"I discovered a discrepancy in one of my father's accounts. Small amounts siphoned off to an account that I don't have access to. In excess of a hundred thousand dollars, and yesterday I learned that money was filtered to Sofia."
I don't ask him how he knows all of this if he doesn't have access to the account. I do not doubt that Damien Stark has access to pretty much any information that he's willing to pay for. "Why would your father send Sofia that much money?"
"Payment for her testimony," he says. "He wanted her to testify about the abuse--same reason you wanted me to testify. But he didn't know about the photos. She must have found them in Richter's things. She took those, sent them to the court, waited around just long enough to make sure it worked, and then used the money to skip out of Europe."
"How do you know all of this?"
"After I learned about the skimmed money, I had another talk with dear old dad. He told me."
"And you believe him?"
"I do."
I nod slowly, trying to process all of this. "Does he know where she is now?"
"He says no, and before you ask, I believe him about that, too. Sofia was never fond of my father. I can see her taking his money. I can't see her staying in touch."
"All right," I say slowly. "I understand that you're still worried about her, but this means that you can stop worrying that the pictures will turn up in the tabloids. Sofia won't release them, right?"
"No," he says with more intensity than I would expect. "I'm certain that she won't ever let anyone get their hands on those images."
"So this is good news," I say. "You'll find her eventually--doesn't she always show up?"
"She does, and I may have a lead on her already. I tracked down David and his band. They just arrived in Chicago from Shanghai. I spoke to David on the phone. He tells me he hasn't seen Sofia, but I don't believe him. I think a face-to-face conference might help jog his memory."
"When are you leaving?"
"Tomorrow morning," he says.
He has stopped pacing, and I go to him, then take his hands in mine. "How long will you be gone?"
"If I'm lucky? I'll be back by dinner."
"And if you're not lucky?"
"Let's hope I am."
Chapter Twenty-One
Since Jamie wants to grab some things from our condo, she rides in with Edward and me. The plan is to drop me by my office, then swing Jamie by the condo. Then Edward will take her back to Malibu before returning to Sherman Oaks to wait for me. While he's gone, I promise to stay inside my office, safe behind the protection of the building's efficient receptionist.
Cumbersome, yes, but since we still don't know who has been sending the stalker-like messages, Damien insisted I keep the security guys, and I agreed. Still, I'm so ready for this to be over that I think if Damien suggested we go live in Antarctica for a year, I would jump all over that plan.
We pop into Starbucks on the way, mostly to get coffee, but also because I want to introduce Jamie to Monica. She's not there, however, and so we take our lattes and head to my office. I give Jamie the grand tour, which takes about twelve seconds, and then soak up her effusive hugs and cries of "I'm so proud of you!"
"If Damien's not back from Chicago by tonight, do you want to rent a movie?" I ask as she's about to head out.
"Sure," she says. "And if he is back?"
I grin wickedly. "In that case, I have other plans."
I settle behind my desk as Jamie rolls her eyes and leaves. It takes me about ten minutes to go through my emails and handle a bunch of administrative crap. I finish tweaking the code on one of my entertainment apps, then push the update through. Then I pull out the web-based app that I've been working on. A cross-platform, multi-user note-taking system that Damien has already told me he'll license for Stark International once I'm out of beta testing.
First, I have to finish coding the damn thing and actually get it into beta testing.
I'm so lost in concentration that I jump when the intercom beeps. "Yes?" I snap.
"There's a Monica Karts here to see you."
"Oh." I'm actually a bit irritated by the interruption. I've never seen Monica outside of the coffee shop, and it seems a little odd that she's come unannounced. At the same time, I don't know that many people here yet, and I do like her. And since Damien is out of town, I can always work late and make up for lost time. "Tell her to come on back."
"I love it!" she says as she bursts through the door. "Your own office. That's so cool."
"What's going on? Is everything okay?"
"Oh, man. I don't mean to just barge in like you've got nothing better to do. Honest. But I got these head shots and I didn't see you at Starbucks this morning, and I really wanted to show you today. Is that okay?"
I can't help my smile. Her enthusiasm is effusive. "Of course."
She plunks herself in the chair opposite my desk, then passes me the envelope. "Go ahead. Take a peek."
I frown, because her voice sounds different. What I'd thought was a Northeastern prep school lilt now has much more of a British quality to it.
My thoughts about her voice, however, disappear entirely when I pull out the first photo. It is not a head shot, and as I hold it between two fingers, my body turns to ice and I have to stifle the urge to throw up.
"Gorgeous, isn't he? But I suppose you know that. Go on, then. Pull them all out."
My hands are shaking, and I realize I'm still holding the envelope and the photo. I flinch, then drop them as quickly as if they had burned me.
The picture falls image-side up, and though I try not to look, there is no erasing from my mind what I have already seen. Damien. Maybe eleven or twelve. And a girl, her face hidden, who I am guessing is younger. There is more, but I don't want to think of it. It is bad enough to have the image of these children in my head, their bodies joined in some perversion of an adult act. I do not want to think of the other things I saw in the bed with them. Toys and leather and gadgets that no child needs to know exists, much less have experience using.
And I don't want to think about the mirror that hung in place of a headboard, reflecting back the image of the man behind the camera--an adult man, naked and with a hard-on, one hand on his penis and the other holding the camera. Richter.
"I said pull them all out." Her voice is cold and seems to come from a very long way away. Somehow, I realize I am in shock. But I don't know what to do about that.
When I don't move, she reaches for the envelope and dumps at least twelve photos out onto my desk. "There's a tape, too. But we won't worry about that now."
I try not to look, but I can't help but see that these photos are more of the same, though each one seems more depraved than the one before.
She leans across the desk and taps the pile of images. "He's mine," she says. "He has always been mine."
"Yours," I repeat stupidly as I fight my way out of the fog. "You're Sofia."
She leans back in her chair and nods approval. "Very good."
"And this is you in these photos?"
She nods.
Everything seems to be happening in slow motion. I am hyperaware of the air, of my breathing. Of every tiny movement and every small sound. It is all deafening and foreign and I want out of this nightmare.
Damien said he never wanted me to see these, and though my heart breaks for the boy he was and the childhood that was stolen, I cannot help but agree. I do not want these images in my office, much less in my head. "Why are you showing me these?" I demand.
"Because you need to understand that he's mine. You don't exist to him at all. Not really. He sacrificed for me. He killed for me."
I stare at her, confused. "Killed for you?"
She blinks her huge brown eyes. "My father," she says evenly. "Damien killed him to protect me. Ask him if you don't believe me. That's not something you walk away from, Nikki. You're smart. You should know that."
"How did you get the first note to me? The one before the trial with the Los Angeles postmark?"
Her smile starts slow, but grows wide. "See? I knew you were smart. I have friends all over the world. I sent something. Asked them to drop it in a mailbox. Easy."
"That spiel you made about Jamie and The Rooftop bar. Was it true?"
"Other than that I'm one hell of an actress? No. You learn to be patient in the kind of places I've lived. I wait and I watch and I plan." And then, in a what seems like a total shift, she blurts out, "He told me about you, you know."
I just sit, watching her, trying to think. Trying to figure out how to get out of here before the fuse that has been burning down on this girl reaches the end, and we both get hurt in the explosion.
"Oh, yes he did," she says without missing a beat. "He came to see me not long ago. All the way to London. He told me he met someone who got through the pain. Who cut and who battled it back. He didn't tell me he was fucking her or that it was you, but it wasn't hard to figure out."
My mind is moving too slowly. There must be a way out of this, I think, but it's as if the answer is hidden by some dark, impenetrable mist.
She picks at a hangnail, her mouth turned down into a frown. "I'd already seen you in the tabloids by then, of course, and I was so pissed at him. Another girl in his bed, I'd thought. Another girl, but the one he really wanted was me. Then he told me about the cutting, and that's when I realized the truth. This time he had a reason for fucking some woman." She looks straight at me, her eyes bright. "He was holding you up as an example for me. He thinks I'm all scarred because of what my daddy did, but he's wrong. I know how to turn it around." She shrugs. "But that's all you are to him, you know. Just a stone on the path of my journey. An object lesson for me to follow so that I can get my shit together and be with him. He loves me. He has always loved me. And I was there first. So now you need to move out of the way."
Move? Her words throw me, and I realize with a start that she isn't here to hurt me. No, she's playing a much different game.
"You want me to break up with Damien." I say the words levelly, but inside I'm cheering. I can work with that. I can pretend to agree. I can get out of here. Away from her and to Stark Tower. He'll be back from Chicago soon, and he'll know what to do. How to handle her.
"No," she says. "You want to break up with Damien. Because you know that if you don't, what I'll release to the press will destroy him. And isn't that what love is all about, Nikki? Isn't it about protecting the ones you love? Just like the way Damien protected me from my father."
The cold that had begun to recede presses against me again. "You wouldn't release those photos."
She shrugs. "Why not? It's not like anyone can tell it's me. Only Damien is identifiable."
"Why not?" I repeat. "Because you're sitting here telling me you love him. But that would absolutely destroy him."
She shakes her head. "You're destroying him. You're keeping him from me. If you don't let go, I don't have a choice. How can you not see that?"
She takes a deep breath, then says brightly, "Well, I guess that about wraps things up here." She stands, then nods at the desk and the photos scattered across it. "You can keep those. Like a souvenir. And, oh, I forgot about this." She reaches into her bag and pulls out a small leather case. "I get that this situation is hard on you, I really do. So I thought this might help." She puts the case on the corner of my desk, then hikes the purse back up on her shoulder. "And don't even think about calling your security guy. Those friends I mentioned? I told them to release the photos to the press if I didn't show up or if I got arrested or any silly shit like that." Once again, she flashes that smile. "Nothing personal. I just like to be thorough."
And then she's sweeping out the door, leaving me frozen behind my office desk staring down at an array of photographs that have the power to destroy the man that I love.
I am frozen, I think. That's why I can't move. Why I am so cold, so goddamn cold.
But I don't want to move. I want to sit here forever. I don't want to see the world outside my office door. It is destroyed. A wasteland. Harsh and desolate.
How could it be anything else now that the bubble has finally shattered and the nightmares have swooped in?
I do not want to see, and yet I cannot help but glance down at the photo on top of the pile. Damien. His beautiful face distorted by a grimace that could either be pain or pleasure. The girl, legs wide, head back, back arched in a mockery of passion. She is unidentifiable, but I do not doubt that she is Sofia.
He's mine. He killed for me. He's mine.
With a violence that surprises me, I lurch to my feet, at the same time sweeping my arm out wide, sending the photos, the papers, the pens on the desk flying across the room. All that remains is the small case in the corner, the leather gleaming in the rays of afternoon light seeping in from the window. Reflections from passing cars make the light shimmer so that it blinks out a pattern on the innocuous case. I stare, mesmerized, as if those flashes of light are a message. As if they are calling me, urging me close, trying to lock me inside this new hell into which I have tumbled.
I hear a strange noise as I snatch the case, then realize it is my own whimper. Part of me doesn't want to know, but the other part is too curious to be contained. I unzip it--then stare in horror at the gleaming set of antique scalpels.
A wave of thankfulness so potent that it almost knocks me over sweeps over me. Yes, I think. Thank God, yes.
But then sanity returns and I back away as if in horror. Only when I reach the wall, do I realize that the case is still in my hand.
Do it.
I tighten my grip and stare down at the blades.
I need to do this. I need it.
Slowly, as if sleepwalking, I return to my chair. I sit. I spread my legs. I yank up my skirt.
And then I press the tip of one shining, beautiful blade to my thigh. Immediately, I draw in a sharp thread of air as a bead of blood oozes from beneath the point of the blade. I shiver, mesmerized. I had not yet meant to cut, but the blade is so sharp, so perfect, that just that simple contact was enough to draw blood. And what now? A quick flick of my wrist? A slow, deliberate cut? Both are so sweetly tempting. Both would ease the maelstrom of ice and fear burning inside me.
Do it.
Do it, do it, do it.
I press down harder, feel the sting of cold steel against warm flesh. I moan from the ecstasy--and then I hurl the scalpel across the room, my cry of "No" echoing in the small space. The scalpel slams against the far wall, then drops to the floor with an unsatisfying metallic ping. I snatch up the case and hurl it, too, then leap to my feet and kick the chair, rip out a drawer, and slam my fist into the wall. I want to destroy this place, me, everything. I want to get lost in chaos.
I want the pain.
I want a way out.
I want Damien. Oh, dear God, I want Damien.
And then I collapse onto the floor, curl up in a ball, and cry.
Because Edward is not back from Malibu when I emerge from my office, I call a taxi, then step out into the bright sunshine, surprised to find that the earth is still rotating and that people are still going about their daily lives. Don't they understand that the wheels have stopped turning?
I feel as though I am sleepwalking, and when I arrive at Stark Tower, I come in through the street level doors and move in a haze through the ornate lobby toward the security desk. I drift past the guards, and hear Joe call after me, "Ms. Fairchild, are you okay? You look a little under the weather."
I am very under the weather, but I don't bother stopping to tell that to Joe.
I have my own card key now, and I use it to call Damien's private elevator. I ride up with no plan other than crawling into Damien's bed and going to sleep until he returns from Chicago. I want to feel close to him for just a little longer. To breathe in the scent of him.
I want to make a memory of him, because I am about to sacrifice him in order to save him.
I have spent the last few hours thinking this through, and I see no other way. I can
't tell him about Sofia's threat. If I do, he might let her go through with it. Might actually let her release those photos thinking somehow that he is protecting me. But I was in Germany with him, and I watched him break. And now that I've seen the photos myself, I am even more certain that those pictures plastered across the tabloids would destroy him. And every time he looked at me, he would see the reason for that intrusion into his life. Even if he could dig himself out of the inevitable hole, it would become a wedge between us. And I would rather walk away now than see our relationship shatter under the weight of something as vile as those photos.
I could go to the police, but how would that help? Then there would be more people aware of the photos and more risk that they are made public.
Even if I could tell him, so what? Could he convince Sofia not to release the photos? Maybe. But then he would live with that threat hanging over him for the rest of his life, and I do not want that for him or for us.
And would he even try to convince her? Or would he simply take control, doing whatever he had to in order to eliminate a threat? If what Sofia says is true, he killed Richter to protect her. Would he eliminate Sofia in order to protect himself? Me? Our relationship?
I honestly don't know. And, frankly, that scares me, too.
So I will do what I must. I will end it. And then, somehow, I will try to survive.
The elevator glides to a stop and I quickly wipe away the tears that have spilled, just in case one of the staff is in the apartment. The doors open and I enter. I drop my purse on the bench that surrounds the floral arrangement, then move on through to the living room.
I stop short the moment I enter the room. Damien is sitting on the floor carefully lifting a frame from a reinforced shipping box. "Well, hello," he says with a wide, welcoming grin. "Apparently I'm getting two presents today."
I suck in air, recognizing the image from just the tiniest corner that is peeking out. It is the black-and-white photograph of the mountains at sunset, and I watch, frozen, as he pulls it out, gazes approvingly at it, and then reads the inscription on the back, neatly printed above the artist's signature: To Damien, the sun will never set on our love. Yours always, Nikki.
I have to fight not to burst into tears.
"It's beautiful," he says to me. He rests it against the back of the couch and comes to me, his forehead creased. "Is something wrong?"