I Have a Secret (A Sloane Monroe Novel, Book Three) (11 page)

The view from my new hotel room offered a significant upgrade from my previous three-and-a-half star digs.  The landscape outside was breathtaking.  I paused a moment and took it in.  Fall had always been my favorite time of year.  Leaves shook with confidence inviting the world to view their magnificent color-changing act.  It was their last hurrah before they expired, fluttered to the ground and were swept away and crushed by a cold, unforgiving wind.  I watched one such leaf detach from a branch and get whisked away until I couldn’t see it any longer.  It reminded me of my own life and how I’d drifted away, abandoning my roots.  I’d never even stopped and looked back.  Until now.

Giovanni caressed my shoulders from behind.  “You’re freezing,” he said.  “I’ll make you something hot to warm you up.”

I spun around.  “You didn’t need to come out here, you know.  I mean, I’m glad you did.  But if you’re worried about me, I’m fine, no matter what Maddie says.”

He glanced out the window. “This town—it’s where you grew up?”

I nodded. 

 “When was the last time you were here?”

 “Several years, but even then, I was only here for the day.  Once I graduated high school, I left this place and never had the urge to come back.”

“And how do you feel now that you’ve returned?”

I sighed.  “Have you ever felt everyone around you was keeping a secret or multiple secrets and you were the only one who wasn’t in on it?”

The look on his face indicated he didn’t understand where I was coming from.  “No one has ever been any good at keeping secrets from me.”

I was afraid to ask why or what measures he took to convince people to reveal the most private parts of their lives. 

“There’s something going on around here,” I said.  “Something big.  I just need to figure out what.”

He tapped my nose with his finger.  “You will, I’m sure of it.”

I shook my head.  “You have so much confidence in me.”

“And yet I know so little about your life before I came to be a part of it.”

I felt the same way about him.  Both of us wanted to be honest and open with each other, but when it came to a life confessional, we both held back.  

He continued.  “We’re here, in the town where you spent your childhood, and yet, in the time I’ve known you, you’ve never talked about this place.  I’m a patient man, Sloane.  I’ve never pushed or asked anything from you I didn’t think you were ready to give.  But I want to know everything about you.  Don’t be afraid to let me in.”

No one had ever managed that level of closeness with me, and I wondered if he’d agree to the same.  I’d always been good at giving small pieces of my life as long as I didn’t have to release every little facet.  I’d offer up a snack here and there, but never a full-course meal.  Standing in front of me was the first guy to ever make me burn with the desire to break free from the shackled locks I’d placed on myself.  I didn’t want to live like that anymore—it wasn’t fair.  Not to me, not to him.   

I brushed by Giovanni, grabbed my bag and shot him a wink.  “Let’s go for a drive.”

I wound Giovanni’s rented Ferrari 599 GTB through the various back roads of Bear Valley Springs until I came to the sign I was looking for: Black Forest Drive.  It amazed me how I could be away for so long but still cruise the streets without the need to jog my memory.  The scenery had changed, but it was like no time had passed at all.

At the end of the cul-de-sac was a cement driveway leading to a two-story home tucked between a myriad of pine trees that surrounded the house on all sides.  The stone exterior was in disrepair, but intact.  Not a single piece of rock had dislodged.    

I parked the car, got out and turned to Giovanni.  “This is where I grew up.”

“It’s…”

“Small and rundown, I know.”

He smiled.  “I was going to say charming.”

I turned away from him and stared back at the house.  It was vacant and had been for some time, but looking through the framed window in front was like a doorway into the past. 

Two people stood in the center of the living room, arguing—a man and a woman.  The man yelled, no, screamed something at the woman.  “What did you say to me?” he said.  And then he raised his hand.  She knew what it meant and tried to back away.  But she wasn’t fast enough.  His hand flew through the air, the backside catching the woman’s cheek.  She yelped in pain.  Her hand rushed to the inflamed area, and she rubbed it up and down until the man snatched it away.  “Don’t be a sissy, take what’s coming to you,” he shouted, and he hit her again—this time, harder. 

A soft voice from the back of the house squeaked out, “No!”  The man squinted and glared down the hallway, but saw nothing.  He could have let it go, pretended he didn’t hear it, but he wasn’t in the business of learning lessons—he was in the business of teaching them.  He whipped his belt through the loops of his pants, folded it in half and snapped it for dramatic effect.  The sound echoed through the house.  The woman screamed, “Don’t touch them!  Don’t hurt my babies!”  The man answered by striking her on the back with the belt.  She crumbled to the floor, and in a last ditch effort to stop him, she reached out, grabbing his ankle with her hand.  He shrugged it off, smashed his boot into it and then stepped over her and proceeded down the hallway. 

I wanted to shout out to the little girl: Run and hide Gabby, run and hide, hurry!  But, she stood there, frozen, like her feet were welded to the floor.  When the man reached her he cracked the belt over her head like he was whipping a horse.  Tears streamed down her cheeks and she held her hand out as a shield to protect her.  “No, Daddy! Stop!”  He looked at her, his face filled with rage.  “You want me to stop?  You’re telling me what to do now—is that it?  You girls are all the same, just like your bitch of a mother.”  And then he brought the belt down on her again.   

Out of the shadows another girl appeared, a wooden baseball bat gripped in her tiny hand.  The man was taller than she was by at least two feet, but he was too busy stooped over the other girl to feel the thick weight of the wood when it embraced the back of his head.  The man went down, and the girl with the bat dropped it on the ground and reached her hand out to her sister.  “Come with me, Gabby.  I’ll protect you.”  The two girls ran hand-in-hand through the living room until they reached their mother.  She shooed them out the door with her hand.  “Sloane,” the woman said, “get your sister out of here—go to the neighbor.  Call the police.  Hurry!”

I blinked my eyes a few times and was back in the front yard staring into the window of the house, but this time, the images in my head were gone, and the room was empty. 

“My mom said she was leaving,” I said, “and taking us with her.  But then he saw the bags on the edge of the bed.  They were packed.  Hers and ours, but not his.  It was the first time she’d ever stood up to him.”

Giovanni had a puzzled look on his face.  “Are you all right?”

I shook my head back and forth, aware of the revelation I’d given.  “Reliving an old memory from my childhood,” I said.  “It’s nothing.  I shouldn’t have come here.”

He took my hands in his.  “It’s okay to face your fears.  They make you strong.”

I shrugged.  “I hate to admit it, but being here makes me feel weaker than I have in a long time.  I don’t know what I was thinking—that maybe if I faced it after all these years I’d somehow feel empowered.  But, I don’t.  I just want to run and never stop.”

“What the lion cannot manage to do, the fox can.”

I squinted my eyes at him.  

He smiled down at me.  “German proverb.”

“I’m not sure I grasp its meaning,” I said. 

“You are stronger than you realize.”

We got back into the car, but this time, Giovanni drove. 

“I haven’t been back to my house since I was eighteen,” I said. 

“Why today?”

I leaned back into the warmth of the heated leather seat.  “Sometimes I feel like I can face my demons now because I’m older, wiser, healthier.  But the truth is, it’s probably better to stay away than to force myself to relive a nightmare I’ve tried so hard to forget.”

He smiled like he understood.  “Is that what the house represents to you?”

“I felt like I was twelve years old again.  I felt trapped and like it was up to me to save my sister and my mom from my…my monster of a father.”

“Then you don’t ever need to return to the house again.  Closure comes in many different ways.”

“Believe me,” I said, “I’d strike a match and burn the house to the ground if I could, and I’d watch until every last sliver of wood was gone forever.  It’s been vacant for years.  My mother left the house to me in her will, but I couldn’t ever bring myself to move anyone into it.  It’s like I thought they would feel the negative energy and it would ruin their lives just like it ruined mine—like a stupid house is to blame for my father’s actions.” 

“Back there you said your mother tried to leave.  What happened?”

“My grandfather happened, and my dad never saw us again.”

“Why didn’t he get you out of there sooner?”

“I wondered that for years, but when I was old enough my grandmother told me he didn’t know.  She wouldn’t say who told him, but it wasn’t my mother.  She always knew how much her father hated my dad, so she kept things from him.”

“Is he still alive—your father?”

I nodded.  “He’s in a rest home in Bakersfield.  I’d be surprised if he ever gets any visitors.”

Giovanni gripped the steering wheel a bit tighter with his hand.  “As it should be.”

“I read an article in a magazine once that I’ve never been able to forget.”

He raised a brow.  “What did it say?”

“Girls grow up to marry men just like their fathers.  And I did.”

“Would you say I’m like him?”

I pondered the possibility in my mind.  There was more than a fair to midland chance in Giovanni’s line of work that he gave the order to make someone pay, and not in cash.  But I couldn’t imagine him laying a hand on me or any woman for that matter.  I shook my head.  “No, you’re not like him at all.  But you do remind me of my grandfather.” 

The next morning Giovanni left me to tend to some business he had in L.A. for a couple days which was fine—I got more done on my own.   It was a shock he’d shown up in the first place, but a pleasant one, and I was starting to get used to his affinity for surprises. 

I turned my attention to the grey building towering over me.  Heather Masterson exited through the revolving door a little after one pm.  I was leaning up against her car, waiting. 

She jumped an inch or two when she saw me.  “What are you doing here?”   

“I came to see you.”

“About what?”

“Both Doug and Rusty were stabbed with a knife, and you work at a hospital.  Something you failed to mention when we were together before.”

She shrugged.  “It shouldn’t matter what I do—I’d never hurt Doug, and I barely knew Rusty.”

I whipped out my cell phone, found the photo I’d taken of the scalpel and shoved my phone in front of her face.  “Ever seen one of these?”

She shook her head.  “I don’t use that kind.  Mine are disposable.  Why all the questions?”

“Why’d you go to AA if you weren’t really a drunk?”

She scrutinized the parking lot, looking in all directions and then lowered her voice to a whisper.  “You can’t say things like that out here—at my workplace.”

“What—Alcoholics Anonymous?”  I said with a raised voice.  “Why?  You’re not an alcoholic, so it shouldn’t offend you.”

She tapped her white plastic Crocs shoe on the ground.  “Who is filling your head with all these lies?”

“You told me you became Doug’s sponsor because he asked you.”

“I wasn’t lying—he did.”

“I’m curious,” I said, “did he ask you because you pretended to be someone you’re not?  And while we’re on the subject of questions, here’s another one.  How many lies did you have to tell Doug before he was weak enough to hop in bed with you?”

 Her face flushed, first a reddish color and then a pale white.  She darted over to the passenger door of her car and got in.  I opened the driver’s side and sat down.