No Returns (The Blankenships Book 6) (4 page)

CHAPTER FIVE

After Alex left to meet with Luke Pyramus, Zoey looked around the penthouse and tried to figure out what in the hell she should do with herself. In the clothes that had appeared in London, there were a couple generic workout outfits, so she started by suiting up in loose pants, a sports bra, and a tank top. She took her phone down to the gym and, after some fiddling, managed to hook it up to Alex’s stereo system. She bit her lip for a moment, and then did exactly what she wanted to. She blasted the prog rock band that she and Claire had danced to, and she climbed onto the treadmill. She selected an interval program and kicked her legs into high gear.

It had been a long time since she’d run. She didn’t realize how much she’d missed the steady beat of her sneakers against the road — okay, the treadmill belt, but still — and the necessity of focusing on exactly what was in front of her. She didn’t have time to let her mind wander. She was out of breath within half a mile, and there was no room inside of her for anger or grief or guilt. There was nothing but the pressure of her weight on her feet, the heat of her breath in her lungs, and the steady attention of making sure that her body kept moving.

When she was 15, she’d tried to meditate, but the state all the websites described of quiet peace never came to her. One day, she’d gone for a run with a soccer friend, and as she pushed her body to the limits, she found that mental place everyone talked about, where her thoughts bubbled up like air through oil, bursting on the surface of her mind, but making no more impression than the air bubbles. That was what she strove for now.

There were so many thought bubbles today, and they hurt so much as they burrowed through her mind, but she tried to be that pot of oil, letting the thoughts filter through and burst away. What if she hadn’t texted Claire? What if she’d been clearer that they weren’t expecting her to meet them? What if she’d reacted more quickly when she saw the gun? Her mind kept telling her that there was something she could have done differently, even though she knew that she’d done the best that she could. That the only person responsible for Claire’s death was the man with the gun. That Alex was going to give the police all the information he could, to try and help bring the killer to justice. That there wasn’t anything else that could be done.

She thought it, over and over again, and by the end of the run, she was almost starting to believe it.

Zoey stepped off the treadmill and into the shower. Her body heated ever so gently, remembering the way Alex had taken her on the mats and then led her into this shower, his hands skimming over her body with so much attention and deliberate care. It had felt completely amazing, being with him. There was a wall between them now, and she understood why, but it hurt all the same. It was hard not to indulge in thoughts of how she would handle the grief differently, or how she would reach out to him rather than shutting him away outside of the bedroom. None of that was appropriate.
Boundaries
, she whispered to herself. It was his job to handle his grief; it was her job to handle her reaction to him. She couldn’t manage his grief, and if he withdrew more than she was comfortable with, she would talk to him about it. The fact that he was open to her in the bedroom — well, it was something. It wasn’t perfect, but it gave her something to cling to, to hope that his sudden withdrawal had more to do with his grief than what they’d found out.

Because the worry she wasn’t able to let go — she was the woman who had shown him what his mother might be involved in. And if someone had shown her things like that about her own parents? She didn’t know how she would have reacted. She was fairly sure it wouldn’t have been good.

After her shower, she twisted her hair up with a clip, and put on loose pants and a clean blouse. She pulled out her laptop and started to wander through her email. Focusing on the work in front of her gave her something to do and helped her push the negative thoughts out of her mind for now. It was something.

She drafted a series of pitches for her editor, things to work on over the next few days. She emailed Helen to let her know that they were back in the States and to make plans to get coffee. She called her parents and talked with them for a while. She mentioned Alex in passing, but didn’t go into too much detail. She deleted all of the messages from the press about the accident. If they continued to pour in, she’d let a PR person from AEGIS handle the drama. Until then? It was easier to just delete all the voice mail messages in one big batch.

When Alex came home, his expression was dark and angry. Zoey brushed a hand over his cheek, and he spun her around in the entry way, yanking her pants down, ripping her panties, and giving her one quick moment to object before he plundered her body as thoroughly as he ever had. She came twice in rapid succession as he fucked her, her hands splayed against the wall, fingers violently clenching, looking for something to grip, to hold onto. But he didn’t seem able to find what he needed to release there. He withdrew from her and went to turn away in anger and frustration, but she dropped to her knees and took him into her mouth.

He came in moments, his hands tangled in her hair, his salty taste bitter on her tongue.

And then he walked away, zipping up as he went, closing his office door behind him.

She stayed on the floor for just a little while, struggling with the shame and anger and hurt that was almost overwhelming. She avoided him the rest of the evening, until Sophia let them know that dinner was ready. There, he clung to the table, trying to ignore how the chairs had been rearranged to make two places instead of three. The food tasted like sawdust. When they’d gone to bed, he cried and apologized for being so cold in the hallway and ignoring her the rest of the day. She’d fucked him again, like she had the previous morning, tying him down and giving him a place to let go of the howling cyclone of misery that was trying to devour him from the inside out.

And then they slept. And repeated the day, all over again.

CHAPTER SIX

The funeral was its own special kind of hell. Religion was one of the many things that Zoey hadn’t found a reason to bring up to the man she’d moved in with, and while he was planning his sister’s funeral hardly seemed the right moment to start asking questions. Olivia had made one angry appearance at the penthouse, demanding that he leave her alone and let her plan her own daughter’s funeral, but Alex had just stared at her with a stone cold expression until she subsided.

“I loved her too,” she said, eventually, and for the first time, the woman’s armor seemed to be as fragile as the layers of a pearl instead of the diamond skin she’d seemed to wear for so long. It made Zoey’s heart hurt to look at the woman, to wonder what would happen to her own mother if this insane quest of theirs ended with her parents needing to find her a space in the ground.

If it hurt Alex at all, Zoey couldn’t tell. “You didn’t,” he said, his voice sharp and whip-fast. “You loved that it made Philip actually pay attention to you for a few minutes. Why you still wanted his approval after everything he put you through, I don’t know—”

The slap snapped his head back, and he went with the motion, not moving until she went to hit him again. He caught her hand at the wrist and gently stepped away.

“It’s time for you to go,” he said, still angry, still cold. “I have work to do.”

He dropped Olivia’s wrist and stalked out of the room, leaving her alone with Zoey as she crumpled into tears.

“I didn’t know,” she moaned, her voice as rough as sandpaper. “I didn’t realize.”

Zoey wasn’t sure right then if it was being human or being a journalist that motivated her, but either way, there was no way she was going to let the woman sit by herself and suffer. Whatever guilt might lay at her feet, she was still a human being. That wasn’t how you treated a human being. She settled carefully on the couch next to Olivia, trying not to jostle the woman. She looked like she might dissolve into a pile of dust if a strong wind blew through the apartment. She rested a hand on Olivia’s shoulder as gently as she could. “Can I have Sophia get you anything? Coffee? Tea?”

Olivia’s eyes turned towards Zoey, and Zoey was shocked at the anger that she saw in the other woman’s eyes, caked there like makeup. “Do you have any idea,” the woman asked, and Zoey could hear some of Alex’s anger there, no matter how much the woman said that he was acting like his father. “How hard it was for me? What I thought I was getting in my marriage, and what I got instead?”

“No,” Zoey said, cautiously shaking her head. “I don’t. I’m sorry.”

“He wanted nothing from me but my money. I’d told myself that he was a womanizer, and that he only asked my Daddy for my hand to get at my money, but I thought I’d be able to please him now and then. But the ink wasn’t even dry on our marriage license.” Olivia shook her head, her eyes far away and staring into another world of memory now. “He turned up when he wanted me and took what he wanted. He called me names, in public, at dinners. Told his wealthy friends to find themselves a rich coon so that they could screw around as much as they wanted, too.” Tears glistened on her lower lashes, but they didn’t fall. She shook herself slightly and refocused on Zoey. “It may look like I didn’t do much with my life, not by the standards of a modern feminist, but I did what I needed to. I did what I needed to to take care of my children. To keep their father from poisoning their lives even further.”

There was something in the tone of her voice that caught Zoey’s ear and made her tip her head to the side. “Olivia,” she said, not sure that she’d get any kind of meaningful response to the question, but needing to ask anyway, “Did you have anything to do with Cindy? Or Arturo? Or Thalia? With their deaths?”

Even as she said the words, she found herself bracing for impact. If Olivia was anything like Zoey thought, the woman might lash out, try to hit her or hurt her—

But instead of any of that, Olivia turned a long, hating look at Zoey, and then seemed to crumple just a little bit lower. “You don’t understand,” she said, her voice desperate now, tired and sad. “You don’t understand how it was.”

“Then tell me,” Zoey said. She touched Olivia’s hand with hers. “Help me understand.”

“I just wanted them to go away. They were threatening me, trying to blackmail me. I asked the lawyers if they were right, if the will could be read the way they were saying.” She shrugged, and Zoey wondered if the story would dry up, but no. She knew this look, this sound. Olivia had a story to tell, and it had been tearing her up for weeks now. She wanted someone to know. She wanted someone to say it wasn’t her fault. “He looked at me. He said that he could take care of it, that he could make it all go away. And he just asked if I wanted that to happen.”

“Who said that? Arturo?”

Olivia was gone again, her eyes staring off into the distance.

“Olivia?”

“He said that it wasn’t my fault, that any mother would want to protect her children. He said that it was completely understandable.”

“Who said that?” Zoey asked again, her voice a little less gentle.

Olivia turned to see her, but something slashed down over her face, shutting off the stream of confession. “I’m sorry,” Olivia said. “I didn’t mean to disturb your morning. Please — at least make sure that Alexander lets me know when the services would be? I’ll show up and behave. I won’t cause any trouble.”

“Olivia—” At hearing her name, the woman jerked as if Zoey had slapped her. “Let’s call the Commissioner. They won’t want to hurt you. They’ll want to find the person who actually hurt these people. The odds are that the same person who hurt Cindy and Arturo and Thalia — your children’s half-siblings — if it wasn’t the same person who hurt Claire, the odds are good that they were involved.”

Olivia’s nostrils flared, and her eyes surged with anger, that hate and fury burning back through her expression as she gazed at Zoey. “You think I would hurt my own child?” Olivia all but flew to her feet. Zoey followed her, feeling her heart kick up into a higher gear from fright. “You think I would do that to my own baby girl?”

“No, that’s not—”

“You think that I would ever do anything that would end with my sweet angel lying in the street, dying in the arms of a stranger? You cracker bitch, you can fuck yourself right back to hell.” Olivia’s accent came out thick and strong then, and her anger was clearly tearing her apart. Zoey dodged it as best as she could and nodded.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m truly sorry. I didn’t mean to insinuate—”

“We’re done here,” Olivia said, as if Zoey were standing in her own living room. After a moment, she gathered up her purse and swept out of the penthouse.

Zoey settled back down on the sofa after a moment, her head in her hands. A dozen voices seemed to be shouting in her head, all screaming for prominence. Voices chastising her, telling her that confronting Olivia at all was putting herself in danger, and what in the world had she been thinking? Voices asking if she had believed the woman at all. Voices telling her that she wasn’t a lawyer, and she wasn’t a cop, and she should have told the police more, told them what she suspected and walked away. She was putting herself in danger, and no more mothers should bury daughters this week.

But all of that was speaking out of fear. She’d gone to school for journalism, and she’d fought for career breaking stories and making a difference. It was dangerous, sometimes, but it was necessary. It was important. History was full of writers — journalists — who’d made a difference, who’d shown the world what it could look like if people worked together. That was what she’d always wanted to be, what she’d taught herself to be. She couldn’t turn away from this story. Not now. Not at this point.

She blew out a puff of air. But she also couldn’t keep pretending this was just a story. People were dying. She’d found herself believing Olivia, that she hadn’t been directly involved. Beyond that, finding out who dun it? That wasn’t the job of a journalist. That was the job of a cop.

Alex might be furious with her for implicating his mother, but someone had to know what was happening.

She stood up, ready to get her phone and call the lawyer who’d met with her before at the police precinct, and instead, ran smack into the smooth wall of Alex’s torso. “I’m sorry,” she laughed, putting her hand to her chest in a surprise that she didn’t have to fake. “Are you okay? I know you were upset—”

“Has she left?”

“Yes, just a minute ago—”

“Did she leave anything behind?”

“What? No, Alex, she only had her purse—”

His hand was tight on her upper arm, and she flinched, trying to yank free of him. His eyes were dark, glassy, and not his own, and his grip hurt. She didn’t think he was doing it on purpose, but that didn’t stop the pain. “Nothing? Are you sure?”

“Alex, what — you’re hurting me—”

He dropped her arm without apologizing and stepped past her, overturning the cushions on the couch where Olivia had been sitting. “I told you that Luke’s team found bugs in several places in the apartment. They couldn’t tell how long they’d been in place. Olivia could have placed them.”

“What? Why would she do that?”

The look he turned on her contained so much anger that it flipped her stomach. It was far too close to the look Olivia had directed at her. She took an involuntary step back from him, which was the first thing that seemed to help jar him to his senses. He sank down onto the couch, his head in his hands. After a long moment, she stepped closer to him, tracing her hand down his spine. “I don’t know,” he said, his voice muffled by his palms. “I don’t know why she would do something like that, but I also don’t know why she would target half siblings of mine. I don’t know why she’d target—” his voice twisted, “her own daughter.”

“I’m not entirely sure she did,” Zoey said. Alex looked up at her, and she saw in that moment how incredibly tired he was. The thin skin under his eyes was dark and swollen, and the whites of his eyes were lined with traces of red. She’d assumed he’d been sleeping right along with her, but maybe he’d been waking in the night and going back to his office, staring at emails, or maybe he’d just lain in bed next to her, drifting in and out of sleep and nightmares. She hadn’t asked. Not really. She’d just expected him to tell her. She’d expected him to endure.

Holy shit
, she thought,
the patriarchy sucks for everyone
. She sat down next to him, tracing a hand up and down his spine. “I’m sorry,” she said, putting the love and compassion back into her voice, just like she had in the first weeks that they were together. “I haven’t asked in days. I just assumed I knew. How are you holding up?”

His eyes somehow became even more haunted. “It’s too quiet here,” he said, his voice hollow. “I miss her so much.” Whether he knew it or not, his hand rose to his chest and clawed at his sternum for a moment, as if he could dig through his flesh and pull out his aching heart, somehow massaging it back into working order, easing the pain.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, and somehow, it was entirely the wrong thing to say. He jerked away from her, his eyes shuttered and cold again.

“It wasn’t your fault,” he said. “It was no one’s fault but hers.” The venom in his voice made it perfectly clear who he thought was behind the deaths.

“Did you tell the police that?”

He gave her an irritated look, as if she’d suggested he roll around in some nice mud in a thousand dollar suit. “Obviously not.”

She took a deep breath, trying to find the middle ground that she was fairly sure didn’t exist. “Alex, if she’s behind this — if she had people killed—”

“Then it’s done,” he said. “There’s no one left.”

“There’s the twins.”

He shook his head. “I don’t know them. We don’t even know they’re real. Cindy could have been delusional. It all could have been some kind of psychotic break. Persecution is a common enough belief in people who are schizophrenic or experiencing the manic phase of bipolar disorder. We never had a chance to find out—”

“Alex.” She tried to keep her voice calm and even, and not give in to the fear — and yes, the anger — that was roiling through her. “Listen to yourself. We met her. Did she seem crazy to you?”