This Life: A Novel (10 page)

Chapter Thirteen

April 1

New York
,
New York

Blake woke up just
before sunrise, her throat feeling like someone poured kerosene down it and
applied a lit match. The rest of her felt as though she’d been hit by a train,
which then backed up over her and finally ran over her again. She dragged
herself out of bed and stumbled into the living room, where Matt sat watching a
black-and-white movie on TV.

He looked up at her and
did a double take. “Whoa, Ms. Bertrand. You don’t look so good.”

She tried to smile but
didn’t have the energy. Instead, she collapsed on one of the recliners and
said, “I feel how I look.”

“You want me to take
you to an emergency room?”

“No.” Blake shivered as
she suddenly felt like she’d been dropped naked in the
Arctic
. “But maybe a clinic
with walk-in hours…”

“I’ll find one.”

She must have fallen
asleep or passed out then, because she wasn’t aware of anything else until
Antonio scooped her up in his arms and carried her out of the apartment. Matt
held the door open for him and then hurried ahead to the elevator.

Matt pressed the
elevator’s button to keep the doors open. Blake looked at Matt and managed to
squeak out, “Tell Edith…to take care…of business…for…me.”

Matt punched the button
to close the elevator doors. Then, as they started to slide shut, her cell
phone range. It was Brett. She turned it off.

She drifted in and out
of consciousness, but she did hear the doctor tell Matt and Antonio that Blake
was among the flu season’s last victims. “We can give her something to
short-circuit the virus, but that just means she’ll be sick for a week instead
of two or three. Lots of rest, plenty of fluids…”

That bitch he had in
my bed must’ve had some nasty ass cold. I fucking hate germs.

#

April 5

New York
,
New York

She wasn’t aware of much
until Sunday afternoon, when she finally woke up no longer feeling like she was
dying and wishing she could hurry up and be done with it. Not surprisingly,
Brett was nowhere, but she imagined he wasn’t too far. His luggage still sat by
the closet door.

First things first, however.
Her grumbling stomach insisted she feed it.

Blake slipped into her
bathrobe and slippers and padded into the kitchen, where Suki was finishing her
lunch. Take-away pad thai, it appeared to be, and it smelled delicious.

“Feeling any better, Boss?”

“Ravenous! You didn’t
happen to get enough of that stuff for me to have some too, did you?”

Suki grinned. “I got
enough for three bodyguards, but I can go back out and pick up some more for
Matt. Have a seat.” She got out a clean plate and dished out a couple of large
spoonfuls. “Let’s see how you do with that much, to start with. It’s been a few
days since you’ve had anything but chicken broth.”

Blake demolished the
food while Suki brewed some ginger tea for both of them. She stirred in some
honey and handed Blake a mug. Blake sipped the hot liquid and relished how it
eased her residual sore throat and stuffy sinuses.

“Oh, this is heavenly.
Thanks, Suki.”

“You’re welcome.” The
bodyguard watched her drink the tea for a minute or two, then asked, “Do you feel
like you’ll be awake for a little while?”

“I think so. Why?”

“The guys and I need to
talk to you, Boss.”

“Am I recovered enough
for this?”

Suki appeared to give
that some thought before saying, “From what I’ve learned about you, there are
things you don’t want to talk about, no matter how you feel. But, Boss, you’ve
hired Antonio, Matt, and me to protect you. We can do that better if we know
more about who might want to hurt you, and why. Make sense?”

Blake stared at her now-empty
tea mug and wished for something much stronger. “I don’t like it, but I
understand.”

“Atta girl, Boss.” Suki
went to the kitchen door and called, “Yo, Antonio, the boss is awake and I told
her we need to talk to her. Grab Matt, will you?” Suki took her seat again, and
a couple of minutes later Antonio and a bleary-eyed Matt joined them.

“Well, where shall we
start?” Antonio looked at Suki.

“How about we start by
giving props to our boss? Not many women with her name and face recognition
could have a child and keep it a total secret for more than a decade.” Suki
raised her tea mug to Blake in a salute, then finished off the beverage.

Blake slumped in her
chair. Obviously, this was going to be a difficult conversation. “Yes. I have a
son.”

“His name is Lionel,
you gave him up for adoption at birth, and he played French horn in the All
State Band concert we attended,” said Suki.

“Why is this something
we need to talk about?” Blake wished, again, for a more potent beverage than
tea.

“Because anyone who
wants to hurt you might just think they’ll cause you more pain by harming
someone you love, than by harming you personally.” Antonio fixed his gaze on
Blake’s face. Matt and Suki followed his example.

“That’s not possible.”
Or
is it? How many other people wondered why I went to that concert, and have
found the truth? Christ, if I’ve put my son in danger…
“Nobody knows Lionel
is my son, except me. I’m so careful…” Blake’s voice trailed off as her chest
ached with doubts.

“It’s not just
possible, Boss, it’s a certainty. Whoever beat Henry up, it wasn’t a mugging,
and it wasn’t a grudge against him. Our agency has been checking that out.”
Suki snapped her fingers in front of Blake’s nose. “Wake up, Boss. Someone
knows you don’t just give the man a job; you care about what happens to him.
Everyone else you care about is in danger, too.”

“Your mom,” said Matt.

Blake remembered Matt
waiting downstairs while she told her mother about her chance to buy the
Wishman Spears. “I’ve got Mom living in an exclusive island community. She should
be safe there.”

“Not from a trained
killer, she isn’t. Or even someone without training who is good at planning.”
Suki shook her head. “Any of us three could get to her. We’ve all dealt with
other people who could do the same.”

“Anyone who finds out
about Lionel could get to him, too. It would be easy,” said Antonio.

“Or Edith,” added Suki.

“Or your friend Margot,”
Antonio suggested.

“Your ‘uncle’ Thorne
and his wife,” Matt said.

“STOP.” The tea mug
slipped from Blake’s grasp and cracked into a bunch of pieces on the marble
floor. “I get it. But what do I do about it?” She covered her face with her
hands.
I feel so helpless. Damn it.

“You start by telling
us everyone who might want to hurt you, and why.” Antonio tapped the keyboard
of his smartphone. “I’m taking notes. Go.”

“Well, there’s my
ex-husband, Lang.” Blake kept her hands over her face.
I really don’t want
to talk about this. But what if someone I care about gets hurt or killed
because I kept everything to myself?

Antonio nodded. “Ten
years of marriage, several phone calls to the police about domestic violence.
Always him violent to you. Now the question is, why?”

“He’s just that way.”

“No offense, Boss, but
that’s bullshit.” Suki stood up. “Every man who beats up women has a reason for
doing it. They grew up seeing dad slap mom around and think it’s normal, or
their big sisters made them wear dresses and made fun of them, or some other
lame excuse. It all comes down to control. They need the women in their life to
fear and obey them, or they don’t feel like men. They beat respect out of women
because it’s easier than earning it.”

Suki rambled in the
refrigerator while Antonio nodded and said, quietly, “My dad beat up my mom. If
I had a nickel for every time I heard him yell at her to do what he told her
and like it…”

“But I don’t know! If
there’s some reason why Lang is angry at women…I don’t know what it is.”

“I’m gonna have to call
bullshit on you again, Boss. You’re too smart and too careful, even after what
your stepfather did to you. Deep down, you probably have an idea why Lang beat
you up.” Suki plunked down four ice-filled glasses, a two-liter bottle of
Coca-Cola, and a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. “Have some liquid courage, and we’ll
join you.”

“Jack and Coke is what
we drink after a job that’s been a real hair-raiser,” Matt confided to Blake as
Suki poured the drinks.

Blake accepted the
glass handed to her, and took a swallow. It momentarily burned her throat,
which was still a little raw, but then she felt a warm glow spreading from her
middle. To her own surprise, she wasn’t upset when she asked, “How did you know
about my stepfather?”

Matt shrugged. “You
started modeling as a kid. Everyone knows that. And everyone knows you, uh,
acted out. In ways abused girls tend to act out.”

“Then you turned
around. Dropped out of modeling at sixteen. Got back into it at eighteen, and
you were totally different. You kept out of trouble and didn’t take any shit
from anyone anymore,” said Antonio.

“Until Lang.” Suki
locked gazes with Blake, peering over the rim of her glass. “Start there. How
you met him. Why you hooked up with him. And judging by Lionel’s age, there’s a
story there too, close to when you got tangled up with Lang.”

“It was my mom who
turned me around.” Blake forced herself to continue meeting Suki’s gaze.
She’s
a woman. And she teaches self-defense classes for women and girls, she said. If
anyone can understand, it’s probably Suki.
“One day, when I was sixteen,
she caught my stepdad about to rape me after beating me with his belt. It wasn’t
the first time he did that. I hated him and never felt safe with him.”

Blake paused for
another swallow of Jack and Coke, and smiled at the drink as she remembered
Jacinta coming to her rescue. “You should have seen my mom that day. She was
amazing. She stood in the door of my bedroom looking ten feet tall, and I still
remember word for word what she said to that bastard Jim: ‘I’m a nurse. I know
many ways to kill you and make it look like natural causes. If I ever see your
face again, I’ll assume you’re trying to get your hands on Blake, and I will
see you dead. Understand?’”

“Well done, Mrs.
Bertrand,” Antonio said with a smile. Suki broke out into solemn applause, and
Matt joined her.

“She wanted me to see a
counselor, but I didn’t want to talk to anyone about it. I just wanted to
forget about him, feel safe again, and finish high school and get into real
estate like my real dad did for a while.” Blake stopped as the three bodyguards
exchanged swift, knowing glances. “What?”

“That explains why you
cracked under Lang’s pressure,” said Suki. “You didn’t recover from your
stepfather’s abuse, you just buried it.”

“And so it stayed
there, making you vulnerable to another asshole like him.” There was a sadness
in Antonio’s eyes that made Blake want to get up and go hug him. Or maybe it
was the Jack and Coke, or missing Brett.

“Where is Brett?” Blake
shook her head, puzzled that she hadn’t asked sooner.

Matt rolled his eyes. “He’s
out ‘taking care of business’ for you. We want to talk about him, too, but let’s
finish up with Lang first.”

Blake nodded, thinking,
Best to get this over with
. “How I met him. That was fifteen years ago.
I was nineteen, and I’d been back in modeling for almost two years. I was a
global sensation. Armani asked me to do a television commercial for one of
their new fragrances, and the contract was worth a lot of money. I was saving
up to get started in real estate development, so I was happy to take the offer.
They cast Lang to be the handsome, distinguished man who caught a whiff of my
perfume, and nothing could stop him from meeting me. Well, after the commercial
was filmed Lang asked me out on a date, and when I kept saying no, he started
sending me little gifts. My friends in the modeling business kept telling me to
give him a chance. So I finally did.”

“What happened?” Suki
leaned forward, her eyes studying every detail of Blake’s face.
Watching for
any sign I might be lying,
Blake realized.

“It was wonderful,”
Blake said, and it was the truth. “He treated me to a fancy dinner and a
Broadway play. We talked about his career as an actor, and he was so sad about
his fading popularity. I told him I was planning to get out of modeling, and
start investing in real estate like my dad did for a few years. He was really
interested, and he encouraged me. He said he needed to find something else to
do, too, and joked that maybe he’d be begging me for a job soon.”

Suki shot a glance at
Matt and Antonio. “Uh-oh.” The two men nodded agreement.

“I don’t understand.”
Blake frowned. She was usually so quick-witted. Either the lingering effects of
flu or the Jack and Coke were messing with her head.