Bring Me Fire (6 page)

Chapter 10

Sky worked five days a week from ten to five. She worked fewer hours for Josh than she had at
Prelude
, but was paid considerably better. Still, as the weekend ended and she found herself getting things ready for her second month of work the next day, she found herself still wishing that it was
Prelude
she would be headed off to.

In the past week, she’d ran into Josh only twice, both times it had been fine, so she wasn’t sure why she wasn’t more eager to get to work. He had been cordial, asking her how her day was going and what room she planned to work on. He smelled faintly of something cedar and maybe a little citrus-y and she wondered if he was wearing cologne. He’d smiled at her as he walked off, and she watched him go, wondering why she wasn’t able to feel more at ease with him. For a second, she’d considered pulling her phone out of her pocket and taking his picture. Even though it would be of his back, her sister would love it anyway. And unless he had eyes in the back of his head or security cameras, which she supposed was entirely possible, he would never know. But she refrained, reminding herself that above all things she was supposed to be
professional, and that being professional meant doing her job regardless of whether she felt like things were going smoothly between her and the boss.

But she
had felt bothered all weekend, and she wasn’t quite sure why. She went to a yoga class at Julia’s gym, and then had lunch at a vegan café. Later, she had taken a long walk and tried to clear her head, wondering if the problem was her. She’d been fired from
Prelude
, had been fortunate enough to get another job, but couldn’t help but feel totally awkward around her new boss. Like all the conversations they’d had so far had just been misfires.

It doesn’t matter if you actually like your boss or not
, she thought to herself. Maybe it was even better this way; hadn’t being over-familiar with Aidan gotten her fired in the first place? Sky had returned to her apartment, feeling a little better. It didn’t matter if every encounter she had with Josh was completely awkward and weird; she knew what her job was and she knew she was good at it, and that’s what she would focus on. The rest of the stuff didn’t matter. She went to bed that night finally feeling renewed and even a little excited to go back to work tomorrow.

The next morning, she was coming out of the office when she heard a noise at the end of the hallway. Josh appeared a moment later from around the corner, and she realized that he’d just been inside the locked room.

"
Hi," she said, biting back the urge to ask him what was in the room, what he’d been doing in there.

"
Hi there," he said. "What room are you working on today?"

"
I’m going to start going through the works in the foyer. I figured you might like to be able to actually get through the door without feeling like you were going to knock something over."

"
You seem to be the only one knocking things over. I haven’t had any problems with it, so far."

"
It was kind of a joke."

"
Was it?"

She felt her face flush. Why did it seem impossible for them to have a smooth conversation? She couldn’t remember ever having this much difficulty talking with someone, ever. Even the two blind dates she’d been on in college had been better than this.

"Yes," she said evenly. "It was."

"
Well, I don’t imagine you’ll actually be clearing the foyer out anytime soon. Not all the art in there is going to be displayed in there."

She considered this for a moment.
"You’re right. But at least it’ll be recorded and then it can always be moved somewhere else. Conner showed me the storage area already. I've realised there won't be room for everything to be displayed all at once."

"
That might be good. I’ve got a couple trips coming up, and I’m sure I’ll find a few new things to bring back."

When she realized it was almost five-thirty, she went looking for Conner. She could hear his voice, and she followed the sound down a long hallway toward the kitchen. He was on the phone, his back to her.

"
...in Ibiza. He’ll probably be back in two weeks or so. Yeah, I know, he’s living the life...Ministry of Sound? I don't think so. That sounds awesome but more likely he'll just be chilling on a private beach somewhere. Of course! Yeah, he’s going to love it."

Conner turned then, and saw her standing there.
"Oh, hey, sweetie," he whispered. "I’ll be off in a sec."

She nodded and went to pull her own phone out of her pocket when she realized she’d left it upstairs in the office. At the top of the stairs she paused, movement to the left of her catching her eye. She looked down the hallway and saw Josh’s retreating figure walking away from her. She took half a step back and leaned only her head forward, just far enough so she could see where he was going. He walked to the very end of the hallway and turned left. Sky hesitated a moment but then heard the faint sound of a door being pulled shut. She slowly walked down the hallway to the end. She stood there, pretending she was looking out the window. The door was closed, though she knew there was the chance that he could open it at any time. If she stayed right there by the window, it might be believable she was just taking in the view. But she didn’t want to stay right by the window, looking out at the magnolia trees. Her curiosity about the room was as palpable as if she was attached to a string and was slowly being reeled in. Her pulse quickened. A swirling sensation started to build in her stomach and her hands tingled. She took one step away from the window, then another, the door getting closer and closer. What would she say if he came out? What would she do if he didn’t?

She reached the door and everything was silent; it was like he wasn’t in there at all. She stood there, then took another step closer and pressed her ear against the wood. It was cool to the touch, but other than her own shallow breathing, she couldn’t hear anything. Maybe the room was not really a room but a passage to somewhere else, to some other part of the house and he was far away from her.

She lifted her head away from the door and touched the knob. It was locked. She didn’t know if she’d actually have had the nerve to open it if it hadn’t been - what if he was standing there right on the other side?

She remained rooted in place, unsure of what to do, knowing that with each passing second it became more and more likely that he would open the door and find her there, but she was unable to move. Only when she heard Conner calling her name from the first floor was she able to start moving. She backed away from the door slowly, and when she was past the window, she quickened her pace and practically ran down the hallway. It was only once she was halfway down the stairs that she remembered her real reason for going up there in the first place, and she went back to get her phone. She wanted to text her sister. She wanted to tell her all about it, ask her what she thought she should do, but Conner was talking about the dance club that he and his new boyfriend were going to and asking Sky if she’d ever been there before and she had to push any thoughts about what was in that room out of her mind, at least for the moment. 

Chapter 11

It was Thursday morning and the mansion was quiet, the only sound Sky could hear was the monotonous hum of the refrigerator as she worked in the dining room, photographing an extensive collection of oil prints that the notes said Josh had won at
an auction in Amsterdam.

After a few hours, she took a break, taking a walk through the long hallways, the various rooms. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like to actually live in a house th
is big, to have this much space and so many nice things. She thought of her own tiny apartment, how excited she was when she first got it. Yes, it was small and cramped - "cozy" had been the word the landlord used to describe it - but it was her very own, and she’d been thrilled when she signed the lease. But her apartment wasn’t even the size of the front sitting room, a room that was really no more than an afterthought in this house. It must be kind of lonely, though. Maybe Josh had a girlfriend she didn’t know about, but she didn’t think so. He lived here, by himself. All this space for just one person.
One person and all their art
, she corrected herself.

She walked up the stairs, letting her calves stretch out, flexing one foot, then the other. At
Prelude
, it’d been easy enough to just step out and walk around the block, go down to Café Del Mar for another round of coffee drinks. When she got to the top of the stairs, she went back down then back up, taking the steps two at a time. She hadn’t realized how cramped her lower back and legs had gotten just in the few hours she’d been working. Maybe Josh was right; maybe she really was oblivious to everything else when she was around art she found particularly interesting.

She walked down the hallway, looking at the blank walls. Already, she had ideas of what paintings she’d like to put where. This stretch of wall, for example, between the office and one of the bedrooms, would be perfect for displaying the Harold Le paintings, which were abstract cityscapes of the world’s best-known cities. The colors he used were bold, mostly primary, though every so often he’d throw in something like fluorescent pink or hunter’s orange.

Sky continued walking, not entirely surprised to find herself outside at the end of the hallway, staring at the locked door. If only she could just peek in, have her curiosity satisfied, and then be able to carry on without thinking about it anytime she saw Josh go down the hallway. She even thought about just asking him.
Hey
, she would say.
What is in that room you’ve got locked up and never let anyone into?

But she cringed just thinking about the look she imagined crossing his face. If Conner didn’t know what was in there, there was no way he would tell her; Conner had been working for him for years. She smiled, thinking that maybe he had a whole life in there no one knew about - a wife, some kids, a Golden Retriever. Perhaps opening that door wasn’t just stepping into another room, but a whole different life, like another portal to a parallel universe.

The silence in the house reminded her that she was here alone. Conner said he’d be in the city all day and wouldn’t be back until much later. And if she had overheard him correctly a few days ago when he’d been on the phone, then Josh was in Ibiza. Or maybe it was Belize. Either way, it was somewhere far, far away, and she knew the chances of him returning today were slim. Less than slim. She walked down the hallway to the door and stood there for a moment, looking at it.

It was like all the other doors in the place, a white slab door with intricate carvings and a brushed chrome doorknob. She reached out tentatively and touched the knob, the metal smooth and cool. Part of her expected some sort of alarm to go off, and when one didn’t, she felt her shoulders relax.

You are not being professional right now,
a tiny voice in the back of her mind screamed.
I know you decided that you’d just peek in and no one would ever be the wiser, but this is wrong! Why does it matter whether or not you know what’s in there? This is exactly the sort of behavior that is going to get you fired. Or arrested! Do you want to go to jail?

The door, as expected, did not budge. Unless, though, there was another entrance to the room, it appeared to be locked by a knob lock, which Sky felt fairly certain she’d be able to pick. She’d spent enough late nights out past curfew with her friends during high school to be pretty adept at getting back into the house, even if a locked door or window had stood in her way.

She went back down to the office and opened desk drawers until she found a paperclip. She bent it open and then used a pair of scissors to cut it in two. As she walked back down the hallway to the door, she bent the two pieces into a shape that resembled an L. She stopped in front of the door and bent forward, getting her face close to the doorknob. Back in her high school days, she only had a short window of time before the family dog, Ollie, would wake up barking, and Sky let that old feeling of rushed anxiety wash over her. That was not necessary, of course; Josh was out of the country, Conner had gone into the city, but she still liked the feeling of pressure, like she was racing against something, like she’d be in big trouble if she wasn’t able to get the door unlocked in a set period of time. She used one end of the paperclip as the tension wrench and the other as the pick and after jiggling it around only three times, felt the lock pop. She touched the knob again, enclosing her hand around it. She applied pressure, turning it, and the door opened. She stepped through.

Chapter 12

For some reason she’d been expecting darkness. She’d been expecting to have to fumble blindly along the wall, feeling for a light switch, and only then once she turned it on, blinded momentarily by the light, would she be able to take in whatever it was that he had in here.

Instead, though, she found herself in a large, well-lit room. There were several skylights and two large picture windows that took up nearly one whole wall. The hardwood floors gleamed, uncovered by any rugs or carpeting. Unlike the rest of the mansion, the walls of this room had been arranged with paintings, drawings, and even some photographs. There were half a dozen or so brushed chrome pedestals that held sculptures of various sizes. Sky stood there and tried to take it all in, though her mind was having a bit of difficulty reconciling what her eyes were seeing.

The first thing she focused on was directly in front of her, one of the sculptures, which appeared, upon closer inspection, to be a man and a woman having sex. The man was on his back, arms behind his head, the woman on top of him, her own head thrown back,
a blissful expression on her face. The craftsmanship was really quite excellent; the piece was glazed in deep, earthy tones, hues of red and brown. Sky turned her attention to the walls. The paintings, drawings, and photographs all depicted the same thing - naked men and women in various sexual positions. There was a simple pen and ink drawing of two young lovers, naked and embracing. There were some more classical pieces, Indian gouache paintings and Japanese
shunga
.

Sky studied these and then walked over to a large, framed graphite painting that showed two men and a woman. The woman was on her knees, back arched, kissing one of the men who had one hand wrapped around her the back of her neck, the other gently resting on her collarbone. The second man was down between the woman’s legs. Because of their positions, none of the faces were
visible, it was only the bodies, the woman’s breasts, her torso, the man’s hands, his forearms. Sky looked at the way the man’s hair fell forward, obscuring his eyes. You didn’t need to see their faces to feel their ecstasy, to know the joy they were experiencing.

She took a step closer to the painting. She’d taken an erotic art class one semester during college and had enjoyed it, even though at first, looking at such explicit images in a room full of other students had made everyone a little bashful. Part of the beauty, though, in erotic art, was that it allowed you an intimate glimpse of the artist, as well. She didn’t know who this artist was, but she wanted to. Man?
Woman? She wasn’t sure.

Next to this painting were smaller framed pieces, clearly produced by the same artist.
A couple making love in a hammock. Two women and a man, naked on a tropical beach. In all of the paintings, either only a very vague outline of the person’s face was shown or they were positioned so you couldn’t make out their facial features at all. To Sky, this seemed like one of the most interesting aspects of this body of work. She brought her gaze back to the two men and woman.

"
What the hell are you doing?"

She froze at the sound of Josh’s voice, for a second believing that she must be having some sort of aural hallucination.
This is not happening
, the voice in her head said, even as she slowly turned around and saw him standing there.

"
Oh," she said. "I just...I..." She trailed off as he crossed the room toward her in several long strides. There was a deep frown on his face; his mouth was set in a rigid line.

"
Evidently, a locked door means nothing to you," he said. His voice was a low growl.

"
I’m sorry," Sky said. "I didn’t mean to..."

"
Didn’t mean to what? Get caught? I have a very hard time believing that Conner would not explain to you that this room was off limits. Even if that was an oversight on his part, however, I would expect the mere fact of the door being
locked
to be enough of a deterrent. Apparently not. You’re not getting paid to snoop around and go places that you’re not supposed to. I wouldn’t think that something so simple would have to be spelled out for you, but maybe that’s not the case."

"
I’m sorry," Sky said again, her voice little more than a whisper. Her stomach clenched and she felt tears stinging the corners of her eyes. "I was curious, I just wanted to look. I wasn’t going to touch anything or ruin anything, I swear. I thought you were out of town. I was just going to peek and then never look in here again."

"
So you thought since you could do something and get away with it that you should. You've only been working here a couple of months, that doesn't give you the right to just do whatever you feel like." He folded his arms across his chest. Sky could see a muscle in his jaw quivering. Part of her wanted to run away and never come back. Another part of her wanted to make him understand that she didn’t mean any harm; that she really did just want to satisfy her curiosity.

"
It was wrong of me to do," she said finally. "And I’m sorry."

She blinked, relieved when the tears did not actually start rolling down her cheeks. Was it possible that he was somehow better looking when he was angry?

"You need to leave," he said. "Right now. I don’t want to hear any more excuses or apologies. There’s nothing else to say."

Sky bit her lip and nodded.
"Okay," she said. She stepped around him, keeping her head down, doing all that she could to walk at a normal pace and not flee from the room. When she reached the doorway, though, she stopped and looked back. Instead of watching her, as she expected he would, to make sure she left, Josh’s back was to her, and he was facing the painting she’d just been looking at. Sky turned and kept walking, down the long hallway, past all the art she still hadn’t photographed or cataloged, and now never would. She had messed up, and she had no one to blame but herself.