Straightjacket (17 page)

“Hey.” With a grin, he gently pried her fingers loose. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but we gotta stop. I just want to get out of here as fast as we can.” She couldn’t resist planting one last kiss on the palm of his hand. With a laugh, he slid his hand into hers and tugged her down the hallway.

They walked by what seemed like ten bedrooms, and Anna was able to peek into each one only briefly as they zoomed past. Finally, at the end of the hall, they reached the one room with a closed door. Caleb turned the handle and led her into darkness. Once her eyes adjusted to the dimness, he flipped the window shades up. The light streamed in to expose thousands of dust particles floating around them.

“I’m gonna grab a few things. Go ahead and sit down if you want.” He motioned toward the huge wooden poster bed that was far from overwhelmed by its ten pillows. But Anna couldn’t move over to the bed. In fact, she couldn’t move at all. She was looking all around her, all around Caleb’s room, and two thoughts kept pounding at her. First, Caleb actually had a room, in a house that he had lived in. And second, his so-called room looked nothing like
him.
The white walls were bare except for two paintings. In one, old men draped in white fabric sat in a stone chamber. They were deep in discussion, flinging their arms wildly around. One man in the center sat with his face in his hands, sobbing. The other painting showed a drab landscape in dull shades of green. A tiny figure of a man stood near a flock of sheep, and a stone bridge hung uninterestingly in the background.

“So this is your room?” Anna asked.

“Yeah.” His voice came from inside a huge closet.

“It’s just—this isn’t really your style.”

He emerged holding a pile of T-shirts and threw them on the bed.

“You noticed. I didn’t exactly have a say in the redecorating when…” He paused uneasily.

“When what?”

“Um, when my stepmother moved in. She practically gutted the whole house. Then she puked classical Greek art all over the place.” He returned to the closet, and there was the sound of bins being shuffled around. When he came back out, he was carrying a clear plastic box filled with pencils, pastels, and paper. He shoved the contents into a duffel bag he had dragged out from underneath the bed. Then he sat down on top of the green paisley bedspread and leaned back on his hands. She practically had to jump up on the bed next to him.

“So you have parents,” she said darkly.
He can’t be crazy. He just can’t.
She needed every ounce of strength she had to pull herself up out of a dark pit of doubt she was digging for herself, a pit that she could easily disappear into, separating herself from everything that could make her happy. After all, where had she expected him to take her? Did she think they were going to float up into heaven?

So in an attempt to ground herself, she asked the simple questions again. “How old are you here?” She pointed to one of the framed photos on his nightstand.

“I guess I’m twelve or thirteen.” The back of his hand wiped the dust off the top of the frame, and it joined the other particles that were still swirling around the room.

“And those are your parents?”

“Yeah, we were on a skiing trip.”
Just keep on going, asking the easy questions and ignoring everything else.
“And who’s that?” She motioned toward the other photograph sitting on the nightstand. The image of a woman whose smile was too big for her face filled the ornate gold frame.

“That’s my evil stepmother.” He smiled. “When she redid my room, she made sure I had a picture of her, right there next to the other one. I shoved it into the drawer a while ago, but I guess since I’ve been gone she found it and put it out again.” Instead of returning the photo of his family back to its spot, he slid off the bed and placed it carefully on top of the clothes and supplies that he had shoved into the duffel bag. Anna watched him but said nothing.

“You hungry?”

She had reached the point with her meds where everything was leveling out, and she was just starting to get her appetite back. “Yeah, I am.”

“Let’s go downstairs and raid the refrigerator, and then we’ll go.” A leap off the bed later, she was by his side. He led her out the door and downstairs to the kitchen.

“So what do you like?” he asked on his way over to the refrigerator. It had a clear glass door. The drawers at the bottom were filled with bright oranges and apples, and the shelf above it held four or five bottles of wine and a white platter showcasing a half-eaten turkey. The uneaten half was golden brown and shiny, surrounded by orange halves and sprigs of rosemary. It looked like it could have been photographed for a magazine. But looking at the other half made Anna feel nauseous. It was nothing more than a carcass, the ribs and backbone jutting out from between leftover pieces of meat.

She looked away to take in the rest of the kitchen. The marble countertops gleamed, reflecting the light from the pendants that hung over them. The cabinets were an immaculate white, except for those that were glass. White plates were stacked neatly inside.

“How about some sandwiches?” he asked with a full mouth, rifling through the drawers of the refrigerator and grabbing some bags full of deli meat.

“Yeah, whatever. And some apples.”

“And chips.” He had moved over to the pantry and was pulling shiny bags out from the shelves, shoving them into the duffel bag. Anna went over to the large island in the middle of the kitchen, pulled out a stool that had been tucked underneath the counter, and sat down. She ran her hands over the cool, hard marble and felt chilly.

Then there were footsteps in the hallway. With a panicked face, she looked over at Caleb, who was still rifling through the cabinets and didn’t seem to hear.

“Caleb,” she whispered, her mouth already dry and sticky, but it was too low for him to hear. A man in a suit stepped through the doorway.

“Caleb,” the man’s low voice boomed, bouncing off the smooth countertops and echoing through the room. Caleb spun around to meet the man’s startled look.

Chapter Seventeen

“Dad.” Caleb stood up quickly. His hand gripped a Ziploc bag filled with bright orange Goldfish crackers. “I didn’t think you’d be here.”

“Clearly.” His father eyed Anna from head to toe.

“We’re just leaving,” Caleb said softly as he shoved the rest of the food into the duffel bag, violently zipping it up and swinging it over his shoulder. He jerked his head once toward the door. In response, Anna hopped off the stool and pushed it back underneath the counter, its legs screeching against the hardwood floor.

“Caleb, please don’t go yet.” His father’s voice had softened, and he took two steps forward, reaching out his hand but stopping just short of touching Caleb’s shoulder. The tiny gleam of the diamond embedded in his father’s silver cuff link caught Caleb’s attention. “I tried to call you, but you didn’t pick up. I knew you were being released today. Dr. Blackwell called to tell me.”

“Yeah, well, I really don’t have anything to say.” Caleb’s voice was insistent and embarrassed at the same time. “Come on,” he said to Anna, who joined him by his side.

“Please, just talk to me for a few minutes.”

“I don’t have a few minutes.” Caleb led Anna by the hand through the door to the entryway. His father followed close behind.

“How are you feeling?” he asked as they approached the front door.

Caleb winced, not knowing why. Maybe it was the pathetic tone to his father’s voice, his last-ditch effort to act like a father before the tie was severed. Caleb stopped abruptly and turned to face him.

“And why do you suddenly care?”

“Caleb, I’ve always cared about you. I’ve tried to get you the help you need—”

“Help? So
that
’s
what you call it. Giving me no choice except to check myself into a mental institution. 3RF9 I wouldn’t say that’s helping. That’s giving your problem to someone else and making it go away.” Caleb’s eyes flashed violently with anger. His father stood erect, dressed exquisitely in a dark blue suit and crisp white shirt. His fingernails were manicured, as always, and his black, shiny hair was slicked back into its proper place. But his face didn’t match the rest of him. It wasn’t regal or powerful at all. In fact, it looked older than Caleb remembered, and something else. Maybe even a little broken.

“We didn’t know what else to do,” his father said, his posture rigid. “It was such a relief—when we finally found you. I didn’t want that to happen again. We had no idea where you were, if you were safe or lying dead in some alley. Making that deal was the only way we could get you to a doctor who could help you. But it sounds like it didn’t do much good.”

“Crazy as ever, right?”

“Why didn’t you take your medication? You didn’t even try.”

“Didn’t try?” Caleb was yelling now, his voice bouncing off the marble floors and up to the second story above them. “I was rotting in that place. Do you know what kind of people they keep there? What kind of people work there? I stayed and I behaved and I did what I needed to. I kept my part of the deal. That trust money is mine now. I’m out of here and I’m not coming back!”

The vulnerability in his father’s face melted away instantly. Instead his features froze in place, and his face became as rigid as his body.

“Think of your mother, Caleb. She wouldn’t have wanted things to be like this.”

As soon as Caleb heard the word
mother
, the adrenaline rushed through his body like lightning. He hated his father, hated that face staring back at him, the nose and mouth that mimicked his own.

“You’re a bastard,” Caleb spat back. All he wanted to do was assault his father with vulgar names and despicable insults. He wanted to give his father a beating by doing it, hurt him so badly he couldn’t ever recover.

“And what about this?” his father said bitterly, nodding his head at Anna. “Did you pick her up there? What’s wrong with her?”

“Shut up.”

“What, are you two planning on living some kind of fantasy?” he asked Anna. “You have no idea what you’re in for. There’s no way you can handle what’s coming your way, not to mention whatever’s wrong with you.”

“I said, shut the hell up!” Caleb screamed, lunging toward him. He stopped an inch away, his nose almost touching his father’s. His hands were trembling, and he used every last bit of self-restraint to prevent himself from wrapping them around his father’s neck and squeezing until the man collapsed onto the marble floor. “You don’t talk to her like that. I’m walking out that door, and you’re never gonna see me again.”

“I see. My money is what you want.”

Caleb’s eyes narrowed with disgust, and he headed toward the door. He pulled it open and again its immense weight moaned against the pressure.

“Go to hell.” He walked briskly down the front steps, one hand grasping Anna’s while the other swooped up the suitcases that they had left outside. They turned to the left, following the curve of the driveway. Anna kept up, although she had to walk faster than him. Neither of them said a word.

The driveway dead-ended into an enormous garage. Caleb stopped in front of a keypad next to one of six large doors, punched in a code, and the third door down the row lifted upward, its panels disappearing into the ceiling inside one by one. He led Anna inside before the door had finished creaking completely up. The five cars lined up in a row were the same as they had been—the Bentley, Audi, Mercedes, Porsche, and Ferrari—each in their designated spots, gleaming with a fresh coat of wax. The only one missing was the Jaguar, which Caleb assumed his stepmother had taken out on her daily shopping spree.

He popped open the trunk of his car, a silver Audi R8, and wiggled one suitcase inside. The others he wedged into the shelf behind the front seats. With a single violent thrust of his arm, the driver’s side door swung open. Anna didn’t slide inside like he expected. Instead, she was leaning against the front bumper, breathing hard and slow.

“Anna, I’m so sorry, I didn’t even stop to see—”

“I’m fine, I’m fine.” As she headed toward the passenger side, Caleb raced around to meet her.

“Please just tell me you’re okay,” he pleaded as he helped her settle into her seat.

“Yeah, I’m fine; let’s just go.” Without a word, he slammed her door shut and ran around to the driver’s side. Not caring for a second that he no longer had a driver’s license, he slid the key into the ignition. The car roared to life. Contained within the walls of the garage, the sound of the engine revving was monstrous. He adjusted the stick shift and peeled out of the garage. The car hugged the curve around the fountain and raced down the long driveway. The rearview mirror offered him one last look at the house, which was shrinking by the second.

“Do you want to stop at your house to get some more of your stuff?”

Anna turned to him. Her face was stricken with fear.

“No, I’m not going back there,” she said, shaking her head quickly back and forth.

“Are you sure? You’re going to need—”

“No, I can’t go back to that house.”

He laid his hand over hers. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. We’ll just get going then.” His hand couldn’t help itself and reached up to stroke her hair.

“Thank you.”

“You don’t need to thank me, you know. This is your life, too. You make your own choices. I’m not going to tell you what to do.”

They were both silent for a few minutes and the only sound was the engine shifting gears every now and then.

Finally, she answered. “You don’t know how you’ve saved me. Just thinking about being released from the hospital, going back to that house, living with them, living that life again, I can’t even tell you…”

“I’d do anything for you. You’re so…incredible. I can’t believe he spoke to you like that.” His voice soured. “I’m so sorry. I won’t let anyone speak to you like that ever again.” His hands gripped the steering wheel tighter, twisting the black leather as if it were guilty.

“It doesn’t matter. I don’t care about what he says to me. I really don’t care about anyone anymore except for you. Just forget about it.”