The Masseuse (27 page)

I
pulled back and wrapped my arms around myself, trying to stave off the shudder that had nothing to do with cold. My mouth was dry, and a persistent throb had begun at the base of my skull.

“Dinner!” called Thomas from the kitchen.

Alec glanced at the door.

“What do you mean, it’s not safe?” I pressed.

“I slaved over a hot stove!” called Thomas as the microwave began to beep.

“Am I in trouble?” The dread coiled in my stomach. My head was beginning to spin.

“You look pale.” Alec was shutting down, the light dimming behind his eyes.

“Wait. You can’t stop there.” I jolted to my feet. Too fast; the room began to spin, and I caught myself on his shoulder before falling.

In a flash he was up, supporting my weight with his hand beneath my elbows.

“Anna,” he said, inspecting me closely. “When did you eat last?”

I shook my head, clearing my vision. I felt weak, but how was I supposed to eat when Alec had said I wasn’t safe?

“A while ago,” I answered. “Yesterday maybe.”

He grit his teeth. “Eat and I’ll tell you what I can.”

“No!” I shouted, pushing away. I rocked back on my heels, blinking rapidly as my stomach did a slow roll.

“I’m tired of this,” I said. “You’ll tell me everything. If you ever cared about me at all, you’ll tell me.”

His mouth tightened.

“All right,” he said. “After you eat.”

Stubborn mule. I let him lead me back to the living room, where Thomas had put a glass pan of pulled pork on a scratched coffee table in front of his small couch. The cushions had popped a couple stitches, and when I sat I had to readjust my position to avoid some well-placed springs, but the scent of barbecue sauce was enough to make me salivate.

Thomas moved comfortably around the room as if he had perfect vision and then sat beside me, maybe a little too close. He handed me a plate, and the distance by which he overshot my reach reminded me of his blindness.

“Thank you for dinner,” I said tensely. “It smells incredible.”

“The sauce is a secret,” he said, passing a plate to Alec, who had opened a bag of hamburger buns.

“It’s such a secret even he doesn’t know it,” mumbled Alec.

Thomas grinned. “Caught. My sponsor believes food is a suitable replacement for booze.”

With Alec watching me closely, I took the first bite. Despite the stress, my body melted into the couch. Apparently I was famished.

“Your sponsor’s right,” I said. “This is delicious.”

“I’ll let Mac know,” said Thomas. It took a moment for me to place the name, but when I did, I blushed. He’d been the owner of the burger place Alec had taken me on our first date. The same place Alec and I had nearly ravaged each other in the parking lot, right in front of an audience. I remembered Mac saying he would stop by the house when we left. He must have meant this house.

It wasn’t hard to eat fast, and when we were done, my body felt better, even if my brain was still racing. Alec cleaned up while Thomas walked me out to the front entryway, closing the door behind him. Askem the dog plopped down on the cement beside his calf.

“Thanks for having me,” I said. “I know it was unexpected.”

“I live for the unexpected.” He gripped the railing, staring out into the night, and I gave in to the sudden urge to squeeze his hand. With a smile, he tucked my still cold fingers in the crook of his elbow.

“Alec’s always trying to get me to move out of this place,” he said. “But this is my home. It’s important to have a home. Somewhere you can put down roots.”

I wouldn’t know.

“My son’s a good man,” he said. “Loyal. Sometimes
too
loyal. For him to tell you all that history, you must be very important to him.”

“You were listening?” Why didn’t that surprise me?

“I have impeccable hearing.” He smiled. “It’s not my business what he’s done to wrong you, but I know this much. Alec will love one woman all his life. He’s like me in that way. I wasn’t sure it would happen for him, but I’m glad it has.”

I wasn’t sure how to respond; his statement was like an arrow in the back. I hadn’t seen it coming, and it hurt like hell.

Inside, the water at the kitchen sink shut off.

“I think he’s like you in a lot of ways,” I said quietly. “Good ways.”

Thomas pulled me close and kissed my cheek. “That’s the best news I’ve heard all week.”

*

“I need to show you something,” Alec said when we were back in his car. I was still wearing his clothes, and I was glad for the extra warmth now that it was dark outside.

“You promised you’d tell me what Maxim meant.”

“I will,” he said.

Silently, he drove in the direction of my apartment. I watched him carefully, mind still reeling with the previously hidden details of his life. Things appeared to be good with his father now, but they hadn’t always been. I tried to imagine the lost boy who’d been abandoned by his mother and left alone by his father, who’d turned to drugs for escape and sold them to survive. A boy who had trusted a man who’d taken advantage of him. It reminded me of my days working in child protective services, and for the first time in a long while I had the urge to go back. I was certain I could have helped the kid that Alec had been.

I wasn’t sure if I could help him now.

Less than a half hour later he was parking on the street across from the Chinese restaurant below my place. The rain had lightened, but it was still misting. As soon as he shut off the car, the window clouded with a million tiny droplets.

I met him outside on the sidewalk, feeling a little ridiculous in Amy’s heels and Alec’s baggy clothes.

“I don’t understand,” I said, looking up to my dark second-floor windows.

Sorting through his keys, he led me in the direction opposite from my apartment, down a narrow dark alley between the steak house and bar across the street from my place. The path was empty, and dingy with the walls’ weathered bricks and the trash that gathered at our feet. My senses became more attuned as my nerves heightened. Bass thumped from a club behind us, the scents from the restaurants mingled with the pungent smell of garbage. I kept glancing behind me to make sure no one was coming.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said, sensing my hesitation.

I moved closer to him, just in case.

We came to a metal door near the back of the lot, and he opened it with one of his keys. Inside was a stairwell, and I followed him up in silence, wishing for more visibility than the square, rain-stained skylight overhead could provide. At the top of the second-floor landing was another door, and through that a large open room, the same size as the restaurant floor below, spread out before us. The floor was intricately designed with Spanish tile, and wires hung from the ceiling panels where lights should have been. Despite its haphazard shape, the room looked as though it had been recently cleaned.

Floor-to-ceiling windows made up the wall facing my apartment—a straight view into my place.

“What is this?” I asked.

“It’s a property Max is looking at renovating for a high-end nightclub.”

“So much for keeping my windows open,” I muttered.

Alec leaned back against a pillar in the center of the room, arms crossed over his chest.

“Charlotte MacAfee was the owner and president of Green Fusion. I knew her in college—she guest lectured in some of my classes. She and her brother were working in secret to build an engine powered by high-grade ethanol—corn fuel—a renewable, cleaner energy source. Her plane-engine design was the first out there; the flight industry has had a history with big oil since planes first started using jet fuel. This would have changed things. In a big way.”

I faced the window, looking across the street through my open curtains. I could make out my dresser, the edge of my bedframe. If the lights were on, you’d be able to see everything.

“Force’s biggest clients are oil manufacturers. You told me that before,” I said.

“Yes,” he said. “Charlotte knew I worked for Max—for Force. We’d talked a few times after I graduated, but just casually. She approached me last year to tell me her design was nearly complete, but that it had taken everything they had. She was broke and couldn’t finish it.”

“The news said she was on the verge of declaring bankruptcy.”

He nodded. “I told her I’d talk to Max and see what he could do. She was looking for investors to fund the rest of the project and help her pay back an enormous amount of debt. He agreed to help.”

“And they started sleeping together.”

“They were both using each other. She needed his money, and he needed her design. He convinced her to show him the plans before she filed a patent. I guess she thought it would impress him enough that he’d agree to invest. You saw those plans on his desk the first time you were at the house.”

Out of nervous habit, I began to braid my damp hair down my back.

“I wasn’t supposed to see them.”

“No,” he said. “And neither was he. Without a patent, the work was unprotected. She didn’t even have him sign a non-disclosure form—maybe she couldn’t afford the lawyer, I don’t know. He could have filed documents saying the design was his own, and reaped the rewards.”

“But?”

“There is no
but
,” he said. “That’s exactly what he was planning to do. Steal the design, file it under Force’s name. And then stop production.”

“Stop production?” I asked. “Why not build the engine himself? He has the money. He could change the plane industry, like you said.”

“And go broke in the process,” Alec explained. “Our biggest clients are in oil, remember? Piss them off and there goes three-quarters of our revenue. No, Max wanted to claim the design as his own and then sit on it, making sure no one could build an engine to compete with his. That way he stays rich and our clients stay happy.”

“Wow,” I said. “My opinion of him is rising higher by the second.”

“There were two problems,” Alec continued. “One, Charlotte couldn’t find out that he’d stolen the design until after he’d filed the patent under his name, and two, you’d seen the plans. If you wanted to, you could have sold those plans to a competing industry.”

“Or gone to the police,” I said.

“You signed a waiver when you first got there saying everything you saw in that house was confidential. If you’d gone to the cops, he would have ruined you. Taken every penny. Anything you made from now until retirement would go to your legal fees.”

The power Maxim had over both our lives loomed heavily over me. I remembered that waiver well. I’d thought it was offensive at the time. I’d felt like Ms. Rowe had been questioning my professionalism—like I was going to steal a cereal bowl from the kitchen or something. I’d had no idea what was at stake.

I kicked off my heels so I could pace more effectively, and the tile floor was cold under my bare feet. “I couldn’t go to the cops, but if I’d taken it to a competitor, they could do the same thing Maxim was trying to do—claim the patent as their own and make all the money. Or sit on it.”

“Right,” he said. “One of us had to follow Charlotte and make sure she didn’t catch on or go to the cops. The other had to follow you. I made sure I was the one to follow you.”

I turned back to the window, wishing I didn’t feel so small.

“Why?” I asked. “You knew Charlotte. She wouldn’t have suspected anything if she’d seen you hanging around. You barely knew me.”

“I didn’t like the way Bobby was looking at you,” he said.

I softened a little, but couldn’t look at him.

I tried to put myself in Alec’s shoes. It couldn’t have been easy convincing Max that he should follow me when he already had a previous relationship with Charlotte.

“And so you were assigned.” It was impossible to hide the prickle in my voice.

He looked up at me, shadows hiding his expression. “Yes.”

His shoe made a scuffing noise across the floor. “Max came to me with the design and said I had to get to one of his high-powered patent attorneys to file it as soon as possible. It had to be me, that way if anything happened, Force would be clean. Max would have plausible deniability while I’d go down for corporate espionage—but, of course, his lawyer would get me off.”

“Oh God,” I said, beginning to hate Maxim Stein for all he’d put Alec through. A moment later a heavy realization weighed down on my shoulders.

“You did it,” I said quietly. “That’s why we went to New York.”

He was quiet long enough to let the full effect of his actions sink in. I closed my eyes, burying my face in my hands. He’d done something awful and was totally screwed. It didn’t seem possible that even the best lawyer in the world could help him now.

“I told Charlotte,” he said. “After I met with her, she showed up at Max’s house ready to burn the place down.”

That was the first time I’d seen her—with her clothes on at least. Ms. Rowe had shoved her off, saying Maxim was with his wife. Alec had barely acknowledged me, he’d been so intent on getting Charlotte out.

“I remember,” I said.

“I had tried to get her to file the patent first, but she insisted on going to the press. Exposing Max. She knew Bobby was tailing her. He scared her, I think. Before she drove off the bridge they’d gotten in a fight outside her house. From the sounds of it, it wasn’t pretty.” His voice had grown thin, angry.

I was back near the window and leaned against the glass, letting it hold my weight.

“The reporter had mentioned that the passenger window had been smashed. That was why they thought there’d been another person in the car,” I said quietly. “I was afraid it was you.”

He pushed off the pillar and walked to the window beside me, staring at my apartment.

“I’m sorry I left the way I did. It killed me to leave.”

There was such raw honesty in his voice that it was impossible not to believe him.

“I called,” I said, dropping down yet another step in this slow motion tumble to the truth. “When I knew you didn’t have your cell, I called Maxim’s house looking for you. They thought you’d told me about the patent.”

He nodded.

The pieces were falling into place one by one. “Bobby must have just gotten back from Charlotte’s.”