Authors: Linda Francis Lee
Who knew that the next “home” she would need to get back to would be her old one in New Jersey? That was weird.
Of course she had always known that she’d have to go back someday.
She took a taxi to the Port Authority Bus Terminal and made it on to a DeCamp bus without anyone questioning her. By then, she’d missed Miranda, probably by a couple of buses, but she managed it herself. Pretty soon she was looking out the window of the bus as it hurtled through the Lincoln Tunnel, focusing on the way her ears popped as they drove deeper under the Hudson River. Better than focusing on what she’d find when she got to Montclair.
What would she do if she walked in on Miranda in bed with Dustin?
A few tears escaped, but she used her sleeve to swipe them away and kept staring out the window so no one could see.
When they came out of the tunnel, she saw the giant buildings of Manhattan standing like a wall of cement and glass just across the Hudson River. Twenty minutes later, the bus pulled into the parking lot by the Upper Montclair train stop. Everything looked the same as when they’d lived there before the accident. But of course it wasn’t. It felt like some weird awful song.
She hitched the backpack over her shoulders and got off the bus. She went to the line of cabs, then asked the front driver to take her to the house.
He looked at her in the rearview mirror, then shrugged. “Sure.”
They turned right out of the parking lot, drove over the railroad tracks, followed by another right, a left, then one more right on to a road tucked into a hill, exactly as she and her mom had done a hundred times, even down to Ariel sitting in the backseat.
The house stood on the left, giant with the long green lawn—all lit up like a Christmas tree, teenage kids going in and out of the front door.
Ariel pressed back against the seat.
Miranda wasn’t out here having sex.
She was having a massive party.
Thirty-nine
P
ORTIA SAT DOWN
in Stanley and Marcus’s living room, ready to get on with her life. Finally. She hadn’t so much as turned on the TV since her sisters left. She had made a list. A bunch of lists, actually.
She had cleaned up, put away the last of the prepackaged food, cooked Stanley and Marcus a big, early dinner before her hosts took off for Lincoln Center and the opera, leaving her alone. But the moment she turned to the first of her lists, the doorbell rang, surprising her.
Portia peeked out the window. Gabriel stood on the steps, looking out at the street rather than at the door. He looked typically Gabriel—tall, fit, ruggedly beautiful in his own beastly way. The very sight of him sent a stab of ridiculous lust through her, followed by a wave of panic.
Like a criminal, she dropped to the floor, not wanting him to see her. He had proven to be an addiction, and there was no better way to cure the need than going cold turkey.
Not that he was making it easy. He called her cell phone practically every hour. The messages had started simple.
“Portia, we need to talk.”
Gruff, impersonal, so very like Gabriel. From there, they had escalated.
“Portia, call me. We need to talk about the apartment.”
Before he moved on to a tightly controlled anger.
“Damn it, Portia. Let’s deal with this like adults.”
Then a sigh, as if giving in.
“Please.”
Which only pissed her off more.
After a few minutes, she heard Gabriel going back down the front steps. She rolled to the side, sitting up on the floor with her back against the wall. And thought about violets. Watermelon.
The images surged in her head. She could taste the sweet juicy meat of watermelon crunching in her teeth. She smelled the gentle scent of violets. And something else, sharp and pungent. Burning. Like fire.
She leaped up and yanked open the front door. “Where’s Ariel?”
It came out in a bark.
Gabriel stopped halfway up his steps next door. The fierceness of his face softened, barely, but enough that she noticed.
“Portia.” Nothing else. Just a note of relief.
She looked at him, just looked, frozen for a tiny second as if she could do nothing more than memorize all that beautiful harshness of him, the strong jaw, the dark eyes, the dark hair winging back, the obstinacy, imprinting him on her mind.
But then the relief was gone, and the man in control returned. “We need to talk.”
“Gabriel, where is Ariel?” She ran down the stairs, then up his.
He scowled at her. “In her room.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course I am.”
“Have you seen her?”
“What? Why should I? She’s been in her room for hours doing homework.”
“You know that for a fact? You haven’t left?”
He frowned at her again. “I went downstairs once, to talk to Anthony.”
“Anthony was here?”
“Now that it’s vacant, he wants your apartment.” He said it flatly, unforgiving, as if it were
her
fault that the apartment was free.
Her jaw went tight. “You might as well give it to him. It obviously isn’t mine.”
He hesitated, his tension palpable. “I should have told you about owning the apartment.” As if this was all he had to say.
“Yes, you should have,” she snapped. “Though obviously I’ve been an idiot about everything regarding the apartment.” She laughed bitterly. “I should make a list of how rock-bottom stupid I’ve been. Let’s see: I married the kind of man who would forge my signature to betray me. I moved into the place and set up shop, all the while not realizing I didn’t own it. You did! But, hey, it gets better! The whole time I was staying there, I didn’t realize that the guy I was stupidly falling in love with was giving me free rent to pay for all the free sex he was getting!”
“Fuck,” he breathed.
“Yep, fuck,” she snapped. “Convenient, huh? You didn’t even have to pay cab fare to get me home. God, could I be any more stupid!” she practically shouted into the air. “I fell for the same kind of guy! Twice! For once, why can’t I meet a man who’ll be honest with me?”
She marched past him to the front door, hating him, hating that she still wanted him, hating that he wasn’t the man she had believed him to be. And the minute she made sure everything was all right with Ariel, she would move farther away and cut Gabriel utterly and completely out of her life. She would not be stupid any longer. “We’re going to check on your daughter.”
The outer door was locked and she didn’t have a key anymore. She had set it on the counter when she left. She turned back. Gabriel just stood there, staring at her. As always, she had no idea what he was thinking, but his jaw was rigid.
“I know you don’t believe me,” she stated, “but humor me. Open the door, Gabriel.”
He pulled out his key, came up next to her, and turned the lock. But his arm blocked her way when she tried to enter.
“Now what?”
He touched her cheek barely, softly. She tried to jerk away, but she was trapped by his other arm. Gabriel stared at her forever, not allowing her to look away. She could see the emotion in his eyes. “We are going to talk about this, Portia. As I said, I should have told you. At some point you have to forgive me.”
Her jaw dropped as she stared at him.
“Say something,” he stated, his voice strangely rough.
Just forgive him? Like all he had to do was command her and she’d do his bidding?
“I think,” she said deliberately, “that there is absolutely nothing to be gained from us talking. Now
move aside
.”
His mouth went tight, but he moved.
Portia raced up the stairs, fighting back the burn in her eyes.
“Ariel?” she called, knocking on her bedroom door, Gabriel coming up behind her.
He knocked, louder than she had. “Ariel?” He turned the knob and pushed in. “Ariel!”
The room was empty, books lying out on the desk, the window to the fire escape open. A piece of paper was lying on Ariel’s desk.
Portia says that sometimes you have to be brave and dig deep for answers.
Gabriel’s jaw leaped, fury in his eyes. “What the hell is she talking about?”
Portia’s head spun with images of food and flowers. “Violets,” she whispered. She shut her eyes and concentrated. “And watermelons. Lots of watermelons.”
“What are you talking about?”
“At your old house. In New Jersey. Ariel told me she and her mother planted violets. Then watermelons, and the watermelons went wild and took over the entire patch.”
Gabriel’s eyes narrowed, as if he were trying to remember. Something snagged. “What does that have to do with Ariel and this note?”
“She’s gone home.”
“Home is here.”
“She thinks New Jersey is home, and she’s gone there.”
His face was a mask of disbelief mixed with denial, like grapefruit mixed with cayenne pepper. “You’re telling me that my twelve-year-old daughter fled to New Jersey to return to our old house?”
“She’s nearly thirteen,” Portia said. She almost laughed but it turned to a strangled cry. “I think so.”
“You
think
?”
“Yes. She’s been searching for answers for a while.”
“Answers to what?”
“I don’t know. But whenever Anthony was around, she was asking questions.”
His jaw worked. “About what?”
“Her mother.”
“Why the hell didn’t you tell me?” He leaned close, his expression harsh, his voice clipped. “Why the hell did you encourage her to ask questions?”
She refused to let his anger scare her. “A better question might be, is there something for her to find?”
He rocked back. “Damn it!”
She saw anguish in his eyes and she almost reached out—but managed to snatch back her hand. “I’ll take that as a yes. You need to find Ariel. And I would start at your old house.”
“Just like that. Because you thought of watermelons.”
“And violets,” Portia added.
“That’s crazy,” he snapped. “Hell,
you
are crazy. Ridiculous.”
Crazy. Like her grandmother.
In yet another way, this man was no different from Robert. He wanted her to be normal. Not that any of it mattered anymore.
He pulled out his phone.
“Who are you calling?”
“Miranda. She’s at a friend’s house.” He pressed a number, put the phone to his ear, then waited. He cursed. “Voice mail.”
He strode out of the room and downstairs. He found a phone number scribbled on a piece of paper, then dialed.
“This is Gabriel Kane, Miranda’s father. May I speak to my daughter?”
Portia watched as tension rose through his body.
“She’s not there? She told me that she was spending the night.”
More listening, fury building.
“Please ask your daughter if she knows where Miranda is.”
The words were polite, but the tone was not. She could imagine that whoever was on the other end scrambled to do his bidding.
“What the—” He cut himself off. “Thank you.”
He disconnected and looked at her. “Miranda and her friend aren’t there. According to a brother, the girls are in New Jersey. Throwing a party.”
“Ariel must have followed her.” She met his hard gaze. “Some things are true, whether you believe them or not. Now, go. Find Ariel and Miranda.”
He muttered a curse, then took her arm.
“What are you doing?”
“Like you said, I’m going to New Jersey. And you’re going with me.”
Forty
A
RIEL WALKED UP
the front path, the gentle curve of flagstone winding through the lawn, blue-black against the deep green grass. The weather was almost cold, much cooler than it had been just thirty minutes away in the city. She shivered and pulled her backpack tighter to her body.
The oversized front door was still painted red with giant black hinges, the mullioned glass inset like a portal to the way life used to be—as if her mom would be waiting on the other side. But if her mom was home, there wouldn’t be teenagers drinking beer on the lawn.
Her entire body deflated, those stupid tears burning again. She made herself stop thinking about her mom. Miranda was in so much trouble if anyone found out about this party. With the drinking and everything, she’d probably be grounded for life.
As soon as Ariel walked through the front door, music hit her along with the smell of alcohol and smoke. No one gave her so much as a second glance. She walked through the entry and then three steps up into the main foyer. To the left, kids sprawled on sofas and chairs in the giant living room, white dust covers ripped off and tossed aside, lying around on the floor like melting ghosts. Two guys laughed as they tried to build a fire in the fireplace. Bags of marshmallows, a box of graham crackers, and a stack of Hershey’s chocolate bars sat on the hearth.
They were going to make s’mores? In the fireplace? Did they think they were at summer camp or something? Idiots.
Ariel jerked away and crossed into the dining room. Two teens sat at the long dining table, beers in front of them. Ariel ignored them and walked on into the kitchen. But Miranda wasn’t there either, or in the den just beyond that.
Retracing her path to the foyer, she weaved through a knot of teenagers as she started up the stairs. Halfway up was a small landing with a window seat. From the large, multipaned window Ariel could see the lights of Manhattan in the distance. For a second she just stood there, looking.
Growing up in New Jersey, she hadn’t given any thought to the city. She knew her mother thought it was the greatest thing ever to have the view. Looking at it now, it made Ariel feel all the lonelier. A year or so ago, she would never have believed that she wouldn’t still be living in this house. That her mom would be gone. That she would have moved to the city that had always seemed like a whole other planet, regardless of the fact that she could see it out the window.
A year ago, she never would have believed that her uncle would claim he was her father. Maybe she could ignore it? Would her uncle regret having said the words, maybe pretend he hadn’t said them at all?
But Ariel wasn’t going to take any chance that things could go haywire, catching her unaware. If the truth was here in this house, she was going to find it.