His for the Taking (9 page)

Which was, of course, why she’d gone running out of the apartment and spent the entire day sorting out errands for tomorrow’s funeral. Errands that the funeral-home guys could have done just as easily. She was so desperate to stay away from Nick that she’d even forced herself to spend a couple of hours shopping for a black outfit that fitted her.

No, you didn’t do that to stay away from him,
a voice in her mind said.
You did it so that you would look decent at the funeral tomorrow in front of him.

‘Shut up,’ she said aloud to herself. She’d bought the clothes to show respect for her great-aunt Xenia at the funeral. Not to please Nick, not to please her family, not even to please herself.

The elevator opened and Zoe tossed her head to dispel these thoughts and went down the hallway to the apartment. She had to admit, it was a hell of a lot nicer than the hallway in her building in the Bronx. There wasn’t even a hint of a mouse. But it didn’t feel right to her. It didn’t feel hers.

‘Hey, I’m home!’ she yelled as soon as she opened the door. Nick could be out—they’d arranged for Ralph to let him in and out of the apartment—but if he was in, she wanted to make damn sure that he was dressed.

Then again, her being around didn’t seem to stop him from disrobing, and why would it? He obviously didn’t register her as a person of the opposite sex.

‘In here,’ she heard him call from the living room. When she got there he was sitting on the couch, reading a paperback. She dropped her bags, collapsed into an armchair, and stretched out her feet, which ached even in her running shoes.

‘Find your father yet?’ she asked.

‘No. I asked around and nobody’s seen or heard of him. If he doesn’t show up to your great-aunt’s funeral tomorrow it looks like I don’t have any more leads.’

Zoe nodded. If he was out of leads, that meant he’d be leaving. Which was good.

So how come her throat was immediately burning with disappointment?

‘Everything is sorted out for the funeral,’ she said. ‘Except for one thing that’s annoying. I got the wrong shoes.’ She pulled a photocopy from the pocket of her jeans. ‘Apparently the black Vuitton heels were meant to be in a box.’

Nick had lowered the paperback and was looking at her. She’d noticed him looking at her like that a few times last night, too: searching her face, then letting his eyes survey her body. If she were the type to have crazy unrealistic hopes she would almost think that he was checking her out.

But as she wasn’t that type, she thought he was probably trying to figure out why she didn’t look more like her sisters.

‘Xenia should have asked one of my sisters to find her clothes,’ she said, something twisting in her gut. ‘They were born knowing about fashion.’

‘I think your great-aunt probably had other qualities in mind when she chose you.’

Anger rose in Zoe, stronger even than lust.
Other qualities.
Was that supposed to be some sort of consolation prize? For not being sexy, not being smart, not being successful?

Zoe jumped to her feet. She’d decided not to be mad at him any more, but he really could push it.

‘Nick, I told you not to be condescending,’ she said, her voice loud in her ears. ‘You don’t know a damn about why my great-aunt chose me. If you’re so hot on trying to figure out family motivations, why don’t you concentrate on why your father chose to leave you?’

She started to walk out of the room, leaving her bags behind, but as she passed a side table she heard a noise that made her stop.

There was a big cardboard box on the table that hadn’t been there before. And there was something moving around inside it, something scratching and making low, throaty noises.

‘What the hell is this?’ she said.

Nick didn’t answer. She looked at him and saw that he hadn’t straightened his slouch on the sofa, but he was tense and gazing into her eyes.

‘I know why my father left me,’ he said. ‘Because he was a coward who preferred to let his ten-year-old son take care of his family. You, on the other hand, are an adult and I imagine your great-aunt had good reasons to trust you. You can get as angry about it as you want, but it’s not my fault she left you the money and you feel guilty about it.’

For a moment she just stared at him. She had a feeling as if her will had met something just as strong in the middle of the room, and they were at a deadlock.

‘Just don’t talk down to me,’ she said.

‘I wasn’t talking down to you. I wouldn’t dare to, especially with the way you take pot-shots at me when you’re angry. I was saying what I thought. And you brought it up in the first place.’

Beside her, whatever was in the box scratched and gurgled again. There was something dark in Nick’s eyes. She was glad to take her gaze away from his and look at the box.

‘What have you brought in here?’

‘Open it up and see. Be careful, though.’

Gingerly she peeled back the lid of the box and looked inside. She saw two beady eyes, a beak, and a greeny-grey feathered throat.

‘It’s a pigeon,’ she said in surprise and disgust.

‘Yes.’

She looked more closely and saw that both its feet were wrapped in little white bandages.

‘Nick. You’re playing doctor to a pigeon?’

‘It had abscesses on both its feet, which I treated.’ Nick joined her at the box. ‘I had a hell of a time catching it. I’ve had an easier time catching cormorants. New York must make the animals suspicious.’

‘Nick, why are you rescuing a pigeon? They’re pests: there are trillions of them.’

‘You don’t think I should help a pigeon because it’s a pest?’

‘Yes! This isn’t some endangered species on some island somewhere.’

‘All right.’ He picked up a pair of gloves lying next to the box. ‘I’ll kill it.’ He reached into the box.

‘Don’t!’

Nick paused. ‘If it’s a pest, why can’t I kill it?’

‘Because—’ Zoe tried to think of a reason, and couldn’t. ‘Just don’t.’

‘Look,’ Nick said, his voice calm, his hands still in the box with the pigeon, ‘I won’t let an animal suffer, no matter what kind of animal it is. I can cure it, or I can kill it. Which one do you want me to do?’

Once again, it was his will, iron-strong, against hers, except this time he had a life in his hands.

‘Why are you so damn responsible?’ she growled.

‘Why do you deny that you can be?’ he shot back.

Silently, not moving or touching, they wrestled with each other.

In the end, giving in was easier than answering his question. If Nick’s only options were curing something or killing it, he wouldn’t understand her answer, anyway.

He wouldn’t understand how if there was something wrong with you, you learned to live with it, to shrug it off.

‘Just don’t let it crap on the furniture,’ she said, and turned away.

She’d nearly got to the door when she heard him say, ‘Thanks.’

The box was huge. No wonder she’d missed it the first time she’d gone in the closet; she’d been looking for shoes, and this box was big enough to hold a television. But it said Louis Vuitton, printed on it in big black letters, and it was the only box that did.

It was right in the back of the closet, and too big to open in there surrounded by clothes, so Zoe cleared shoes out of the way and dragged it out into the centre of the bedroom. She sat on the carpet next to it, looking it over. Whatever shoes were in that box were either made for a giant, or made out of lead.

‘Sounds like you’re heaving the furniture around in here.’

Nick was in the doorway and it had only been ten minutes since she’d seen him and argued with him and her heart thumped as if she’d been missing him for years. How come she wanted him so much, pigeon-rescuer, nature-lover, good-deed-doing Boy Scout?

‘Apparently this is the shoe box.’ She picked at the packing tape, but her nails weren’t long enough to get a grip.

‘Here.’ Nick stepped forward and pulled a Swiss Army knife from his pocket. He offered to cut the tape for her, but Zoe held her hand out for the knife so he gave it to her instead.

‘Very impressed you pack a knife,’ she said, making short work of the tape.

‘I was using it to cut bandages. This box doesn’t only have shoes in it, does it?’

‘Doubtful.’ She pulled the top open.

On top there was a pair of shoes and a cream envelope, one of Xenia’s personalised ones, with the name ‘Zoe’ written on it in Xenia’s black script. Zoe took out the shoes and the envelope and laid them to one side while she looked in the box.

It was a stack of hardcover books. Two by two, Zoe removed them and put them on the carpet. There were dozens of them. They all had similar jacket designs, a stylised photograph on a black background and the author’s name in blood-red capital letters.

Zoe had seen the books before, in shops, libraries, being read on the subway, but never before in this apartment.

‘Well I’ll be,’ she said, shaking her head, looking at the collection of books.

Nick sat down next to her. He seemed to be a little breathless.

‘Your great-aunt was Xander Dark,’ he said.

Zoe looked from the books to the envelope on the carpet. ‘Xander Dark’ was huge in blood-red letters on the books. ‘Xenia Drake’ was in discreet engraving on the envelope.

Zoe threw her head back and laughed. Great belly laughs, holding on to her stomach, tears squeezing out of her eyes.

‘My great-aunt,’ she gasped, ‘was one of the most famous horror writers in America.’

Nick picked up the copy of
If You Go Down To The Woods…

‘I know now why she had the bear trap,’ he said, looking from the photograph of a bear trap on the jacket to the real thing in the glass case beside them.

‘And the chain-saw.’ Zoe giggled, pointing at the cover of
Chain Reaction.

Nick turned to the back inside flap of the book jacket. ‘“Xander Dark is the best-selling author of over thirty chilling novels of suspense and horror,”’ he read. ‘No photograph, no biographical information, nothing. Did she really keep this a secret from everyone?’

‘It’s certainly a secret from me and the rest of the family.’ Zoe shook her head in admiration. ‘What a woman.’

‘She went to a lot of effort to hide it. There aren’t even any horror novels on her bookshelves.’

‘She wanted me to find out, though.’ Zoe picked up the envelope and carefully tore it open, removing the single heavy sheet of paper.

Darling Zoe,

I’ll bet you never suspected that your old great-aunt was the ‘Master of Murder, Mayhem, and Monsters’.

I need you to do two things for me, sweetheart, and then you can do as you like, as you always so wonderfully do. I’d like you to give my bear trap to my agent, Gabriella Hernandez, and my thumbscrew collection to my editor, Hector Banner. Both of them will appreciate the aptness. Gabriella, Hector and Saul Feinberg are, by the way, the only other three people who know the true identity of Xander Dark.

My secret, and the rest of my belongings, are yours to do with as you will. Enjoy, my precious girl. We’re two of a kind, you and I.

With my love,
Xenia

For the second time in two days, Zoe felt tears rushing into her eyes.

We’re two of a kind, you and I.

They weren’t. Her great-aunt had been glamorous, successful, talented, beautiful, intelligent. And yet the fact that her great-aunt had thought they were similar, at least for as long as it had taken her to write that sentence, was precious.

A tear fell onto the letter. Zoe looked up sharply and began to jump to her feet. She wasn’t going to cry in front of Nick again.

But Nick had left and closed the door after him.

‘Well, well, well. A man who can iron, eh?’

Nick glanced up from the ironing board he’d set up in the kitchen. Carefully, he set the iron down. The thing was hot and if he held it while looking at Zoe, he was bound to get burned.

‘Wow,’ he said, feeling slightly singed anyway. ‘You look great.’

She wore a black skirt, but it wasn’t her yard sale one; this one was slim and ended just above her knees and showed off her long, toned legs, especially since she was wearing heels. He dragged his gaze up from her bare legs, though the rest of her wasn’t any less tempting because she wore a clingy black top and a form-fitting black velvet jacket.

‘You went shopping?’ he asked, noticing his voice wasn’t all that steady.

She shrugged. ‘I figured if Xenia was going to be wearing Gaultier, I should make an effort.’

‘Good effort.’ He pulled off his T-shirt and reached for the shirt he’d just finished ironing.

Zoe burst into a gale of coughing. He stepped forward, his hand outstretched to thump her on the back. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Fine,’ she spluttered, and clapped her hand over her mouth. ‘Just—a tickly throat.’ She turned her back on him and leaned on her hands on the counter, clearing her throat.

‘This is the second shirt I’ve ironed today.’ He unplugged the iron and pulled on his warm shirt. Not as warm as her skin would be.

‘Let me guess,’ she said, taking down a bowl and pouring cereal in it, her back turned to him. ‘You got bird poop all over the other one.’

‘The pigeon is certainly generous, though I’d rather tangle with that bird than a wounded skunk.’ He began to do up the buttons. ‘The pigeon is better this morning, by the way.’

‘Oh, I am relieved. I didn’t feel like having more than one funeral today.’

She seemed to be taking her time pouring milk and coffee, and Nick wondered if something was wrong. He’d tried to stay out of her way all last evening, partly because he’d thought she’d need the space after reading whatever her great-aunt had to say, partly because she’d looked so incredibly sexy, lying there laughing on the bedroom floor, her eyes bright and her mouth wide, that he’d thought he should remove himself from temptation.

Of course, she could be upset about her great-aunt’s funeral.