Emerald Windows (27 page)

“It wouldn’t hurt,” Roxy said. “You’ll have to go to pick it up, anyway.”

Her mother bolted out of her seat. “You’re going to give that money back? Are you crazy?”

“Yes, Mom,” Brooke said, grabbing her purse and heading for the door without a second look back. “I guess I am.”

CHAPTER
   

W
HAT DO YOU MEAN, YOU’VE SOLD IT?”
Brooke’s voice wobbled with panic as she stood in the gallery, gaping at Helena.

“Last night, darling. I don’t run a pawn shop, you know. I didn’t expect you to want it back.”

A wave of dizzy disbelief washed over Brooke, and she lowered herself onto a white leather chair. “But you…you said you’d bought it for yourself…that you would keep it!”

Obviously alarmed at Brooke’s near-wild state, Helena sat down next to her, lowering her voice to a calming pitch. “Darling, I said I’d keep it unless someone made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. I meant that, but that offer came last night.”

Ignoring the tears inhibiting her speech, Brooke dug into her purse for a pen and a piece of paper. “All right. Who did you sell it to?” she asked. “I’ll go directly to them and buy it back.

Helena shook her head slowly, and set a kind hand on Brooke’s shoulder. “Love, I couldn’t in good conscience disclose that client’s name to you and let you show up with that wild look in your eyes. It’s just not…professional.”

Brooke pressed her face into her hands and tried to catch her breath. After a moment she looked up, her pallid complexion contrasting with the redness in her eyes. “Helena, look,” she tried again. “I know you hardly know me at all. But if you’ve ever cared about Nick, please help me. It means so much to him. I want it back for him.”

Helena shook her head resolutely, but her face was not without sympathy. “I’m sorry, love. It’s out of the question.”

Brooke’s shoulders drooped as if this final refusal punctured her determination once and for all. “I can’t believe this,” she whispered. “I thought I was doing the right thing. And now I can’t even afford my own work, and I have no idea where Nick is.” She came to her feet, almost dazed, and started for the door.

Helena followed her. “He’s a complex man. It shows in his work.” She stopped as Brooke opened the door. “If he’s that upset about the sculpture, darling, it isn’t really about the sculpture. It’s about something else.”

“I know,” Brooke whispered. “I know.”

She bade Helena good-bye, then got in her car and sat for a moment. It was gone. The sculpture she had made for him,
sold
for him, was gone. And so was he.

She started her car and vacantly drove back to Hayden. Tears rolled down her face—tears of regret, tears of guilt, tears of waste.
Infinity
was gone, handed over to a perfect stranger who hadn’t a clue that it meant so much to two such vulnerable souls. She would never see it again.
Where are you, Nick?
Her heart cried as she drove.
Help me cope with what I’ve done. Don’t you condemn me too .
..

But he did condemn her, she knew. That was a fact, just as vivid as the loneliness of her past seven years. Nick condemned her, just as everyone else did.

But if there was an up side to the constant sense of failure she had experienced for seven years, it was that she had become conditioned to living with it, accepting it, and even forgiving it. So she drove to Nick’s house, praying that, despite how things looked at the moment, the two of them would have one more chance to forgive each other.

When she arrived, the garage was open and his Duesenberg was gone. Still, she went to the door and knocked. There was no answer. She left a note, pleading for him to call her, and headed back for St. Mary’s, praying that she would find him there, hard at work.

His car wasn’t there, but Brooke went into the church, stalked past the workers, and checked his office and the workroom.

He wasn’t there. Brooke sat for a moment, racking her brain for some clue, some memory, to lead her in the right direction.

Nick’s family lived in town. Maybe they would know where he could be reached. Maybe he was with them.

Quickly, she drove to a pay phone and looked up the name Marcello. There was no listing. But Sonny’s last name was Castori— she flipped over to the Cs. Still no listing.

Maybe Roxy
will
know where they live,
she thought suddenly.

Brooke headed across town to City Hall, praying that she would find Roxy there.

The parking lot was cluttered with everything from buses to pickup trucks, but Brooke found Roxy’s car and pulled into a space nearby. A fleeting doubt passed through her mind about disturbing her sister at work, but she told herself this visit couldn’t wait. She had to find Nick.

She went up the stairs to the building and stepped aside as a small wedding party came out of the justice of the peace’s office. The young bride, adorned in a short white dress with a spray of baby’s breath tucked into her French twist, laughed melodically as she tossed the bouquet toward the half-dozen well-wishers surrounding her.

Such was the stuff of other people’s lives, Brooke thought, fighting sadness. But were things really ever that simple, that uncomplicated?

What was it about the Martin girls that such happiness could never belong to them?

She went to the office marked “Records,” where Roxy worked. Distracted by her urgency, she pushed open the door without knocking. Hushed voices came from the corner of the room behind a row of file cabinets.

“No, Bill!” Roxy was saying, her voice somberly low. “Leave me alone.”

Realizing that she had walked into something embarrassingly private, Brooke had started to back out of the office when she heard something slam against the file cabinet. “Oh, no, you don’t,” the man said viciously. “I’m warning you. I call the shots here, not you. And you’re not finished with me until I say you are.”

Alarmed, Brooke leaned around a cabinet far enough to see that Bill Hemphill had braced an arm on each side of Roxy, trapping her. “Please, Bill,” Roxy said, her voice raspy with emotion. “I can’t take this anymore.”

“Well, you’ll have to,” he told her in a syrupy sweet voice. “If you want to keep this job—”

“I don’t!” Roxy pushed him away and twisted out of his reach. “I’m sick of this job, and I’m tired of dealing with you!”

Bill’s laugh was calculatingly intimidating. “Do you think that’s all there is to it, babe? That your job is all that’s at stake? I have more than that to hold over you.”

Brooke stepped back out of sight, covered her mouth and held her breath in horror at this revelation of the truth—which sounded even worse than she had feared.

“I hope your wife finds out about this! I hope she throws you out!”

Though she couldn’t see him, Brooke could hear Bill chuckle. “Do you really think that anyone would blame me if word did get out? I’d just say that you chased me. Since that sort of behavior runs in your family, anyway, it wouldn’t be that hard to sell.”

“You’re sick!” Roxy shouted.

Brooke jumped at a sudden loud crash and looked around the cabinet to see that Bill was holding Roxy with brute force against the wall.

The final filament of Brooke’s control snapped, and she barreled toward him, aflame with outrage. “Let go of her!” she demanded. “Get your slimy hands off my sister!”

Bill spun around, letting Roxy go, and Brooke realized that at that moment, had she been holding a weapon, she could have killed him without one second’s hesitation.

“If you want a scandal, you’ll get one,” Brooke said through her teeth. “Because if there’s anything we Martins have learned from your family, it’s how to play dirty.”

As Roxy slipped behind her, Brooke took a few intimidating steps toward the tall young man, who stepped back uncertainly, as if he saw the capability for violence in her eyes. “Does the term ‘statutory rape’ mean anything to you?” she asked, her eyes glowering with intense hatred. “Have you ever heard of sexual harassment?” She uttered a deep, humorless laugh. “Oh, we’re talking about a lot more than family embarrassment, here. We’re talking about prison!”

“Hey, wait a minute!” Bill said. “I didn’t do anything. It was just a game.”

“A game?” Brooke bit out. “A
game?
Is that some sick hobby you and your family have? Destroy the Martins if you can? Hit them while they’re young? Win a Kewpie doll?”

Footsteps sounded in the doorway, and Brooke glanced back to see Abby Hemphill standing there, head cocked and nose indignantly thrown in the air. “What is going on here?” she demanded, addressing Brooke. “This is a government office, and you have no business here.”

Brooke turned from the son and faced the mother. “I’ll tell you what’s going on here,” she said, pointing a scathing finger at the woman. “Your son has been sexually harassing my sister. You and your family have made your last attempt to ruin my family. And I suggest you watch the headlines very carefully tomorrow. There’s going to be a story that’ll curl your hair. See how it feels,
Mrs. Hemphill. You love scandals so much. Enjoy one of your own for a change.” She reached for Roxy, then turned back to Bill as they started to leave the room. “I wouldn’t wait too long to get yourself a lawyer,” she warned. “You’re going to need one.”

Then, leaving Mrs. Hemphill and her son gaping after them in horror, she and Roxy stormed out of the office and down the steps of City Hall.

When they were safe in the sanctuary of Brooke’s car, Roxy leaned her head back on the seat and threw her hands over her face, as if absorbing the final release from her personal prison. “Thank you, Brooke,” she whispered.

Brooke tried to catch her breath, but rage still spiraled up in her throat. “Did he hurt you?”

“Not physically,” Roxy whispered, her voice coming out in a strained vibrato. “But the intimidation…it’s been going on for months now. I was so scared…” She wiped her tears, mascara smearing on her hands, and looked at her sister.

“When I first started working there he hardly knew I existed, so he didn’t bother me. But then one night he saw me dance in a recital.” Her voice broke and she hid her face from her sister. “Ever since, he’s been after me. At first I thought he was harmless, but for the past few weeks he’s been making ultimatums…demands…” She drew in a sustaining breath to help her go on. “Brooke, that night when you picked me up at that bar? At first he drove me to a motel, but when I refused to go into the room, he dumped me out at that bar. He said that if I was so anxious to hold onto…my virtue…I could try holding onto it there.”

“I could kill him,” Brooke whispered. “I could honestly—”

“He had me so scared that I really believed if I didn’t give in to him soon, he was going to spread a bunch of lies about me, and there would be another scandal all over again.” She shoved her hand through her hair, leaving it tangled. “I’ve run all my life from a scandal, Brooke. That’s the thing I’m most afraid of, and he knew it. I just couldn’t stand the idea of being involved in one.”

Brooke closed her eyes and let the truth cast some light on the darkness she had stumbled through. She had been wrong
about Roxy, and the fact that she had assumed the worst shamed her. When she could finally speak again, she pulled her sister against her. Roxy hugged her just as she had when she was no more than a toddler. “I love you, Roxy,” Brooke said, “and I hope you can forgive me for thinking the worst about you.”

“Only if you can forgive me for thinking the worst about you,” Roxy whispered.

They held each other for a long while until a new thought occurred to Brooke, and she leaned back against her car door, facing her sister. “Do you want to press charges against him?” she asked. “I’d love to see him in jail.”

“No.” Roxy’s answer was firm, as if she’d already given the question some thought. “I wouldn’t have much to stand on, since he never really got what he was after. And I sure don’t want my name in the paper.” She looked toward the front doors of City Hall, contemplating her plight. “But let’s not let him off the hook just yet. Let him watch the headlines everyday, wondering when the story will hit. Let him lose a few nights of sleep. I think he deserves at least that, don’t you?”

“Are you sure?” Brooke asked with a disappointed sigh. “Not even
one
night in jail?”

Roxy shook her head sadly. “No. He’d have the town believing that I was some kind of temptress. I’d rather let him build his own prison.”

Brooke squeezed her sister’s hand, knowing that this decision was one only Roxy could make. “All right,” she said. “I guess I can live with that if you can.”

“I don’t know what would have happened to me if you hadn’t been there,” Roxy said quietly. “What were you doing there, anyway?”

Brooke remembered her mission. “I came to ask you if you know where Sonny lives. I don’t think Nick’s been home all night, and I don’t even know where to look for him. I thought his family might know.”

“He took me there the other night to show me his painting,” Roxy said. “I think I can find the place again. You want me to go with you and show you?”

“Would you?” she asked. “I’m a little shaky today. I’m not in the best shape to meet his family, but I don’t know where else to turn.”