And then he did what no one had ever done. He pulled her to him, cradled her in his arm, and asked nothing. Nothing at all.
Hours later, Ray woke to find Gillian naked and bending over him, her little camera in his face. “Jesus, what are you doing?” He pushed her arm away.
“What’s it look like I’m doing?” She clicked another picture, crawled over the sheets and his legs to a new position, and clicked once more. “I’m memorializing you. Don’t you want to be remembered for all time?”
“Not without my clothes on I don’t. Cut it out.” She sighed, dropped the camera. “Come here,” he said, pulling her against him. “God, you’re freezing.” He rubbed up and down those thin, mutilated arms, trying to warm her.
She raised the camera in front of them both, and before he could dodge, she clicked the picture. Her arm dropped, and the hand holding the camera hit the bed with a small thud.
“Don’t you want to know?” she said at last.
She lay against his shoulder, and he traced the odd-shaped scars, ugly flaps of skin that looked like knife wounds or burns or—he let himself face it silently— torture. Some kind of sick torture. But nowhere in any file or record had there been any indication that she’d been abused. Was this Kenny Post’s work? But the marks were old, faded, embedded in scar tissue. Whoever hurt her had done it long ago. He pictured the angelic child she’d been, and a fierce rage gripped him.
He let out a long breath, struggling to keep the fury bottled. “Yeah, sure I do,” he said. “But it’s your story to offer when you’re ready.”
“Why don’t you ask?”
“Ask what? What happened to you? I can see what happened. Who did it? Christ, I don’t think I want to know. Not sure I could keep”—he fisted a hand—“keep from hunting him down and killing him.”
“Her,” she said quietly. “Killing her.”
“What?”
“And you won’t have to do much hunting.”
A shock wave hit him. Her grandmother? My God, no wonder Holland took her daughter away. No wonder Gillian hated Genevra Gray so much.
“Look, you don’t have to go back there,” he said rapidly, making it a vow. “Ever.”
But instead of snuggling close, she pulled back, propped her head on her hand and looked at him. “Back where?”
“To Belle Meade. Your grandmother. I won’t let her hurt you again.”
She did the oddest thing. She laughed. Traced a finger down his nose. “Oh, Ray.” She sighed. “What am I going to do with you?”
“Just stay close. Let me keep you safe.”
“That’s sweet. So very sweet. So very Ray. You’re a sweet man, Ray—when you’re not being a pain in the ass—a nice man.”
He knocked her hand away. “You know what I’ve figured out? When you’re sneering, you care the most.”
Their gazes locked.
“Well, you’re a child of the Age of Psychobabble,” she said coolly. “Don’t you know you can run, but you can’t hide? Not if the horror is inside yourself.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Genevra didn’t put those scars on my arms, Ray.”
“But you said ‘her.’Who else—God, Maddie?”
She shook her head. “One more wrong guess, and you lose the minicamper and the vacation package.” Her eyes never left his face.
And he saw it. Right there in the depths of the violet haze. Saw it. Got it. And it cracked his world.
“Oh, my God.” The rage seeped away, replaced by a sadness so deep he could have drowned in it. “My God.” Tears tightened the back of his throat.
“Hey—you going to get all weepy on me, do it somewhere else.”
“Fuck you, Gray.” He swiped at his eyes.
“Or we could choose that option again.”
Like a rattlesnake striking, he darted up and over so fast she was on her back and trapped against the bed before she knew he was coming.
“You fucking did that to yourself? You carved yourself up like a piece of meat?”
“What if I did?”
He stared at her with total disbelief. “What if you did? Oh, my God.” Then he pulled her up and into his arms. “My God.” He held her tight, kissed her neck, her cheek, her lips. “Why wasn’t anyone there? Why didn’t anyone take care of you?”
“It’s all right,” she said, holding him, comforting him, which was ironic, but nice. “It was a long time ago.”
She remembered other reactions to those scars. Some guys were turned off, some turned on. Some guys couldn’t wait to hear every gory detail. The first time Kenny had seen them, he’d wanted to add a new one. “To remember our first time. We’ll do it together,” he’d said.
No one had gotten this worked up, though. At least, not for her sake. For the child she’d once been. Or never been. So she let Ray’s concern wash over her without further comment. She sank into the power of his compassion. Felt those strong arms around her like a shield. A wall of safety that no one and nothing could breach.
He held her tight, kissed her tenderly, and, God help her, she liked it. Liked it a lot. Too much. She could get so used to this. To having him around to keep the monster at bay.
She pushed at him. “Enough. Stop. You’re suffocating me.”
He stared at her, long enough for her face to heat and his eyes to chill over. “You seemed to enjoy it just fine a little while ago.”
“That was then.”
Abruptly, he let her go. “Fine.” He swung off the bed. “You want your space? Whatever.” Went in search of his clothes. Or his sanity.
Or hers.
Alone now, she curled into herself, burrowed beneath the covers. Stared at the scars. The dark triangles where she’d pressed a hot iron into her skin, the crude hunks of slashed flesh that were supposed to be her own initial twined around her mother’s. The twisted
H,
the awkward
G.
All the other attempts to keep from screaming.
She’d stopped cutting when she picked up the camera. Learned how to focus her anger and channel it outward. But still, the pall of destiny never left. It was with her now, in this room, when she looked at Ray and saw what he wanted from her.
Happiness. Hope. Safety.
Things she never thought about. Never planned for. Never expected.
Not if she was going to face the black evil still walking free. Still killing. Still coming after her.
Genevra Gray belted the silk charmeuse robe around her and sat at the little vanity her mother had insisted she have. Macey Holland wanted her daughter to have her own bedroom, too, but as a young bride, Genevra had thought that too old-fashioned. The compromise was her small dressing area with the mirrored vanity.
She sat there now, more than fifty years after resolving that dispute with her mother, and reached for the
Jardin de la Vie
hand cream. Genevra had bought her first jar on her honeymoon and used the rose-scented lotion ever since, even when she had to have it shipped directly from Paris.
She smoothed the cream over her hands. She’d always been proud of her hands, of her long, thin fingers. Now the knuckles stood out, the joints misshapen by arthritis.
She sighed. She’d been brought up to expect expensive things. Pretty things. The Hollands had been royalty in their small Alabama town, her father the mayor and the banker, and Genevra had presumed she would become a queen.
And she wasn’t far wrong. She attended Vanderbilt, was recruited for Kappa Alpha Theta, the most prestigious sorority on campus. Elected to homecoming court as a freshman, she found her true calling two years later as the wife of one of the most handsome and popular men on campus, with a family that reached back five generations in Nashville. Her wedding was the social event of the season, and she expected her life to continue as it had begun. Privileged. Entitled. Blessed.
But it took her three painful years to conceive and two miscarriages before her daughter was born. And something went wrong, so there were no more children after that.
But Holland was so beautiful she seemed to make up for everything. As if God and the universe were apologizing for all that came before. Even today, Genevra remembered the silky feel of her baby daughter’s fine hair. She had her mother’s famous blue eyes and fair coloring, her trim, lithe shape, and her father’s height. And though Genevra was somewhat dismayed to see her daughter’s face and body in the newspaper and Sunday circulars, she was also secretly proud.
Until Holland moved to New York and her face began to appear on magazines and television. She had no time to come home, and when Chip and Genevra went north, little time to spend with them. They were astonished and disgusted by the noise, the vulgarity, the ever-present drugs and sex.
Genevra shouldn’t have been surprised when Holland became pregnant, but she was. Unmarried, she refused to reveal the father’s name. Genevra shuddered, recalling the enormous embarrassment, her friends’ sidelong looks, the cruelty cloaked in kindness.
But she weathered it. As she’d weathered earlier disappointments. By reminding herself that this was not what God intended for her, and soon He would rectify His mistake. So when Holland came home at last, Genevra knew she’d been right. She’d been chosen, and God didn’t forget His special ones.
Until He did, she thought with a bitter laugh, and oh, how He did. With a slash of His hard, brutal whip.
She didn’t want to think about that awful time. Some days she’d felt as though she would dry up, turn into a husk, crumble into dust, and blow away.
Yet no matter how much she yearned otherwise, she woke every day. Woke to the same nightmare, a black dream she was forced to vanquish by denying it existed. In the end, the battle had hardened her. Robbed her of softness until every smile was brittle now.
Genevra noticed the door of her closet ajar and realized Gillian had been there. The girl thought she was fooling her, but Genevra always knew when Gillian had been in her room. It was a sad little game they’d played for years. Genevra couldn’t bear to see what was in that book, couldn’t bear to face the loss, to see the evidence of how twisted and off-kilter her life had become. But she’d saved it for Gillian. It was her granddaughter’s right to know her mother. Genevra just couldn’t introduce her.
So Gillian sneaked in to look at the book, and Genevra pretended she didn’t know.
Just as she pretended her golden life had continued. And that her granddaughter with the hard outer shell wasn’t fragile as lace beneath.
Chip came in. “Didn’t know you were still awake.”
She looked at her husband. His once-broad chest had widened and sunk, his tanned, handsome face was merely florid now. How old they had become. “Just getting ready.”
He tottered off to do the same, but the sight of him brought back memories of the man Gillian had brought to dinner. Also tall, broad-shouldered, and strong like Chip had been.
“Chip.” Her husband stopped in the doorway of the bathroom and turned. She rarely called him Chip anymore. It was ridiculous. You don’t call a man nearing eighty Chip. But there it was, suddenly, on the tip of her tongue and the roof of her mouth, a reminder of better days. “We must do something about that man.”
He didn’t ask, “What man?” or “To whom are you referring, dear?” He came back slowly, watching her. “He’s kept her safe so far.”
She looked at him in the mirror, and their eyes locked. He understood as well as she that there were many ways of staying safe, and asking the wrong questions wasn’t one.
Charles patted her shoulder. “All right. I’ll see to it in the morning.”
He kissed the top of her head, a gesture meant to reassure her. She squeezed the hand that rested on her shoulder. Her way of pretending that she was.
Ray closed the bedroom door on Gillian, heard noise and voices coming from the living room. His clothes were scattered in the hallway, and he quickly picked them up, deciphering identities. Landowe, for sure. Someone else.
Instantly, he knew why they were there, knew what had happened. He looked toward the bedroom, knocked the back of his head against the wall. Closed his eyes. Half of him felt shame; the other half would do it all over again. Neither felt right. And either way, he had to face the two men. He slid into his slacks and shrugged into the shirt. Fastened the bottom three buttons, but left the rest undone because the buttons were gone. A ripple of heat washed over him, remembering how they’d disappeared.
Landowe was in the front room, all right. The other guy was Coleman. A big mucker with a shaved head that Carlson usually saved for more muscular work. Landowe must have been unable to dredge up anyone else.
The two men were watching television. Women in bikinis playing beach volleyball. A half-eaten pizza sat on the coffee table in front of them. They looked at him, then back at the TV. Heat crawled up Ray’s face.
“Lose something, Ray?” Coleman asked. He flipped a couple of tiny objects at Ray, and they landed on his chest, bounced off and onto the carpet, where they stared up at him like two white eyes. Buttons. “Can’t watch her if you’re fucking her.”
“Sorry, Ray,” Landowe said. “You didn’t answer my last transmission.”
Ray nodded. Christ. How many times had he heard this cliché? Sleeping with your client was one of the job’s biggest pitfalls, but never in a million years would he have predicted he’d fall into it.