Descended (The Red Blindfold Book 4) (10 page)

I switched on the lamp
and Elijah’s eyes narrowed like a feral cat’s. “My address
isn’t a secret,” I said. “Ask any amateur reporter and he’ll
give you fucking directions.”

“Yeah, well, this
guy’s not planning anything violent. That would be easy for you.
Get a bodyguard, carry a gun.”

“So what does he
want?”

“That’s the thing,
he’s smart. He’s knows how to get to you.”

I clenched the highball
glass in my hand.
Jane.
Fuck.

The whole world knew
where she was and what she looked like. The asshole could be at her
door in thirty seconds. “If he gets within a hundred miles of her
I’ll rip him apart.”

“No, not the girl,”
Elijah said, wincing up his wrinkled face. “But he saw what
happened last week when word got out about her. He’s going after
your reputation.”

I laughed. “Let him.”

“Don’t be so
cavalier. He’s got a good story. Hardworking guy trying to support
his sick daughter and some bastard takes his life savings in a
crooked game of pool. Now that swindler’s a bazillionaire.”

“How do you know the
story’s true?”

“True or not, the
press’ll drool over it. That’s the part you gotta worry about.”

I dropped my head back
and closed my eyes. Why did my father have to be right? Even once?
“Thanks for the heads-up,” I said. “I’ll figure it out.”

“You better. You
worked too hard to let somebody take even a dollar of it away from
you.”

I raised my head and
looked at him. “Worked hard – you mean, you noticed?”

“’Course I noticed,
you think I’m stupid?”

“No. I just never
thought you’d say it.”

He took a cigarette
package from his shirt pocket, shook it out, and frowned when he
realized it was empty. “Not that you done things the way your
brother Marc has. You made enemies and ignored the rules, just like
me.”

“No,” I said, my
temper rising. “Not a damn thing like you.”

“Really? Then why am
I sitting here tonight, warning you? Why’ve you been looking over
your shoulder the last eight years? Now, your brother –”

“I don’t want to
hear about my brother.”

He snickered. “How
come? You don’t even know him.”

“Exactly,” I said.
“Neither do you.”

“Maybe that’ll
change. Maybe someday I’ll go to Paris and meet him in person.”

The old resentment
soared to the surface and burned like acid. “You’ve got two sons
right here and we barely see you. Never did, as a matter of fact.”

“I was busy making a
living.”

If he’d been ten
years younger I’d have picked up him out of his chair and thrown
him out the door. “A living? Is that what you call it?”

“You were never on
food stamps, were you?”

For the umpteenth time,
I realized how pointless it was to argue with a guy who took pride in
the number of arrests he’d racked up. “Why’d you come to
Houston on your own, anyway? I always have to drag you.”

He leaned back as if he
were under no obligation to explain himself. “I had something
important to tell you, that’s all.”

“And now I’ve got
something to tell you,” I said. “You’re living here from now
on. I’ll hire another caretaker to keep an eye on you. No more
place of your own, no more taking off. Your days of fucking around
are over.”

“Fine by me.”

I frowned at him. “What
did you say?”

He shrugged and got up.
Even at sixty-eight, he still looked wiry and tough. “I said fine.
Nothing I’d like more than to put my feet up in a ritzy apartment
and relax for a change.”

I’d been so braced
for a fight, and so pissed off about Jane, that I’d wanted one. But
my father had rolled over for what had to be the first time in his
life. I was almost disappointed he’d given in so fast.

“Good,” I said.
“I’ll set you up in a guest room and have your things brought
over tomorrow.” His clothes were rumpled and dirty, as if he’d
been riding the rails for a month. “Take a shower and I’ll get
you some clean clothes. Are you hungry?”

“Nope. Thanks.”
Without a word of complaint, he followed me across the apartment to a
guest suite.

“It’s nice,” he
said, looking around at the charcoal walls, high white ceilings, and
huge bed. “Too nice for me.”

I was tempted to agree.
“Go shower and I’ll bring you a change of clothes. We’ll start
dealing with your house tomorrow. I’m selling it. It’s in my
name, after all.”

I shut the door. As I
headed down the hall, I heard the sound of water running. I couldn’t
believe it. My father was off the streets and not causing trouble,
and he’d even come back to Houston under his own power. I was
completely torn to pieces about Jane, and nothing could make that
better. But tonight, I didn’t have to worry about Elijah, and that
was something to be grateful for.

I brought sweats and a
long-sleeved t-shirt to his room and knocked. The shower was still
running.

“Dad?” I turned the
knob and walked in. The bathroom door was cracked an inch and steam
poured through it like smoke. “Dad?” I called. “I’m leaving
clothes on your bed. They’ll be too big for you but they’ll work
for tonight.”

He didn’t answer. I
stepped closer to the door. “Dad?”

Just as I pushed the
door open, I knew.

Fuck it all, I’d
fallen for it again.

The shower was empty.
Water pounded against the stone tiles and circled down the drain like
some ridiculous metaphor. Elijah had come to deliver a message and
drink my Scotch, and then he’d vanished again. He’d never
intended to stay, or do anything but the same shit he’d always
done.

How many times in two
weeks could people walk out on me? Apparently, as many times as I let
it happen.

Well, I was done.

I’d said it before,
but this time I meant it. I’d tried to convince Jane and Elijah
that they’d be better off with me, and neither of them had
listened.

From now on, I’d
throw myself back into work and block out everything else. No more
hoping Jane would change her mind. It would hurt like a bullet to the
gut, but it was better than false hope.

From now on, it was all
about me, my business, and making money. I couldn’t depend on
anything else.

If I was stuck in this
life – and there was no doubt I was – then I’d have to make the
best of it.

In this case, the best
of it meant talking to the man I was supposed to love, as Ivy had
suggested. It meant knowing our history together, and trying to make
it matter to me even a little bit.

A few days after Drex
walked out of my life, I sat across the dinner table from David
asking questions. At least when he was helping me fill in the pieces
of my past, we weren’t sitting in gut-wrenching silence.

“How did we meet?”
I asked, trying to look interested. “I mean, I know you were my
teacher, but how did it happen?”

He took a sip of wine
from a crystal glass etched with our initials. According to David, it
had been a wedding gift from his parents.

“Well, it was your
first year in law school and I was teaching Contracts. You used to
stay after class to ask questions. It wasn’t exactly ethical to get
involved, but we were very discreet about it. We didn’t have our
first date until you weren’t my student anymore.”

“When did we get
married?”

“About eighteen
months later. It was all very romantic. We had a couple of cheap
rings made by a silversmith in town. I was going to buy you a
diamond, but you just wanted something simple. We eloped to Grand
Cayman.”

“Eloped?”

I could imagine eloping
if I was hopelessly in love, but doing something so romantic with
David? If he hadn’t been opening our wedding album, I might not
have believed him.

But all the evidence
was there.

The ceremony on the
beach. David in shorts and a flowered shirt, me in a white sundress.
We were both barefoot, both smiling. I looked so young and innocent,
so different from the woman I’d become.

“We must have had
fun,” I said, a knot of sadness in my throat.

“We did,” he said.
“We promised to take a vacation every year, and we have.”

“And we usually go
alone?”

“Well, yeah,” he
said. “Not this year, though.”

His voice faded, and I
sensed I was asking too much. But I wasn’t finished yet. There were
still so many things I needed to know.

“Okay, well,” I
said, pressing on. “I have another question. A few weeks ago, I
saw… well…”

He gave me a wary
glance. “What?”

“Um…did we ever
have a child?”

His expression was
flat. “No.”

“Did we want to?”

“Karina…”

I frowned. “I want to
know.”

His face looked pinched
and drawn. “You want to discuss it now?”

‘Yes,” I said. “I
do.”

“All right, well…”
He swallowed. “There’s no easy way to say this.”

My heart was a frozen
stone. “So just say it.”

“Three years ago. You
had a miscarriage in the fifth month.” He stared down at the floor.
“The baby didn’t make it. You almost didn’t either.”

I stopped breathing. I
didn’t want to know this. I wished to God I hadn’t asked.

No wonder Ivy couldn’t
tell me. I knew I should feel something, but I was numb to the core.

It wasn’t me David
was talking about. I’d know if my baby died. It would be branded on
my soul.

“Boy or girl?” I
whispered.

His eyes clouded with
pain. “A little girl. You named her Grace.”

Grace.
Grace.

At the sound of her
name, my stomach pitched. My daughter, my daughter Grace. She’d
left her faint mark on my body, and then she’d vanished forever. It
was the saddest thing I could imagine, far sadder than everything I’d
gone through in the last month.

“And we never tried
again?”

“Well, that’s the
thing, Karina.” I hoped he would look at me but he kept his eyes on
the carpet. “We didn’t try again because…”

I stared at him,
knowing with horror what he was about to say.

“You can’t have any
more children.”

There it was. I
swallowed down a lump of uncried tears. I would not go to pieces in
front of a virtual stranger, even if he was the father of the child
I’d lost.

“We saw four
experts,” he said. “They all agreed that, considering the amount
of damage that happened –”

I shook my head. “No,
I get it. You don’t have to explain.”

“I’m sorry. I wish
you didn’t have to find out twice.”

“Yeah. Me, too.” I
knew I should do something to let the pain out – scream, throw up,
break something – but it was too strong. Nothing I could do would
make it better.

I wanted to flee the
room but felt nailed to my chair. I’d been so stupid to think that
I could reinvent myself, forget my history, and start over again with
Drex. This was who I was: a married woman with a career and a
complicated life I couldn’t walk away from. Certainly not now.
Maybe not ever.

“Do you still want
children?” I asked. Maybe one of these times, he’d say something
that would help me feel like I knew him.

“I don’t know,”
he said.

“Really?” Was it
possible to not know something like that? Had losing Grace scarred
him that much?

“That’s a
conversation for another time. I’d rather not talk about this
anymore, if that’s okay.”

I was too shocked by
grief to argue. I would have to deal with what I knew later, by
myself. David wasn’t going to help me through it. We weren’t
going to cry together, or get closer. He’d given me the facts and
that was the end of it.

He patted the back of
my hand and stood up. “How about some Earl Grey tea?”

“Oh, uh – all
right.”

“I’ll put on the
kettle. And there’s a rerun of Downton Abbey on TV in a little
while. You always liked that.” He gave me an embarrassed smile. “I
guess you’ll have to catch up on the other seasons first.”

“That’s okay,” I
said. “You can give me a recap.”

“I’ll do that. I’ve
got an email to send out. How about we meet in the family room in
half an hour.”

“Sure.”

He got up and walked
into the kitchen. I could see in his stride how relieved he was to
escape my questions. Considering how painful the answers were, I’d
probably feel the same way.

I sat still in my
chair, paralyzed by what he’d told me. I couldn’t swallow. I
couldn’t think. I couldn’t cry.

Though I’d wandered through the
world by myself for days, I’d never felt as lost and lonely as I
did right now.

Two weeks after Drex
left Boston, I went back to work. I wore a new summer-weight wool
suit and high-heeled sandals, higher than any I’d found in my very
conservative closet.

It was too soon. I knew
that.

I was still catching up
on my old cases and relearning things I’d known by heart for years.
I crammed over law books and files until after midnight every night.
But I needed my career. Not because work or success mattered so much
to me, but because I’d go insane if I didn’t distract myself.
When I wasn’t grieving over the daughter I’d lost, I was
obsessing over the man I couldn’t have.

As hard as I tried to
block Drex out of my mind, it did no good. Where he was concerned, I
couldn’t think clearly. I was so weak for him, I was tempted to
give up everything in Karina’s life just to experience one more day
of Jane’s.

My first morning at the
office, my colleagues brought in a cake for me.
Welcome
back, Karina
was spelled out in red on chocolate frosting.
Though I couldn’t remember a single face or even where my desk was,
I pretended to be upbeat.

“Things are starting
to come back,” I said to everyone I talked to, though it was far
from the truth. “I’m feeling better. Just glad to be here.”