My stomach pitches as the news sinks in and the cool morning air hits my face. It’s not that I didn’t expect Phillip’s guilt, but hearing it and knowing what that truth means about Celeste’s past makes my heart ache for the loss of Celeste’s and her unborn child’s lives, but also for the loss of her youth and of her innocence.
Everything
that vile man stole from her.
Somewhere a bird chirps, unsure if it’s spring yet. I glance up as it zooms past, its wings spread wide, and my heart squeezes. I’m free, but Celeste will never be.
I take three steps, but don’t make it any farther.
My legs give out and I sit down in the middle of the sidewalk, letting the tears fall.
I cry harder than I ever have before.
All the hurt I’ve held back rushes out in deep, heart-wrenching sobs.
For the loss of my sister.
The loss of my own innocence.
The loss of myself for years.
For almost dying.
Every bit of pain flows with the tears dripping onto my knees as I grip my wrists.
And Talia holds me. My best friend sits beside me and folds her arms tight around me. Rocking me against her warm body, she says in my ear, “I love you, Cass. I’ll always be here for you. I’m your sister and you’re mine. ‘Til death do us part.”
When the tears dry, I gulp back a sob and snicker. “I think Sebastian might have something to say about you using that line with me.”
She giggles and whispers, “Shh, it’ll be our secret.” Wiping the tears from my cheeks, she holds my face, her gaze searching mine. “Are you all right?”
I clasp her hands and squeeze. “I will be. There um…was more going on just now.”
“I know.” Sighing, she pulls me to my feet and tucks a hank of my hair behind my ear. “I also figure you’ll tell me when you’re ready.”
“I told your mom that you’re staying the week with me,” Talia says once we pull away from the station in her car.
“Thank you for covering for me,” I say, staring absently at Manhattan’s busy traffic. Its chaotic normalcy is strangely soothing.
“Sebastian will let Calder know you’re okay,” she continues and I just nod my appreciation. Now that I’ve bawled like a baby, I feel numb and drained. I fold my arms against myself, thankful for the coat she brought. The dress’ thin sleeves are pretty, but not warm at all. Talia had my back in so many ways, but especially the last twenty-four hours. I’ll never be able to repay her, but I can try.
“Thank you so much for Felicity. That woman is a…power pixie.”
Talia chuckles. “Sebastian calls her his pocket secret weapon.”
My eyes widen. “There’s no way he says that to her face.”
“This is Sebastian we’re talking about.” She snorts. “The man never holds back. Though I’m pretty sure he’s the only one who gets to call her that.”
We’re quiet while she maneuvers through traffic, then she says in a casual tone, “I noticed last night that your tattoos were gone. How’d you manage that feat?”
Talia’s trying to draw me out, when all I want to do is crawl inside myself. She’s been here for me and I need to return her friendship.
I lower my hands to my knees and turn them palms up, staring at the bit of bare skin peeking outside of the dress and coat’s sleeves. “Beth covered my tattoos for me. I miss them. I can’t wait to wash the makeup away.”
“Tell me what the raven means. Why do you kiss it every once in a while,” she asks quietly.
“The raven represents my sister.” I rub my thumb along the scarred skin that the raven and branch normally hide. How ironic that the makeup makes the scars stand out in vivid clarity in the daylight.
She raises her eyebrows. “I didn’t know you have a sister.”
“Had,” I correct her, then continue as I lift my gaze and stare straight ahead. “When I told you what Celeste did to me back in high school, I didn’t tell you the whole story.” Taking a deep breath, I tell Talia everything. About Jake and Brent, my sister’s death, and my past issues with cutting. I vomit it all out without stopping, like I’m telling someone else’s horrible history. I’m thankful that Talia never interrupts, but once I’m done and she still doesn’t speak, I glance over to see silent tears streaking down her face, her hands tight on the steering wheel.
Finally she looks at me, her eyes glassy. “Jake? Until you just retold the whole story…I didn’t put two-and-two together. I’d forgotten the boy’s name tied to Celeste from high school. Jake Hemming is the Jake from your story.”
When I nod, she reaches for my hand and folds our fingers together. “How could you go through with helping Celeste knowing that Jake would be there?”
I shrug. “At the time I agreed to help Celeste, I didn’t know that she knew Jake on a personal level outside of high school. She’d always blown him off at school. But by the time I got detailed information from Celeste about the people in her family’s life, I’d already agreed to help and was knee-deep. I had to go through with it. The
only
reason I was able to continue on as Celeste after Phillip, Gregory, and Beth discovered that I wasn’t her is because Jake still believed I was, and Phillip insisted that his sons not be told.” I sigh and shake my head. “Which worked up until Jake somehow found out the truth. I’m still not sure who told him, but while laying in that cell last night, I realized that Jake had to be the one who called the police with that anonymous tip.”
Laughing a bit manically, I slide my hand from hers and rub my temple. “Can you imagine my horror to discover Beth’s boyfriend Brent
is the other boy I never saw, but the voice I’d never forget? At times, it felt like Jake and Brent were the perfect storm to test my sanity to its limit.”
“There is no way you told Calder any of this, Cass.”
I tense at the disapproval in her tone. “I told Calder what happened in high school, but I refused to tell him the boys’ names. He would’ve bodily carried me out of the Carver house right then and there, and we never would’ve learned about Phillip, the baby or any of it.”
Talia’s lips press together in angry frustration, but I stand my ground. “Don’t look at me like that. I did what I had to do, and because of my time in Celeste’s world, hers and her baby’s death will have justice.”
She grudgingly nods, but then tilts her head, looking thoughtful. “Do you think Beth told Brent about you, and since he knew Jake in high school that he’s the one who told Jake?”
I shake my head. “Beth did tell Brent about me, claiming he’s the only person she trusted. Even though Brent never came around the estate, I worried about the possibility he could share that information with Jake, so I asked her how she met Brent. Turns out, she met him when she attended one of the MMA events with some friends. That and the fact that Beth kept Brent a secret from her family, probably because in her heart she knew his business dealings could hurt her father’s career, makes me think that the two guys aren’t friends, not any more. Jake had to have found out another way.”
“Well, now that you’re away from the Carver estate, you need to tell Calder all of it, Cass. About Jake and Brent…everything.”
“I will, but not until after the fight is over. I don’t want to distract him.”
“I get what you’re thinking, Cass, but considering Brent is running the group Calder’s trying to take down, I think he should know now. That way he has a full picture of that guy and doesn’t go in blind. Oh, by the way, he’s not going by Brent Taylor. That’s why his name was a dead end. He’s using his mother’s maiden name, Tremmel.”
“Ah, I see. You do make a good point about telling Calder.” Glancing out the window, I look around in confusion when I don’t recognize the upscale street Talia just turned down. “Where are we going?”
She takes two more turns and hits the button on her sun visor, stopping in front of a high-end apartment building. “You’re staying with Sebastian and me.”
“Talia…” I sigh heavily as we pull into the building’s underground parking. “I know you told my mom already and I appreciate it, but I really just want to go home to my own bed.”
“No arguing, Cass.” She parks and cuts the engine, turning to me. “With what you’ve just been through, you’re not spending time alone.”
“But—”
Talia clasps my hand between hers. “Do it for me, Cass. You had even more going on than I could’ve possibly imagined. I’m freaking out more than a little here. I need to see you smile and laugh again, and know that you’re okay.”
“I
am
okay,” I insist.
When her lips purse, her gaze full of skepticism, I glance toward the elevator. Knowing my wishes have been outvoted, I give in to my friend. “So are you going to show me this awesome place I’ve never seen or hold my hand all day?”
After I
ooh
and
ahh
over their apartment’s amazing top floor view of Manhattan, Talia sets two duffle bags on the island in their kitchen. Pointing to the first one, she says, “I know you want to get a shower, so here’s a few days worth of clothes.”
I glance up at her, my eyebrow hiked high. “You planned this all along. When did you go by my apartment?”
“Yesterday,” she says, giving me an unrepentant look. “I still have a key, remember?”
Gesturing to the other bag, I ask, “And what’s in there?”
Talia unzips the bag and pulls out my favorite go-to camera. “I thought you might be missing this. Your phone is in this bag too.”
I immediately snag the camera from her grip. “Never hold it by the lens, silly.” Before she can turn away, I quickly snap four pictures in a row of her staring at me with a wide smile. She truly is a beauty, but she has never let me take her picture before without putting a hand up and fussing. Apparently life with Sebastian has made her truly comfortable in her own skin. Lowering the camera, I smile at that realization. “Thank you. I’ve missed this so much.”
She gestures to the apartment. “Well, this neighborhood is right up your luxurious lifestyle alley. So go out and walk around, snapping pics to your heart’s content.
“I’ll probably go explore just to get my muse muscles working again, but I actually have another project in mind I’ve been planning. I want to create a photo book highlighting real life here in New York, beyond the glitz and glamor.” Setting the camera down, I glance toward the bedroom she said I would be using. “But for now, I’m definitely taking you up on that shower.”
Sebastian walks out of their penthouse elevator just as I rejoin Talia in the kitchen, where she’d laid out plates of meat, cheese, bread and fruit and insisted that I eat.
“Hey, jailbird,” he says to me as he shrugs out of his suit jacket and drops it on the back of a kitchen chair.
When I frown at him in the midst of taking a bite of my sandwich, he looks at Talia, all innocence. “Too soon?”
As she rolls her eyes and pinches her fingers close together while chewing on a mouthful of blueberries, I fluff my damp hair. “And just when I was about to thank you for sending Felicity, the power-pixie, my way.”
Sebastian barks his laugh as he approaches Talia sitting on the stool opposite me. “That’s definitely going in my arsenal for future use when Felicity is being particularly stubborn,” he says before kissing his wife on the temple.
His laughter subsiding, he pushes Talia’s hair over her shoulder and lightly massages the back of her neck, addressing us. “I’m sure you’ll both love to hear that they expect to bring charges against Phillip Hemming for Celeste’s murder.”
“Justice prevails,” Talia says, raising her glass of juice to me.
“I couldn’t have done it without all of your help,” I say, smiling my appreciation.
Sebastian nods. “Calder’s been asking about you. He wants to be here, Cass.”
“I know, I know. He’s getting ready for the fight.” I shrug off my disappointment and force an understanding expression. “I hope he hasn’t lost too much time with this stuff that it hurts his training.”
“Cald will get there. He’s incentivized.”
“In what way?” Talia asks, glancing up at Sebastian.
He leans over and takes a bite of his wife’s sandwich. “I have more research for you later if you’re up for it.”
When she glances at me, a torn look on her face, I yawn and stretch. “Don’t mind me. After I take a quick walk to get my photography fix in, I’m going to fall into bed and sleep for a year.”
Talia smiles, then says to Sebastian, “Oh, I’ve been meaning to ask you about this…” She brushes her hands clean on a napkin, then hops off the stool to open her purse on a shelf next to the window. Retrieving something, she hands it to Sebastian. “Do you know a jeweler who might be able to fix this?”
My heart clenches when he lifts up the pavé raven and black velvet ribbon necklace, frowning his confusion. “Whose is this?”
“It’s mine,” I say, glancing at Talia while I eat a strawberry. “Thank you for getting it for me. The whole jailbird thing distracted me.”
Sebastian gestures toward me, his smirk telling his wife,
Justified.
She gives him a stern look. “
She
can say it. You can’t.” Looking at me, she says, “Beth put it in my hand right before we left their house. She said she saw us talking and asked me if I could be sure to get it to you.”