“He’s going to be fine.”
“Yes, he is.” I was more determined than ever to make sure of it.
“You should—”
“Not now.”
She left, closing the door behind her. I was formulating a plan in the dark. I didn’t like it. I wasn’t going to enjoy it. It meant that the days of happiness I’d had with Emily were going to be nice memories and no more.
The sadness about losing her was woven into the darkness, and it was shot through with a stabbing regret. She’d woken me up to the possibility that I could love. My feelings for her had been the first bottle rocket on the Fourth of July, and it had been shot out of the sky before it could light up.
Well, good. If I’d gotten more deeply entrenched with her, it would be harder to leave. I would have had to talk to her about it. Asked permission. Included her. Broken up with her. Broken both our hearts.
But it hadn’t gone on that long. It’d hurt for a little while, then go away once Phin was settled. If I thought really hard, I could remember her rib cage under my fingers, remember how it felt to lift her, remember the grace of her body and feel the remnants of hard work on her feet. I’d never kissed the curves of the arches or rubbed the roughness of the heels. Her feet told stories I’d never know. The absence was a true regret.
But I couldn’t think about that.
I had to think about Phin.
He was first.
CHAPTER 52
EMILY
—Are you all right?—
I’d replied to Carter’s text, but I didn’t hear back. I didn’t get a text that night or the next day. Carlos wouldn’t tell me anything, and none of the other security guys seemed to know. Darlene was physically accessible, but her body was twisted so tightly around the upcoming tour that asking her to track down her ex-bodyguard was unfair. But I was leaving for Vegas, and I didn’t know if he and Phin were all right.
I looked up Genevieve Tremaine’s name and, in three seconds, found enough gruesome descriptions of the scene that I had to skim the accounts. Digging into more local and less celebrity-driven outlets, I found out about what Carter had gone through when it happened. He’d worked to have crime-scene photos sealed. Phin’s name had been public knowledge. Along with Apple, Pilot Inspektor, and Moon Unit, Phinnaeus was a running metaphor for everything that was wrong with celebrity naming conventions. Carter had requested anything that had to do with the child be sealed. He put all his sister’s money in trust for the boy and whisked him away without taking him far. He did not do interviews or talk to the media. He and his mother issued a public statement declaring that Genevieve’s son was off-limits and that any attempts to photograph him would be followed up with the full force of the best legal team millions in residual checks could buy.
Public opinion was on Carter’s side, and in less than twelve months, stories about Genevieve Tremaine’s death fell off the radar.
I respected what Carter had done for Phin, but who had been there for him? Who had been there for him when his sister died? When all the years taking care of a child who wasn’t his got to be too much?
His last text weighed on me.
—Phin needed me—
Things could be bad or they could be worse, and as the hours and days went on, a tension built in my chest. Phin needed Carter, but who did Carter need? And if it were me, would he ever ask for me? The walls he’d built around his family were so strong and high, he might not even know how to get through them to ask for help.
—Are you all right?—
I stared at my text from two days before. Was it adequate? Was it clear? Did it look as if I was soft-shoeing around doing something? If I sent something else, was I bothering him? Stalking him?
When Vince hit me that first and last time, I minimized it to Darlene. I told her it wasn’t a big deal because I didn’t want to upset her. She had enough on her plate. My compulsion had been normal, but her reaction had woken me from invisibility. Her intervention had saved me from who-knew-how-much trouble and pain.
Carter wasn’t a victim of abuse, but he was as much a victim of circumstance as I was. Was I doing him a disservice by letting him build a higher wall?
I was behind my own wall. Bart and Fabian were always present, and I found out what it was like to have security that didn’t take up any of my attention. Their job was to be invisible, and they were. I had my cameras and my security system. I’d felt trapped before, but only because I’d thought I should get out and do some vague thing.
Now the wall was between Carter and me, and it was really pissing me off.
Fabian’s station was a chair on the front steps. He walked the perimeter of the property every fifteen minutes, or twenty-two minutes, or whatever, so no one would pick up a schedule. I found him checking the locks on the studio.
“I need to take a drive.”
“Now?”
“Now.” I didn’t think to make up a story about grocery shopping.
“Where?” He took out his phone. He’d have to log it in with Carlos.
“I’ll tell you where to turn.”
He raised an eyebrow. He had nice eyebrows over brown eyes and thick black lashes. Very handsome, yet nothing stirred in me.
Where was I going at six o’clock on a Wednesday evening? I ran the map through my head. East. Left. Right. Park.
“I’m going to church. I’m nervous about the show, and I need to go to Saint James Church, but you need to take the route I say.”
“Why? I mean, look. It doesn’t matter to me. But I’m just curious.”
“Superstition.”
“I like you, but you’re weird.”
“I like you too. Can we go?”
We locked up and drove east on Olympic. I was more nervous than I had business being. I didn’t know what to hope for. If Carter was home with his family, finding the comfort of old routines, the lights would be on and they’d be finishing dinner. He’d want that for Phin. He’d built his life around making sure the kid knew where he’d be from day to day and establishing sequences and schedules. So the lights would be on.
Unless everything had gone to hell. Phin finding out about his mother’s death and his real relationship to his father could have broken the kid. He was thirteen, with all the eye-rolling insolence one would expect, but he was also a complex kid. He’d sent me a gift because he wanted me to like him, and it had been bursting bubbles and blooms, not wars and swords. He had a sensitive side he wasn’t afraid to show. He was curious and perceptive.
The revelations could have done real damage. My heart went out to him. I knew Carter would do whatever he could to protect his nephew/son, but who was going to be there for Carter? He’d already been through hell with his sister. Securing Phin had taken so much energy, he probably hadn’t taken a minute to himself. And now it was all coming back.