Chapter Three
Gage
“ Give Zarah back her phone. That’s emotional abuse.”
Zane’s in his study, leaning back in his chair and sipping a lowball of something that looks really damned good. My edges are so raw, if someone brushed up against me, they’d be a bloody mess all over the floor.
He looks me up and down, always so fucking proper in dress pants, dress shirt, and tie. I wonder if he fucks Stella that way.
God, I need to calm down.
I drop into a chair in front of his desk, and he pours me a glass of whatever he’s drinking. Accepting it gratefully, I close my eyes and wish when I opened them things would be different. I know better. Things are fucked, and will be, maybe for the rest of Zarah’s life.
“I didn’t want her to have more shit to worry about.”
“Well, it cuts her off from the world. She needs to be able to communicate.”
“With you, you mean.”
“Not just me. Anybody. Her therapist. Stella, if she’s on campus. I don’t know...you, if you go into the city. But yeah, me, too. We love each other, whether you like it or not.”
“It’s not that I don’t like it. It’s not that I don’t like you—”
I raise an eyebrow in disbelief.
“Seriously. I like you. I think in any other circumstance you would’ve been good for my sister. You didn’t know her before Ash started selling her. She was everything you’d imagine a socialite would be, and after Mom and Dad died, she was so lost. I wasn’t any help. I was licking my own wounds and fucking anything that moved. All this bullshit, I take the blame for. So yes, I think had you two met back then, you could have reminded her that something other than wearing a new dress from the next up-and-coming designer was important. Stella did that for her. Sometimes I forget how close they are. That Zarah’s home because of Stella. Not because of anything I did.”
“But now?” I sip the whiskey, and it slides smoothly down my throat. Stella’s right. Zane’s money can buy some primo booze.
“Isn’t her life complicated enough without throwing love into the mix?”
“Stella stuck by you when you were being an idiot—”
Zane slams his empty glass onto the desk. “Stella saved my life . Not because she made me realize who Ash was, or because she worked with Max to expose the Blacks as the fucking murderers they are. She saw me. Sometimes I hated her for that. That she could look right through me and see all my faults and flaws. She challenged me to be better. Forced me, or I knew I’d lose her. If Zarah hadn’t invited her up to the penthouse to have wine and cheesecake, I’d be dead in a ditch. I didn’t want to see what she saw and that would have eventually killed me.”
“Where are you going with this?” I appreciate him being candid, but I don’t know where this conversation’s heading.
“I wish, sometimes I just wish, that she wouldn’t have loved me. That she would’ve walked away. How much better her life would be.”
My throat goes dry. “You’re asking me to break it off.”
“No, but are you willing to live like this? Maybe for the rest of your life?”
“Fuck you. When I say I love her, I’m not saying it to hear myself speak. We will get to the bottom of this. We will figure it out. I’m not dumping her because you think she’s a lost cause.”
“That’s not what he thinks.” Dressed in silk pajama bottoms and a matching camisole, Stella walks into the room and slides the doors closed behind her. Her hair is clipped into a messy bun and her feet are bare, but I can see in her features what Zane must have seen the first time he met her. The elegance. The class. What you are because you’re kind, honest. Caring. Not the fake polish millions of dollars can buy at a fancy salon.
She presses a button on a black remote laying on Zane’s desk, and a fire begins to flicker in the fireplace built into a far wall. It won’t do much for heat, but it warms up the atmosphere. Stella perches on Zane’s thigh, and immediately, he wraps his arms around her. She leans into him and pours more whiskey out of the crystal decanter sitting near a small lamp. Calmly, she sips, savors the mouthful, and swallows. “I heard you two bickering.” Setting the glass down and turning to Zane, she says, “Stop saying you don’t deserve me. I love you...the boy you were when we met, and the man you are, right now.” She smooths his tie and adjusts the knot, centering it. “But you have this habit of only being able to see black and white, and there is so much grey. Please stop giving Gage a hard time. You should be grateful he loves her. She needs all the people she can get on her side.”
“Not if he leaves her when things get tough.”
She cups his face in her hands and laughs. “I love you, but you can be such an ass. Things are already tough, and look, he’s right here. You gave him an out, and he didn’t take it. I think he would agree that the Maddox billionaires are hard to shake off.”
“The money—” Zane starts.
“Wasn’t interesting to me, and it’s not to Gage, either. Don’t insult him even more than you already have.” She flicks her gaze to me. “This is the trust part I warned you about. I’m trying to help, but I think I’m failing.”
“I can stick up for myself.”
“I know. Zarah’s upstairs. She wants to say one last goodnight.”
“Stella—”
“Zane. Let him be. Goodnight, Gage.”
I finish off my drink, set the glass on Zane’s desk, and stand. Thank God Stella backed me up. That conversation could have turned ugly, fast. “Goodnight.”
Sliding the doors open, I hear Stella say, “Let’s drink more whiskey and have drunk sex.”
I laugh all the way up the stairs.
Zane is one lucky guy.
When I nudge the door open to Zarah’s bedroom and see this beautiful woman who loves me sitting on her bed waiting for me, I know that I’m one lucky son of a bitch, too.
I kiss her goodnight and promise her things I’m going to try like hell to deliver. We plan to see each other soon, and I go back to my resolve to see her as much as possible without ruining the normalcy she needs or the paycheck I need.
Stella’s sitting on the bottom step when I come out of Zarah’s room, and she walks me to the door.
“I can let myself out,” I say, but I’m grateful she’s thoughtful enough to tell me goodbye. The house is quiet as a tomb, and in the dark, creepier than hell. “Besides, I don’t want to interrupt the drunk sex.”
She blushes. “Oh, he had some things to do for work and asked for a raincheck. He’s so strung out about Zarah.”
I clear my throat. “I know how he feels.”
“Hey.” She stops and chews on her bottom lip. “I know I look like a rich bimbo now—”
I open my mouth to deny it, but she keeps going.
“—but I think people have forgotten I helped bring down one of the biggest organized crime families in the United States.”
“Yes, you did.”
That a little five-foot slip of a girl managed to do that still knocks the breath out of me.
“So...I think you could have the courtesy to listen when I say that I don’t think things are right.”
My ears perk up. “How do you mean?”
“Zarah should be getting better, but she’s not. At least, not in the way her doctor seemed to expect, and that doesn’t feel right. I’m not always involved in every conversation Zane has about her, but growing up in foster care taught me to listen, so I know that much about her progress. That’s the biggest thing. Max asked you to look out for her, and he never did anything without a reason. He suspected something was going on. That’s two. And three, something that has always, always, bothered me from the minute she did it. Willow let me go. She looked me dead in the eye and I stood there frozen, my backpack strapped to my back, old tennis shoes on my feet. She had no idea what I was doing or where I was going. She blinked, turned, and walked away. Willow Black let me go, and I want to know why.”
“There’s no way to know unless you ask,” I say, na?vely, stupidly, and oh so easily do I fall into her trap.
“I know. That’s why I want to go see her.”
“You’re not going alone. Zarah was insane—” I wince.
“I know . That’s why you’re going with me.”
I sigh.
“And one more thing.”
I brace to hear bad news. “What?”
“Don’t come out here without Baby. Lucille said she missed feeding her.”
“Then you do one thing for me.” I don’t trust Zane to do it.
“If I can.”
“Zarah needs her phone.”
Stella slides a silver iPhone out of the pocket of her pajama pants. “I didn’t know Zane took it or I would have given it back days ago.”
I sigh. “I adore you, Stella Mayfair.”
She smiles and tries to joke. “Who doesn’t?”
It falls flat because we know there are a lot of people who don’t, and not all of them are in prison.
“You probably think I’m being blasé about the whole thing, but I try to keep my spirits up for Zarah,” Stella says, sitting next to me in my truck. “I know how serious this is.”
She asked Douglas to drop her off in the city, and she rode the bus to the industrial park and met me at my apartment. I asked why, but all she said was that she missed the old neighborhood. Whatever that meant.
“I try to treat her like a person, talk to her like she’s not someone suffering from some horrible disease. Zane can’t get it through his head she’s better off if we pretend like nothing’s wrong, but he’s so caught up in blaming himself I can’t get him to realize he’s doing more harm than good. He’s never going to let this go until it’s over.”
I don’t entirely agree with that, but I don’t say anything. Treating Zarah like there’s nothing wrong isn’t the way to go, but then again, I don’t know what is. Maybe Stella has a point, maybe she doesn’t, but I do know I’m glad Zarah has her because without Stella, Zarah would be in a not-so-good place. No offense to Zane, but he can’t see what’s past his nose and that’s what got us into this mess in the first place.
“This may never be over,” I say, looking for a place to park on the street. Willow Black’s building is easy to find. Not many have armed security standing outside. I wonder if there are other residents who live here, or if the whole building belongs to her. If that’s the case, I bet the Blacks own it. No one else in the city would lose that much money accommodating Willow that way.
“For Zarah’s sake, I hope you’re wrong.”
“Trust me, no one wants Zarah to be okay more than me.”
“I see a double wedding in our future.”
I cast her an amused look out of the corners of my eyes. “Why aren’t you and Zane married yet?”
“Zarah, mostly. I don’t think either of us could really celebrate the way we want. He talks about going away on a honeymoon, but I would never leave Zarah alone and I don’t think she should travel. Zane isn’t right about a lot, but he’s right about a few things. Keeping Zarah stable is a good idea for now.”
“You can marry without the fanfare.”
“We could. We probably should. Zane would feel better. He’s always thinking I’m going to get tired of putting up with him and run off. He doesn’t understand that if I felt that way, I would have disappeared a long time ago. Besides, like I said, I would never leave Zarah behind. After I escaped the Blacks’ building, Quinn tried to convince me to go to New York. I cry at night, thinking about where Zarah would be now if I had left King’s Crossing. I hate wondering how long Ash would have trapped her in Quiet Meadows if I hadn’t woken Zane up.”
That is definitely something I don’t like thinking about. “And you found your parents. That wouldn’t have happened if you’d taken off.”
A smile tugs at the corners of her lips. “I was okay without them. I mean, really. If Max wouldn’t have looked into that foundation, I would have been okay, but I’m thankful he did for the other families. No, I’m afraid it all leads back to Zarah, somehow. This story isn’t mine.”
I don’t know what to say to that, and I park in a dark parking ramp without commenting. There’s something haunting about the idea that this all comes down to Zarah, and what that would mean for her, for me.
“Did you call ahead?” I ask as I walk with her down the sidewalk. We had more snow and icy patches cover the cement. The city looks bleak without the Christmas lights twinkling, though some of the shop owners have already decorated for Valentine’s Day. Maybe mine won’t be as sad as I thought it would be.
She stops. “Was I supposed to? It’s not like she can go anywhere.”
“I think you particularly enjoy that.”
“If I was petty, maybe I would. But after the time I spent at Black Enterprises, no one deserves to be locked away. Not even Willow Black. If she’s innocent, that is.”
“How likely is that?”
“You’re the PI, not me. What do you think?”
“I think women are like children. The men don’t realize it, but their kids know everything, and so do their wives.”
“You think she’s guilty.”
“I think she knows just enough to make her trouble, and just little enough that she stays out of it.”
Stella squints at me and mouths, “What?” and I shake my head. I’m fucking tired and visiting Willow Black wasn’t on this week’s Bingo card. I should be working with Pop and wrapping up the Mesas. Meredith was so desperate she wanted to pay us, but we would never take a high schooler’s milk money. The fact she offered endeared her to Pop, and he promised we’d do what we could. Which has been nothing.
We pause uncertainly in front of Willow’s building. I wouldn’t be surprised if the security guy standing in the cold told us to get the fuck out of here, but all he does is stare straight ahead. Stella shrugs and opens the door.
“You could’ve let me do that.”
“Yeah, because my arms are broken.”
The security guy sniggers.
“We’re here to see Willow Black,” Stella says to another goon standing in the lobby holding a phone.
“ID.”
He uses his cell to scan our IDs, and I don’t like that. With all the security cameras around, I wouldn’t have been able to hide my visit, but now my driver’s license is recorded.
“Wade will take you upstairs.”
A burly man hiding a piece under his blazer jerks his head at us, and Stella races after him, her boot heels clipping against the silver-veined black marble. Wade keeps his mouth shut and stares at the elevator doors until they slide open. We stand in silence, and when we reach her floor, follow him down the carpeted hallway. He stops at an apartment door that isn’t numbered, and Britney Spears singing about a circus blasts from the other side.
“Are you going to stand here the whole time?” Stella asks.
“Yes, ma’am,” he replies, leaning against the wall, his hands clasped in front of his flat stomach.
She wrinkles her nose and knocks.
Nothing.
She knocks again.
“I don’t think she can hear us over—”
Just then the music cuts off and five seconds later the door flies open. Willow stands there, sweat dripping off her body, her hair wet and clinging to her head. “I’m sorry,” she gasps. “I was working out.”
“We can come back another time,” Stella says politely, like she met a neighbor at the grocery store and is saying goodbye.
“No, this is fine. Come in.” She casts a quick glance at Wade, but he doesn’t meet her eyes.
In that moment, I know without a doubt they’re lovers.
Interesting.
Willow hangs our jackets in a small closet near the door and says, “Please, make yourselves comfortable. I need a moment to freshen up.”
She doesn’t wait for a response, only shuffles down a narrow hallway and out of sight. A minute later I hear the sound of water rushing through the pipes. I guess she’s taking a shower.
Stella wanders around the room, lightly touching the artwork on the walls. Wearing heavy work boots, I trip over the edge of a rug and stumble into a stand. A vase topples, but before it crashes to the floor, Stella catches it, clutching it to her chest. “Are you crazy? This vase is worth a hundred thousand dollars.”
“How do you know?” Shit. I feel like a bull in a china shop and sit on the couch vowing not to move.
“Zarah and Zane had one just like it in their penthouse.”
“Christ.”
“Tell me about it. Just sit there.”
“You don’t gotta tell me twice.”
She keeps exploring, her eyes flicking to the hallway and back again.
“Do you want to leave before she comes back?”
“No. I’m just a little uncomfortable. How did Zarah stand it?”
“I think there was a bond between them. I mean, if Willow’s innocent, she could have honestly liked Zarah, you know? Tried to protect her.”
“I did what I could to shield that girl from my son, but I learned a long time ago I was to look pretty and keep my mouth shut. Zarah and I had a lovely visit, and she said she’d come back for Christmas. She never did. I hope she’s well.”
“You knew what he was doing to her,” Stella says, turning at the sound of Willow’s voice.
“Not that. Not any of it. Not until it came up in the news. He’s my son. I knew he wasn’t right, and all those movies and TV shows about parents who are afraid to admit something is wrong with their child, it’s true. It scares you deep in your bones. No mother wants to know her child is capable of such things.”
She stands beside the couch wearing lounging pants and a loose long-sleeved shirt. Her hair’s damp but it’s already starting to dry into sleek waves, and her eyes are dark, like Zarah’s, but compared to Zarah’s bronzed skin, hers is a pasty white, evidence of lack of sunshine. The only hint of color is a light pink lipstick on her lips. A slim black ankle monitor peeks out from under the hem of her pants. Her feet are bare, and her toenails are painted a color that matches her lips. She’d be pretty if it wasn’t for the lines on her face, but I refuse to believe she’s suffered. Not when I can bump into a vase that costs more than what I make in two years.
“Mr. Davenport. I’m surprised to see you here, but after hearing you’re dating Zarah, I suppose it was bound to happen.”
“You suppose?”
“You want answers. I’m afraid I don’t have them.”
“I don’t know what the questions are. Do you?”
“I would like to know how Zarah’s doing. I tried to call but she never answered, and there’s no one else I can ask.”
“She’s fine.” My voice is clipped. Willow doesn’t need to know anything about my fiancée.
I stop. I asked Zarah to marry me and she said yes. I fight the stupid grin that wants to inappropriately spread across my face. Now’s not the time to be happy about it.
Stella wipes the smile off my mouth real fast.
“No, she’s not fine. She had a major setback. That’s why we’re here. We were hoping you could tell us something. Anything that could help her recovery.”
Willow tucks a piece of hair behind her ear and a diamond stud twinkles in her earlobe. “I’m sorry to hear that. You must be reaching to come to me. I can assure you I know nothing of the time Zarah spent at Quiet Meadows.”
“How did you know that’s what Stella was referring to?” I ask, my attention sharp.
“She spent five years under their roof. Do you think anyone spends that much time in a looney bin and comes out sane?”
I think of JodiAnne, Marci, and even Savannah Mesa. They were treated for God knows how long, and it didn’t seem like it helped at all.
“Zarah didn’t need to be there,” I point out. “She was perfectly fine before Zane left her to rot in that room.”
Stella frowns, but I won’t take back my words. She wouldn’t take them back, either. She knows they’re true.
“Are you sure about that?” Willow asks, crossing her arms and tapping a foot. “I was there the night she snapped.”
“Because—” It was because of Ash in the first place, but she beats me to the jab.
“I realize my son was the cause. But be that as it may, that doesn’t negate the fact poor Zarah had a shock, that, even if my son hadn’t kept her prisoner at that sanatorium, she may never have recovered from. She was a babbling, desperate creature attacking her brother.”
“I’ve seen the clip.” And I get nauseated every time I watch it.
“Then you know how dreadful it was, and you’ll never prove she would be fine now.”
She’s right. Zarah watched Ash kidnap Stella, and no one will ever know if she would have bounced back.
Willow continues, “In fact, it may have been better that my son kept her there. What would her emotional state have been like if she’d been free while Ashton hid Stella for all that time?”
“She could have exposed Ash and what he’d done. Stella wouldn’t have been his prisoner for nearly as long. Certainly not five years.”
Willow raises an eyebrow in amusement. “Really? You think anyone would have listened to a deranged little girl who attacked her brother during the biggest event of the year? Please. I’m married to the most powerful man in the United States—”
“He used to be,” I cut in.
She tilts her head, tapping a forefinger against her lips, acknowledging my interruption, then keeps going, “—and no one would have listened to me if I’d said a house was burning down and they could see it with their own eyes. A woman is a useless tool. We aren’t loved—we’re fucked. And fucked over. Stella understands, don’t you? How often does Zane listen to anything you have to say? When does he ask your advice? Share his problems? How many times do you threaten him, withhold sex, give him the silent treatment, all so he’ll see you as more than a dumb blonde?”
I heard Stella threaten to leave Zane if he didn’t let me in. That happened just last night. Is Willow right? How often does she do that to force Zane to listen to her?
Stella doesn’t say anything, but Willow didn’t ask because she wanted a response. She thinks she already knows.
“Then there’s nothing you can tell us.”
“I’m sorry.”
Admittedly, she looks sorry, her mouth turned into a frown, but I doubt she understands the seriousness of Zarah’s mental state. It’s difficult to care about something if it’s not smack in your face. Willow’s protected from the harsh realities of life in this little apartment and her hundred thousand dollar vases. Nothing can touch her.
Not even the hideous things her husband and son have done.
“We should go,” I tell Stella, hefting myself off the sofa. There’s no point in lingering if she has nothing more to say. I don’t know what I was expecting. An epiphany, maybe. A clue, at the very least.
Something I could show Zane and say, “Here. Here is Zarah’s cure.” But I can’t.
Willow may have revealed a hard truth. That Zarah won’t get better. Can’t. That night may have broken her in a way she can never recover.
I’ve thought it but never said it aloud. I’d always hoped the drugs were the culprit.
I asked Zarah to marry me on the contingency she gets better. We may have to plan our future on the idea she won’t.
Or that she can’t.
Fuck.
“Oh, not yet. Please. I get so few visitors. Stay. I had fresh produce delivered this morning and I can put together a fabulous salad. Do you like bleu cheese dressing? I make it from scratch.”
She gestures us into the kitchen, and I catch Stella’s eye. She lifts a shoulder, and we follow Willow into a small, but tasteful, kitchen.
Around bites of lettuce, tomato, cucumber, and green pepper, Willow engages Stella in gossip about people I don’t know, and by the vague answers Stella gives her, she doesn’t much better.
“I read about the award the paper presented your brother. You must be very proud,” she says, clearing our enormous salad bowls.
“I am,” I say, but I don’t want to talk about Max.
“And your stepfather. How is he coping with Max’s death?”
“You know Rourke?”
Willow fills a carafe full of water and pours it into the back of a fancy coffee machine. “Oh, yes. Senator Cook and my husband are very close.”
“I didn’t realize.” I should have, I guess. Birds of a feather and all that.
She smiles indulgently while she plates thick wedges of chocolate cheesecake. “Why would you? You spend all your time with your father, don’t you? What’s it like being a private investigator? Remington Steele made it look so glamorous.”
“If you call running after druggies and digging through garbage glamorous, then, yes, it is.”
“You know how to follow breadcrumbs, put clues together.” She sets the dessert plates in front of us, and the little silver fork disappears in my hand.
I scowl. “Life doesn’t work like that. Assholes are assholes and what they do is in plain sight. There’s no putting clues together. I find the bastards and bring ’em in.”
“That isn’t exactly true, or you wouldn’t be here.”
She pours coffee and sets a cream and sugar tray in the center of the small table. I add cream to cool my coffee and down half the mug, wishing the caffeine would jumpstart my attention span. Willow has given us nothing, but Stella seems content to sit and I won’t leave without her.
“We were hoping you could help us with Zarah’s treatment. You said you can’t. There’s nothing left to say.”
“I said I couldn’t.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” My patience is growing thin.
“I mean, I can’t, but perhaps someone else can.”
Stella speaks up. “But didn’t you say—”
I lay a hand on her knee under the table.
Willow opens her eyes wide in an owlish look that doesn’t become her.
I took long enough to put two and two together.
Pop should revoke my license.
All this going back and forth. I suppress a sigh.
Stella and I finish our cheesecake, and they pick up where they left off, gossiping and talking about the latest fashion trends. Stella tells her a little about Quinn Sawyer, and Willow rattles off a few names Quinn should look up in New York. “I’ll call ahead and offer a reference,” she says, straightening her shoulders, proud she can give Stella’s friend entrée into the high-class fashion world.
“She’ll appreciate that.”
We’ve been here for over two hours, and I can’t get outside fast enough.
“Thank you for your time, Mrs. Black,” I say, adjusting my coat.
Stella slips on her cream wool jacket and shoves a matching beret over her hair.
“You’re welcome, Mr. Davenport.” She places her hand on the doorhandle to show us out.
So close to freedom.
“Wait. We came for more than only Zarah,” Stella says, leather gloves clutched in her hands. “Why did you let me go? That night I escaped your building. You saw me and let me go.”
“Why did you choose that night to leave?” Willow asks, her gaze fixed firmly onto Stella’s face.
“Because I knew the security cameras in that area of the building would be down for a software upgrade.”
“Yes.”
Stella frowns. “Why were you down that hallway?”
“I was saying goodbye to Senator Cook. He had a car waiting in the back, to avoid the paparazzi that followed him and my husband from Luna Blanc.”
“Rourke was in your building the night Stella escaped?” I ask. Sweat slides down my back.
“He and my husband were doing business that evening.”
“Yeah,” Stella says, “but I didn’t leave until after midnight. They were doing business until midnight?”
Willow gives her that owlish look again, and it’s starting to annoy me. Nothing about this woman is innocent.
“It was midnight and the cameras were down. You weren’t supposed to be there, either. That’s why you never said anything. Because you couldn’t. What were you doing, Willow?”
I knew.
“Thank you for your time, Mrs. Black,” I say, yanking the door open with more force than necessary.
“But—” Stella protests, and I tug on her arm.
She’s furious, and rage rolls off her in the elevator. Wade throws her dubious glances until the doors glide open and he hurries out of the box.