Behind the Green Curtain (3 page)

Chapter 6

Jack came home on time, in good
humor. He insisted on eating dinner together and made conversation that was
almost pleasant, complaining just enough about his day to make himself seem a
common working man, and asking the details of hers as if they mattered to him.
He had things that needed planning, end of the year parties and charity events
to bring down the company’s tax liability, and he requested Amelia’s help,
instead of telling her what to do.

Amelia played along, watching Jack
the entire time for a tell, any indication as to why he was acting the part of
the caring husband, but by the time Jack finally slid between the sheets on the
other side of the bed, his “Goodnight, Darling” skidding over the line from
patronizing into utterly absurd, Amelia still had no idea as to why he was
setting the stage. She knew only that it was best to avoid him.

Climbing out of bed as soon as Jack
disappeared into the shower, she descended the flights of stairs to the gym,
working through her morning yoga with one eye on the clock, and finishing with
more tension than with which she began. When the time finally ticked away, she
made her way back up to the kitchen, walking through the doorway into the
mid-morning sun and greeting Sole with the most genuine smile she could manage.
“Good morning.”

“Good morning,” Sole returned.
“Jack is in the dining room.”

Offered casually, as if Amelia gave
regular thought to the whereabouts of her husband, Amelia recognized the
statement as warning. Sole never let her be surprised by Jack’s presence when
he should be somewhere else.

Sharing a long look with the other
woman, who provided no further indication as to why Jack might be lingering at
the house, Amelia realized she would have to address the subject or just wait
for whatever unpleasantness was headed her way. Passing through the kitchen to
the dining room door, she found Jack looking abnormally passive over eggs
Benedict and his newspaper.

“What are you still doing here?”
she asked him.

“Enjoying my morning,” Jack
answered with too broad a grin, and Amelia’s throat tightened at the phantom
sensation of a noose tightening around her neck.

“What about work?” She tried to
sound unbothered, but the feeling of imminent doom stole her voice.

“I’ll get there,” Jack smirked, and
Amelia thought it best to step off the platform before he kicked the stool out
from under her.

Returning to the kitchen, her eyes
went once again to Sole, who clearly shared her anxiety.

“Do you want breakfast?” Sole
lightly offered.

“No,” Amelia replied, more tersely
than intended, the feeling of oncoming weakness the only thing keeping her in
the room. Going to the fruit basket, she heard Sole pulling the blender out for
her and gave her a tight smile of thanks as she slid the apparatus onto the
counter.

A few minutes later, Amelia was
knuckle-deep in peelings, juice dripping from her fingers, when the doorbell
rang. Watching the doorway like it was a portal to misery, she was surprised
when Sole returned moments after disappearing through it with a young woman who
looked utterly harmless. Amiable even. Which was more than Amelia could say
about herself at the moment.

“She said she’s here to see you,
Mrs. Halston.” Sole used the formality in regard to the stranger, and it
plucked the threads of Amelia’s already frayed sense of normalcy.

Eyes locking on vibrant green as
the stranger looked up, Amelia watched the youthful image come to a sudden stop
across the kitchen and took in the demure business casual. The woman could have
been there for a college admission interview or a visit with her grandmother,
and Amelia wasn’t sure why either would be directed to her.

“Hi,” the woman quietly greeted.

“Hello,” Amelia returned guardedly.
“Who are you?”

“Caton,” the woman replied.

“Should that mean something to me?”
Amelia questioned, watching the green eyes darken to emerald, the face that
housed them settling into a weary tension that made the woman look several
years older.

“Caton.” Jack suddenly appeared at
Amelia’s back. “Right on time.”

Noting Jack’s grin as he passed,
Amelia wondered how long he had been waiting to make his timely entrance.
Stopping next to Caton, Jack slid his hand onto her back as he turned to
Amelia, and Amelia’s dread was momentarily overridden by intrigue as Caton
sidestepped Jack’s touch and sent him an unmistakable glare.

“Well, here you are, Amelia,” Jack
announced with a smile.

“Here I am, what?” Amelia uttered,
the thorny vines of vexation crawling down her back.

“You said you needed help,” Jack
returned. “I got you help.”

“What?” The question came out a
clipped syllable, and Jack grinned in response.

“Since the workload is too much for
you to handle on your own, you clearly need an assistant.” Jack managed to
sound logical to the ear. It was the rest of Amelia that heard his demented
truth, that he would pay someone for an unnecessary job just to make a point.

Withholding her retort, she let the
irritation flow in a slow exhalation through her teeth as her eyes flashed to
Caton, who stared unceasingly at the floor, face set so tight her cheekbones
jutted unnaturally against her skin.

“I thought you would be pleased.”
Jack didn’t even attempt to sound genuine, or hide his pleasure at the
situation.

Dropping the knife on the counter
before she was impelled by her desire to use it, Amelia grabbed a towel from
the rack and moved for the dining room, the only escape route not blocked by
Jack’s nefarious intentions. She got only halfway down the length of the
ridiculously-long table before Jack was at her side, mood not dampened in the least
by his sprint to catch up to her.

 “What’s the matter?” he asked.
“Isn’t this what you wanted?”

“Why is she here?” Amelia turned on
him.

“To help you,” Jack maintained the
lie.

“To help me what?” Amelia returned.

“I don’t know,” Jack responded,
reaching out to pick what Amelia suspected was non-existent debris off her
shoulder. “What does have you so overwhelmed in your life? What do you need to
delegate?”

Nodding, Amelia remembered with
sudden regret how she had earned the situation in which she found herself. “Get
rid of her, Jack,” she demanded.

“I can’t,” Jack countered with
ease. “She has a contract.”

“I didn’t ask for help,” Amelia
argued pointlessly.

“No, but you got it. So, now you
have nothing to complain about.” Jack’s smile finally lapsed. “I have to go to
work.”

With that, he continued through the
dining room into the foyer, leaving Amelia to deal with what was left behind in
the kitchen, a not-so-subtle reminder that he had the power to alter her world.
Fabric of the towel sticking to her fingers and animosity sitting heavy in her
chest, she turned back to the kitchen to deal with it.

Though the woman looked plenty
uncomfortable as Jack revealed his scheme, it was nothing compared to how
uncomfortable she looked when Amelia walked back in, despite the fact that Sole
surely tried to make her feel more at ease. For a moment, Amelia didn’t only
sympathize, but felt kindred, as if they were on the same side.

“Caton, right?” she questioned,
receiving a quick nod of confirmation.

Tension marring her features, the
woman was still attractive in an unassuming way, as if she tried, but not too
hard, aware enough of her looks that being regularly hit on couldn’t come as
surprise, but not so aware she expected to get perks out of it.

Going to the sink, Amelia washed
her hands, taking the towel Sole offered and moving from behind the bar to
approach Caton. The closer she got, the tenser Caton seemed to become, until
her eyes skirted away from Amelia’s and a muscle twitched in her jaw. “Listen,”
she stated, almost an order. “Is this some kind of weird couple thing? Because
I really don’t want to get in the middle of that.”

Standing in her own kitchen, the
question sounded brazen to Amelia, and she ceased her approach a few feet away.
Up close, Caton was even more attractive, her face more sculpted, the hair that
looked chestnut across the room showing traces of nuance with golden highlights
flecking through it, but, eyes unflinching on Amelia, she also looked less
innocuous.

“You work for the company?” Amelia
questioned, all affinity dissolving in an instant when Caton admitted it with a
nod.

Of course, she worked for the
company. Of course, she was on Jack’s payroll, Jack’s team, brought in to do
Jack’s bidding, whatever Jack’s bidding might be.

“What do you do for my husband
exactly?” Amelia questioned.

“I don’t,” Caton answered. “I don’t
work upstairs.”

“But you do work for him,” Amelia
asserted. “Everyone at the company works for him.”

“I’m in the data department.” Caton
finally gave Amelia something with which she could work.

“Data,” Amelia repeated, smiling at
the easy solution. “Come with me.”

~ ~ ~

Following Amelia back through the
same spotless, high-end space through which she’d made her entrance, Caton had
the distinct feeling she was being escorted from the premises, and wasn’t sure
she minded. It came as surprise when Amelia turned from the front door as they
reached the foyer, marching instead to a door beneath the stairs, and pulled it
open, touching the panel switch inside to illuminate another staircase.

Watching it sink before her, Caton
realized she was being led into the depths of the house and glanced toward the
ornately-carved front door, wondering if she should run while she still had the
chance. The sound of Amelia’s oddly light footsteps drawing her back to the
moment at hand, she reluctantly abandoned daylight to trail Amelia down the
stairs.

Darkened room after darkened room,
the basement was like an underground bunker, spreading beneath the entire
house. In another time, when royalty could get away with such things, Caton
imagined it would have been where the dungeons and prisoners were kept. Unable
to see much beyond the cloaked doorways, it occurred to her the prisoners could
still be there, locked inside their cells, knowing silence was their best
chance at survival.

Finally stopping before a door
that, like the others, showed nothing but dim gray beyond, Amelia flipped on
the light to reveal a labyrinth of file cabinets and boxes as far as Caton’s
eyes could see.

“Jack used to store company files
here,” she explained, “but those have been digitized. You know that. You
probably typed up most of it.” It sounded like an insult. “These boxes are from
the city. They’re old records they haven’t gotten into the system yet. Jack did
his civic duty by providing them storage space.” That too sounded like an
insult, so at least Caton knew she wasn’t alone outside Amelia’s goodwill,
though she didn’t particularly like being correlated with Jack.

“They were in a hurry to get them
out, so they’re in no type of order at all,” Amelia continued. “They were
supposed to send someone here to file them, but no one volunteers in this
economy. So, now you can do it.”

Turning her gaze from Amelia, who
hadn’t spared her a single glance during the explanation, Caton estimated
five-thousand boxes, give or take an exaggeration. “This is what you want me to
do?” she questioned. “File some papers?”

“Yes,” Amelia replied, at last
turning to Caton, her arms crossing over her chest. “It is your area of
expertise, isn’t it?”

The brown eyes were cutting, the
stance almost confrontational, and Caton wondered what exactly she had done to
fall so quickly into enemy territory with Jack’s wife. Upstairs, she would have
sworn the woman didn’t hate her on sight. She was no longer so sure. Realizing
Amelia was serious, it was hard not to laugh as she moved into the room,
grabbing the first box from a cluttered table and lowering it to the floor.

For a moment, Amelia just stood
there, and Caton did exactly as she was told, rearranging enough boxes to pop
the first lid and pull out a stack of files. Satisfied, Caton assumed, Amelia
finally walked off, and Caton glanced toward the doorway, grateful for its
vacancy, everything suddenly making sense.

When she first walked into the
kitchen, she had been rendered momentarily dumb, unable to fathom why in the
hell Jack would ever cheat. Of all the women Caton had seen him seduce in her
short time at Halston & Company, she hadn’t once seen Jack with anyone who
compared to his wife. Plus, they all wore the same blank expressions, as if the
world needed to lead them around by the hand. From the moment Amelia’s eyes met
hers in the kitchen, they seemed infinitely mysterious, as if there was an
entire world going on behind them.

That was hardly enticing, though,
if that world was an empty, frost-encrusted bitch of a place where every step
brought potential for frostbite, which, as far as Caton could tell, was
Amelia’s inner landscape.

Six months, she had to do what she
had to do. She just hoped she didn’t freeze to death in the process.

Chapter 7

Whatever Jack’s wife’s faults, she
was no liar. Caton spent the first few hours of her day in absolute chaos
before figuring out a system that could potentially work to bring some order
back to the city of Chicago. The haphazard dropping and cramming of files into
boxes indicated someone was rushing to get them out, and she couldn’t help but
speculate as to what exactly she was helping hide in the vault beneath the
Halston Palace.

It was quid pro quo, she was
certain, Jack helping cover up some unnamed politician’s crimes for a future
favor.

In the first drawer of a file
cabinet, Caton discovered what remained of some old business files. The logo on
the label was for Fearful Clothing Company, one of Jack’s early attempts at
riches, she assumed, when he was actually trying to do something interesting.
Flipping through it gave little insight into him or the fall of his business,
and she turned to toss the file back onto a chair, coming eye to lens with the security
camera mounted prominently at the top of the wall.

Once she made the initial
discovery, it wasn’t difficult to find the others. One shiny glass eye led to
the next and the next, like a troop of Cyclops guardians watching over the
indiscretions of the rich and powerful. And her, of course. Caton couldn’t
forget that.

Seeing the work spread out before
her, she expected boredom and paper cuts. It never occurred to her she would be
under constant surveillance, the character in someone’s sick voyeur film.
Though, she should have expected it. The downside of having everything was the
fear of losing it, and, with the reception she had received from her, Caton
should have known she’d be put someplace where Amelia could keep an eye on her.

~ ~ ~

Hours later, sleeves rolled to her
elbows, Caton stretched her fingers against the ache of repetitive work and
could no longer wait for a sign of life. Passing the same rooms she didn’t dare
peer into too hard with Amelia beside her, she was able to make out some detail.
One sported a long table, designed for impromptu conferences, and another
appeared to be an extensive home gym from what she could see before she climbed
back up the stairs into anticipated hostility. Door closed before her, there
was a moment of panic as she realized she could well be locked in, which only
proved her paranoid as the handle turned with the ease of good upkeep and she
emerged back into the foyer.

Not sure where to begin searching
for Amelia, or that she wanted to find the other woman, Caton headed to the
only other room known to her. As she stepped through the kitchen door, the
maid, Sole, was cleaning the stove, seemingly unaware of her entrance.

“Excuse me?” Caton said, relaxing
somewhat when Sole turned to her with a genuine smile.

“Yes?” Sole prompted her.

“I need to run out and get
something to eat,” Caton said. “Could you tell Mrs. Halston?”

“I can get you something,” Sole
offered at once.

“You don’t have to do that,” Caton
returned.

“It’s no problem. It’s already
done. And Amelia is out,” Sole added, as if she could sense Caton’s dread of
her new boss’ return. “Do you like salmon?”

Though she had been nice enough
when Caton was waiting for Jack and Amelia to have whatever discussion they’d
had in the next room, the ambiance of the palace still tilted more toward the
unfriendly than the friendly and Sole’s pleasant demeanor was difficult to
trust.

“Yeah, sure,” Caton nodded lightly,
glancing uncomfortably through the doorway, before finally going to the bar
that split the kitchen. When Sole placed a plate in front of her, asking what
she wanted to drink, and went to the refrigerator to get it for her, Caton
accepted the possibility that there might be unexpected benefits to the job.

“Thanks,” she said, watching Sole
move back across the floor to lean against the counter, wondering if they were
breaking some kind of fraternization rule. Remembering the unpleasant surprise
in the basement, she cast her eyes to the corner of the room, not entirely
satisfied at finding it empty.

“Did you lose something?” Sole
asked with amusement, and Caton glanced to her plate, picking up the fork
beside it and tapping the edge nervously.

“Are there cameras everywhere?” She
tried to make the question sound casual.

Glancing up, it came as great
relief when Sole smiled sympathetically. “No,” she responded. “Outside, in
Jack’s office, and in the storage room. I know they can be uncomfortable. Sorry
you got cast down there.”

Smiling hesitantly, Caton finally
took a bite, realizing just how hungry she was. Had she known there would be so
much drama and physical labor, she would have eaten a bigger breakfast. “This
is really good. Thank you.”

Again, Sole’s smile looked sincere,
and Caton thought she might have an ally. Though, rich people did know how to
set their traps. Or so she’d been told. In her way, Sole could have been just
another camera, monitoring Caton’s moves, ready to turn her in at any moment
for putting her feet on the furniture or using the wrong fork.

“How big is this place?” Caton
asked between bites.

“Big,” Sole responded. “Eat, and
I’ll show you around.”

~ ~ ~

The rooms and hallways of the
Halston Palace went on forever. Sole led Caton through the dining room, past
paintings that were undoubtedly originals, into a room with a baby grand piano
that must have cost tens of thousands of dollars and that Caton doubted anyone
could actually play. On a table near the piano was a photo of a teenage girl,
and she picked it up automatically, amazed at the similarity between mother and
daughter.

“Selene,” Sole informed her, and
Caton attempted to return the frame to its original position on the table. In
most homes, one could expect to find traces of dust to use for guidance, but,
in the Halston Palace, there wasn’t a speck of dust anywhere.

Up the imposing, intricately-carved
wood staircase that greeted Caton upon her entrance, Sole led Caton past
Amelia’s office and the spillover room next to it, filled with pieces of unused
computer equipment. There were three average-sized bedrooms, and a massive one
at the end of the hall that could only have been that of a teenage girl, though
no teenage girl Caton had ever met. The entire room looked as if it was lifted
out of a furniture store catalog and dropped into the space from the stained
wood flooring to the locker-style storage units to the pile of pillows stacked
perfectly against the headboard.

Coming to the foot of stairs that
indicated yet another floor, Sole motioned to the master suite and Jack’s
office, but didn’t lead Caton up, letting her know without verbal warning that
the top floor was off-limits, before leading her back down the stairs to the
basement where she pointed out the gym, the conference room, and an oddly
relaxed rec room that looked almost like the living room of a normal home and
grated against everything in the house that came before it.

At last returning Caton to her
place of exile, Sole glanced toward the cameras, softly informing Caton they
were virtually-controlled with a stream up to Jack’s computer. The fact that
she sounded as disturbed by the fact as Caton brought some measure of comfort,
if not relief from the ever-watchful Cyclops.

After that, Sole left her, and
Caton went back to the files, which, much to her dismay, hadn’t miraculously
vanished in her absence. A few hours later, fingertips just starting to crack
from the continuous contact with dusty files, she was finally free to go and
she headed back up to the kitchen to thank Sole, who seemed honestly happy when
she told Caton she would see her in the morning and provided the unsolicited
information that Amelia was upstairs in her office.

Not particularly wanting to
approach the other woman, but not particularly wanting to spend the entire six
months afraid of running into her boss either, Caton slow-stepped up the stairs
and hesitated outside the door of Amelia’s office. Finally sliding into the
doorway, she discovered Amelia with her head bowed over a piece of paper, hand
moving across it, and waited for a break. When Amelia at last dropped the pen
on the desk and leaned back, Caton watched her pull her bottom lip between her
teeth in concentration, trying not to notice the way the buttons on her shirt
strained as Amelia stretched, revealing a hint of red silk against skin.

“Same time tomorrow?” she asked,
and Amelia jostled to attention as if she had no clue Caton was standing there.
“Sorry,” Caton uttered, and it sounded as insincere as it felt.

“Did Sole say you could come up
here?” Amelia questioned in a tone that reminded Caton just how deceiving looks
could be.

“No,” Caton replied. “I didn’t
realize I needed permission.”

For a moment, Amelia said nothing,
her chest expanding and contracting as she stared across the office.
Fleetingly, it occurred to Caton she should try being less confrontational,
though she doubted it would change anything.

“I don’t like to be surprised,”
Amelia stated at last.

“It won’t happen again,” Caton
uttered. “Since this filing is going to take months, can I wear casual
clothes?”

“I don’t care what you wear,”
Amelia countered with such indifference, Caton bristled instantly.

“Okay.” She couldn’t stop the
irritated sigh from leaving her lips. “I don’t know what’s going on, but Jack
said you needed help. That is the only reason I am here. Now, I’m helping the
city, and as long as I get paid I’m fine with that, but I could help you.”

“I don’t need your help,” Amelia
calmly asserted. “I don’t know why Jack brought you here. I just need to keep
you busy until I figure that out.”

She seemed more annoyed than
concerned by the situation, and did appear to be telling the truth. So, neither
of them knew what was going on, and they were enemies for no other reason than
they had been pitted against each other in some weird power play Caton probably
should have seen coming, but didn’t. Now that it was in motion, all she could
do was let it play out. She couldn’t win. Amelia couldn’t win. It was Jack’s
game, that was clear, and only he knew what he expected to get out of it.

“Goodnight,” she said, surrendering
to the situation as it was and getting no response from Amelia.

She didn’t expect one.