Violets & Violence (15 page)

The train said, “
Arriving at Division, Division Station
.” But that didn’t distract her.

“But my secrets are no different than yours.” She frowned, seemed to think about it, and then changed her mind. “Actually, my secrets are very different than yours. Mine don’t involve my past so much as they involve my success as an entertainer. My secrets involve my tricks.”

“Like last Friday when you appeared next to me at the Fisher?”

She smiled.

“And how you walk through glass?”

“And levitate and read minds and do all of those great things for all of those people who pay close to a hundred dollars per ticket to see those illusions performed,” she added.

I took a deep breath. “They’re still secrets.”

Her lips curled into a grin before looking away. “And I couldn’t share those secrets with you even if I wanted to. I’m sorry, Carter. Maybe someday, but not now. I just can’t.”

I nodded my understanding. “I don’t know if I want to know those secrets anyway,” I admitted.

“Anything else, I’m an open book.” Her eyes jumped from one side of my face to the other. “You don’t believe me. So ask.”

Arriving at Damen, Damen station
.

“I’m serious, Carter.” She jabbed a finger into my side. “Ask me anything.”

So I did. “Why are you here?” I blurted without giving much thought to the question. “Why didn’t you tell me you’d be here, and why are you going to New York tomorrow and…” I slowed down as I imagined Ted’s face, and Bill’s, and even James’. “Let’s start with those.”

The train started moving again.

Violet didn’t seem bothered by my questions. “I didn’t know you were going to be in Chicago today,” she said.

“But I told you when I saw you yesterday.”

A pause, and then she smiled. “You’re right, you did.” She shook her head. “I completely forgot, sorry.” Big breath. “I’m in Chicago visiting my father, putting in an appearance. I come every couple of weeks or so. If I had known—I mean, if I had been
thinking
straight, I’d have made sure we could ride together from Metro.”

“I’m on Delta.”

She shook her head. “US Air.”

I chuckled, leaned in and kissed her, letting my lips linger a beat longer than I should. I swore I heard some younger people giggling at us, so I withdrew and watched the dreamy gaze evaporate.

“And New York?” I asked.

At that, she shook her head. “Honestly? I don’t know why I bother going back there.” She stared out the window at the traffic on the Eisenhower. It seemed to be moving fluidly.

“More family? Business?” I suggested. “A guy?”

She whispered a chuckle. “None of the above. But if I had to pick one of those categories, I’d say it’s business.”

I frowned. “I thought you were moving the show to the theater where
Les Misérables
played.”

“Yes, the Imperial.” She jolted her attention to me. “I told you that?”

I imagined that I looked a little lost.

“Of course I did,” she said, and then stared outside again like she might be curious about what she had told me, what I had told her, and why she didn’t seem to remember any of this.

It was my turn to squeeze her hand, my turn to offer some encouragement. Despite that, I still had my doubts, big doubts. “Tell me about New York.”

“You want this, do you?” She seemed uncertain about it herself.

“You can tell me anything.”

“Yeah?”

“Anything,” I insisted. “So, tell me about New York.”

“Okay,” she sighed. “You might not like this.”

I squeezed her hand. “You won’t like all my answers to your questions.”

“Fair enough.” She took a deep breath. “A long time ago, I made some enemies in New York City. I had a friend, a
guy
, and we got involved with the worst kind of person. All of it in order to build this show, Violets & Illusions.” Another deep breath. “I know this is vague, but you’ll have to trust me. In the end, my enemy ran me out of the city. He knew my price, he paid it, and I was warned to never return.”

“Did you?” I wondered what this all meant for her future, for
our
future.

“Not me, but this guy, this friend, he did.”

“Is that Luke?” I asked, remembering James’ warning.

She nodded.

I noticed we had reached the Irving Park station. The many stations in between had been swallowed up as casualties of our conversation.

“Yes, Luke. He loves the show, the money and the prestige that Violets brings us. He’s the one that builds the illusions, the props, arranges everything. So he’s paid well, gets about half of the show’s proceeds. And of course, he gets to travel all over the world because people want to learn from him, how he creates these great illusions. So it’s a good thing for him, the brains. I’m just the entertainer, the mouthpiece with the pretty face and sexy legs.” She chuckled. “But that’s not the question.”

I squeezed her hand again, noticing just how clammy her palm had become.

“The question was why am I heading back to New York tomorrow. The answer is that I’m not quite sure, except that Luke paid those old friends a visit a little over a month ago. It didn’t go well. He thought he was meeting someone from the Shubert Organization, the company that owns the theater. But it was an ambush. These people, these bad people who knew our price and ran us out of town, they want something I don’t have. Something Luke doesn’t have.”

“What is it?”

She glanced at me, and I recognized the cluelessness in her eyes, her face numb with uncertainty. “I don’t know, exactly. It’s something Luke knows better than I do, some kind of engineering or computer language, or high-end mathematics. But that’s still not the point, or the question.”

We both chuckled as the train eased into the Harlem station. When we started moving again, the conversation resumed.

“I’m going to New York in order to negotiate my future. Luke’s future. The future of Violets. We can’t get the attention we need without Broadway. Vegas is booked and there are so many other entertainers waiting for that call.” She shifted her attention to me. “Vegas is the end of the road for me, Carter. It’s how I validate the work, the show, everything I’ve ever done. But Luke says I can’t get there without Broadway, without running a long-term show that brings in the big bucks. And since meeting you, I’ve questioned just how much any of this is really worth. Because I don’t want it anymore.”

We sat in silence for the rest of the ride to O’Hare, and then walked the platform to the stairs at the end. The entire time, we held hands. We headed to the check-in counters in Terminal 3, but before going our separate ways, I asked her a quick question, “Do you want me to accompany you? I’ve had quite the run this year, breaking necks and cashing checks. Maybe I can talk some sense into these people.”

She laughed. “I appreciate your offer, Carter. But your question period has come to an end.”

She leaned up on her toes and kissed me, wrapping her arms around my neck and pressing herself against my awakening crotch. When she pulled away, she had that same dreamy haze to her eyes, blotchiness in her cheeks.

“I have two questions,” she said. “Except mine are simpler. One, what happened to your marriage? Start with that.”

I frowned. I wasn’t exactly sure what happened to the marriage, what made it such a failure for my ex to leave me.

She kissed me to encourage me. “You drive a Camry, was that it?”

My eyes widened, enough with the Camry jokes. “What’s wrong with driving a JD Power top quality choice?”

Violet giggled. “It screams married man who takes himself too seriously.”

She was entitled to her opinion. Although now that both Violet and my ex had poked fun at my choice of vehicle, I decided to explore breaking the lease and finding an alternative ride.

“Plus,” she went on, “you’ve built some pretty tall emotional walls. I’ve been hurt, too, Carter. But even my walls aren’t as big as yours.” She shrugged at her psychoanalysis like it was second nature for her. “There’s a difference between people who’ve had their heart broken through divorce, and those who haven’t walked down that aisle. Regardless of the circumstances of that breakup, when it’s a marriage that comes to an end, it…”

I pressed my forehead to hers. “It’s okay, you can say it.”

“It’s different. The way divorce breaks you is different.” She pulled her forehead away and stared into my eyes. As if to offer some more encouragement, she tilted my chin, then pressed her lips to mine.

Someone walking by suggested we get a room.

“I have to catch my plane,” she whispered, pulling her lips from mine just enough that she could speak.

“Do you want your answer?”

She pressed a finger to my lips. “Tonight, Carter.”

I watched her stroll away from me, leaving me standing in front of the check-in line for Delta Airlines. Even from behind, Violet oozed perfection.

“Violet!” I shouted, half-instinctively.

She turned around and gave an upward nod, the silent equivalent of
what?

“What was your second question?”

After checking her wrist for the time, she hurried back to me. “Will you ever consider marrying again?”

She watched me closely, aware of my reaction to that question – the perspiration on my forehead, the color in my cheeks, the way my chin tightened, and probably a million other subtle clues.

She allowed a sad smile. “That’s what I thought.”

With the Met a couple of blocks from Rinker’s elaborate and lush Upper East Side co-op, I decided to pay a visit and see just how much change had transpired since the last time I had been. I knew Rinker and Lindsey would emerge from the 86
th
Street subway station in roughly two hours, so I had time. Plenty of time.

Creeping through the Met, I caught myself as I always do, slowing to a crawl at Cézanne’s collection. For some reason, his work always captivated me, and I soon lost myself, in the right mood to complete the rest of my rushed tour through the museum.

Feeling a little artsy and creative, I left the Met and walked four blocks to the corner of Lexington and 86
th
. A little early, I wandered with the crowds toward Victoria’s Secret and considered bringing a gift home for Violet, but I was quickly distracted when I saw Lindsey at the check-out counter. She handed the clerk a couple of sexy pieces—one black, the other red—and paid for the items with cash.

“Can I help you, sir?” one of the employees asked.

“Nah, I’m just admiring the displays,” I said, still caught up in my Met mood and allowing my fingers to trail through a rack of…I turned my attention to the rack and discovered my hands wandering through outfits that would probably target strippers. It took all of my strength to
not
snap my hands back to my side.

The clerk grinned and offered a naughty little wink. “Let me know if you need any help,” she added before walking away.

Great. I smiled back and once she was far enough, I wiped my hands down my pants as if to rid them of the sketchy residue those racy outfits had left on them. And then I looked for Lindsey again, except she was leaving the store and steering right on 86
th
. Rinker’s co-op was on Park, just one traffic light away.

I hurried out of the store without looking like I had just shoplifted an outfit or two – with so little fabric on these so-called outfits, I could’ve stuffed fifty outfits into my backpack without anyone noticing – and spilled out onto the street. Jogging, I missed the pedestrian crossing, allowing Lindsey to add more distance between us.

Shit.

The moment it was safe, I ran across the street against the red light and caught up to her, placing my hand on her lower back.

She jolted her attention to me and, when she recognized me as the man who had cut her face, she stumbled. Tears crept into her eyes, and she reached up to her jaw where the clean scar seemed to be healing nicely.

“You’re still beautiful,” I said with a bit of bitterness because the cut had meant to set her back some. I seized her arms and gave her a
don’t-fuck-with-me
squeeze. “Really, Lindsey.”

“What do you want?” she asked. “Before I scream ‘rape.’”

“You won’t do anything like that,” I answered cooly.

“Wanna bet?”

I laughed out loud, and she tried to escape my grip, but I held her firmly. My strength had returned quickly, even after three weeks of wasting away on that cross.

“You won’t,” I told her, “because we both know that I showed tremendous restraint the last time I saw you.” I released her arm and touched the side of her face where I had pressed the knife. She tried to pull her head away, but I made sure that my fingertips ran the length of that faint line.

At last, she relented. Her eyes closed under my touch, so I made another pass.

“Look at me,” I whispered. “Lindsey, open your eyes.”

She opened her eyes – they were moist with tears and fear – and she stayed quiet.

“I won’t hurt you.”

“Okay.” She didn’t seem convinced.

I nodded sideways toward Park Avenue. “Take me to his apartment. I need to see Rinker and put an end to this. A
real
end.”

She considered my request. I could tell she was weighing whether it was worth bringing me to the man she loved, the old one with his strange interests and bizarre tendencies to kidnap people from his past and blackmail them.

“He’s a bad man,” I told her. “I’m no angel by any means, but Lindsey, you deserve so much better.” I nodded at the Victoria’s Secret bag. “That’s just wrong.”

“Go to hell,” she spat. “You don’t know the first thing about us.”

I gave her a quick jolt, as if that might knock some sense into her. “Take me to see Henry,” I growled. “Or I’ll hurt you like I wanted to a few weeks ago.”

Without much of an option, Lindsey started walking while I gripped her forearm to keep her close.

“When I saw you stepping out of the car outside the Imperial,” I said, “I thought you were pretty, Lindsey. Prettier than when you were younger. That’s why I threatened to take it away.”

“Shut up,” she muttered. “You’re an animal and a thief.”

I chuckled. “This coming from the woman who watched me wither away under some forgotten stage, and piss and shit myself and almost die.” More chuckling. “You know what I was saying about you being prettier now than when Rinker first had me stalking you? I meant it.”

She tried to pull her arm free from my grip, but I held onto her.

“Don’t forget I saw you first, even before Rinker first laid eyes on you,” I elaborated. “That was nearly ten years ago. Time flies.”

“Did those weeks at the Imperial fly for you?” she spat.

As we steered onto Park, I pulled Lindsey to a stop next to a wooden door that seemed to belong to one of the units. It wasn’t the lobby door, which was still a few feet ahead underneath the green awning with the street number inked into it.

“I want you to know something before we enter this building,” I warned her. “You want to make a scene and alert your concierge or other people, like neighbors or whatever, that I’m not a ‘friend,’ you can be my guest. But I’ll be back, and the next time I won’t be forgiving at all. And you won’t have prettiness left.”

She considered my threat, her eyes rolling across my face as if deciding whether or not to believe me.

So I reached up to her scar again – this time, she didn’t even flinch – and traced it like last time. She truly was a pretty woman, no question about that. “You’ve still got your beauty, Lindsey. Don’t make me cut the rest of your face up.”

With that, she jerked her face free and headed inside the lobby. There was nobody waiting to open doors for us, nobody at the concierge desk or standing at the elevators. It was a quiet place, but it looked and smelled expensive so it surprised me that the concierge staff was nowhere to be seen.

Where is everyone?

We didn’t see another person, in fact. The elevator arrived and, using a key, she pressed the button for the eighth floor.

“What time will Rinker be home?” I asked.

“Why, do you have other plans tonight?” She asked the question in such a way that I wasn’t holding out for a dinner invitation.

But I could play her game, too. So I grabbed the Victoria’s Secret bag and held it up to her. “Depends how good you look in these, Lindsey.”

Rinker owned the entire eighth floor, so he had all kinds of views. The best were from the main living room and two primary bedrooms, all of which faced Park Avenue and the buildings on the other side of the street. In this part of the Upper East Side, unless you were living on the 70
th
floor of some new condo or faced Central Park, you didn’t really have a much better view than this.

“You live here, too?” I asked, following her from room to room as she gave the tour I had asked for. None of the rooms posed any threat—no gun vaults, no ninja swords on the wall, nothing like that.

“Not exactly,” she mumbled as she made her way back to the main living room where the newish, modern kitchen overlooked this space. “But I’m here often enough. He treats me well. I reciprocate.” She placed her shopping bag on the kitchen island and sat on one of those fancy stools. “What do you plan on doing to him once he gets here, Luke?”

I sat next to her, my eyes moving to the bowl of fruit on the kitchen counter. I noticed the various apples, different colors of reds and greens and yellows. It reminded me of the Met.

“I don’t know, I haven’t premeditated anything yet.” Absently, I grabbed the Victoria’s Secret bag and pulled out a black, silk slip. My imagination placed Violet’s slim, hard body in this outfit. “Wow,” I whispered. I set it on the counter and reached into a bag for another one. A red one with white lace along the top and bottom. “Jesus, this is hot, too.”

I noticed that Lindsey was watching me, semi-disgusted, but I couldn’t help but wonder if I also saw a hint of curiosity in her eyes.

“What?” I asked.

“Will you leave us alone if I try them on for you?”

The question surprised me. I tilted my head. “What’s your angle here, Lindsey?”

We engaged in something of a staring contest. I wasn’t going to lose this one. Lindsey would look better in the black slip; she had the kind of body that all young women seemed to have with the rounded corners, small little belly from all of the fine dining that Rinker surely dragged her out for. I bet she waxed, she didn’t shave, and, even after watching the aestheticians all these years while working on her fingernails and toes, Lindsey probably didn’t even own a bottle of nail polish, let alone know how to open and operate one. She took care of herself.

“I don’t need to see you in these,” I said, breaking my own promise to not lose the staring contest. “I know you’ll look great in either of them.”

“But which one?” she asked, grabbing the two outfits and sliding down off the stool. She didn’t compare to Violet, not even close, but the way she moved and looked at me and slowed her words, it all caught my attention more than it should have. “Which do you think will make me look best?”

“The black one,” I answered.

“You think so?” she asked, her face crunching up. I knew she was trying to distract me –
when is Rinker
really
expected to be home?
“I think I’ll go with the red.” She winked before taking a step back, stopping. Her hand rose to the scar I had carved into her face. “Let me try them on for you, Luke. After what happened with you at the Imperial, Rinker’s lost his, um, appetite.” She swallowed and licked her lips, and it became clear to me that either Lindsey was over-acting this diversion tactic of hers, or she was just as nuts as the man with whom she had such a convenient “relationship.”

She lowered her hand self-consciously.

“Sure,” I answered. I didn’t believe for one second that Rinker had lost his appetite for her, but I also knew how distractions worked – I designed magic tricks for a living, and Lindsey was way out of her element acting the way she was. My eyes traced her body, starting with her feet and working all the way up to her face.
You wanna play, let’s play
. “You’re a beautiful woman, Lindsey. Let’s see what you’ve got.”

A faint smile surfaced. “Just tell me the truth.” She turned toward the nearest bedroom, then glanced back. “I’ll try the red one first. I need your honest opinion.”

I liked her suggestion. I watched her disappear into the bedroom. But once the bedroom door clicked shut, I jumped off my stool and crept to the other side of that door. I didn’t believe, not for one second, that she cared about my opinion of her recent purchases. We were bonded by the circumstance of rage, and that circumstance was called Henry Rinker.

Listening to the activity on the other side of the door, I expected to hear a whisper, some words, anything with a dash of panic attached to it. But I didn’t. She wasn’t calling anyone like I had feared.

All I could hear was movement. A belt buckle jingling as it hit the floor at Lindsey’s feet, the ruffling of the Victoria’s Secret bag as she placed her shirt and bra on top of the bed before she stepped into the lingerie. And then a mumble –
was it “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” or “I’m definitely a lunatic for doing this”? I wasn’t sure
– and I hurried back to the kitchen island.

I didn’t have enough time to sit down; the bedroom door opened and Lindsey stepped out. She had released her ponytail, allowing her dark hair to pour down over the spaghetti straps of the red slip with its white lace accents.