Chapter Three
Zarah
I fake happiness pretty well, if I do say so for myself. Stella and I go to the spa, and I get my hair done but I don’t let her cut it. I can still feel the way Gage would wrap his fingers in it, tug a little asking me to look at him right before he kissed me.
While our nails dry, we drink champagne, and we’re at the penthouse to dress an hour before Stella needs to meet Zane at the courthouse. They spent the night together last night, but it will be fun to see his face when she steps into the judge’s chambers wearing her new dress.
She keeps looking at me out of the corners of her eyes and she opens her mouth to say something five or six times while we change in my room, but I don’t encourage her to say anything. There’s nothing to say. She wants me to be happy, but how am I supposed to be if I don’t even know for myself what will make me happy?
It’s difficult being pulled in two directions. Everyone said I should go out on my own, and I saw their point, even wanted that too for a brief amount of time, but if I’m going to be miserable without Gage, is there any benefit to exploring? I have the resources for us to go anywhere we wanted to go. We could have traveled the world, but now I’ve broken his trust, made him doubt I love him, and that might be something I can never repair.
My mind blanks on the way to the courthouse. I can’t remember where it is or how to get there. Douglas turns onto the boulevard, and nothing looks familiar. I panic and my heart starts to race. Not this again. I was doing so well.
I keep my face smooth. I don’t want to worry Stella, and if Zane suspects I’m starting to relapse, he won’t let me out of his sight and I don’t want that for him now. He should be thinking only about Stella and the naughty things he’s going to do to her on their first night as husband and wife.
The building doesn’t trip my memory, and I push down an anxiety attack. I’ve been to the courthouse on a few occasions, and while the building wouldn’t be as familiar as a boutique or my favorite restaurant, it should at least be recognizable, but it’s not.
Walking through security flusters me. I wasn’t expecting it, and the security guard shoots me a suspicious look. Or I think he does. I’m starting to sweat through my dress, and I try to smile and act natural.
“Are you okay? You’re pasty.” Stella wraps her arm around mine and leads me to a bank of elevators. We study the chart on the wall and find the correct floor for the judge who’s going to officiate the ceremony.
“I’m fine. Just nervous.”
“This was your idea. Zane and I didn’t have to do this now.”
“I know, but tell me you’re not excited.”
Talking to Stella calms me, and maybe I remember a little of the building now. I hope.
“I really am. I’ve waited for this for a long time. It just never felt right, and it still doesn’t. Zarah,” she says, nudging me into an elevator as the doors glide open. We’re the only two who step inside, and we lean against the wooden-paneled wall. She inhales deeply and blows it out of her mouth in a shallow stream. “Tell me you’re okay with this.”
“Why wouldn’t I be? I love you. We’ll finally be sisters.”
“I don’t want you to think anything will change.”
I scoff. “Of course things are going to change. You’re going to want the house to yourselves, and I understand that. I’m actually thinking of moving into the penthouse. I’m twenty-seven years old, and I need to start living on my own. I realized something dating Gage, even if it was only for a few months. If I can’t be happy alone, I can’t be happy with someone, either. That’s a big difference between you and me. When we met, you were making it, working in payroll, living in your little apartment and paying your bills. You were happy, and what didn’t make you happy, you were doing what you needed to do to change it. Going to school, attaching yourself to a company where you could get promoted and grow professionally. Even as young as you were, you were always on track, and I never was. I need that to be happy in any relationship, not just with Gage. This is a good thing, and I do not want you to think that you and Zane getting married is going to negatively affect me. It won’t. I need to start living my life, Stella. If I choose to live in the penthouse, don’t feel like you’re kicking me out. I’m leaving on my own, and you don’t have to feel bad.”
I almost sound convincing.
Stella’s shrewd enough not to buy it, but she runs out of time to say anything. The elevator dings and the doors open onto the tenth floor.
It isn’t romantic by any stretch of the imagination, but it will do. Things will eventually calm down and I’ll plan Zane and Stella the biggest, most gorgeous wedding the world has ever seen.
Zane’s waiting in the judge’s chambers, murmuring to a rotund, balding man dressed in a dark grey suit. I think he and our dad used to be friends. They’re talking easily, and maybe they’ve already had a couple nips of the bottle—the judge’s cheeks are bright pink.
My brother’s gaze lands on Stella, and the look on his face brings tears to my eyes.
“Stella,” he says, his voice low and gravelly.
“Hi.” She blushes.
It’s sweet they can still be nervous around each other, even if they have been waiting seven years to do this.
We slip our jackets off, and I greet the judge. I grab his name off the plaque on his desk, and a woman whom he identifies as his secretary stands with us. She’ll be the second witness, signing her name where Gage’s would have gone had he been here.
I’m sad he’s not, but it’s for the best. It would have been difficult not to picture us getting married as we listened to Zane’s and Stella’s vows. My future is so uncertain and Gage and I didn’t talk about it much. He was always trying not to crowd me, and while I was relieved he didn’t press, at the same time I felt unwanted, never good enough.
“You look gorgeous,” Zane says, cuddling her close to his chest. “Christ, why do you love me?”
“Your money, you fool,” she says tenderly, smoothing the lapel of his jacket and looking into his eyes like there’s no one watching them.
“Liar,” he whispers, then kisses her, gently covering her lips with his.
The judge lets out a belly laugh that breaks the quiet, and his secretary titters.
I force back a smile. Everyone knows Stella couldn’t care less about our money.
Sitting in a chair off to the side, I sniffle through their vows. They decided to make them up as they went along, and Zane speaks from his heart. By the time he’s done, he can’t see, and the judge passes him a tissue. He laughs a little, wipes his eyes, and pushes a gold band onto Stella’s finger.
She makes her promises, her voice watery, and tears are running down her cheeks when she’s finished.
I cry too, listening to them, loving each other so much despite the odds. Yes, maybe they were torn apart because Zane hadn’t believed her and his relationship with Nathalie hurt her, but Stella could have stayed in Florida and made a life near her family. She never gave up, even when things were at their worst, or felt like they were.
Not like I did. Times were good and I ran away. How will Gage ever trust I’ll stand by him when things get rocky?
He won’t.
I gave him up because I felt like I didn’t deserve him, and my own actions prove I don’t.
Stella slides a gold ring onto Zane’s finger, and he looks at it like he can’t believe he’s finally wearing it. I don’t know when she bought it. I’ve been so caught up in what’s happening with Gage, I’d checked out of almost everything else.
The judge pops a bottle of champagne and congratulates them, slapping Zane on the back. He looks so happy, dazed, his arm around Stella. I’m glad I insisted they do this. At least I was right about one thing.
After a flurry of congratulations, good lucks, and goodbyes, we ride the elevator to the ground floor and Douglas is waiting outside, standing near the limo. A soft snow started falling, and the sky is an inky, winter purple. Douglas holds the door open, and we climb in. We’ll eat at a restaurant near the Crowne, and Zane and Stella will stay there for a couple of days in lieu of a honeymoon.
I sit back, satisfied. Zane and Stella are married, just as they should be.
She sits as close to him as she can, practically in his lap, but sighing, he straightens and she shifts, dropping her hands into her lap and twisting her fingers together. The festive air turns heavy in the blink of an eye.
“Zarah, we have a couple of things we need to tell you,” he says.
My mind immediately flies to Gage. “Is Gage okay?”
“He’s fine. We found out where Ingrid is, and she’s dead, Z. Someone killed her in one of the industrial parks, in a warehouse near the river. We don’t know why, and we don’t know who. We think she was negotiating a deal to sell information about you, and it went bad. The cops questioned me, and Gage and Linc are looking into it more.” He pauses. “He thinks I should tell you this kind of thing, and he’s right.”
Tears fill my eyes. Ingrid’s dead. She’d been my nurse for a long time. “Is it because I fired her?”
“Maybe. You know how people can be.”
I do. When it comes to money, people will do anything. We paid her well, well above what she may have been paid at a different job, and as I grew closer to Gage, she earned her paycheck doing nothing. She must have resented it when I decided I didn’t need her anymore and hoped to get revenge by selling details about my life, only, I never did anything. I’m not a partier. I don’t get into trouble like a lot of bored socialites who have too much time and money on their hands. I don’t know what kind of information she hoped to sell. The kinds of drugs I’m on? That I go to therapy? Whom I see? Everyone knows that already.
“If they find out anything, will you tell me?”
“Yeah. The cops are looking into her personal life. Maybe she was messed up in something that has nothing to do with us.”
I would like to believe that, but by the sound of Zane’s tone, he doesn’t, either. “You said a couple of things.”
“It’s probably nothing, but another girl turned up dead of a drug overdose in a park. She used to be a patient at Quiet Meadows. That’s four girls now, and Gage has been checking into all of them. There doesn’t seem to be any connection besides they were all patients there. I don’t like it, but they were troubled and it’s not a stretch to say something like that could have happened to them anyway.”
“He told me, but not that there was another girl.”
Zane nods. “Okay. Since you’re not seeing him anymore, I’ll do better at keeping you in the loop. I hate scaring you, but if you don’t know what’s going on, that’s dangerous too.”
“Thanks.”
I fall silent and stare out the window.
Stella looks like she wants to say something, but Zane distracts her and they start kissing. I love that they’re so happy, but it reminds me of how lonely I am.
At the restaurant, I pick at my food, and Zane and Stella are thinking about a different kind of hunger. I’m keeping them from going to the hotel. “I think I’ll head out,” I say, pushing my chair back.
“We haven’t had dessert,” Zane says, a hand to my arm.
“I know, but you and Stella have champagne and strawberries and whipped cream waiting in the room. Peggy’s a horrible romantic.” I force a smile. “I’m going to the penthouse.”
“I don’t think—”
“She’ll be closer to us if she stays in the city,” Stella says calmly and casually sips her wine.
Zane drags a hand through his hair. “Okay, but Douglas will escort you all the way up, and security will change the code to the elevator the second you step inside. I’m not risking your safety. Strange things are going on, and I don’t like it.”
“I’ll be fine. I was the other night. Nothing happened. The penthouse is the safest place I can be.”
“I agree or I wouldn’t let you do it.” He stands and wraps his arms around me. “Thanks for tonight. I love you.”
“I love you, too. You and Stella are perfect together.”
Zane releases me, and Stella hugs me and kisses my cheek. He walks me through the lobby and hands me off to Douglas like a child.
God, what I wouldn’t give to be able to walk the streets alone, slip into a bar, grab a stool and meet a guy, any guy, and let him bring me home. How normal that sounds, completely and enviably normal. A quick and dirty one night stand. Forget what Ash did to me, forget that Gage gave me the only sexual relationship I ever experienced that had any kind of feelings in it that didn’t involve anger and hate. To have that kind of freedom to go to a bar with friends, pick up a nice looking guy, maybe even start a relationship. To not have the hangups that prevent me from doing that.
I press my forehead against the limo’s chilly window. Even without my history, that’s not something I would do.
Sex can be dirty. It can be nasty, and it can hurt. Ash taught me that robbing me of my virginity at Temptations while people watched and cheered him on. Sex doesn’t have to be like that. It can be beautiful—it can mean something to the two people doing it.
Gage loved me, and he showed me every time he touched me.
I was lucky I found him, and I threw him away.
Douglas parks outside our building and opens my door. I want to tell him he doesn’t have to walk me inside, but Zane told him to, and Douglas does nothing less than what Zane says. It would be futile to insist I can go up to the penthouse alone.
We ride in the private lift and he doesn’t say goodbye until I step into the foyer. “Call if you need anything, Miss Maddox. I’m staying in the city while Mr. and Mrs. Maddox are at the Crowne.” He touches the bill of his chauffeur’s hat and nods sharply.
“Thank you, Douglas. Have a nice evening.”
“You as well, Miss Maddox.”
The doors close and the elevator carries him downstairs.
I like the sound of that. Mr. and Mrs. Maddox.
If I’d married Gage, I wonder if I would have chosen to take his name. Zarah Davenport. I never thought of it before, but I like how it sounds. I’m glad Linc is his dad and not Rourke. If Cook was Gage’s last name, I wouldn’t change my name. I don’t want to be associated with anything that has to do with Senator Cook. He did something to me, and I still need to figure out what that is. If I can.
Maybe if I snoop a little into my own past, I’ll figure it out.
When Gage and I were still together, I should have asked him. He was checking into Quiet Meadows, but I never thought to ask if he found out anything. I need to start being an active participant in my own life. There’s no excuse for not knowing these things.
I’ve been hiding because I’m scared. I don’t like the thought of what I’ll find if I start digging. The things that they were doing at Quiet Meadows, to me and the other girls. Why those girls are dead, and if they’re connected. What happened to Ingrid. I’m a part of it, somehow, and I don’t want to be. Ash pulled me into something I don’t want anything to do with.
I change out of my dress and wash my face. It’s not that late, and I’m not hungry. I could start walking from room to room, writing down the things I want done. The kitchen needs a facelift, and the living room could use new furniture and a fresh wallpaper. I redecorated my room after Zane discharged me, but that’s already been a year and a half ago and it still screams little girl, though it’s better than it used to be.
Wearing my pajamas, I walk around the penthouse, catching glimpses of a young Stella carrying a coffee tray into Zane’s room or getting ready in the bathroom to go out. She fit into our lives so seamlessly, my best friend, my brother’s lover. It’s like she’s always been with us.
Leaning into my parents’ room, I can imagine them lying in bed, laughing about the day, or my dad talking through a problem, my mom giving him a willing ear. They were more than a couple, more than husband and wife. It’s easy to say they were soulmates, but they were more than even that. They were passionately in love until the moment they died, and I know how rare that is, to still be in love thirty years after saying “I do.” People grow bored, they grow apart, through no fault of their own, but my mom and dad admired each other, respected each other, and always took the other’s opinion to heart.
That’s another failure of mine. Gage said I wouldn’t hold him back, and that was my own belief. My problems, my history, they would hold anyone back, not only Gage, but he said he wanted to be there and help me find my way and I didn’t believe him. I should have. I thought I knew better than him, and in the end, I took his choices away.
My parents never would have done that to each other.
I sigh, pad barefoot downstairs, and ride the elevator down to the twenty-fifth floor. I want to use Zane’s computer in his office. Not interested in most things online, I still don’t have a laptop, and I don’t want to do any searching on my phone. It’s time I start researching a few things, if I can figure out where to start.
Zane’s office is locked, and I lean against the door in disappointment. I didn’t consider he’d lock his door, but he has no reason to leave it open. Especially since he’s taking a few days off.
Now what?
Not wanting to give up so easily, I eye Peggy’s computer, sit in her chair, and wiggle the mouse. The monitor blinks on, and I squint against the bright light. Our company logo pops onto the screen then dissolves into a password field. Crap. There’s no way in hell I’m going to be able to guess her password. Having no choice but to give up now, I start to push away, but a pink sticky note stuck to the edge of the monitor catches my eye, and I pause. It’s a string of letters and numbers, creating the perfect password. As a lark, I carefully type them in, one by one so I don’t have to start over and risk getting locked out. I press Enter, and Peggy’s desktop appears.
I sag in relief.
Folders and icons clutter the screen, and I don’t know what any of them mean. They’re a cruel reminder of what little I’ve done to support our company.
Does Zane feel powerful running Maddox Industries or is it a burden he resents? He finally has people he can depend on, but he still does most of the work himself. I should be by his side helping him. I should go to school and pick up my share of the responsibilities.
I’m embarrassed to say I don’t even know what we do, not in any real sense I could explain to anyone, but we make a lot of money doing it.
Tucking a leg under my butt and settling deeper into Peggy’s chair, I click on the Chrome icon. That’s what Gage uses on his laptop, otherwise I wouldn’t have known how to connect to the internet at all.
I start small, getting used to Peggy’s keyboard, and I bring up Truth or Dare . I took a few pictures of Zane and Stella saying their vows, but earlier we agreed to sell them as an exclusive to a celebrity magazine and put the money toward the people who were hurt the day Gage’s truck exploded and the women Ash used who are still struggling.
Scrolling through the website, I pick up a few boring bits and pieces of other socialites in the city who are having their moment without Stella and me in the picture. There are a couple photos of us going into the spa and the short post guesses at what we’re getting ready for, but luckily, there’s nothing more. Paparazzi still follow Gage—they’re hoping for something juicy. The timestamp on the photo says the photographer took it about the time Zane, Stella, and I were eating dinner. I try to view the picture like I would anything else, a dress or a bracelet, but it’s hard to see Gage through my tears opening his truck’s door for Sierra outside what I assume is her apartment building.
He’s with her again tonight.
I press my lips together against a sob. He has every right to go out. He’s available, and he is because I made him that way. Now he has a shoulder to cry on, a rebound girlfriend. I should call Tate and have my own pictures flashed about online. That would show him.
He probably wouldn’t care.
I wipe my cheeks, exit out of the website, and navigate to a Google search page. I have no idea what I’m looking for, and this isn’t the way to find what I need. I should ask Zane to let me have my medical records. Not knowing where else to start, I search Jerricka’s name. She’s a psychiatrist to the rich and famous, and the search engine tosses up a lot of websites and pictures in the results. I scroll through the images. I always thought she was pretty in a cool, classic kind of way. The platinum hair, the way she holds herself, never revealing any emotion.
One photo shows her at some kind of convention, and she’s standing near a man I know. The photo’s caption says his name is Dr. Martin Pederson, and I remember him from Quiet Meadows. He wasn’t the doctor working for Ash, but he would lead some of the group therapy sessions they forced me to attend. He seemed nice, in a dispassionate sort of way, like Jerricka, not willing to get too close, physical or otherwise. He never looked twice at me, and I don’t know if it’s because he thought I was a lost cause or if he knew I was under Ash’s control and didn’t want to interfere.
Skimming the article that goes along with the picture, it says it was taken at an awards dinner recognizing Dr. Pederson for the work he’s done on behalf of individuals suffering from bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. I click through some of the other photos and stop on a stocky, dark-haired man who’s wearing glasses, a black suit, and an electric blue tie. It’s a candid photo, his face partially hidden by a white column. I know this man. He would wheel me down to the basement. Looking at his picture, I smell peppermint and cigarette smoke, and all of a sudden my stomach pitches.
Dr. Stephen Mallory, the country’s leading authority on dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. There were several patients at Quiet Meadows who had dementia whose families were hoping for a cure. I didn’t consider that. I thought they were using the facility to dump the family they didn’t want burdening them anymore.
Like what Zane did to me.
I push the thought away. That’s not what he did, even if it feels like it.
Hmmm. I wonder where Dr. Mallory’s practicing now that Quiet Meadows is closed.
I search his name separately and scroll through the results. He has a practice in the building where Jerricka’s office is located, and he’s affiliated with a private hospital on the south side of King’s Crossing.
I click around various sites poking for more information. I read a few testimonials written by patients and their families he helped, gushing about what a wonderful, intelligent, kind man he is, and that seems to be true—he’s been a recipient of several medical grants throughout the years. He’s done a lot in his lifetime, and a Wikipedia page listing his birthdate says he’s twenty years older than Gage. He seemed younger, but I’m remembering him through a haze of drugs.
A memory comes back to me...I’m sitting in my wheelchair and he’s leaning over my shoulder. His suit smells like cigarette smoke, and he’s sucking on a peppermint. “It won’t hurt, Miss Maddox, if you tell us the truth.” He smooths his hand down the back of my head, and I want to flinch away, but I’m frozen. “Such a shame, what they’re doing to you.” He rubs the ends of my hair between his fingers, almost absentmindedly. “Pretty girl.”
The flashback is gone as quickly as it came, and as with everything I dream, everything I have nightmares about, I don’t know if it’s real or fake, if the drugs only convinced me it happened, or if it really did.
I look around online a bit more, bringing up Page Six and People magazine. I scroll past dresses and jewelry I won’t wear, and summoning all my strength, I try not to imagine what Gage and Sierra are doing tonight. I don’t know if he has any social media accounts, and I Google his name. Besides the Truth or Dare photos and his business website, he doesn’t come up often. There’s a King’s Crossing Chronicle article here and there about him and Linc solving a case, a photo of him accepting Max’s award, the editor of the paper shaking his hand, and there was news coverage of his truck exploding. But he doesn’t have any personal social media accounts, nothing I can look at, dig into, to find out more about him or what he’s been doing since we broke up.
That doesn’t surprise me. Gage is a private person and wouldn’t feel the need to broadcast his every single move to any and everyone. It could even be dangerous in his line of work, inviting people to know where he is all the time. I bet he won’t be too happy Truth or Dare caught him and Sierra together again.
I’ve run out of things to research, and I put Peggy’s computer to sleep. Patting the pocket of my pajama pants, I groan. I don’t have my cell phone to call downstairs and find out the code for the private lift. Zane said he would have security change it, and I can’t go back up to the penthouse without it. I need to buy my own laptop.
I lift the receiver to Peggy’s desk phone. The number for lobby security is programmed into her speed dial pad, but just as I’m about to press the button, the elevator dings.
Who would be coming up here so late at night? This part of the twenty-fifth floor belongs to only a few of the executives and their secretaries who help Zane. I haven’t gotten to know them, not like I knew Richard Denton and Larry Cramer. Tate and I had only that one date at the photographer’s exhibit. Zane doesn’t have friends like my father did. Ash soured him on getting close to anyone but Stella. Going out with Gage and Linc was the first time in a long time Zane bothered to do anything that wasn’t business related.
The elevator doors slide open, and on instinct, I drop to the floor and crouch behind Peggy’s desk chair. Call me crazy (and who hasn’t?), but I don’t trust anyone coming in this late. It doesn’t mean much that security let them through—they could have said anything.
“Zarah Maddox! Got your number off a bathroom wall,” a gritty voice calls out.
I shrink back.
“Where are you, sweetheart? I know you’re up here.”