ONE OF MAMA’S OLD APRONS COVERS my jeans and t-shirt. My face mask protects me from the fumes as I stir lye into the water, gloves on up to my elbows. Heated essential oils wait in bowls. I’m starting to feel confident that I can actually do this when my phone buzzes.
Seeing San’s name and picture on the screen makes me feel sick. I lied to Rhyson last night. Out and out lied to him when he asked about that unknown number. And I involved San in my lie. I didn’t mean to, but the truth wasn’t even an option, and before I knew it, the lie took over. Or rather I gave into it.
I lift my face mask and slip off my gloves to answer the phone.
“Hey, what’s up?”
“You don’t call. You don’t write.” My mind’s eye can perfectly picture San’s handsome smiling face. “You go off with your famous boyfriend on your chartered plane with your caviar, and forget all about the little people.”
“Shut it. There wasn’t caviar.” I grin, tilting a bowl of oil to watch the light dancing over its surface. “And I am the little people.”
“If you say so. How are you feeling, pipsqueak?” He keeps his voice light, but it’s too deliberate. I know he’s concerned. If Rhyson hadn’t come home with me, he would have.
“I’m good. Really, San. Don’t worry.”
“Oh, I’ll leave that to Rhyson. He worried enough for us all at the hospital. Have I mentioned what a pain in my ass he is sometimes?
“You have once or twice, yes.” I give into a grin because they’re such boys.
“Did he see the Spotted piece?” His voice loses some of the humor.
“Yeah, Bristol sent it.” I draw a deep breath, holding the phone between my ear and shoulder while I slap a glove into my palm. “I hope you’re calling with some news on Drex.”
“Actually, yeah, I am.”
I freeze, death-gripping the phone with one hand and the glove with the other.
“What? Where? San, I have to talk to him. We have to figure this out.” My words pop like pellets. “He . . . or someone sent me another text last night. It was a link to the Spotted piece and a message threatening to send Rhyson the tape if we get back together.”
“Why that? I mean, I know Drex and Rhyson hate each other, but he’d have to know we’d suspect him first.”
“Well, yeah, which may be why he’s been in hiding and we can’t find him.”
“Couldn’t find him.” San pauses. “One of my sources saw him at a music festival in Topanga. Not playing there. Just walking around.”
I drop my elbows to the work table surface, forehead resting in my hand.
“You sure it’s him?”
“They sent me a picture from their phone. He had on a hat, but it was him.”
“So we find him? Talk to him?” Anger bubbles under my skin. This lowlife thinks he can ruin my life? Thinks he can hurt Rhyson through me? I want to shove this lye down the front of his pants and burn his balls off. Tape that, you bastard.
“He lost him.” San cuts in over my frustrated growl. “But it’s only a matter of time. That was yesterday. Topanga’s not a big place. He may be in a rental property up there. I have some Spotted researchers pulling records now to see if we find anything.”
“Will they get suspicious?” I chew on my thumbnail. “Start asking questions?”
“I told them I was doing a piece on one-hit wonders.”
I chuckle, imagining how Drex would respond to hearing himself described that way.
“Okay, good.” I tip one of the Ball jars holding water to the side. “Maybe we’re close to getting to the bottom of this.”
“You could still tell Rhys,” San says softly. “I think you should.”
I press my eyes closed, cupping my hand over my mouth in case the scream building inside of me escapes. Rhyson can’t ever see that—Drex pounding into me, grunting, holding my hips, grinning into the camera. It’s a horror show, and I don’t want him to have to get past it. I’ll fix this so he doesn’t see that every time he looks at me.
“We just got this breakthrough, San,” I finally say. “I have it under control.”
“And you say Rhyson has control issues.”
That stings. Considering I asked Rhyson to go to family counseling to understand his control issues. There is no easy route here for me. I’ve already lied to him for weeks. There’s no erasing that. Either I, at some point tell him about this tape, a mortification I can’t even wrap my heart around, or I live with it invisible but looming between us forever.
“I gotta go.” I hold my breath, silently begging San to recognize I can’t take anymore. “Keep me posted. Let me know as soon as you find him.”
“And you’ll do what?” San demands, voice hardening. “Confront him? If he is the one blackmailing you, Kai, have you considered he’s a criminal? That he’s dangerous? That he’ll stop at nothing to hurt Rhyson, and consequently you?”
“San, I . . . I don’t know.” I trap my trembling bottom lip between my teeth. “I’ll figure it out.”
There’s a pause on the other end, like San holds the words in his mouth, deciding if he should release them or not.
Don’t.
“Okay. Yeah,” he finally says. “I’ll keep you posted.”
Once he’s gone, I stare at the phone. I don’t know what makes me do it, but I flick through my message thread, thumbing over texts from Rhyson, from San, from Ella, people who care about me, until I reach that first dreaded message months ago, from someone who must hate me.
I haven’t looked at the clip since that first day. I tap it with my thumb, and the disgusting thing springs to life. A full color spectacle, loaded with grunts and pants and the lascivious looks Drex flashes at the camera every once in a while. For the first time, I make myself really study the girl being taken from behind by a stranger she just met in a house she’s never seen before. It was a lonely night. Mama’s first birthday since she passed. I wasn’t used to that much alcohol. What I really wasn’t used to was that much pain.
I toss the phone down hard to the work table, wishing it wasn’t encased in the tough Otter Box. Wishing it would shatter.
“Enough of this,” I mutter only to Mama’s Ball jars.
I inspect the elements I’ve assembled to make her soap and realize I’m missing cinnamon. Mama kept some on one of these shelves to add to the essential oils. I’m pushing jars and bottles around when the wind chimes tinkle, disturbed by someone or by the wind, I’m not sure, but I assume it’s Aunt Ruthie since no one else ever comes out here.
“Back already?” I ask without turning around. “That was quick.”
The silence at my back prompts me to check.
It’s not Aunt Ruthie. It’s a man. Handsome, older, but just beyond his prime. Dark hair silvered in places. The years have sketched new lines around his mouth and a few dips in the skin over his brow, but if he’s had hard times, he’s not wearing them on his face. And that’s just not fair since he caused the hardest times in my Mama’s life.
He doesn’t smile, and it’s obvious he’s not expecting one from me. He would never get one from me. His name stirs on my tongue, but I can’t bring myself to say it. It’s locked behind my teeth. The room tilts a little, and I wonder if I might pass out. I wonder if he is a figment of my imagination who will fade as soon as I say the name. I don’t know if I force myself to say it because I want him to fade away, or to stay, but before I can think better of it, his name is in the air.
“Daddy?”