She thought of the loneliness of the past six years; of the countless times she had watched Siena from the shadows, longing with every atom of her being to reach out to her, but never quite finding the courage.
She thought of Pete, of how much she loved him, but also of how futile the sacrifices she had made for him had been. She had lost those years with Siena for his sake, but he remained as paranoid, frightened, and embittered against the world as ever he had been. What had it all been for?
And she thought, for a moment, of old Duke McMahon, and how much he had to answer for.
It seemed to Claire that Duke’s ambition, his ruthlessness, and his casual cruelty had been passed down through the generations of his family like some inescapable genetic disease. Even his love, the very great love he’d had for Siena, had somehow turned into something toxic. And Claire’s own love, for both her husband and her child, had been utterly powerless against it.
She would never forgive herself for those terrible, wasted years.
For better or worse, they ended today.
Slowly, she turned the doorknob, and walked into the room.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
Inside Siena’s room it was very, very dark. There was no natural light at all, only a faint, reddish glow from what looked like a child’s night-light plugged into the far wall.
Claire could make out her daughter’s sleeping figure but little else. It was only when she moved over to the bed that she saw the whole upper portion of Siena’s face was covered with bandages, leaving only her mouth and chin visible. Her lower lip was split and swollen. She had quite obviously been beaten.
“Oh my God,” she cried out, forgetting all her planned restraint and smothering her child in kisses. “What has he done to you? Oh Siena, Siena, darling, I am so sorry.”
At first Siena thought her mother’s voice was part of a dream.
Max no longer haunted her subconscious, but images of both her parents and of Grandpa Duke had begun invading her sleep more and more frequently since the attack. This time the dream was so vivid, she could actually smell her mother and feel her cool hands stroking the bare skin on her arms and shoulders. She couldn’t bear to wake up.
“Angel, can you hear me? Siena, it’s Mommy. Can you hear me, darling? Try to wake up. I’m here, Siena. I’m here.”
As she floated up into consciousness, the voice seemed to become louder and more real. But she hardly dared hope it might be true. When she spoke, her voice emerged as a hoarse, tremulous whisper. “Mom?”
Claire responded with more kisses, allowing Siena to feel her skin and the brush of her hair, and entwining her fingers in her daughter’s. Even her hand, she saw in the darkness, looked swollen and bruised.
“Please don’t leave me.” Siena was barely audible, but her words cut through Claire like a knife.
“I won’t, my angel,” she promised. “Never, never again.”
As she spoke, she felt Siena’s grip on her hand relax, and watched her tumble back into unconsciousness. A terrible panic flooded her senses. “Siena! Siena!” she shouted, shaking her by the shoulders. Why wouldn’t she wake up?
“Oh, you mustn’t worry about her, Annie.”
Claire spun around to find Melissa standing in the doorway. She wondered how long she’d been there, but her relaxed tone and manner soon convinced her that the nurse could not have overheard anything important.
“That’s what she’s like with the drugs,” said Melissa. “Talking one minute, spark out the next. I doubt she’ll wake again till suppertime now.”
With Siena in a semi-comatose state, Claire was able to settle into her room for a few hours and try to figure out what to do next.
Her biggest immediate problem was that she didn’t know how much time she would have until her cover was blown.
Thanks to her PI’s meticulous briefing, she’d been able to plan her arrival in Nantucket to coincide with Randall’s trip to the Far East. She also knew that Randall had asked Melissa to notify him of any significant changes in Siena’s condition, but otherwise he was not intending to call and would not arrive in Nantucket himself for almost three weeks.
Dr. Sanford was another story, though. Posing as Randall’s new PA, one of Bill’s team had informed the doctor that Randall had sent a second nurse down to support Melissa, and had faxed him Claire’s forged documentation.
Bill seemed convinced that the doctor had swallowed the story and that he was unlikely to contact Randall unless something really did go wrong with Siena. But Claire remained nervous. One conversation between the two men would blow her cover for sure.
Then there was Pete, who was bound to figure out that something was up sooner or later, probably sooner, and would no doubt storm in, all guns blazing, and undo all her carefully planned work.
She needed to get Siena out of there, to bring her home. But that would take time. Time for her to win back her daughter’s trust, and time for Siena to recuperate sufficiently for her to be moved. Right now she had no idea if she was looking at three weeks or three hours until she was found out. The pressure was immense.
Once she’d unpacked her things into the simple Shaker chest of drawers, she sat down on the bed, a heavy Victorian mahogany affair covered with a white hand-embroidered quilt, and called Pete from her cell phone.
He asked after her old school friend and trotted out a few perfunctory questions about her trip, but generally he seemed distracted by work, which for once Claire was grateful for. With that particular threat neutralized—for the time being, at least—she changed into a pair of white flannel pants and a black sweater and went downstairs to find Melissa.
“I hope it doesn’t matter that I’m not in uniform,” she said, finding the nurse peeling three large baking potatoes in the kitchen. “Mr. Stein never mentioned anything.”
“No one’s going to see you, are they?” observed Melissa kindly. “I don’t know why I bother with mine, really. Force of habit, I suppose. And I like to take it off at night. Gives me the feeling that I’ve finished work for the day. Even though I haven’t! If you know what I mean.”
Lord, did the woman ever stop talking? Still, Claire saw an opportunity in this particular line of conversation and decided to take it.
“Well, at least you can have a night off tonight,” she said brightly. “I’m more than happy to stay up with Siena, feed her, everything. It’ll give me the chance to get to know her a bit. We can sort out our shifts properly in the morning, but you look like you could use a night off.”
Melissa didn’t need asking twice. By seven o’clock she was dressed and ready for a night out in the main town on the other side of the island.
“Now, you’re sure you can cope on your own, Annie?” she asked as she bustled out the door.
“Of course,” said Claire. “That’s what I’m here for.”
Melissa left, and this time Claire bolted the door behind her.
She didn’t want to be interrupted a second time. She and Siena had a lot to talk about.
To her amazement, Siena was already awake and sitting up in bed when she came in with the supper tray.
“Melissa?” she said warily. “Is that you?”
She had woken unsure whether her earlier, brief encounter with her mother had been real or a figment of her morphine-fueled imagination, and she didn’t want to say anything about it to the nurse in either case.
“No,” said Claire softly. “Melissa’s gone out for the night, darling. It’s me. It’s Mom.” She put down the tray of food and took Siena’s hand again, allowing her daughter to touch and stroke her, to prove to herself for good that this was no ghost.
“It is you,” Siena said at last, and the joy in her voice dispelled Claire’s last fears about being rejected. “Oh my God. It really is you.”
By the time the two women had finished laughing and crying and holding each other, the food had long gone cold.
It was hard to know where to begin talking about all the years they?
??d lost. Every time Siena made an effort to start, Claire would be so overwhelmed with guilt and grief that she drowned her out with a torrent of apologies, and the tears began all over again. In the end, they agreed to postpone these longer conversations and to focus on what to do in the current situation, before Melissa came back and disturbed them.
Siena was able to give her mother a sketchy outline about Randall and what had happened to her. She also told her that it was not yet clear whether she would regain full or only partial sight.
“That’s it then,” Claire announced firmly, once she’d heard the whole sordid tale. “We have to get you away from here. Right now. Tonight. The man’s a maniac. Can you walk, darling? If I help you?”
Wearily, Siena raised a hand for her mother to stop. “It’s not that simple,” she said. “I can’t just leave.”
And she explained, in slightly blurry detail, Randall’s threats to destroy her career and reputation, as well as his control of her depleted finances.
“Besides, it’s not just that,” Siena finished, as Claire sat reeling from everything she’d just been told. “What would we be going home to? I take it Dad doesn’t know you’re here?”
“No,” Claire admitted. “He doesn’t. But Siena, I know your father’s always loved you. Deep down, darling, he has. If he knew, if he had any idea what this man Stein has put you through . . .”
“He’d what?” asked Siena. But there was less hostility in her voice than there might have been once. On some level, she had come to terms with her relationship with her father, what it was and what it never could be. As overjoyed as she was to see her mother again, she knew it was far too late to talk about building bridges with Pete. “Be honest, Mom. Dad probably would have done this himself years ago if he’d thought he could have gotten away with it. He’d have crippled Hunter, too, if he’d had the chance.”
“Siena!” said Claire, shocked. She wasn’t ready to admit, even to herself, that her daughter might be right. But she couldn’t help remembering Pete’s comment about Hunter after Siena’s accident: how he wished his brother had been crushed in the wreckage of his SUV. The thought made her shiver.
“He’s going to make you make a choice, Mom, just like he did before,” said Siena. “Me or him. And if you choose me, then we’ll both be in the same boat—homeless, penniless, and screwed. Oh God, my head.” She fell back hard against the pillow. For a moment Claire thought she’d fainted, but then she spoke again, holding her hand to her shattered left temple. “Mom, does that bag on my drip need changing? Jesus Christ, it hurts.”
Claire, who had nursed her own mother through terminal cancer and knew a thing or two about pain relief, got swiftly to work. It was comforting to think that the medical training she had abandoned to marry Pete had not gone entirely to waste. Soon Siena was resting more comfortably, conscious but patently exhausted.
They agreed to leave the difficult subjects of Pete and Randall until she was feeling stronger. In the meantime, Claire explained how she had tracked her down to Nantucket, and briefed a drowsy Siena on her cover story.
“So it was you who hired that snoop guy?” Siena said incredulously when she had finished. “Big Al told me he’d seen some black dude hanging around the set trying to get pictures. I thought it was just a super-persistent fan. He came out to Malibu too?”
Claire nodded. “He’s a good man, Bill. And an excellent PI.”
“And you managed to keep it all a secret?” said Siena. “Wow, Mom. I wouldn’t have thought you had it in you.”
“Neither would I, once,” said Claire. “But it’s amazing what resources and what strengths we have, once we get up the courage to use them.”
Siena reached out in the darkness and clasped her hands around her mother’s neck, pulling her closer. “Mom?” she whispered. “What if I can’t see?”
Claire could hear the abject terror in her voice. At that moment she felt she could have strangled Randall Stein with her bare hands.
“You will see,” she told her daughter firmly. “Pretty soon, my darling, you’re going to see everything much more clearly. And then everything will be all right. Just you wait.”
The gods, it seemed, had decided to smile on Claire.
For the next two weeks, her cover story remained intact, and she was able to nurse Siena back to health and strength with ever decreasing interruptions from Melissa, who seemed more than happy to let her new colleague take on the lion’s share of the work. Claire had almost started to believe that she was Nurse Annie, so easy had it been for her to take on that persona and leave behind the troubles of her life and marriage in Hollywood.
She felt such intense love and pride, watching Siena fighting her way to recovery. When she changed her daughter’s dressings, she could see that her face, although heavily scarred around the eyes and left cheek, was improving visibly by the day. She was starting to look like a battered but recognizable version of her old self.
And it wasn’t just her bruises that were healing. Something had changed in Siena since the attack, something quite profound.
Whether it was finding her mother again, losing her money and fame, or the prospect of losing not only her looks but perhaps her sight as well, she had discovered a humility, and with it a bizarre feeling of contentment and calm, that was quite new to her.
For the first time in her life, other things seemed more important than the pursuit of fame and wealth, or even the love of a man. Other people seemed more important than herself.
The future was still a frightening, confusing blur. She couldn’t picture life beyond her recuperation, and had no idea how or when she was going to make her escape from Randall.
Yet with others, the path seemed clearer.
Hunter, for example, was always on her mind, and she talked about him constantly to Claire.
“The way I behaved, not just to Hunter but to Tiffany as well,” she told her mother through tears of regret, as Claire pushed her in a wheelchair through the rows of sweet peas in the secluded garden. “I was so horrible and spoiled and selfish. He’ll never forgive me. And I love him so much, Mom.”
Claire tried to comfort her and assure her that in time, Hunter probably would forgive her. “And so will everybody else who loves you.”
“Ha!” Siena laughed bitterly, snapping the head off a flower and smelling it. She found her sense of smell had become particularly acute since she’d been unable to use her eyes. “I don’t think that’s a very long list anymore, do you? I’ve totally lost touch with all my old friends from England and New York. Ines isn’t speaking to me.”
“Only because you haven’t been speaking to her,” said Claire gently.
“And then there’s Max.” Siena went on with her self-flagellation, unable or unwilling to accept her mother’s comfort. “I was so awful to him, Mom, when he showed up in Malibu that Christmas. I was just so hurt and confused and I felt I couldn’t forgive him. But I wanted to. I really did.” She was begging Claire to believe her.
“I’m sure you did, sweetheart,” she said. “I understand.”
“But by then, well, it was complicated. There was Randall, and the film, and . . .” She threw the flower head down on the ground in despair. “I couldn’t just go back.”
God, sometimes she was so like Duke, thought Claire. Everything was always black and white, right or wrong. And heaven forbid that she should ever go back on a decision. Never look back, never apologize. That’s what Duke always used to say.
Poor child. She looked so terribly confused and hurt, with the visible, lower parts of her face all screwed up in misery and anguish. Claire longed to be able to help her, but having lived with Pete for thirty years, she understood a bit about guilt. This was something Siena would have to work through on her own.
“Try not to think about it now,” she told her time after time. “Concentrate on getting yourself well. That’s the only thing that matters.”
Claire was sitting out in the garden reading under the shad
e of the willow tree, enjoying a brief respite from nursing duties while Siena slept, when she was disturbed by the vibrating of the cell phone in her pocket.
The screen read HOME.
It was Pete.
She glanced nervously around to check that Melissa was nowhere in sight before answering the call.
“Darling!” she said. “How are you?”
There was a pause on the end of the line.
“Mrs. McMahon?” said a familiar female voice. “Claire? It’s not Pete, it’s me. Tara.”
The PA sounded distressed. Claire felt her heartbeat quicken. Had Pete finally found out what she’d been up to? “Is something the matter, Tara?” she asked. “You sound upset. What’s wrong?”
Another pause that seemed to last for hours.
“I’m sorry, but it’s bad news,” the girl stammered. “It’s Pete.”
“What? What about him?” Claire sounded as scared as she felt. It wasn’t like Tara to spare anyone’s feelings, least of all hers. Why couldn’t she spit it out?
“He’s had a heart attack.”
It was Tara’s voice, but it somehow sounded different.
Tinny and distant.
Unreal.
“I’m sorry, but you have to come home, Claire,” she said. “Right away.”
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
It took a couple of minutes for the initial shock of Tara’s news to sink in. Then Claire began to think practically.
Her first priority was to get back home. Pete had been taken to Cedars and was apparently in intensive care. She needed to talk to his doctor and get an update on his condition. But first she had to talk to Siena.
Now that she was on the lower-dosage painkillers and didn’t need so much sleep, Siena had been moved from the little windowless room at the top of the stairs to a larger, much more cheerful guest bedroom overlooking the sweeping formal gardens and the ocean beyond. Not that she could appreciate the view of course, but she could now tell the difference between light and darkness, even through her bandages, which everyone assumed was a hopeful sign.