20

Before we left the cottage that morning, I scrubbed every inch of my body until my skin was nearly raw. Vin had been careful and not left any marks, so there couldn’t be a single sign of what happened here. Michael was particular about cleanliness, so if there was even a whiff of Vin on me, he’d notice.

Which meant we couldn’t touch again.

I came out of the bathroom half an hour later, glowing and as close to recovery as I could be. The outfit I had on was a radical departure from the white and ivory Michael previously insisted on, so I reckoned he was sending me a message.

Black on black, touch of lace. Perfect for a lying whore.

I hadn’t left the cabin in two weeks and it felt strange to step out onto the gravel drive, where the nondescript rental car was waiting. Vin handed me a narrow strip of cloth.

“Sorry, but if he’s got people watching us on the way back, he’ll know if I don’t follow his orders.”

“I don’t want you to get in trouble.”

I got into the car, buckled up, and tied on the blindfold, ready for a long drive. If I knew Michael, he would avoid routing me through an airport, where I might have the chance to disappear. While I wouldn’t run for so many reasons, he wasn’t sure of that, and so he’d reduce the risks, limit my opportunities. Bare bones, I’d need my passport and ID to flee, and I had neither.

“You don’t know how much I hate handing you back to him.”

“This is my problem, and I’ll solve it. But …” An idea came to me, another secret we could share. “We could work out a silent code to communicate right in front of him.”

“ASL would be a little obvious,” he teased.

“More like gambling signals. You adjust your tie, it means something. And if I brush back my hair as Michael’s talking, it means ‘what an asshole.’ Might be fun and it would help keep me sane.”

“You’ll need an excellent poker face, Marlena. Or this could be trouble.”

“He’ll never notice anything from me,” I promised. “Can you keep up?”

Thus challenged, Vin said, “Damn straight.”

We spent the next several hours working out a simple code, matching phrases with gestures. I had no illusions about what my life would be like. If I’d thought it was restrictive before … well, I probably couldn’t imagine how else Michael would narrow my existence.

The closer we got, the more my foreboding intensified. We stopped once, at a rest stop, where I took off my blindfold and used the bathroom. Mentally I noted that the car still had half a tank of gas, so the cottage had to be within reasonable proximity to New York.

“Are you worried?” he asked as we got back in the car.

I put the cloth back on without him asking. This was a generic road stop, nothing to distinguish it from a hundred others in America, so he’d kept his promise to my husband and not let anything slip about where we’d been hiding.

There was no point in lying. “Very. I know it will be bad, but I get queasy when I try to imagine the particulars.”

A muscle flexed in his jaw. “Times like this, I wish that bastard would fall from something high.”

I smiled slightly. “Maybe he’ll take up skydiving.”

“Never. He’s got terrible vertigo. Once we were at a party and somebody was playing a platform game on a massive TV. Durst had to leave the room. He couldn’t complete the deal in there.”

Vin let me take my blindfold off for good when we crossed into New York state. My stomach got heavier with each mile, and when we came into the city, I started shivering. By the time we pulled into the parking garage, I was a fucking wreck.

“I can’t hold you, Marlena, but you’re making me want to. Get your shit together before I crack and ruin us both.”

One breath, two, and then I climbed out of the car in my funeral attire: black slacks, loose-cut black blazer, black lace camisole beneath. Squaring my shoulders, I mustered my model walk, and that self-
confidence carried me to the small elevator foyer. Vin used his card pass to activate the direct-to-penthouse lift command.

He was in full bodyguard mode again, standing behind me by a full five paces at the back of the elevator, while I stood with arms crossed at the front. It occurred to me that I was being delivered like a fucking package, since I didn’t have house keys, didn’t have my purse or any way to provide for myself. No phone, no bank card—I might as well be a statue that Michael had bought. He might have even changed the pin on the electronic lock to make me feel more helpless, more dependent.

Vin had the passcode, at least, since he keyed it in for me and gestured. He didn’t accompany me in, though I could tell he wanted to. I shook my head slightly to relieve him of that guilt and went to meet my tormentor.

You knew it might get bad before it got better. Push onward.

Durst was waiting for me in the living room, arms locked behind him as he stared out at the panoramic cityscape like modern-day Ozymandias. “Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!” But Michael should’ve read to the end of the fucking poem, about how the monument had fallen to shit, completely wrecked and forgotten.

I will be your sands of time.

Long moments passed in silence; he didn’t turn or acknowledge me. The bastard made me speak first.

“I’m home,” I said.

“There’s a newspaper on the table.” His voice was a knife, carved from a glacier. “Pick it up. Turn to page 7.”

Rock and roller taken tragically, before his time. I skimmed the article, an obituary for Bobby Ray Hudgens, who had struggled with addictions his whole life and finally achieved success with his fourth band, Mad Misfits. The singer-songwriter made the fatal error of driving under the influence, but fortunately the accident claimed no other lives. The rest was about Bobby Ray’s accomplishments and how fans were grieving all over the world.

“I did that for you. Do you feel vindicated?”

The worst part was, I couldn’t muster up a flicker of sympathy for Bobby Ray. I’d married a monster, but the singer had been one too.

There was only one way to answer this question. “Yes. Thank you.”

If I protested or acted ungrateful, it would go worse for me. He would find it offensive and incomprehensible if I screamed that he was the devil and that I’d rather starve on the streets than spend another night in this gilded cage. I breathed. Held it in. I thought of Jenny and remembered that while she was willing to sacrifice anything, everything, for me, I couldn’t let her. Her help had to come carefully, if at all.

“Now that I’ve had a chance to calm down, I realize I may have overreacted. It’s not fair to blame you for that bastard’s trespasses. But if you’re keeping any other secrets, tell me now. I can’t guarantee my goodwill can be relied upon a second time.”

“I’m an open book,” I whispered.

Michael turned and stared at me, hard, as if trying to decide whether that was true. The liar always thinks people will deceive him. I dropped my eyes and hoped he took it for submission instead of visceral terror.

“All right then, princess.”

If he was calling me that again, maybe I’d run the gamut back to his good graces. I tried a smile and wished Vin was there instead of outside the door.

Setting his hands on my shoulders, Michael turned me toward the dining room table, piled high with cards, flowers, and gifts. “People have been worried about you. You’ll need to reassure them at the next event that you’re completely recovered.”

From the beating you ordered. Those words lodged like razor blades in my throat.

“Will and Helen Stone are very concerned, though I haven’t specified your illness. You can set their minds at ease?”

“Of course. But please don’t let that awful man fondle me.”

That was exactly what my fiend of a husband wanted to hear. “Haven’t I proved that I’ll keep my promises? Anyone touches you without my permission, and I’ll burn them to the ground.”

For a moment, maybe due to extreme fear or a trick of the light, I saw actual flames dancing in his eyes.