Bad Girls (54 page)

They were wrestling now in a frantic struggle for control of the pillow. The woman was standing behind her, pressing the pillow violently into her face, jamming Amber’s head back against her knees in a vicelike grip. And Amber was losing. Weakened by the drugs she had taken, the vodka that had been poured down her throat, her head was still swimming with a dizziness that she was terrified would prove fatal.

I can’t, she thought, frenzied with fear as she clawed at the pillow. I can’t get it off!

Her breath caught, the dizziness was growing. Every time she got some purchase on the pillow it was pushed more firmly against her face, blocking her nose, her mouth, her eyes. Darkness flooded around her; tiny lights danced in front of her vision. She was tripping on lack of oxygen. Her clasp on the pillow loosened, her knees wobbled, and as she toppled over, she knew she had lost.

The pillow came down on her face with a slam that rattled her body, forcing a groan from her lungs as the air was expelled from them; the woman was on top of her, kneeling on her chest, forcing the pillow down with savage fury.

Amber’s body was limp, her outthrown hands open. Nothing was left in her at all. No air. No fight. No chance for life.

The darkness washed over her, and she let herself fall into it.

E
verything hurt, but breathing was the worst. Her lungs ached with every rise and fall as painfully as if she’d inhaled smoke; her chest felt bruised. And when she opened her eyes, she realized she was hallucinating.

Because, bending over her, was Dr Raf, cradling her head in one hand as he pushed her hair back from her face with the other.

‘Amber,’ he was saying gently. ‘Amber, can you hear me?’

She managed a nod, not trusting her voice yet. His face came fully into focus, and her eyes swam with tears.

Only today I was sure I’d never see him again. And here I am, lying in his lap
. . .

With a huge effort, she reached up a hand to touch his face, resting it against his jawline. The touch of his skin, the afternoon stubble breaking through the smoothness of his cheek, was so exquisite that her breath caught for a moment in her throat.

‘What?’ Dr Raf bent even closer to her. ‘Amber? Did you say something?’

His lips were so close to hers now. Her hand slid around his head, pulling it down that fraction further, till she could feel his warm breath on her face, smell his aftershave. And that gave her the strength to lift her head, even though it felt as heavy as lead, and bring her lips to his.

‘Amber,’ he whispered against her mouth.

And then the hand behind her skull tightened, taking its weight, and he kissed her.

It hurt even worse than before, because he was hugging her so tight. And she must have been a complete masochist, because she hugged him back just as tightly, pressing her bruised chest against his; her arms slid up round his neck, pulling him into her, rubbing her face against his stubble, relishing even that pain, because it meant that she wasn’t hallucinating. He really was that close to her. No one ever hallucinated stubble.

His mouth was hard on hers; he was kissing her more deeply than he ever had before, more passionately. She wound herself around his neck, tangling her fingers into his curls, wanting to twist herself into him so tightly that he would never be able to let her go. His hand on her head held her locked against him, refusing to let her go, driving his tongue into her mouth, kissing her as if—

As if he thought I was dead, Amber thought, ecstatic at realizing how desperate he had been at the thought of losing her. Almost as if he loves me . . .

‘For God’s
sake
!’ Skye’s voice broke through her reverie. ‘This is
not
the fucking time, you two!’

Reluctantly, Dr Raf and Amber pulled apart, as slowly as if they were glued together; it was like a physical effort for Amber to drag her eyes away from his. As he moved, helping her to sit up, she could see beyond him, the corner of her bedroom. Everything else came back into focus slowly and painfully.

The blood, coagulating now on her arm. The throbbing of her chest, every muscle aching, and the adrenalin flooding through her from the fight, her near-death experience, and the kiss with Dr Raf—

No, she thought firmly. No ‘Dr’. Just Raf from now on.

And then, beyond Raf’s broad shoulder, the strong bicep outlined by his snug pale pink shirt, she saw Skye.

Amber was still holding onto Raf for support. Her fingers must have sunk deep into him, but he didn’t say a word. He wrapped his arms around her, making sure she was supported, turning his head to see what she saw.

Skye, sitting on the edge of the bed. In the oil-stained T-shirt and denim mini she had worn earlier that day, at her
Hustler
shoot. Her hair had been brushed out of the two kiddie-porn bunches and was pulled back into a fluffy knot at the back of her neck, but she was still wearing the heavy makeup and fake eyelashes that made her look like an inappropriate doll.

But there was nothing doll-like about her grim expression as she stared at the woman slumped in the corner of the bedroom.

Slava. Crumpled up over the pillow she had been trying to use to suffocate her daughter.

‘I came to find you,’ Skye said, answering the unspoken question in Amber’s eyes. ‘I walked out of the shoot after you left. Happy?’ She puffed out a long slow breath. ‘I just couldn’t do it. So I tracked you down and came round to say thank you, tell you I didn’t go through with it. And your mom –’ she nodded bleakly at Slava – ‘came to that entrance gate outside the house and told me you weren’t in. She was
weird.
I mean, I never met her before, but she was really weird. And she reeked of vodka. I mean, vodka doesn’t even have much of a smell, but she reeked of it, you know? It wasn’t good.’ She sighed. ‘So when she closed the gate, I thought: shit. Amber’s mom acting strange, not wanting me to see her . . . coming to the gate, not even letting me into the house . . . smelling of booze . . .’

She met Amber’s eyes once more. ‘I thought you were using again,’ she confessed. ‘That maybe you got psyched out and came home to see your mom, and started drinking with her, or taking pills. Or both. I’m sorry, Amber. But none of us at Cascabel thought it was a good idea for you to go back to live with your mom, you know? So I panicked. I rang Dr Raf to see what he thought I should do. We were both really worried. He said addicts who go back to it often overdose, ’cause they think they can take what they used to, and they can’t any more, ’cause their tolerance drops right down.’

‘I came over straight away,’ Raf said into Amber’s hair. ‘And we came in through the gate and knocked at the door. But no one answered.’

‘Which was even weirder,’ Skye said, ‘because I knew your mom was in, and she said you were too. So Dr Raf climbed over the gate—’

Amber’s eyes widened. ‘You climbed over the gate?’ she said. ‘It’s ten feet high!’

‘He was very cool,’ Skye said. ‘He jumped at it and caught the top and then pulled himself up.’ She rolled her eyes as Amber stared adoringly up at Raf. ‘He let me in, and then we went round the back and found the kitchen door open, and started looking for you—’

‘I heard you calling,’ Amber said. ‘I tried to call back – and that’s when she got the pillow—’ Her voice cracked, and she started to cry.

‘Oh, baby,’ Raf said, stroking her hair, holding her against his chest. ‘You’re safe now. It’s OK. You’re safe now.’

‘Oh, Raf . . .’ she sobbed into his shirt.

‘We saw the empty bottle and the pills,’ Skye said grimly. ‘Plus
that
.’ She nodded over at the bedside table, where a small white plastic funnel lay on its side.

Amber struggled to remember what had happened. ‘I came home,’ she said slowly. ‘After I went to Runyon Canyon. And
Matka
was here. I was surprised, because she’d said she would be on Rodeo Drive all day. She gave me a glass of Coke – she said I’d need it because I looked dehydrated.’ Amber raised a hand to her throat, which burned as if it were bruised inside. ‘There must have been something to knock me out in the Coke. And then she . . .’ Amber swallowed, which hurt badly, ‘. . . she must have helped me up here, and put . . . and put . . .’

She couldn’t say it.

‘And put the funnel down your throat,’ Skye said softly. ‘Crushed up more pills, put them in a bottle of vodka and poured it down the funnel. And set up this whole scene.’ She gestured to the coffee-table books and the magazines on the bed, the lipsticked words written on the bedroom wall. ‘Then she’d have said she got back from Rodeo Drive much later, and found you when it was too late.’

‘She didn’t give you enough,’ Raf said grimly, his arms tightening around her. ‘Or you wouldn’t have woken up at all without your stomach being pumped.’

‘I do nothing,’ Slava said, finally raising her head, staring at them with flat cold eyes. ‘I do nothing. You don’t understand. I was trying to make Amber better. Put this –’ she tapped the pillow – ‘under her head.’

‘Yeah, right. I saw what I saw,’ Skye said contemptuously. ‘And I had to drag you off of her.’

‘
Matka
,’ Amber said quietly. ‘I remember what you said. You were talking in Slovakian. I remember every word.’

Her mother looked at her for a long moment, her eyes narrowing dangerously.

‘You were going to ruin everything,’ she finally hissed at her daughter. ‘No Tony, no Joe. Everything was going to go! No more nice house, no more car, no more nothing! All you think about is you! Not me!’ She hit her chest with her hand. ‘The child takes care of the mother! That’s how it is!’

‘But,
Matka –
why would you
kill
me?’ Amber said hopelessly.

‘I insure you,’ Slava muttered. ‘When we come here, after London. I insure you for a lot of money. In case it happens again.’

‘Jesus,’ Skye whispered, as the sound of rapidly approaching sirens tore up the steep hill below the house.

‘The child takes care of the mother!’ Slava said, her voice rising, cracking. ‘The child takes care of the mother! If you don’t take care of me, what use are you?’ She was panting now, clutching the creased, vodka-stained pillow to her bosom. ‘For years, I look after you! I do things for you! Bad things! And now you tell me you give me nothing for all those years!’

Slava’s carefully arranged helmet of ash-blonde hair had been shaken out of shape in the struggle with her daughter and Skye. Locks of it were hanging over her face, teased and sprayed, and she shook them back angrily as she glared at Amber.

‘I think we’re even now,
Matka
,’ Amber said quietly.

Vehicles were pulling into the courtyard of the house, their brakes squealing. Voices shouted to each other, doors slammed. Skye got up, giving Slava a hard glance, and walked out of the bedroom, leaning over the staircase balcony, calling: ‘We’re all up here.’

Heavy footsteps pounded over the marble of the hallway and up the stairs, the house rattling with the impact. Amber realized she was clinging even tighter to Raf.

‘Don’t let me go,’ she whispered to him.

‘I won’t,’ he said, cradling her in his arms.

Suddenly, she flashed on that scene at Cascabel, just a few days ago. Dr Lucy, so eager to show off her engagement ring, to warn Amber off . . .

‘Wait,’ she said, loosening her hold on Raf. ‘I can’t – not if you’re still—’

Their closeness, the amount of time Amber and he had spent together in Cascabel, meant Raf could practically read her mind.

‘I broke it off that day,’ he said, drawing her close again. ‘I was an idiot to do it in the first place. No, worse. I was mad. I couldn’t think about anything but you – when I proposed to Lucy I knew it was a terrible idea, I regretted it immediately . . .’ He sighed. ‘She’s left the clinic.’

It was with huge, guilty relief that Amber clung to him again as a pair of paramedics piled into the bedroom. On their heels were the cops Skye had called at the same time as the ambulance. Amber closed her eyes, overwhelmed.

‘I’ll be right here the whole time,’ Raf said into her hair. ‘Believe me. I’m never going to let you go again.’

‘
C
oolest thing
ever
!’ Tas sung out, hugging JC in delight. ‘Coolest thing
ever
!’

‘Red carpet, bitch!’ JC squealed, hugging her back. ‘
Hollywood
red carpet!’

He looked back into the white stretch limo from which he and Tas had just emerged.

‘Petal, put that boy down!’ he said, giggling. ‘Step away from the boy! Your public awaits!’

The interior of the limo was lit up with LED ceiling lights, twinkling like stars on Petal and Dan, entwined on the far curve of the leather seat, tangled in a complicated embrace.

‘I missed you
so
much!’ Petal mumbled into Dan’s ear, running her tongue round it for good measure.

‘Oh, pet, me too! I’ve had blue balls for a month!’ Dan bit her neck so hard she squealed.

‘You’ve got blue balls now,’ Petal said naughtily, flicking his crotch, making him groan.

‘How long is this bloody film anyway?’ he grumbled. ‘I can’t believe we’re going to a Hollywood premiere and it’s a sodding
rom-com
. . .’

‘There’s a cute dog,’ Petal said. ‘And you get to meet Joe Jeffreys.’

‘Cool!’ Dan said, grinning. ‘OK, let’s get going . . .’

He hoisted her off his lap and pushed her towards the door, slapping her bottom. Bent nearly double to squeeze out of the limo, past the VH1 cameraman who had been recording the whole scene, Petal squealed happily.

‘I’ll get you for that!’ she threatened, climbing out of the car, smoothing down her neon-pink Christopher Kane body-con dress. Tas adjusted the hem swiftly, checking Petal over, straightening her huge gold bib necklace, then backing off, nodding approval.

Dan’s long skinny legs, clad in tight black jeans, emerged from the limo.

‘It’s loony how quickly you get used to it,’ he commented to the group, nodding at the cameraman who was climbing out of the car too, joining the first one who had been there already to record Petal and her entourage exiting the limo.