“Doreen has this on-again-off-again boyfriend named Adam,” Charlie started.
“The guy you were texting,” Posey said.
Charlie nodded, remembering her sister grabbing her phone on Wednesday, back when it had seemed as though she wasn’t going to blow up her life again.
“So Doreen beat you up? For messing around with her boyfriend?”
“No! Are you serious? Adam was pissed because I ratted him out and stole something from him.” Put like that, it did sound bad. “Which he deserved. And that thing I stole, he stole first.”
“I don’t think anyone’s following us,” Posey told her, slumping down and returning to a normal, legal seated position. “Can we go home?”
Charlie shook her head. “Let’s give Adam a night to cool off, where he doesn’t know where I am. I’ll talk to Doreen. She’ll calm him down.”
Posey frowned at the window, clearly unhappy.
Charlie sighed. “Sorry about your client.”
“You know that Vince knew about Adam, right?” Posey said.
“That I was conning him?” Charlie cut her gaze to her sister in the mirror. “How could he—”
“Okay, knew was the wrong way to put it. He thought he knew about Adam.”
“Just come on out with it,” Charlie said.
“He heard me reading off your phone. You know, about meeting Adam in private.”
Charlie felt sick. “Did he say something?”
“He asked me if I saw when you were going to have the meeting.” Posey looked deeply uncomfortable. “And said that I was right about him. That I’d been right all along.”
“And what did you say?”
“Nothing,” Posey told her. “I was too surprised. I really didn’t think he noticed what I said or what I thought. And I guess maybe I wasn’t fair to him.”
“Now you think that?” Charlie had to force her foot away from the gas, so strong was her impulse to take out her feelings on the road.
Posey shrugged. “He was too calm. I was always waiting for the other shoe to drop, for him to hurt you. I mean, hot, built guys are supposed to be assholes. I figured he was probably bad news. But in the end, even though he was a huge liar, I think he might have been your most successful relationship.”
Charlie briefly contemplated driving them both off the road and straight into a tree.
I wasn’t the only one who lied. He’d said that when they were fighting.
Now, much too late, she understood what he’d meant. I couldn’t give you what you needed. I kept things from you. Even if you didn’t know what was wrong, you could tell there wasn’t enough of me.
On Friday morning, when he’d gone to Rapture to pick her up, had he known she was supposed to meet Adam? She’d thought he was there because he’d been worried her car wouldn’t start, but what if he’d been there expecting to find her with someone else?
I wish I could say I was sorry, that I wanted to be honest the whole time, but I didn’t. I never wanted to be honest. I just wanted what I told you to be the truth.
Charlie had always believed that nothing really touched Vince, because everything he really cared about had been left behind in his old life, the one he was exiled from. The one to which he longed to return.
But it was entirely possible that he’d hated his old life.
And that she’d lost more than she ever realized she had.
26
THE PAST
The glass of champagne in Remy’s hand was warming too fast. Too many bodies pressed together. All around him, delicate laughter floated through the stifling air. Adeline was talking to a viscount or a baronet or someone with one of those titles that didn’t come with any money but did come with invitations to parties.
It bothered Remy a little that he could tell that without trying, that his eye automatically picked out the lack of tailoring in the man’s suit and the worn leather strap of a third-generation Rolex. He tried to convince himself that it was mere cleverness and not snobbery, but knew it wasn’t entirely true. He’d gotten used to having money he didn’t earn, and feeling smug about it.
The fundraiser was being hosted in the home of one of Remy’s ridiculously wealthy school chums. It was to benefit children of some kind. Maybe they’d been sick. Maybe they were going to be given art therapy. Or ponies. Or their ponies would be given art therapy. It didn’t matter. There was a theme too—old Hollywood, which basically meant wear something fancy or ridiculous or both. That didn’t matter either.
The important thing was for the young people to get their parents to shell out a donation of fifty grand. Ten would go into their youthful pockets, with forty left for the charity. Later, he and his friends would take their ill-gotten gains and go to a club where they’d get bottle service and drink enough to forget the whole night.
Remy would dance and howl at the moon and stagger back to his grandfather’s pied-à-terre with his arm around Adeline, every choice he’d ever made seeming worth it in those giddy predawn hours.
His phone pinged, bringing him back to the present. His grandmother again, suggesting they meet for brunch the following day. Terrible idea. Not only was he planning on being extraordinarily hungover, but he didn’t want to talk about the only subject they had in common—his mother, who hadn’t been doing so well at the new rehab.
Being with his grandmother made him feel a rush of longing mixed with resentment, and that was the other reason he didn’t want to see her—he didn’t like feeling things.
He’d lived with her when he was small, he and his mom. He’d had a bed all to himself, and they’d eaten dinner together every night. But Mom wound up stomping out, dragging him with her, and that had been that.
Remy felt exhausted by the thought of brunch. But he felt guilty about making an excuse and not going.
Maybe he felt something other than guilty, but he didn’t want to dwell on it.
You’re ashamed, Red whispered to him, always there in the back of his head, like a fucking evil cricket masquerading as a conscience. You don’t have to feel that way. I can be ashamed for both of us.
Remy glanced at his shadow, thrown on the floor, larger than he was in the light. Maybe Red could have brunch, and he could lie in bed. He might be able to hold Remy’s shape for long enough. Between the murders and the energy Remy was feeding him, he was becoming alarmingly stronger. Each time he became a Blight, he seemed to be able to do much more than before.
“What’s the matter?” Adeline asked. She was wearing a stiff vintage McQueen dress covered in shining beads that gave the impression of slashes. She carried two old-fashioneds, holding one out as though it was for him.
“Nothing,” he said, tucking his phone back into his pocket.
She grinned. “Bored?” she asked. “I hear there’s a pool in the basement. Come on. Let’s go skinny-dipping.”
Remy snorted. Then he stashed his champagne flute behind a plant and took a slug of whiskey fragrant with orange peel. He loved Adeline’s cheerful sociopathy. It reminded him of her father sometimes, but where his was bent toward conquering the universe, hers was bent toward fun.
The fundraiser was being held in an Upper West Side town house, the kind that went for fifty million, easy. The kitchen was done up in brass and marble with a fancy Italian stove. The walls were papered in bright, modern designs, hung with amusing art. Even the carpets were clever; one was in the pattern of a maze and another had a wash of turquoise color over a traditional design. The place made Remy’s head swim as they made their way to the stairs. It was so far from his grandfather’s grim, fusty house, with its dark wood and heavy drapes.
He caught sight of himself in the mirrored bar. Black suit, white scarf around his neck. Covetous eyes.
“Let’s go,” he said, pasting on his usual amiable smile. He had nothing to be unhappy about. He was having a wonderful night.