Descended (The Red Blindfold Book 4) (9 page)

He smiled back in a way
that said everything would be all right. It was the most reassuring
smile I’d ever seen, and the saddest.

“I should get going,”
he said, and lightly touched my arm.

If my mother hadn’t
been there, I’d have grabbed him and begged him to stay. I’d have
lost my mind and my morals, and gone with him straight to the
airport.

I was ready to abandon
my life, my career, and my family for him. Which only showed how
crazy he made me. My life with him had been a fantasy. This life was
hard, cold reality.

My mother followed us
to the back door. With her beside me, I couldn’t kiss or hug Drex
goodbye. I could only wish him a safe trip and choke back tears as he
walked away. He looked back once, just long enough to leave the
impression of his face burned into my mind forever.

“Take care,” he
said, and disappeared through the gate.

My mother put her arm
around me. I couldn’t look at her. If I did, I’d never stop
crying.

“I shouldn’t say
this,” she said, “but you know what I’m thinking?”

“What?” I
whispered.

She sighed as if she had the weight
of the world on her shoulders. “That you haven’t seen the last of
that man.”

The next afternoon, Ivy
stood in her kitchen with a Red Bull in her hand. She was wearing a
Property of Boston Fire Department t-shirt and tight cutoffs that
revealed her mile-long legs. She lived a fifteen minute walk from me
in a modest three-bedroom house she shared with her EMT husband.

The walls were covered
with pictures of cookouts, camping trips, and softball games. We
seemed nothing alike, until we started talking. I’d been here for
five minutes and already I knew why we’d been good friends for so
long.

“No one will tell me
anything,” I said, pulling out a chair at the rustic wood table and
sitting down. “It’s like they’re all trying to protect me from
my own life. From what happened.”

“I know,” she said.
“Coffee?”

“Yes, please.
Gallons.”

She filled a mug and
set it on the table with a spoon and a little pitcher of cream. “What
has David told you so far?”

“Only that we went on
vacation with Lily and Porter. Have you ever met them?”

Squinting at the floor,
she thought back. “A few times, at parties at your house. We barely
exchanged two words.”

“I was hoping you
could tell me what kind of people they are.”

“Judging from all the
tweed and the corduroy, I’d say stiff. And boring. Definitely
boring.”

I smiled.
Just
like my husband
, I wanted to say, but bit my lip.

Ivy drained her Red
Bull and tossed the can into a recycling bin by the garage door. It
swished in smoothly from four feet away. “Your mother called me
this morning,” she said.

I knew my mother liked
Ivy, but I hadn’t realized how close they were. “She called you?”
I asked, pouring cream into my mug. “For what?”

“She asked me not to
say anything, but I’ve known you too long, Kary. I’m not going to
lie to you.”

I stopped stirring.
“Lie to me? About what?”

She leaned back against
the kitchen counter and crossed her ankles. “She’s worried about
you, and not because of your health. Look, I don’t know how to say
this so I’m just going to say it. None of us like David – me,
your mom, your other friends. We never have.”

Her words were like a
punch to the stomach. I knew my mother didn’t like him, but all of
my friends? “Why?”

“He’s always been
pretty controlling, from the time you were his student,” she said.
“He looks like a mild-mannered guy, but he knows how to get what he
wants. He was in the power position and he took advantage of it. He
could make you agree to anything.”

She couldn’t be
describing me. I was tough as nails. I’d survived three days alone
with no memory and could hold my own with Drex, who defined the term
alpha male
. “But
David’s trying so hard to be kind,” I said. “I can tell.”

“That’s what he
does. He draws you in by being the nicest guy in the world.”

Though I believed her,
I couldn’t feel it. I couldn’t imagine being influenced by David
and giving in. “But I’m not like that. I don’t just roll over
for a man.”

She came over to the
table and sat across from me. “You did for a long time. I
understand why. David’s smart. He’s older. Your father died of
cancer when you were young and maybe David was appealing for that
reason.”

I tried to think back
to the person I’d been when I was twenty-two, but my mind hit a
black wall so high I couldn’t see over it. “Maybe. I wish I
knew.”

“You were starting to
branch out a little over the last year, and I was glad. You were
starting to have your own life.”

The coffee churned in
my stomach.
Branching out. My
own life.
What did that mean, exactly? “Can I ask you
something?”

“Anything,” she
said, lifting her shoulders.

“Was I having an
affair?”

She tipped her head
back and rolled her eyes. “I wish.”

“You
wish
?”

Her thin lips quirked.
“What can I say? I thought – I
still
think you’re too young and smart to be David’s Stepford faculty
wife. You should be out enjoying your life, not wearing cardigans and
playing cribbage.”

I frowned. “I play
cribbage?”

“Badly, from what I
hear,” she said, nodding.

“So, I wasn’t
seeing anyone else?”

She snorted. “Hell,
no. You would have told me immediately. I’d be giving you all the
gory details right now as I sit here.”

“You probably would
be.”

“So, no affair,”
she said, sitting back and leveling a long glance at me. “Except
for that sexy guy you were living with for three weeks.”

I set my mug down with
a hard thud. “Oh, yeah. Him.”

“You’ll get no
judgment from me,” Ivy said. “No woman who didn’t realize she
was married would refuse a guy that hot. Except for me, maybe,
because John’s name is tattooed on my ass, and I’d have no excuse
if –”

“Ivy,” I broke in.

“Hmm?”

“Yes, okay? I slept
with Drex.” I paused. “I slept with him yesterday.”

I felt a rush of
relief. Finally, I could confide in someone from my old life and tell
the truth.

Her mouth dropped open.
“I’m sorry. I thought you said yesterday.”

“I did.”

“Holy crap,” she
whispered. “Where? A hotel?”

“He came through the
alley and found me in the backyard.”

She gasped. “Oh, my
God. You did it in the backyard.”

“No, we went inside
and did it.”

Her hooded brown eyes
were wide. “Still, that’s crazy. I mean, it’s a good kind of
crazy, but...”

Shame prickled over my
skin. “How can it be good? For God’s sake, I’m married. Even
thinking about another man is wrong.”

“The old you was
married. Forgive me, but the new you doesn’t know David Blair from
a skinny dude in Brooks Brothers.”

“Nicely put.”

She shrugged. “What
can I say? You can’t beat yourself up for not feeling the same way
about him. You don’t remember him. Not to mention that he didn’t
tell any of us you were missing at first. We didn’t even know he
was back in town. If we had, your mom and I would have gone to the
police the first day.”

“And he told you I’d
run off with somebody?”

“Not exactly. He
suspected it. I told him it was bullshit, but he didn’t listen to
me. He said he wanted to give you time to figure things out on your
own.”

My throat tightened as
I remembered “figuring things out,” like how to eat and survive
with no money or memory. “Three weeks is a long time,” I said.

“Right?” she said,
eyebrows shooting up. “But he kept putting me off. I warned him,
one more day and I’d go to the police myself.”

I covered her hand with
mine. “I appreciate that, Ivy,” I said.

Or did I?

My stomach sank as I
imagined the alternative. If Ivy hadn’t pressured David, he might
have waited even longer to look for me. Which meant I’d still be in
Houston with Drex, blissfully ignorant of who I was, living in a
dream.

It probably wouldn’t
have lasted long. But it would have lasted longer, and today, I’d
kill for just one more weekend.

“Has anybody come to
see you since you’ve been back?” Ivy asked, jarring me out of my
fantasy.

“I’m getting a lot
of texts and messages, but I haven’t felt ready to see anyone yet,”
I said. “I’m not sure what I’d say.”

The truth was, I’d
hardly left the house except for medical appointments, and didn’t
want to. I was clinging to the dim hope that my memory returned
before I had to see colleagues and old friends.

She pursed her lips.
“Well, don’t be surprised if it’s awkward when the time comes.
People aren’t sure how to deal with this stuff.”

“It’s not awkward
between you and me.”

“That’s different.
I’ve known you ten years, and to me, you’re the same person
you’ve always been. You’ve just lost your blinders. You’re
seeing things for the first time.”

“Really? It feels
like things are clobbering me over the head.”

She squeezed my knee
with a French-manicured hand. “Good,” she said. “It’s
probably the best thing for you.”

On my way out the door,
I turned and hugged her. It was the closest I’d felt to someone
since Drex, and it was hard to leave. “Is there anything else I
should know?” I asked. “About my life, I mean?”

She shifted from one
bare foot to the other. “Like?”

“I don’t know. You
tell me.”

Though she smiled, her
mouth trembled at one corner. “Talk to David tonight, okay?” she
said. “There are some things that should come from him.”

My flight to Houston
got in late. I was as pissed off and bitter as I’d ever been, not
because of the flight but because of Jane.

If I’d thought our
hot fuck in Boston would stop me from missing her, I’d been dead
wrong. It was worse, if worse was possible. I’d gotten an earful
from her mother and a lesson in harsh reality.

Jane was married. She
had a life. She couldn’t leave that life behind, even if it meant
denying herself happiness.

But by denying herself,
she was denying me.

Not that I had a right
to her. Well, not technically. Sure, I’d plucked her off the mean
streets of Chimayo, but she had a career and a family on the other
side of the country. So why did I feel possessive to the point of
wanting to smash something?

Because possession
wasn’t logical. It didn’t follow rules. It lived outside the law,
and took what it wanted. And damn, how I wanted Jane.

I walked into my
apartment and slammed the door. I reached for the light switch, then
thought better of it. Screw it, leave it dark. It matched my mental
state perfectly. Just add whiskey and stir.

Diesel was with a dog
sitter until tomorrow, so my apartment seemed empty as a tomb. No
woman, no dog, nothing but memories I wanted to block out. Or relive
over and over again, I wasn’t sure which.

Leaving my suitcase in
the foyer, I walked to the living room. I stood in the doorway,
loosening my tie and looking out at the lights of Houston. I’d paid
a mint for this view, but tonight I hardly saw it. All I could see
were Jane’s beautiful eyes as I walked out her back door.

“’Bout time you
showed up.”

I almost jumped out of
my skin. “What the fuck?”

It was Elijah, sitting
like a grizzled old ghost in a leather armchair across the room. I’d
begun to think he was dead. God help me, a few times I’d hoped he
was.

“Jesus H. Christ,”
I said. “How the hell did you get in here?”

“Even doormen can be
bribed,” he said in his tobacco-hoarse voice, and then he laughed.
He had a bottle of my good Scotch and a half-full glass on the end
table beside him.

“You bribed my
doorman? I’ll have him fired tonight.”

“Relax,” he said.
“I got a key, okay? I copied one a while ago. I slipped in a back
door when one of the janitors left and here I am.”

“Here you are,” I
said, walking over and grabbing his glass. “Now, you mind telling
me where you’ve been?”

He waved a hand. “Oh,
here, there, and everywhere.”

I set my teeth. “Don’t
give me that vague crap like Pierce always does. I’m not in the
mood. I combed the state for you for a week.”

“And in the process
got yourself in a lot of trouble with that girl, didn’t you? Just
like you always have.”

I took a swig of
Scotch, relishing the burn in my throat. “Got my back as usual, I
see.”

He gave me a forceful
nod. “As a matter of fact, I do. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.”

I snickered. “Is that
why you turned up out of the blue? You and Pierce both. It’s a very
bad pattern.”

“I need a reason to
visit my son?” he asked, squinting up at me.

“You’ve always had
one before. What is it this time?”

He lifted his bony
shoulders. “I heard rumors, that’s all. There’s a couple guys
want back what they lost a while ago.”

There it was. A snake
crawling out of my past, looking for a payoff. “I had a feeling.”
I tossed back the rest of the Scotch. “You heard any names?”

“Robert Breed. Sound
familiar?”

I gave him a look. “You
think I remember the name of every guy I cleaned out over the years?”

“I hear you,” my
father said, giving me a gap-toothed grin. “Maybe you’d remember
his face then.”

“You saw him?”

“Let’s say I did.
Let’s say nobody knew who I was.”

“I thought every
asshole between here and the state of Chihuahua knew who you were,
but get to the point.”

“All right. He and
his brother have been following you. They know you were in Chimayo,
and they know where you live in Houston.”