CHAPTER 52
EMILY
—Are you all right?—
I’d replied to Carter’s text, but I didn’t hear back. I didn’t get a text that night or the next day. Carlos wouldn’t tell me anything, and none of the other security guys seemed to know. Darlene was physically accessible, but her body was twisted so tightly around the upcoming tour that asking her to track down her ex-bodyguard was unfair. But I was leaving for Vegas, and I didn’t know if he and Phin were all right.
I looked up Genevieve Tremaine’s name and, in three seconds, found enough gruesome descriptions of the scene that I had to skim the accounts. Digging into more local and less celebrity-driven outlets, I found out about what Carter had gone through when it happened. He’d worked to have crime-scene photos sealed. Phin’s name had been public knowledge. Along with Apple, Pilot Inspektor, and Moon Unit, Phinnaeus was a running metaphor for everything that was wrong with celebrity naming conventions. Carter had requested anything that had to do with the child be sealed. He put all his sister’s money in trust for the boy and whisked him away without taking him far. He did not do interviews or talk to the media. He and his mother issued a public statement declaring that Genevieve’s son was off-limits and that any attempts to photograph him would be followed up with the full force of the best legal team millions in residual checks could buy.
Public opinion was on Carter’s side, and in less than twelve months, stories about Genevieve Tremaine’s death fell off the radar.
I respected what Carter had done for Phin, but who had been there for him? Who had been there for him when his sister died? When all the years taking care of a child who wasn’t his got to be too much?
His last text weighed on me.
—Phin needed me—
Things could be bad or they could be worse, and as the hours and days went on, a tension built in my chest. Phin needed Carter, but who did Carter need? And if it were me, would he ever ask for me? The walls he’d built around his family were so strong and high, he might not even know how to get through them to ask for help.
—Are you all right?—
I stared at my text from two days before. Was it adequate? Was it clear? Did it look as if I was soft-shoeing around doing something? If I sent something else, was I bothering him? Stalking him?
When Vince hit me that first and last time, I minimized it to Darlene. I told her it wasn’t a big deal because I didn’t want to upset her. She had enough on her plate. My compulsion had been normal, but her reaction had woken me from invisibility. Her intervention had saved me from who-knew-how-much trouble and pain.
Carter wasn’t a victim of abuse, but he was as much a victim of circumstance as I was. Was I doing him a disservice by letting him build a higher wall?
I was behind my own wall. Bart and Fabian were always present, and I found out what it was like to have security that didn’t take up any of my attention. Their job was to be invisible, and they were. I had my cameras and my security system. I’d felt trapped before, but only because I’d thought I should get out and do some vague thing.
Now the wall was between Carter and me, and it was really pissing me off.
Fabian’s station was a chair on the front steps. He walked the perimeter of the property every fifteen minutes, or twenty-two minutes, or whatever, so no one would pick up a schedule. I found him checking the locks on the studio.
“I need to take a drive.”
“Now?”
“Now.” I didn’t think to make up a story about grocery shopping.
“Where?” He took out his phone. He’d have to log it in with Carlos.
“I’ll tell you where to turn.”
He raised an eyebrow. He had nice eyebrows over brown eyes and thick black lashes. Very handsome, yet nothing stirred in me.
Where was I going at six o’clock on a Wednesday evening? I ran the map through my head. East. Left. Right. Park.
“I’m going to church. I’m nervous about the show, and I need to go to Saint James Church, but you need to take the route I say.”
“Why? I mean, look. It doesn’t matter to me. But I’m just curious.”
“Superstition.”
“I like you, but you’re weird.”
“I like you too. Can we go?”
We locked up and drove east on Olympic. I was more nervous than I had business being. I didn’t know what to hope for. If Carter was home with his family, finding the comfort of old routines, the lights would be on and they’d be finishing dinner. He’d want that for Phin. He’d built his life around making sure the kid knew where he’d be from day to day and establishing sequences and schedules. So the lights would be on.
Unless everything had gone to hell. Phin finding out about his mother’s death and his real relationship to his father could have broken the kid. He was thirteen, with all the eye-rolling insolence one would expect, but he was also a complex kid. He’d sent me a gift because he wanted me to like him, and it had been bursting bubbles and blooms, not wars and swords. He had a sensitive side he wasn’t afraid to show. He was curious and perceptive.
The revelations could have done real damage. My heart went out to him. I knew Carter would do whatever he could to protect his nephew/son, but who was going to be there for Carter? He’d already been through hell with his sister. Securing Phin had taken so much energy, he probably hadn’t taken a minute to himself. And now it was all coming back.
He’d need someone, and if he let me, I was going to be there for him.
“Left on Lorraine.” I leaned over the front seat. Fabian insisted I sit in the back because it was procedure, but I was jumping out of my skin. “Hard right onto Wilshire and left onto Irving.”
I’d have to guide him back to Wilshire to get to the church, but I had a few more crazy turns planned just for kicks.
When he turned onto Lorraine, I pretended I wasn’t looking onto the right side of the street, but at the last minute I did. It was just after dinnertime. I expected to see the car in the lot and the lights on.
Instead of lights and life, the windows were dark, and in front of Carter’s beautiful Craftsman sat a FOR SALE sign.
My heart wrung itself into a ball and lodged in my throat.