pink roses, because her mother had favored pink.

  “You can see she was proud of you and your brother.”

  “Is that what you see?”

  “Yes. Cops are good listeners, and they’re trained observers. She was proud. Hold on to that. I have to get back to work.”

  “Thank you for coming,” Naomi said, as she’d said to everyone.

  Surprised, she stood where she was as Mark Ryder came up to her.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Hey.”

  He was tall, great-looking with big brown eyes, glossy hair that curled just the right amount at the ends.

  “I’m really sorry about your mom and all.”

  “Thanks. It’s nice you came. It’s nice.”

  “I’m sorry, you know? My mom died when I was a baby.”

  “But . . . I met your mom.”

  “My dad married her when I was about three. She’s great—and she’s, like Mom, but my, you know, mom died.”

  “I didn’t know. I’m sorry, Mark.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s hard, you know, and I wanted to say I’m sorry.”

  Touched, she stepped closer, hugged him. Realized the mistake when he hugged her back—with a hand sliding down to her butt.

  She pulled back. “It’s my mother’s memorial.”

  “Yeah, yeah, sorry. I just thought . . .” He shrugged, managed a half laugh. “Whatever.”

  “Thanks for coming,” she told him. “You can get a soft drink at the bar, if you want.”

  “Yeah, maybe. See you around.”

  Alone, Naomi turned. She could sneak into the storeroom, get some quiet, get some time alone before anyone noticed she wasn’t there.

  But she nearly walked into Anson Chaffins.

  “Um. Hey.” He shoved up his glasses, then stuck his hands in his pockets. “I guess it’s weird but I was, like, you know, there, so I thought I should come and say . . . whatever.”

  “Let’s go sit over there. People won’t bug me if I’m sitting down with somebody.”

  “I saw some of the guys from school. But I kind of hung back until they went off. It’s weird, like I said. People want to know, you know, what it was like, and don’t want to ask you. Well, plus, you haven’t been back to school. Are you coming back?”

  “Yeah, next week.”

  “It’ll be weird.”

  She gave a half laugh—he wrote better than he talked, she thought. “I need to keep up my grades—Mason, too. We have to think about getting into college.”

  “I’m heading to Columbia next fall.”

  “You got in?”

  “It looks good for it. I got a couple backups, but it looks good. I’m going to study journalism.”

  “You’ll be good at it.”

  “Yeah.” He shifted. “So. I heard a couple of the cops talking. You know they had to take my statement and all that? And I heard a couple of them talking about Bowes. Your mother being his wife. Thomas David Bowes.”

  Naomi clutched her hands together in her lap, said nothing.

  “I knew the name, because of the movie. And I read the book, too. You’re that Naomi.”

  “Does everyone know?”

  “Like I said, I h
eard the cops talking, and I knew who they were talking about, and I’d read the book. I did some research—more, I mean. You’re Naomi Bowes.”

  “Carson. That’s my legal name.”

  “Yeah, I get that. Look, I didn’t say anything to anybody.”

  “Don’t. I just want to finish school. Mason needs to finish school.”

  “I haven’t told anybody, but look, other people can do research, especially now that the movie’s such a big hit. Hell, lots of kids who don’t read go to the movies. What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to finish school. I’m going to go to college.”

  “I won’t tell anybody, right?” He shoved his glasses back up his nose. “It’s just between you and me, okay? I want you to tell me the story. Hold on.”

  He held up a hand, edged closer with his glasses sliding down again. He just took them off.

  “From your point of view, your story, Carson. We can keep where you live and all that out of it. I won’t tell anybody—and that’s a lot, right, because I want to be a journalist and this is a really big story. But I’ll hold back some details.”

  He picked up his glasses, sat back, pushed them on. “I don’t have to do that.”

  “My mother just died.”

  “Yeah. Otherwise I wouldn’t have put it together. I don’t tell anybody, and you give me the whole story—first person. We’ll go out a few times, somewhere quiet, and I’ll record your story. It’s a big deal, and if I do it right, it could land me an internship at the Times. You’ve never talked to anybody, not Simon Vance, not the scriptwriter, the director, the actors. Your father did. Your mom, too, but not you. I did my research.”

  They were friends—she thought they were friends. He’d been with her when she’d found her mother. He’d called the ambulance. And now . . .

  “Simon Vance and the screenwriter beat you to it, Chaffins. Nobody’s going to care.”

  “Shit, are you kidding me? Everybody’s going to care. Look, we’ll meet up. You can come to my place during the day, after school. My parents will be at work, and nobody has to know. I gotta split. I’ll text you when and where.”

  When he rushed off, she sat a moment, a little stunned, a little sick. Why was she surprised? she wondered. Because she’d thought he was, at least a little bit, a friend? Should she be grateful he hadn’t already published what he knew in the school paper?

  The hell with it, she thought. Just the hell with all of it.

  She got up—before someone could sit down and try to comfort her—and made her way back to the kitchen. She could slip into the storeroom from there for the belated alone.

  But Harry was right behind her.

  He pointed to a stool. “Sit.” And sat himself on a stack of boxes. “Now tell me what that boy said to upset you.”

  “It wasn’t anything.”

  “Don’t lie to me.”

  She jerked back. He never used that sharp, angry tone. “Harry.”

  “We’re going to stop lying to each other. I knew your mother was lying about going to the prison, about keeping in contact. I knew, and I kept it from Seth. I didn’t tell him because it would upset him. And that’s a lie. Omission is a lie.”

  “You knew?”

  “And maybe if I’d said something . . .” He rubbed his tired eyes. “We’ll never know.”

  “We knew. Mason found out and told me. We didn’t say either.”

  “Well, where did all that get us, baby? Look where we are now. No more lies, no more omissions.” He leaned forward, took her hands. His eyes, so blue against the caramel, held that innate kindness he showed her every day. “When Seth asked me about taking you, your brother, your mother into the home in D.C., I said of course. But I thought, It won’t be for long. Of course we have to help—Seth needs to help his family—but they’ll get on their feet and get their own in, oh, six months or a year. I could open our home for a year. I did it because I love Seth.”

  “I know you do.”

  “What I didn’t count on was falling in love with you. With Mason. With your mother. That’s what happened. When we talked about selling the house, moving to New York, I didn’t do it just for Seth. I did it for all of us. Because we’d become a family. You’re my girl, Naomi. Same as if we were blood. I mean that.”

  “I love you, Harry. I do, so much.” The tears came then, hot but clean. “I know how much you’ve done for us, all you’ve given us.”

  “I don’t want to hear about that. I could tell you what you’ve done for me, what you’ve given me. I bet it balances out pretty square. What I want, and need, I think what we all want and need from today on, my baby, is truth. Let’s start right here. What did Anson say to put that look on your face?”

  “He knows who we are. He heard some of the police talking, and he figured it out. He wants to be a journalist, and he wants the story. From me.”

  “I’ll have a talk with him.”

  “No, sir. No, Harry. What’s the point? He knows, and you can’t make it so he doesn’t. He said he wouldn’t say where I—we are, would leave out some details, but—”

  “You don’t trust him. Why should you?”

  She thought of Mark’s hand sliding down to her butt, of Chaffins’s blind ambition. “I don’t trust anybody but you, Seth, and Mason.”

  “We can put you and Mason in private school.”

  “It’ll just happen again. We can move again, and it’ll happen again. Mama’s gone, and it was hardest on her. We couldn’t protect her from him or herself.”

  “Nobody’s going to hurt my baby girl.”

  “I thought he was a friend. But nobody stays your friend when they find out who you are.”

  “If they don’t, they weren’t worth your friendship.”

  “But how do you know, ever, who is?” She remembered the card the policewoman who looked like she could play one on TV had given her, and took it out of her bag. “Detective Rossini.”

  “What about her?”

  “I think, maybe, she’s a friend. He smokes pot—Chaffins—sells it a little, too.”

  Harry sighed. “Naomi, I understand peer pressure and the need for experimentation, and this isn’t the time to—”

  “I don’t do drugs. Neither does Mason.” She frowned at the card as she spoke. “He wants Harvard and the FBI—Mason won’t take any chances with that. Chaffins wants Columbia, and the New York Times. It wouldn’t look good for him to get arrested for possession, maybe suspended from school.”

  Harry’s eyebrows lifted. “Blackmail?”

  “That’s what he’s doing. I’d be ratting him out to the cops—and I’m not proud of it. But I think Detective Rossini would go have that talk with him, and it might work, long enough for me to write the story.”

  “What? What story?”

  “I’m not as good a writer as Chaffins, but I can do this.” It came to her, like a lightning flash on a hot summer night. “If I write the story—as Naomi Bowes—and sell it, maybe even to the Times, he’s got nothing. I just need some time, and Detective Rossini could get me that. I write the story, like Chaffins said—from my point of view. And then he can’t. No one would care after that what some jerk writes about me. Mason? He won’t care.”

  “Honey, are you sure?”

  “No one’s going to do this to me, to us. I’m sure.”

  “Talk to the detective. If you decide this is really what you want to do, well, we’re going to be behind you.”

  —

  She went back to school, forced herself to continue with the yearbook committee, the school paper. She ignored the furious stares from Chaffins—and completed the crap assignments he handed her. Because whatever Rossini had said to him kept him quiet, and she could comfort herself that in four months, he’d graduate and be out of her life.

  After the Oscars, where the screenwriter for Daughter of Evil