“What about her expression in the picture makes you say that?” I query.
He eyes the distance I’ve created. How many people would notice such a thing? “I don’t know, she always had a guarded look. Like she didn’t enjoy being who she was.”
“She loved acting, but she hated being Rufus’ possession.”
“Makes sense. When Dad asked me to draw her, I was kind of disappointed when he showed me that picture, to be honest.”
“Why?”
“I’d only seen glamorous photos—the famous ones. I thought one of those would have been cooler to sketch. Now, I’m kind of glad I got to sketch that one. Privileged. ”
I’d sat for Jonathan enough to know how tedious the process could be. But the idea of sitting for Brenden—of being the object of his attention and concentration—sends ripples of wonder through me. “How lovely that you draw. I bet you made Jonathan very proud.”
He lifts a shoulder. “That sketch was the one he really wanted, and it was the one he didn’t get. I entered it in a contest and it sold to a collector. Dad didn’t talk to me for three months.”
“That doesn’t sound like Jonathan at all.”
Brenden’s jaw knots. “Yeah, well, we’ve already established that he was different around you guys than he was around me.”
“Yes but three months?”
“He didn’t want me to sell it. I have to admit, it was cool making money on a piece. Did Grace ever mention Rufus Soloman?”
My stomach hollows. “Yes. Why?”
“He bought the sketch.”
I don’t know how long I stand without breathing. Rufus’ name used to make me retch. I’d vomit on the spot. Rufus Solomon, the man who took me from my family when I was thirteen, changed my date of birth to suit his purposes and made me immortal so he could use me forever. With concentrated effort, I’d learned to control my reaction finally getting to the point where my pulse would skip, maybe I’d sweat a little if I came across his name. This mention of him now is unpleasant, my reaction more intense than I expect.
“How did you know he bought the sketch?”
Brenden shifts feet. “Solomon was looking for Grace.”
“Yes, I knew that—she knew that.”
“Who told her, Dad?”
“Yes. Rufus always thought Jonathan had set fire to the Dollhouse that night. That the whole thing was a set up.”
“Yeah, well, the man’s still psychotic about it. The day of Dad’s funeral he asked me to meet with him.”
My heart begins a slow, panicked pound in my chest. “What for?”
“He offered to pay me to tell him if I knew anything about her—don’t worry—I didn’t tell him anything. I wouldn’t. Dad and I may not have gotten along, but I wouldn’t do that.”
The room seems to shrink. Suffocating me. My head spins. I suck in air, reach for something to hold onto to steady myself but there’s only open space. Brenden’s face tightens with concern. He steps closer, and his presence washes over me in a tidal wave of want and need.
At the same time, an old fear rises inside of me building, swarming. Rufus’ obsession with me had been legendary, but like all Hollywood legends, the rumors of his fixation faded after the fire. Still, Jonathan had remained a fixture in the motion picture industry long enough to know that Rufus’ obsession never died.
Brenden’s gaze locks on my face. “You okay?”
This doesn’t mean anything to you anymore. No one owns you.
“I didn’t say anything to him, I promise.” Brenden stutters emphatically.
I swallow. Nod. But will he say something to Rufus now? Tell him about the girl who looks just like Grace? Grace’s daughter or granddaughter he’ll say because that’s the only answer that makes sense. Then Rufus will know I’m alive. He’ll know because he made sure Grace couldn’t have children. A child would have changed her body, marring in his perfect doll.
On shaky legs, I turn and head into the darkness of the hall.
Another staged move.
An exit leading nowhere.
Chapter Sixteen
~Brenden~
The grandfather clock ticks away the minutes. Will she come back? I didn’t mean to upset her talking about Solomon. But the man is a heinous douche bag.
I gaze out the window at the falling snow. It’s pretty, but I can’t shrug off feeling marooned. Still no sound from anywhere in the house. Is it always like this? Or is it just because she’s caring for Oscar? The silence reminds me of the dense sound of nothing that surrounds the dying—like when I’d taken care of Mom.
I cross to the harp. She played like a pro. I can’t resist, so I reach out and pluck one of the strings. The note plumes, feather-light into the air. I glance toward the opening, wondering if she’ll appear.
She does, her brows are creased. Where was she? Just outside the door, listening? Waiting? The unreadable look on her face has me tucking my hands into my front pockets. “Sorry. Never touched one before. How long have you played?”
“Years.” She stays in the opening, hands clasped at her breast bone.
“Hey, I didn’t mean to upset you, bringing up Rufus Solomon.”
Her chest rises with a deep breath. She seems calmer.
“Is it true Grace was at the Santa Monica Pier on vacation with her family when Rufus discovered her?”I ask.
She steps into the room, scrubbing her arms as if trying to warm up. “Yes, it’s true. Grace and her sisters were feeding seagulls. Rufus had on his trademark white suit, black and white wing-tip shoes and black Fedora. He looked like a movie star. He was leaning against the wood railing, watching.
“He strolled over, introduced himself to Daddy—Grace’s daddy—and told him he wanted her for his next picture.” She lowers her head for a moment and tucks her arms into her chest. “Her parents were star struck. Rufus could coax and angel into hell. The next day she went to BMB Studios for an audition. He told her, ‘Grace, you’re a woman in a child’s body.’ She was thirteen.”
“That’s young.” I’m intrigued by the painful, far off look in her eyes. “Did she want to do it?”
“Yes. She was…too naive to know.” She shakes her head. “Rufus changed her birth certificate so she’d appear older.”
“Perv.”
She doesn’t respond, but a coldness flashes in her eyes.
“And her parents let her go?” I ask.
She takes another deep breath. “She never knew the details of the legal arrangements they made. Rufus didn’t tell her, and she never saw her parents again. Her family was killed two months later in a house fire.” Her eyes delve into mine as if, with each word shared between us, she’s weighing whether or not to trust.
“She was left with Rufus as her guardian.”
“What a nightmare,” I mutter.
“Acting became her escape. Whenever she was working, she was free. But he was always there at the edge of the set, waiting. People think fame is a fantasy that fulfills every dream. Her life with Rufus was a prison.” She crosses to the window.
I want to ask more questions, but her back faces me. I already feel like I’m standing on thin ice—I might say the wrong thing. Ask the wrong thing.
Time drags by. She remains standing at the window. I watch her reflection. Her eyes are huge, bottomless, and look into mine, searching, asking, wondering: who are you? Friend or foe?
How can I convince her she can trust me?
A low moan pulses out from behind a closed door down the hall. She darts from the room. I follow her, to the second door on the right. Oscar lies face down on the carpet.
She runs to his side and drops to her knees. “Call 911.”
Chapter Seventeen
I whip out my cell phone. Solomon’s name flashes—ten missed calls.
“From the house phone,” she orders.”In the kitchen. Hurry!”
I dash to the kitchen, scan the room. “Where is it?” I yell.
“On the wall next to the pantry
door.”
I yank the handset from the wall mount, dial 911, tell the operator a man has collapsed, answer a few other questions and hang up. Then I’m back, standing in the bedroom door jamb, trying to catch my breath. She holds Oscar’s upper body in her lap. His skin’s gray. Stomach churning, I cross to her, kneel down.
“They’re on their way,” I whisper.
Oscar’s eyes are open, staring at her. Breath hisses in and out of his slack mouth. Will they get here in time? With the storm, I have doubts. The frustration tarnishing her face tells me she probably feels the same way.
I’m not sure what to say. Oscar’s eyes move to me. His lips shift. Does he want to talk to me?
She rocks back and forth, stroking Oscar’s head, holding him with such ferocity I wonder if she’ll crush him. A gleam of fury lights her eyes. Oscar’s breath continues to wheeze in and out.
“Too much excitement,” she says. “You should have called for me.”
“I did.” Oscar sighs.
“I should have been listening,” she mutters. “I’m sorry.”
But she was wasting time with me. Her gaze moves to the windows, covered with shutters. “Damn it, where are they?”she hisses.
“Snow,” Oscar rasps.
I hate being a spectator at an event so private. I feel like even more of a stranger. In a distant way, I wonder if Dad would be glad that I am here for them.
Her eyes flash wide. “The gate.”
“I’ll open it.”
“The key is in the drawer beside the kitchen sink. Brass keychain. Run.”
I jump to my feet, jam to the kitchen, grab the key and am out the door, leaping off the porch and into a shroud of cold, blinding flakes. I sink into thigh-deep snow. The effort to plow through the cold embankments with my body, drains me fast.
Sirens swoon in the distance. At the gate, I knock ice off the security device and, with numbing fingers, unlock the padlock. I have to push with everything I have to press the gates wide enough so the emergency vehicles will be able to pass through.
Searing, cold breath heaves in and out of my lungs. By the time I’m on the porch, I’m chilled and my heart feels like it’s going to explode in my chest.
I shake off and stay under the awning. Coat. Wish I’d brought one. A fire truck trails an ambulance, both laboring up the drive. A police truck follows. Snow encrusts the chains wrapped around their tires.
The police vehicle pulls up behind them and all three stop, leaving their engines idling, fumes filling the air with gusty white clouds.
Paramedics hike through the snow to me. I lead them to the bedroom. I hope that Oscar’s still alive.
It’s a bustle of police, firemen, and EMTs coming and going with equipment and orders. Shreds of conversation flick into my ears:
“I think I’m all right,” Oscar says.
“He needs to be seen.” Katherine relinquishes her hold on Oscar and now stands, watching the paramedics work on him. I should offer comfort, but, friend of Dad’s or not, the moment’s awkward for me. I hope my presence is comforting.
Oscar is lifted onto the stretcher, an oxygen mask is strapped around his head. He’s covered with a blanket, and secured with straps. They carry him out of the room. The policemen stay with Katherine.
“I have to ride with him,” she insists.
The officer looks at me. “Follow us in your vehicle.”
I’m to-the-bone cold and feel out of place, but I’d do anything to make the moment better for her. I nod.
While she gets dressed, I wait in the living room with an officer.
“We’ll give you an escort,” he says.
I’ve never driven in snow, but I nod like I know what I’m doing.
That magnetic force enters the room again and all heads turn toward the opening of the hall. My breath catches. She appears wearing jeans, a soft, fuzzy white sweater and colorful scarf knotted at her neck. Her hair is pulled up on top of her head, and waves tumble from the clasp. Her gaze skitters, her hands twist.
I cross to the small closet in the hallway and grab the coat I saw her wearing earlier. I also grab one that looks like it belongs to Oscar—for me.
While the paramedics carry Oscar out of the house, she talks to the officers and one of the other EMTs. The officers and emergency technicians are at first business-like, but I witness a change as the conversation continues. Their eyes light. She doesn’t notice the sudden shift in attention and why would she with Oscar sick? I’m annoyed. These guys aren’t purely professional.
I hold out her coat and she looks at me. “Thank you,” she says, reaching for it. Does she purposely grab the jacket from the other side to avoid touching me?
We leave the house and drive in a slow train through streets so white I can’t tell where roads begin or end except for the flashing lights I trail.
Sweat drenches my damp clothes. The SUV plows through. I’m amazed and grateful somebody created four-wheel drive. My mind’s deluged with her face, scored in anxiety. I hope Oscar makes it.
My cell phone vibrates like it has off and on all night. I’m too afraid of letting go of the wheel to yank out my phone and scream at Soloman to screw off. I don’t like being hounded.
It seems like hours that we’re on caked roads. I fight slamming on the brakes as blinding snow falls toward the windshield. Finally, we pull into a medical center. Sweat drenching my skin drips down my spine, under my armpits and the back of my neck.
The ambulance pulls into the emergency area. I find a parking spot nearby and enjoy a sigh of relief. Inside the hospital is warm, and the antiseptic scent rips me back to Mom’s last days at Cedars Sinai. A lump lodges in my throat.
A few people with worried faces sit in the waiting room. I jog to the front desk. The nurse does a double take—maybe it’s my odd clothes, I don’t know.
“I’m here with Oscar—” It dawns on me I don’t know his last name. “He was just brought in.”
“Just a moment.” She stands, and exits through a doorway.
My cell phone vibrates again. Fuse lit, I snag the phone from my pocket. “Get off my back.”
“Have you reconsidered my offer?” Solomon’s black tar voice almost chokes me.
“I don’t want your money.”
Seething, I end the call. I hate the man. I can’t tell him Grace is dead, then he’d know I found her—that she really had been alive all these years. He’d never leave me alone—his questions would never stop. Or would the truth finally bury her? Grace is gone after all. Oscar and Katherine don’t deserve to have this lunatic chasing them down.
The nurse emerges from behind the closed doors. There’s a hole in my gut—maybe Katherine would rather be alone with Oscar. This moment is going to be telling. “Brenden?”
“Yes?”
“You can come back.”
Chapter Eighteen
~Grace~
Oscar’s skin is the color of the white sheets covering him. Stay with me. I have to release his frail, clammy hand. Have to step back and watch the doctors and nurses work. Their voices—I try to decipher words, afraid, yet needing to understand what they say.
“The oxygen should help,” the doctor tells me.
For how long? I nod, lips barely able to ask the question.
“He’s dehydrated, that’s why he’s so weak. We’ll put him on an IV.”
“He was just at the doctor’s today,” I say. “Why didn’t they catch this?”
“We’ll stabilize him. He’s in no immediate danger,” he offers. “However, this happens in advanced stages of prostate cancer.”
After a few more minutes of gentle work, the room empties of doctors and nurses, leaving the beeping monitor to remind me of Oscar’s mortality. His eyes are closed. Where is he? Slogging through regret that his life is coming to an end and he’s spent the whole of it by my side?
I feel a warm hand on my arm. The fiery buzz sparkling over my skin is undeniable. Brenden.
“How is he?” he wh
ispers.
My lips open but nothing comes out. Tears flood down my cheeks. I want comfort I can’t have—don’t deserve. I can’t help but feel guilty for the years Oscar’s spent with me.
Brenden’s brows crease. He wraps his arms around me. I resist, knowing what his touch will bring. But his scent is comfortingly familiar, like Jonathan’s, seeping out from blood, bone and flesh. My limbs go lax, blood hot, racing through my veins, I crumble against him. I’m fighting to control overpowering desire. After a few long seconds, Brenden’s arms tighten. “It’ll be okay.”
I’m alive inside. With the exception of Oscar and Jonathan, I haven’t touched a man in sixty years. Fireworks crash together inside of me—wants I’ve forbidden myself to have ever again. I’m frightened. This curious thrill hasn’t danced through my body in decades. I locked it away because I knew it could only bring me unhappiness and frustration.
I ease from his arms, ashamed that any feeling other than desire for comfort has emerged. Legs shaking, I cross to Oscar. With some distance, the sensations subside. Good. I’ll ignore them and they won’t surface again. But with one look, one embrace I realize it’s too late—I’ve felt him now, and he’s opened the deadbolt on that hidden vault.
He moves around the bed and leans his back against the opposite wall.
Shame on you. Shame. I can’t look at him if I’m going to put a stop to these feelings, so I turn my attention to Oscar—where it should be.
A million memories stream in my head, captured like a film reel of my life with Oscar. How we started out as employee and employer. Years of traveling, living together that took us from a working relationship through the threshold of friendship, across cracked canyons of feeling like siblings, to partnership, and finally, to the gratifying vista of treasured companions.
“Oscar told me he was Grace’s assistant,” Brenden breaks my train of thought.
“Yes.”
“He stayed by her all those years?” The lilt of amazement lines Brenden’s voice.