Chapter Six #2
“I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to be. Zarah, the things Ash made us do, the things he did to us, they meant something, you know? We didn’t suffer for nothing. In the end, they’re the ones who are trapped now, aren’t they? We didn’t let them win. We fought.”
“ You fought,” I correct her. I haven’t done anything but hide in a closet like a little kid and cry.
She stares out the window, a scene she must have memorized. Which building, which lights belong to what company, what time they flicker on as the sun goes down. The Renegade snakes through the city, pewter grey hugged by snowy banks.
“Are you saying you didn’t? You don’t? Every day is another day you may not remember something, or that you’ll remember something you don’t want to. It must be so hard for you, to want to remember and be scared of it at the same time.”
“I’d rather remember, even the bad things.”
She rests her hand against the glass. “Sometimes I wish I could wipe it clean, but you’re right. If I don’t remember the bad things, I’ll miss so much of the good. I love Zane, Zarah. I love him so much.”
“He loves you too.”
“I know. But if it came down to me or the past, which do you think would win? What wins, every time he looks at me?”
I stand next to her, look out the same window, but we see different things. “There is no contest, Stella. You are his past, and his future, because you’re his whole life.”
She tries to smile. “Clever.”
“True. Why aren’t you two married yet?”
“We’re waiting.”
“For what?”
She tugs off her coat and drapes it over her arm. “Things to blow over. We don’t want to go away on a honeymoon until all this is done.”
“That sounds like an excuse to me. Zane still wants to marry you?” I ask, though I know he does. Besides me getting better, it’s all he wants.
She holds up her left hand, the little diamond my brother gave her seven years ago twinkling on her finger. “He wanted to buy me something bigger, but I said I wanted to keep this one. Ash took it, and I felt so hopeless. Now it’s a symbol of strength and truth and I won’t let him replace it. Yes, he still wants to marry me.”
“Then he should get to.”
I pull my phone out of my purse and bring up Peggy’s number. Zane made sure it was listed in my contacts in case I couldn’t reach him in an emergency. “Peggy, it’s Zarah.”
Stella frowns.
“Zane and Stella want to get married. Can you set that up?” I listen, holding up a hand when Stella draws in a breath to object.
“A marriage license. Right...prenup? Zane wouldn’t ask her to sign something like that, but check with him to be sure...he’ll want to protect their children. Schedule an appointment at the courthouse for next week. Right. That should be enough time to get everything done...Gage Davenport and I will be witnesses. They don’t want a honeymoon yet, but dinner after?” I look at Stella and she nods. “And reserve the Honeymoon Suite at the Crowne for three nights.” It all started there. Maybe it should end there too.
“No, Zarah—”
I move the phone away from my mouth. “Gage will let me stay at his place. Don’t worry about it.”
She sighs.
“Yes, that should be it. Thanks, Peggy!” I disconnect and shove my phone into my purse. “There. No reason to wait. Put the poor boy out of his misery already.”
“He’s going to go crazy.”
“Stella, I see him look at you. He’s already there.”
Planning Stella and Zane’s small ceremony makes the rest of the time at Black Enterprises almost bearable. I hate walking around Ash’s suite, all dark wood and gaudy splashes of red. Memories of him shoving me up against the wall, a hand to my throat, threatening me if I didn’t do what he said, flash through my mind and pain bursts at the back of my head as if it just happened.
It’s stupid, but when he was done threatening me, he would hold me, kiss me, and dry my tears. Promise it would be just one more time, one more job, then we would go away and he would love and take care of me forever. I never believed it, but he could change from devil to angel so fast it seemed I imagined the threats and the violence.
Stella shows me where she worked, the locks on the doors and the bars on the windows. This high up she wouldn’t have been able use the window to escape, and I ask why.
“So I couldn’t try to break it and kill myself jumping.”
The desk is empty, but the place where a computer sat is stained into the wood.
“I planned my escape here. I kept track of everyone’s schedules and noted every single detail in this building. Business lunches, meetings. Who worked weekends, who attended which parties. It seemed important. Like I was doing something meaningful, digging through information, risking my life to find evidence that Clayton killed your mom and dad. Do you know how heartbreaking it was to know the only reason I escaped was because Willow was having an affair?”
“You had a plan. You would have gotten away even if she hadn’t let you go, but if you hadn’t seen her, we never would have found out Rourke’s involved in all this.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
“I know I am. We need to figure out how he’s involved. What was he doing, Stella? Sleeping with Willow, owning Quiet Meadows. He’s Max’s dad. Maybe Max wasn’t helping you because he thought Clayton was a murderer. Maybe he was helping his dad, and it was his way of spying. Looking for information. Maybe he didn’t love me. Maybe he got close to me to see if I could tell him anything. I was an easy target back then.”
“Don’t do that. You don’t remember Max the way we do. He wasn’t working for Rourke.”
“How can you be sure?”
“I can’t, but I don’t want to believe anything bad about him unless we have proof. His memory deserves more.”
She’s right, and I feel guilty for jumping to conclusions. I don’t remember Max well. The more time I spend on “this side” of the lower dosages of drugs I’m taking, the murkier and hazier “the other side” is. Not Quiet Meadows or Ash’s jobs, those memories are suppressed not only by drugs, but because I want them to be. Maybe that’s what Gage was getting at this morning, and why Stella brought me here to face her own nightmares. If I can remember something from the past that can help, then it’s worth it to make the future a better place.
While she wanders around a bit more, her fingers trailing over the surfaces of everything she can touch, I text Gage. Are you at your office?
It’s near lunchtime now, and I can pick up some food, talk to him about going to Quiet Meadows, and possibly ask him what he thinks of Rourke asking Max to spy on us. Now that I thought it, I can’t get it out of my head, even if it upset Stella.
Hi, sweetheart. Yep. Me and Pop. Are you in the city?
Yes. I answer. I can bring lunch. Can we talk?
Sure. I’ll be waiting. Zarah . . .
He types out my name, all serious, and I smile.
I love you . I’m sorry about this morning.
I love you, too. Don’t be. See you soon. 3
We stay longer than I thought we would. Stella acts like she doesn’t want to leave, and I understand. She’s saying goodbye to a part of her life, five years of her life she sacrificed for my family that she’ll never get back. For all the pain she endured, she’s in a better place now, a happier place. And she’s lingering, because after she leaves this building today, she won’t look back.
I respect that.
It’s like the end of an era for me, too. Not because I’m free of Ash’s grip around my throat, but for the years and years of friendship I thought were between my family and his. It really is difficult to know that your childhood, a huge part of your childhood, was a lie. If I let myself wonder how long Ash planned to hurt me, I would go even crazier than I am. To think about my plans to marry him, to merge our companies together. It was a future I had both simultaneously resented and looked forward to. Like a princess knowing she would one day marry the prince of a bordering kingdom. There’s duty in that, an acceptance of knowing you’re doing something bigger than you are, but there’s also excitement. Ash held King’s Crossing in the palm of his hand. If he had been sincere, if he had done things the way my father had done things, we would have been the most powerful couple in the country, maybe even the world.
It’s a heady thing to know.
Gage and his little office, his little business, keep my feet on the ground.
We stand on the sidewalk and say goodbye to Black Enterprises. The sun shines, and the air is crisp. A weight drops off Stella’s shoulders, and her eyes sparkle. I envy her the freedom, her shackles broken, but one day I’ll get there, too.
Douglas picks us up, and in the town car, she checks her phone. “Zane wants to see me.”
“Peggy told him.”
“Yep.”
It was a waste for me to go up to the twenty-fifth floor. The minute we step into reception, Zane bursts out of his office, scoops Stella into his arms—winter jacket and all—and slams his door shut behind them.
I look at Peggy.
She looks at me.
We say nothing.
I put my hand up, and grinning, she gives me a high-five.
It’s not until I’m in the elevator gliding down to the lobby that I let out a huge and delighted laugh.
Downstairs in the car, I text Gage and ask what he and Linc like to eat for lunch. He says they aren’t picky, burgers are fine, and I ask Douglas to stop at a gourmet hamburger place and pick up cheeseburgers, truffle fries, and thick chocolate shakes. My mouth is watering by the time we drive to the older part of the city, and I can’t scramble out of the car fast enough. Gage meets me at the door and he gives me a long, tentative kiss while I hold the bag and the cardboard tray of milkshakes between us.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispers.
“It’s okay. You didn’t do anything wrong. Let me in before our hamburgers get cold.”
Baby sits near me on the floor. She knows I love to feed her.
Linc’s cheerful and relaxed, and as we munch, he tells me silly stories about some of their cases. I like him, and it strikes me that one day he might be my father-in-law. He’s definitely a different kind of man than Clayton, or even my own father, but there’s a comfort in that. He’s steady, has street smarts that would rival any Ivy League education, and he loves Gage. That’s the most important thing of all. My father loved Zane and me more than anything in the world.
In an instant, grief stabs me so hard I almost fall over. Sometimes it’s a blessing that because of everything else going on, I forget how much I love and miss my parents. Then out of nowhere it will hit me like a truck.
“Linc, are you seeing anyone?” I ask, pushing my parents out of my mind.
He wipes his mouth. “Not at the moment.”
“I could introduce you to a couple of rich divorcées,” I tease.
“Thanks, but I think I’ll pass. Every time Gage’s mother has a little soirée—” he pronounces it “swore-ay—” “she’s more than happy to introduce me around. It’s not a club I particularly care to join. No offense, darlin’.” He says it laughingly, his eyes twinkling, but it still pokes at me and reminds me how different Gage and I are.
Zane told me a long time ago he was afraid our money would turn Stella off, and I have the same worries. I wonder if Gage likes how his mother and Rourke live. I guess not since while he was growing up he spent as much time as he could with Linc. It’s a different world, made up of chauffeurs, maids, and paparazzi who won’t leave you alone. It’s a world where people are nice to you to see what they can get, where people are friendly to your face only to backstab you later.
“It’s okay,” I say to hide my embarrassment.
Linc’s comment made me lose my appetite, and I ask Gage if I can feed the rest of my hamburger to Baby. I nibble on my fries, trying to keep my spirits up so he doesn’t think anything is wrong, and when we’re finished, he says, “Come on. I’ll drive you home.”
“Actually, I came here to tell you that I changed my mind. I’ll go to Quiet Meadows with you.”
He frowns and crumples the takeout bag into a ball. “Why?”
“Stella and I went to Black Enterprises today. I think it was her way of telling me if she can do it, I can, too. She’s not very subtle when she wants to get a point across.”
“If you’re sure.”
“I am. It’s been closed for a long time. Nothing can hurt me there anymore.”
“I’ll stay and do paperwork,” Linc says, throwing a piece of ketchup-smeared waxed paper into a trash bin near his chair.
“You wanna go right now?” Gage asks.
“Yeah. I don’t want to lose my nerve.” I force myself to smile.
Baby jumps to her feet, begging to go too, and she’s happy to get out of the office. She watches with rapt attention as the buildings streak by, and we need more than half an hour to reach the road Quiet Meadows was built on. It’s another five minutes until we see the building in the horizon, the only thing marring the snowy landscape.
My heart starts to race, an uneven pitter-patter, and I rub my chest. I thought I could do this, but now I’m not so sure. I don’t have the grace Stella does. To focus on something else, I say, “Stella and Zane are finally getting married.”
Gage looks at me out of the corners of his eyes. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. I don’t want to be what’s holding them back. They’re staying at the Crowne for a couple of days instead of going on a honeymoon. I hope it’s okay I said I could stay in the city with you, but if you’re busy, Lucille and I will be fine at the house.”
He lifts my hand and kisses my knuckles. “Of course it is. What brought that on?”
I shrug and try to pretend I don’t know he turned into the parking lot of the facility. “We were talking at Black Enterprises. I feel like I’m the reason why they haven’t done it yet, and I called Peggy, Zane’s secretary, and asked her to set it up. They love each other. They don’t have to wait because of me.”
“I bet Zane appreciated that.”
He doesn’t park in the front, instead he drives around to the back.
“Do you have permission for us to be here?”
“Besides the fact that Rourke is my stepfather and your brother is the richest man in the country who’s not behind bars? No.”
“Oh. How do you plan to get in?”
“I’m a private investigator. I’ll find a way.”
I quirk my lips in doubt, but he only laughs. “Zane was over the moon. He wanted it, but I think he didn’t want to hurt my feelings by trying to move forward.”
“They both have your best interests at heart.”
“Yeah, they do, but if they stop living because I’m in limbo, Ash wins, and Ash has hurt my brother and Stella enough. I want them to be happy. I don’t want to hold them back.”
Gage parks near huge loading bays where food and other supplies were delivered and turns the truck off. There’s not a sound in the cab except for the clicking of the cooling engine. “Loving and supporting you isn’t holding them back.”
I stare out the window. “I’ll hold you back.”
He cups my cheek in his warm palm and says, “If I’m stuck here for the rest of my life, I couldn’t be happier.”
Annoyed, I lean away. “That’s not what I want for you.”
“I’m not letting you dump me so you can avoid going in there.” He jerks his head toward the building.
“That’s not—”
“Sure it is. I’m on to you.” He taps my nose, and I stick my tongue out at him.
“Fine.”
“Come on.”
I don’t wait for him to round the hood and open my door. I jump into the snow and let Baby out who does the same.
Landscapers are still maintaining the grounds, and the parking lot is freshly plowed. Cameras are mounted above the loading bays and on every corner of the building. “Do you think they’re working?” I ask, pointing at them.
“Hard to say. Maybe. To keep the vandals away. Were you ever back here?”
“No. I don’t think so.”
There’s a plain beige door near one of the bays, and Gage trots up a small set of concrete stairs. He tries to turn the handle, but the door’s locked. Just as I suspected. I don’t know how he thinks he’s going to get us in there. The facility has been closed for a year and a half.
Baby sniffs at the ground, scampers away, and disappears around a corner.
Gage and I run to keep up, and we find her nosing at another door. A set of large footprints look...well, they aren’t fresh, but they aren’t covered in snow either. I’m not a PI like Gage, but I think they’re a couple of days old.
He notices them too, and says, “Pop told me they’re going to reopen this place soon.”
“They?”
“I don’t know. Maybe Rourke sold it. Guthrie didn’t care what happened to it after Rourke bought it, and he didn’t say anything to me and Zane about it reopening.”
“This place brought in millions. Rourke lost a lot of money when Zane shut it down.”
Gage tries the door, but this one is locked, too. Instead of giving up, he kneels in the snow and slides a slim black leather case out of his jacket pocket.
“What’s that?”
“My lockpick kit.”
“You know how to pick locks?” I always worry about Gage fitting into my world but picking locks and chasing after criminals definitely wasn’t something I considered I’d have to do to fit into his.
“Yeah. I could get into almost anywhere by the time I was ten. Pop taught me well.”
The keyhole looks like any simple, run-of-the-mill key would fit and open the door, and Gage doesn’t need long to release the lock. Unfortunately, the door only opens into a hallway that’s blocked off by another door, and this one is harder for Gage to crack.
I lean against the wall and wait, Baby lying on the tile, her tail swishing back and forth. She must be his accomplice on a lot of jobs. I can’t match her enthusiasm.
Finally, he’s able to open this door too, and a long dim hallway spits us into the rear of the facility.
It requires a lot of staff and behind-the-scenes work to keep a place of this size running efficiently, and the service area of the sanatorium looks almost as big as the patient common areas and our rooms.
The air smells the same, though the place hasn’t been open in a long time. The scent of cleaner, but not as industrial as a regular hospital, lingers in the air. Maybe a floral version of Mr. Clean. Easy on the nose, it creates the impression to potential clients who are thinking of placing family members in their care the sanatorium is less institutionalized and more like a home.
Baby sniffs at the floor and whines a little.
I know how she feels, but the minute I start to whine, Gage will want to leave. Now that I’m here, I want to see all of it, then I’ll never have to come back. If I chicken out now, I’ll regret it, and I don’t think I could dredge up the courage to do this again.
It’s dark in here but for a few security lights emitting a sickly orange glow.
We get lost, stumbling across the giant laundry room and the kitchen. It’s huge, but it doesn’t smell like a children’s school cafeteria. Quiet Meadows was classier than that. No, if the chefs were cooking now, the whole place would smell like a five-star restaurant. I don’t remember my mealtimes. I must have eaten because I didn’t starve to death, but my meals aren’t in my memories, even the vague ones that feel more like years-old dreams than reality.
Gage points out a wide hallway and we follow it out of the service area and into the administrative part of the building. There was never any reason I needed to be down these hallways, either, though I do remember Iona Belsely walking around, giving tours. She would lead families through the common areas and into the back where we would sit outside in the garden. I would always feel like an animal in the zoo, a creature on display. How was I being treated? Was I happy? Well cared for? And they would look at me in pity, a poor girl trapped at Quiet Meadows. Would she ever get better?
All the doors are shut, and I try a doorknob for the hell of it. It turns, and surprised, I step into the tiny office. There isn’t anything in it. The bookshelves are empty, just like at Black Enterprises. The desk is vacant of a computer and blotter. There’s no name plaque on the desk indicating whose office this belonged to or the kind of work they did here.
Gage followed me, and he stands silently by my side. Now that I’m here, he’ll let me do what I need to do. Even if that’s inspecting every inch of this place.
I back out and shut the door.
The admin hallway leads us to the lobby. The large oval receptionists’ desk is empty and four black chairs are pushed against the counter. Sunlight streams in through the glass doors. No one could enter the facility without an appointment. I wasn’t allowed visitors if they weren’t on the list Ash approved.
Richard Denton and Stella were smart—pretending they wanted a tour—and the bomb threat was the only way Stella would have been able to get past security to see me. The protection wasn’t just for me. There were several celebrity clients who stayed here, too, and the loss of profit must infuriate Rourke.
“Where did you stay? Can you find your room from here?” Gage asks, his voice cutting through the silence.
“Yeah. I was down the rich wing.” I lead him left, past the reception desk, and the farther we go down the hallway, the less it feels like a facility and the more it resembles a posh apartment building or condominium. The floor is laid with pretty tile, the walls painted a soothing cream, and each of the doors has a number on it. When I stayed here, someone had hung a wreath on my door, fake flowers that would never die. A keypad is fastened to the wall, but I try the handle and the door opens without resistance.
I don’t feel anything stepping into this room. I thought maybe I would. Fear. Resignation. Hopelessness. But I’m numb, like this isn’t happening to me. Like I’m watching a horror film, but I already know what’s coming next and I’m not scared.
The suite is large, and I don’t know how much Zane paid to keep me here. A million dollars a year? Maybe more, maybe less. I never asked, and he never said. We stop in the conversation area, and the loveseats are still here but they’re covered in dust. They’re a joke, an illusion. I never had company except when Ash came to threaten me, or when Zane would visit. He never stayed long. He hated seeing me here and I hated him for putting me here. “I never sat in them. I was in a wheelchair most of the time. Too drugged up to walk.”
“Jesus,” Gage mutters.
I drag my hand over the back of one of the sofas, and dust motes dance in the sunlight struggling to light up the room. In the bedroom, the bed is still here, but it’s been stripped, the mattress bare. The blinds are open, and the window offers a view of a field. How often would I sit on my bed and wish I were on the other side of the glass. Free.
Art hangs on the walls, generic watercolors that were supposed to turn my room into more than a room, turn it into my home.
It didn’t work.
The bathroom connects the bedroom and conversation area, and the toilet, sink, and large tub have been scrubbed clean.
“Did you take baths here?” Gage asks, his eyes sweeping over the giant hot tub.
“No. Nurses would push me into the shower and wash my hair. Shave my legs sometimes, if the nicer nurses were on duty. One liked to brush my hair, and she would do my makeup. Mascara, lipstick. I don’t know why. I never cared what anyone did to me.”
Never cared that in five years not one person put a kind hand on me.
“Did Zane visit you?”
“Yeah, but I never talked to him. When he discharged me, I was scared of him. Terrified. I thought he and Ash were still friends and he would let Ash see me, but he brought Stella to the penthouse and I knew he was finally listening to her. The minute she stepped into the living room and she saw I was out of Quiet Meadows, I knew things would change.”
“She forgave him.”
“For a lot of things. Let’s go look at the therapy rooms.”
“You didn’t have therapy here?”
“No. This is where they parked me when they were done with me.” I point to the cameras mounted on the walls. “They watched me that way. If I needed anything.”
“What could you possibly need?”
“Stitches.”
Gage sputters. “What the fuck?”