Body and Bone (22 page)

 

Chapter Twenty-­Four

N
ESSA WOULD CONVI
NCE
her mother of who she was. She had to. This thought steadied her as she walked inside, until she saw Isabeau dead on the floor.

She covered her mouth with her hands to keep a scream from escaping. Daltrey was in the house somewhere, and she didn't want to scare him more than he probably already was.

More tears flowed for her only friend since Candy, dead like Candy.

“Candy?” called Joyce from the living room. “In here, dear.”

Even in the midst of this nightmare, Nessa couldn't help but hear everything Joyce said as a poorly acted, badly written script.

She tried not to track any blood into the living room.

How stupid!
Who gives a shit?
Isabeau was dead, and Daltrey had a gun to his head.

Nessa ran into the living room, and there sat her mother on the couch, like the soap opera queen she was. Beautifully coiffed, manicured, still gorgeous after all this time.

And suddenly Nessa was like a little girl, seeing her mother for the first time in years, and she had to throttle the compulsion to run to her, to throw herself into Joyce's lap.

Because this woman was threatening her son. Had killed her husband. Had tried to destroy her.

“Where's Daltrey?” Nessa demanded.

“Oh, he's fine,” Joyce said. “He's up in his room with Brandon.”

The initial stab of pain for her poor, stupid brother was overcome by her new and fresh hatred of him for holding a gun on her son. The first thing she was going to do, once they knew who they'd been harassing all this time, was to kick the shit out of her brother. He was having a ball, apparently, in Joyce's good graces.

“Well, let's get right to it,” Joyce said briskly, rising from the couch, as if welcoming a talk-­show guest. “Give me your phone.”

Nessa did. Joyce powered the phone down and put it in her pocket.

“Mom, it's me,” Nessa said. “I'm Rosie. Look at me.”

“My child is dead,” Joyce said. “
My
child would never leave me unless she was dead.” She straightened her blouse hem and put her hands on her hips, looking around the room. “Now, you sit over there,” she said, pointing at the wingback chair. “The light is best there, I think.”

Joyce was directing. This was the ultimate reality show to her.

She recomposed her face into a pleasant smile. “From that chair you can also see the TV. So that you have continued motivation to follow my directions, I'm going to leave it on, so you can see what's happening upstairs.”

There on the screen was Daltrey, lying on his bed, motionless, a gun to his head.

“He's not moving! What have you done?” Nessa shrieked. “He's already dead, isn't he?”

“Oh, no need to worry. I need him alive. I gave him some Nyquil to help him sleep.”

Nessa prayed that this was true.

“How are we doing up there?” Joyce called up the stairs.

Nessa stared at the screen as the gun withdrew from it and a gloved hand gave the thumbs-­up sign. Nessa watched Daltrey and finally saw his chest rise and fall. He was alive. And Nessa would do anything to keep it that way. Anything. Whatever Joyce wanted.

Anything.

“Please, Candy, have a seat,” Joyce said, indicating the wingback chair.

Nessa sank into it, and Joyce knelt before her, and a waft of Chanel No. 5 overwhelmed her, activating an olfactory memory of long ago.

“Mommy,” Nessa whispered, watching Joyce tie her ankles to the chair legs with bungie cords, but seeing instead Joyce tying four-­year-­old Rosie's tennis shoes.

Joyce hesitated for a fleeting second, almost looked up into Nessa's face, but then she took a larger cord and tied it around the chair at waist level, leaving Nessa's arms free. Joyce tucked a blanket around Nessa so that the bungee cords wouldn't show.

“We're going to videotape this,” Joyce said. “It's going to make amazing TV. The grief-­stricken junkie confessing on screen to accidentally killing her best friend. And to killing her nanny with a frying pan in a fit of drug-­fueled aggression.”

With a shock, Nessa realized what this was. Joyce was auditioning. This was a talk show, a Lifetime movie, and a reality show all rolled into one. Her magnum opus.

Joyce stood back from Nessa's chair to evaluate her set decoration. She nodded, satisfied.

“Mom,” Nessa said, focusing on Joyce's eyes, willing her to see her daughter, “remember that time when Brandon was in the hospital, and we went down to Dana Point and pretended to be movie stars? You were Sigourney Weaver and I was Dakota Fanning. Remember?”

“And then, Candy, for the finale,” Joyce said, as if Nessa hadn't spoken. She held up a length of rubber tubing and a syringe wrapped in a Kleenex, presumably to keep her fingerprints off them. “You're going to give yourself this shot of heroin.”

Nessa's salivary glands doubled their output at the sight of the hypo. Damn her own body for continuously betraying her.

Nessa held her breath to make her face turn red and then pointed at her forehead, where a pink V always appeared when she did so. “Remember this, Mom?” she said, her voice frantic. “You used to call it a stork bite, but you also used to say it made me look like a Klingon. Remember how much it would stand out when I got mad? You'd stand me in front of the mirror and say—­”

“Now, I've gone ahead and written your suicide note,” Joyce said, setting the syringe and tubing on the coffee table, all business. “So all you'll have to do is cut and paste it into your blog. Let's go ahead and do that now.”

A bead of liquid gathered at the end of the needle and dripped onto her coffee table, and Nessa salivated, her veins pulsating.

Nessa swallowed. “Mom,” she pleaded. “Look at me.”

“Stop calling me that,” Joyce said, her voice full of acid. She turned her face toward the staircase. “Come down here, Brandon,” she called. “Bring down the video camera.”

Nessa's brother appeared in the doorway, and her heart leaped in her chest. Her first friend. Her mentor. He would know her. He would see their mistake. He loved her.

Brandon looked heavier and older than his Facebook photo. He had the beard Brady and Allen had talked about, wore a wifebeater and shorts, and he was carrying a pistol and a video camera on a tripod.

Brandon handed his mother the gun.

“Hi, Candy,” Brandon said to Nessa with a grimace, not looking at her.

Oh, Joyce had been stoking his hatred for a long time. Had it burning at a white-­hot passion now. He was looking forward to watching his sister's killer die. Had been dreaming of it.

“Brandon,” Nessa said. “It's me. It's Rosie. Look at me, and you'll know it's me.”

He looked uncertain for a moment, but then his expression hardened.

“Hand her the computer and have her log in to her blog, and then you copy and paste the text.”

“Brandon,” Nessa said.

“Stop talking to him,” Joyce said, “or your son dies right now.”

“Stop yelling, or we'll go home right now.”

“Stop pouting, or you're going to bed right now.”

“Stop crying, or the cameramen will leave right now. Is that what you want?”

Nessa did as she was told—­logged in to her blog. She absolutely believed that they would hurt Daltrey, and that could not happen. If he was dead, she wanted to be dead too. There was no point in going on without him.

The hypo on the coffee table was two feet from her. Could she throw the laptop at it and break it? But before she could do anything, Brandon took the computer from her and put a flash drive in the USB port. He sat on the floor and took care of business.

“It's posted, Mom,” he said.

No. This wasn't happening. Her heart thrashed in her chest, seemed to be skipping beats, and a painfully hot flush covered her face.

“And now, Brandon, set up the camera. Obviously, Candy, it will do you no good to ask for help, because it's video. It's not live. I know you understand how this works—­”

“Because of all the shows we did together, right, Mom?”

“So all you have to do is confess to what you did. And then tie yourself off and inject yourself with heroin.”

“You'll want to do a close-­up on the hypo, Brandon,” Nessa said, “and then fade it out so they can cut to commercial.”

Brandon's eyebrows drew together and he finally looked at her. Then he couldn't seem to look away.

“Unless, of course,” Joyce said, “you'd rather your son die in your place.”

Nessa's whole body twitched, hearing this. Even considering the possibility.

“Brandon,” Nessa said.

He didn't respond, just kept staring.

Seeing this, Joyce clamped her hands on either side of Brandon's face to make him look at her. “She'll say anything. Didn't I tell you she'd do anything to get out of it?”

“It's me, Brandon,” Nessa said again. “It's Rosie.”

“Rosie's dead,” Brandon said, on script. But he'd never been an actor.

“No,” Nessa said. “
Candy's
dead. The little boy you were pointing a gun at? That's your nephew.
Your
nephew, Brandon. His name is Daltrey.”

This made another dent, Nessa could see it.

“That's enough,” Joyce said.

“Brandon, listen to me. I'm Rosie, and I can prove it.”

Joyce said, “You know she's not Rosie.”

“Yes, I am,” Nessa said. “I stole Candy's identity when she died, because she didn't have a police record like me.”

“Shut up,” Joyce said to her.

“Where were you the night Dimebag Darrell was shot onstage?” Nessa said to Brandon. “December 8, 2004. Do you remember where
we
were?”

Brandon didn't move, didn't look at her.

“We were at the Muse concert at the Wiltern LG Theater in LA, and Matt Bellamy announced it from the stage. Do you remember? It was just you and me.”

“I'm not listening to you,” Brandon said, uncertain. “Rosie could have told you that story.”

“Brandon. What Mom has made you to do is—­”

“Shut up!” Joyce thundered. “Brandon. Will you give Candy and me a few minutes alone? Go on upstairs and I'll call when we're ready to go.”

Brandon did as his mother told him. He always did. Nessa heard one of the bedroom doors upstairs click closed.

“Mom, how can you possibly not know it's me?” Nessa pleaded.

Then Joyce turned her face toward Nessa, and smiled.

“Of course a mother knows her own child,” she said. “Hello, Rosie.”

 

Chapter Twenty-­Five

V
ERTIGO OVERCAME
N
E
SSA,
and she felt faint.

Her own mother had
knowingly
tormented her, smeared her name, and almost gotten her raped . . . and had killed her husband.

Nessa had always known that Joyce loved Brandon more than her. But now she knew that Joyce had never loved her at all. Never. Had always been willing to sacrifice her on the altar of Brandon's health and her own fame.

Nessa was alone in the universe, floating in space, cut off from the rest of humanity, and she'd done it to herself.

With her mother's help.

Only one person left alive loved her, and he was in danger of dying tonight.

“We had a deal,” Joyce said quietly. “And then you stopped coming home, right in the middle of the season. There was no show without you. You knew that. What was I supposed to do?”

Nessa was delirious with a combination of déjà vu and vivid fear, and underneath it all, the chattering of her veins' rapacious desire to absorb what was in that syringe, to drink it up, to be filled and let this nonstop agony of fear and anxiety and desire finally end. With each passing moment she felt her grasp on the rope of her life loosen. It was slipping through her hands, and what a relief it would be to just . . . let . . . go.

But Daltrey. She had to fight the encroaching nothingness. She focused on her mother, on finding a way out of this.

Joyce turned on her like a tiger. “Your fame was supposed to be
mine
. Not yours, not after what you did to me.”

“I didn't do anything to you, Mom,” Nessa said, hiccuping with sobs so violent she could barely get the words out. “The only person I did anything to was Candy. And that was an accident.”

“No,” Joyce said. “It wasn't.”

“Of course it was, Mom! I never—­”

Joyce's expression struck a memory. The parted lips, the lifted chin and eyebrows. Waiting for one of her children to sound out a word, or interpret a figure of speech.

As understanding broke in Nessa's mind, her blood felt unbearably hot in her veins, melting her from the inside, paralyzing her limbs.

“It wasn't Hoover who gave Brandon the heroin to give to us,” Nessa said.

Joyce brushed some imaginary lint off her blouse.

“It was you,” Nessa said in a whisper, the air leaving her body and threatening to never return.

Nessa's mother sighed and looked up at the ceiling.

“You were as good as dead already,” Joyce said. “I knew it was just a matter of time before you overdosed, or were stabbed to death, or who knows what else.” Now she looked Nessa in the eye. “At least this way, I knew we could make something positive come out of it. And I would have control over what happened. So I was ready when I got the call from the coroner.” Her proud and shrewd expression clouded. “But then he showed me photos of . . . Candy. Dead. I screamed and nearly fainted. I didn't have to act shocked, because I was shocked.
You
were supposed to take the first shot. It was your birthday! But you know me. I am nothing if not quick on my feet. I identified Candy's body as yours, and that was that. Because I knew it wouldn't be long until you actually killed yourself anyway, one way or another.”

Her expression turned sour. “But then we find out—­you have a radio show! You're rich and famous, have a beautiful house, acres of land, nice car. A fabulous life. You were supposed to die.”

Of course. Because how could Nessa actually go on living, prosper, thrive, without Joyce? How could anyone?

“Brandon's the one who figured out ‘Nessa Donati' was really Candy,” Joyce said. “Something you said on the air one day—­I don't remember what it was. Then it took some time to track you down. I have to give Brandon credit. He's very handy with computers. Anyway. We took the money we had left and came out here to . . . Kansas.” She said it as if the word was a mouthful of moldy bread.

“We started watching your house. Watched the locksmith change the locks. Bought the keys from him. Then we waited, and you and the boy left for the weekend. And that husband of yours—­another addict, of course!—­drove up to the house in a pickup, went into one of your sheds. And he hung himself in there.”

Nessa gasped. Her intuition all those weeks ago had been accurate—­he had killed himself, but not in the tragic romantic-­lead manner her mind had conjured. No. He'd killed himself on her property, so she'd find him like an Easter egg.
See what you've done to me? See what you drove me to?
This is your fault. All your fault.

Never thinking that his own son might find his swinging corpse. Never thinking about anyone but himself. And this was yet another knife in Nessa's heart.

“So,” her mother went on, as if describing a mundane but arduous task like cleaning out the gutters, “we cut him down. Went in the house, found your gun, shot his corpse and then—­it's actually harder to make a dead body bleed than you'd think.” She shuddered at the memory. “Anyway. We drove down to the river and put him in the water. We were sure he'd be found, and all the evidence would point to you. The police will discover that gunshots didn't kill him, but—­well, it's a moot point now, isn't it?”

She looked at her watch. “I know you want to know how the story ends—­you never could wait. You always read the ends of books first. Had to know how the movie ended before you'd watch it. So I won't keep it from you now. The long-­suffering mother finds out that, unbeknownst to her, all these years, she's had a grandson. And now she can be part of the charming, though mute, little boy's life.”

How heartwarming it would be for the viewers. She could just hear the
awww
s coming from the audience.

“And his uncle will be overjoyed to discover he has a nephew.”

“But once Brandon realizes—­”

“He'll get over it,” Joyce said. “I knew it would be easier on him if he thought you were actually Candy. But he knows we need money for treatment. His lymphoma has come back.”

“What?” Nessa said.

“That's right. If he doesn't get chemo, he's going to die.”

“So I have to die instead.”

Joyce looked away from her. “You're dead already.”

“Mom,” Nessa said. “You don't have to do this. It's going to ruin your life and Brandon's. It's not going to turn out like you think.”

“It's going to turn out exactly like I think.”

“I'll pay for Brandon's treatment.”

Joyce's lips curled in a derisive smile. “Oh, no, you don't. You're not going to just swoop in now at the eleventh hour and get to be the hero. Absolutely not.”

“Right,” Nessa said. “That's your part—­‘hero.' My part is ‘bad seed.' It's ‘black sheep.' I don't get to change roles in the middle of the show.”

“What's done is done.”

Of course. Joyce needed to control everything.

“Mom,” Nessa said. “There's a problem with your plan. It's not perfect. Because how are you going to explain that I stayed away all these years? That I never came back to you?”

Joyce's expression didn't change.

“You have no idea what I've been through in the last ­couple of years,” she said. “Once all the work dried up, your brother suffered. The things I had to do to make sure he had his insulin. If you'd have just continued to come home, I wouldn't have been mad about the heroin. I would have understood.”

A part of Nessa was desperate to believe this. “But I didn't want you to see me like that.”

“I know, honey,” Joyce said, starting to reach for Nessa's face, but then pulled her hand back and looked away.

“I just couldn't do the show anymore,” Nessa said. How could she make Joyce understand? That allowing producers and cameramen and writers watch her every move and comment on it and try to shape it was exquisite torture.

“We did what we had to do,” Joyce said, her expression hardening. “But then you decided to throw it all away, walk away and leave your brother and me with nothing.”

The words themselves were full of Joyce's patented melodrama. The manipulation, the emotional blackmail, were achingly familiar. But something about the
way
Joyce said it, in a fragile, tremulous voice, summoned a shocking impulse within Nessa—­to mother her own mom.

“Oh, Mom,” Nessa said, swallowing, hoping that Joyce could hear the authentic emotions behind what she was saying. “I know it's been hard. Dad screwed you over, no question about it. You got left with a chronically sick kid that you had to take care of and worry over all by yourself. You gave him the injections. You watched his diet, drove him to all his appointments.”

Nessa watched her mother luxuriate in the praise like a cat in a patch of sunlight and realized that she meant what she was saying. Joyce really had been alone. She really had been the only one who took care of Brandon. And she was mentally ill, a borderline personality or a narcissist. What she really needed was help. She was twisted up inside because she'd been abandoned, and she couldn't protect her children from illness or predators or death.

As a mom, Nessa felt in her heart that her mother, in her own deranged way, had done the best she could. But somewhere along the way, she'd fallen off the deep end, and there was no water in the pool to catch her.

Maybe Nessa only imagined it, but for a moment, she felt like her mother saw her.

“But, Mom,” Nessa said. “You and Brandon weren't the only ones who suffered. I was
raped
. I was a kid. A baby. And you turned me into a sideshow. Don't you understand? I started using heroin because of that.”

“I
know
!” Joyce screamed it into her face, so loud and suddenly that Nessa rocked back in her chair. “Why do you think I sent that incompetent rapist here? Then practically put the drugs in your hand? You see, I came up some new show ideas. Show A was ‘Mother of a Murderer.' That one didn't work out because Brandon's plan was so ridiculously complicated that all it did was confuse the detectives. So then as usual,
I
had to come up with the workable idea. Here's the logline: ‘Famous radio personality turns out to be dead girl, commits suicide out of guilt before her mother can stop her.' The synopsis: Long-­suffering mother of ill son and dead daughter discovers the daughter is still alive. But in a cruel twist, the daughter commits suicide before the devoted mother can get to her side.”

Something had been removed from Joyce. A protein, an enzyme, a hormone, a neural connection. All Joyce could do was
act
like she loved,
act
like she was happy,
act
like she was in love. Had she been born this way? Or had her parents and circumstances made her this way?

In her mind, Joyce put ­people into two rooms—­one for good ­people (the list was short and sometimes nonexistent) and one for bad ­people, which included nearly everyone else. Sometimes Nessa was allowed into the warm room, but rarely. Brandon had twisted himself into pretzels insinuating himself into it.

Nessa had read a novel once in which a character dreamed he was watching the entire human race holding hands and marching around the planet in a circle. But he couldn't figure out how to become a part of the circle.

Nessa had once been part of that circle, but had let go of it.

Joyce, on the other hand, couldn't even
see
the circle. And she'd wrenched Brandon from it so she wouldn't be alone.

“Mom,” Nessa said. “Just walk away, and I'll leave you alone. I won't report this. I'll tell the cops that an intruder killed Isabeau, and I came home to find her dead. You and Brandon can get in your car and drive away.”

Joyce almost seemed to consider this. Nessa reached out a hand.

“I love you, Mom,” Nessa said, tears running down her face in an endless stream. “You're sick. I can get you the help you need.”

Now Joyce fixed her eyes on Nessa and for a brief second Nessa thought maybe she'd broken through the layers of Joyce's mental illness.

But then Joyce gave her that superior, haughty look Nessa knew so well. “Oh, the heroin addict is going to help me. Oh, happy day. Lucky me. No. You're not going to fool me again. Not ever again.”

Joyce rose from the couch and walked toward Nessa, and Nessa was certain Joyce was going to strike her. But she didn't. She leaned over and kissed Nessa's cheek. She pulled back and looked into Nessa's eyes.

And smiled.

Nessa's breath died in her lungs.

“Your son is very photogenic,” Joyce said, and laid her hand on Nessa's cheek. “And don't worry. He's going to love living in California. I'll take good care of him.”

Like fucking bloody hell she would.

It was as if someone had lit a fire beneath her chair. Nessa launched herself at her mother, throwing all her weight forward onto her feet, bringing the chair with her. The momentum and weight of the chair knocked Joyce to the ground, and Nessa grabbed a handful of Joyce's hair as she rolled the chair on its side.

Joyce repeatedly slapped Nessa's face, but Nessa wouldn't let go. When one of Joyce's fingers strayed toward Nessa's mouth, she bit into it and whipped her head back and forth like a dog with a chew toy.

Joyce screamed and scratched at Nessa's eyes. “You're not going to ruin this for me. Not again.” Joyce reached toward the coffee table.

Nessa clutched at her mother's hair, but Joyce was so determined she dragged Nessa and the chair toward the syringe, the handful of hair tearing loose with a moist ripping sound.

Joyce grunted and lunged for the coffee table, plunging facefirst into the floor.

Nessa dug her fingernails into Joyce's leg, and Joyce kicked Nessa in the temple. Joyce's hand scrabbled over the tabletop and tipped it.