Behind the Green Curtain (34 page)

Chapter 52

It wasn’t exoneration. It was
reprieve. Like the stay of an execution.

When Jack came back, Amelia would
return to their life, to their bedroom. She would lie beside him, providing the
consistency he liked, and feign whatever emotion each moment demanded of her.

Until then, she was free to live as
she wanted.

Climbing into the bed in the guest
room, Amelia curled up with Caton’s memory and the maudlin sentimentality of a
drink too many. The instant her head touched the pillow, it seemed, she was
waking to a sound, distant, yet somehow close, as if it came from outside the
house or out of her dreams.

Slightly more conscious, the next
sound was closer and clearer. Brain fogged with sleep, body lethargic, Amelia’s
first reaction was panic. Eyes jumping to the ceiling, she sat up, clutching
the covers against her chest, her anxiety slowly subsiding as she remembered
she didn’t live alone and the only people who had the code to the alarm system
were those who had a right to be there.

There was really no need for her to
stir at all. Recognizing the distinctive creak of the bad floorboard in Jack’s
office, though, Amelia knew the only reason he would return in the middle of
the night was if he was up to something he shouldn’t be or checking to see
whether she had fallen back in line yet. Either possibility infuriating her,
she threw the covers back and got out of bed.

The hardwood cold against her bare
feet as she climbed to the third floor, Amelia’s steps slowed when she saw
nothing but darkness above. There was no reason for Jack not to turn on the light,
no logical reason for him not to have come by daylight. Still, Amelia bypassed
the open door of the master bedroom to turn toward his office, hesitating for
only a moment when a narrow beam of light appeared in the hallway outside the
door and vanished just as quickly.

It was in the interest of safety to
retreat, she knew, to hide behind the fortified door of the master suite with
the phone and gun inside, but her feet continued to move anyway, carrying her
forward to the wall outside Jack’s office, and, as she peered around the door
frame, Amelia felt only a hint of the fear she thought she should feel.

The beam of light rushing up to
meet her from inside, it blinded Amelia to everything but the black clothing of
the intruder, who went rigid at her sudden presence. It was exactly what she
expected, exactly the outcome to which each clue had pointed. She had walked
straight into danger for a reason she couldn’t quite explain. Standing
face-to-face with it, though, Amelia’s survival instincts kicked in. Foot
slamming against the doorframe as she turned, she thought she heard her name,
but it was lost to the rush of blood through her ears, to the pounding of her
heart in both her chest and her head.

Clearing the bedroom door, she
didn’t hear the intruder behind her before the arms closed around her waist.
Struggling against their hold, Amelia fell forward, pain radiating through her
knees as she pulled the intruder with her to the floor. A scream ripping from
her throat as she kicked out, she felt her heel smash into the shadowed face,
rewarded by the pained grunt as her attacker reeled backward.

She didn’t have the fight left in
her to win, though, and as Amelia rolled to get up, the attacker lurched
forward again, hands pushing her to the floor, pinning her in place as a
shockingly warm body pressed against her back. She had always known Jack could
get rid of her, that, if he really wanted to, he would make her disappear. She
never expected it to be so intimate, the last moments of death, to find such gentle
embrace in the violence.

“Amelia, it’s me,” the intruder
panted in her ear. “It’s me.”

In the instant it took to reconcile
the voice with the sensation of her, Amelia stopped struggling. Then, she
struggled harder, pushing the weight off with a determined elbow and crawling
out from beneath it. Turning to face the small patch of Caton she could see
between the low-pulled black cap and turtleneck, residual fear and shock
amplified her voice. “Caton? What the fuck are you doing here?”

Darkness deep around them, Amelia
could scarcely see Caton’s flinch, but the blood appeared vibrant as Caton
wiped the trickle at the corner of her mouth before moving her gloved hand up
to catch the steady stream from her nose. At the realization that Caton wasn’t
going to answer her, Amelia glanced back down the hall, piecing together bits
of memory from before the threat of danger stole her ability to think. “What
were you doing in Jack’s office?”

Caton’s eyes flashing upward, they
met Amelia’s fleetingly, before Caton dropped her gaze again. Watching her
stare at the floor for more than a reasonable amount of time, Amelia pushed to
her feet, brushing herself off as if Sole would allow the weekly cleaning crew
to leave a speck of dust behind on the floor. “Fine, don’t tell me,” she
uttered, managing to sound relatively normal, despite Caton’s appearance at her
home in the middle of the night and the pulsing feeling in her body that hadn’t
gone away, despite knowing there was no threat.

Able to see more clearly as Caton
rose from the floor, Amelia felt an unwarranted pang of guilt as blood gushed
again from Caton’s nose at the movement. Raising the black glove, Caton stemmed
the flow with the back of her hand. Even in the weak light, she looked
overly-tired, like she hadn’t slept in days.

Hand falling away, Caton sniffed,
her gaze stroking down Amelia’s body as she took a tentative step forward.
Against every instinct she had, Amelia forced a step back, grabbing the post at
the foot of the bed like a crutch. When Caton’s sigh filled the empty space
between them, Amelia resisted the urge to let her close the distance.

“Amelia.” Caton shook her head.
Roughness gone, she sounded the same, and, lured by the comfort, Amelia’s
fingers tightened on the post to hold her in place. “Jack is not a good man.”

“Yes, I know,” Amelia responded
tersely. “What does that have to do with anything?”

As Caton’s gaze dragged away,
Amelia could see her teeth working against the inside of her lower lip, the
nervous habit excruciatingly familiar, as Caton contemplated whether or not to
answer the question. Finally pulling off the gloves and yanking the black cap
from her head, Caton ran her fingers through her hair, trying to tame it. “The
man you talked to on the street...” She posed it like a question.

“The investigator?” Amelia
returned, and Caton nodded.

“He has been looking into Jack for
a long time. What Jack’s doing... Amelia, Jack is doing some really
reprehensible things.”

“Like what?” Amelia asked, not
knowing if she wanted the answer. What she knew about Jack had always been
enough to know she didn’t want to know what he did in business. Caton, though,
Caton owed her an explanation, and if that was part of it, so be it.

“It doesn’t matter,” Caton said in
a rush, head jerking from side to side. “But Slater knows Jack is walking a
very narrow line between what’s legal and what isn’t. Jack knows how to stay
within the law. But people are going to come here tomorrow. They are looking
for something, and they are going to find it.”

“I don’t understand,” Amelia
replied, looking around the room for something that made sense, but finding
only more questions. “If Jack is within the law, then how...” It was Caton’s
falling gaze, the sudden hunch of her shoulders that gave her away, and,
breaking off, Amelia looked back down the hallway, realization dawning
painfully on her as her gaze lingered at the door of Jack’s office. “You’re
planting evidence?”

Caton said nothing. She didn’t need
to say anything.

“So, Jack walks a line,” Amelia
uttered. “But you cross right over it? How does that make you better than him?”

“It doesn’t,” Caton responded
instantly. “This isn’t about me.”

Arms crossing before her, Caton
tried to look resolute, but looked every bit a martyr. Not sure whether she
should be furious or inspired, Amelia settled on being rational. Suddenly, it
was about Caton, and the fact she had planted herself firmly in the line of
fire for a reason she wouldn’t explain.

“Jack’s lawyers cost two-thousand
dollars an hour, Caton. Do you really think they are not going to know you
planted evidence? Jesus Christ. It’s on video.”

“The cameras are off,” Caton
quietly returned, and, once again, Amelia felt as if Caton had grabbed her by
the arm and spun her in circles. Trying to find a way off the fast-moving
wheel, the whole room seemed to move.

“How did you...” she started.

“I watched.” Caton shrugged. “I
know the codes. I know the passwords.”

Words sinking in, Amelia thought
back to all the times she had to have entered them without feeling the need to
watch her back in Caton’s presence and lost her breath. “You used me.”

“I wasn’t using you,” Caton rushed
to assert. “I didn’t ask for this kind of access. Jack invited me in. He gave
me access. To the files, to the codes.”

“To me?”

“I was not using you,” Caton stated
again, each word crisp, as if perfect enunciation would make Amelia believe
them. “If anything, you made this harder.”

“Well, I am so sorry,” Amelia
countered mockingly, but she couldn’t get sufficient anger behind it. Aside
from utter confusion, the only feelings that seemed real were the ones that
threatened to hurt more, and she shut them down as they arose, turning herself
off to Caton a piece at a time.

“I didn’t want this job,” Caton
tried to explain herself. “I wasn’t going to take it. But when Jenna told me
what Jack had done -”

“Jenna?” The name was like a
grenade dropped on the conversation, and Amelia felt too stunned to run for
cover. “You’re working with Jenna? That’s why you were worried about her
finding out. It wasn’t about me. You were worried about it messing up your
little set-up.”

“That is not true,” Caton replied,
and her remorse, at least, was real. Not that it mattered, for all the comfort
it brought. “Jack has to be stopped, Amelia,” she went on. “You think I am
using you? He has used you.”

“What has he done?”

“Amelia.” Caton attempted to
dissuade her from the line of questioning.

“What has he done?” Amelia asked
again, and, seeming to realize it was the way things were going to go, Caton
gave a near-imperceptible nod, fingers tearing at the cap in her hands as if
they might pick it completely apart.

“Jack uses the charities to make
millions,” she answered. “Then, he leaves them to go bankrupt. He charges them
for everything. He distributes to his friends, to his friends’ friends. The charities
get thousands, if that.”

“That’s impossible,” Amelia
uttered, the hairs on the back of her neck standing on end as a chill moved
down it. “I have collected hundreds of millions of dollars for him.”

“You don’t see the paperwork,”
Caton responded. “Why do you think he wants you to handle all this? You look
good. You look honest. He’s stealing from the pockets of the most needy, the
dying, the suffering, and you help him do it.”

“I didn’t know!” Amelia shouted,
the burden of guilt settling in before she’d even fully decided if what Caton
was telling her was true.

“I know you didn’t,” Caton returned
gently. “I thought you must, but...” She exhaled heavily, a sad smile canting
her lips. “You were so proud. You thought you were helping so many people. But Jack
takes, Amelia. He doesn’t give. You, above everyone else, should know that.”

Amelia wanted to reject the
allegation, to take Caton’s word with skepticism. If Caton had rushed to use it
as excuse, she might have been able to do so. She knew it was true, though, by
how much Caton clearly didn’t want to tell her. And she knew Caton was right,
Jack wasn’t exactly the charitable type. It never had made much sense.

Swiveling around the bed post,
Amelia sank weakly to the edge of the mattress, tears coming to her eyes and
turning the gray room darker. “What else?” she asked.

When Caton took too long in
answering, Amelia glanced back, watching Caton step closer to the foot of the
bed, testing their boundaries. Amelia let her, wanting her closer, wanting her
further away. Wanting her not to have come, so she didn’t have to start
readjusting to her life all over again.

“He...” Caton tried, voice fading
into nothingness. “He does a lot of business with less-than-upstanding
associates.”

“What does that mean?” Amelia
prodded.

Caton huffed, as if she had the
right to be exasperated by the interrogation when she had just broken into
someone else’s home. When her eyes returned to Amelia, though, her head shaking
in warning, Amelia knew Caton wasn’t keeping the details to herself for her own
sake. “It’s bad business,” she whispered.

“Like what?” Amelia asked, knowing
she should let it go, Caton’s lack of response fueling her foreboding. “Like
what, Caton?”

Such utter torment flashed across
Caton’s face that fear chased sympathy through Amelia’s gut. She wondered what
exactly Caton knew, how long she had known it, and if Caton’s extreme unease
around Jack wasn’t based solely on the obvious, but supplemented by a truth
from which Caton was clearly trying to protect her.

Realizing she didn’t need Caton for
answers, Amelia pushed herself up, moving back through the doorway and down the
hall before Caton could make a move to stop her. Caton was right there next to
her, though, by the time Amelia flipped on the light in Jack’s office to
discover the contents of the shelves out of place, a wood box she had seen many
times, but had never given any real thought, sitting in the middle of the huge
oak desk.

“What is this?” she questioned,
moving around Jack’s desk, barricading herself from temptation, before looking
up and grimacing at Caton’s face, which was already turning a deep shade of
purple she was going to have a hard time explaining.