Someone Is Watching (10 page)

“Sorry,” I mutter, fighting the urge to gag. “I think that’s probably the last thing I want to see.”

“Honestly, Jade.” Her mother grabs the binoculars from Jade’s hand and returns them to the nightstand beside my bed. “Sometimes I really wonder about you.”

“I didn’t mean … I wasn’t thinking about …”

“That’s your problem,” Claire snaps. “You don’t think.”

“Sorry, Bailey,” Jade says.

“It’s okay.”

“I think we should probably go,” Claire says. “It’s getting late.”

“It’s not even nine o’clock.”

“You have school tomorrow.”

“So?”

Almost a week has passed since their first unexpected visit. I relax into the comforting predictability of their bickering and realize how much I’ve come to enjoy their company. Unlike Gene, whose first visit was his last, Claire has dropped over every day since then, stopping by after her shift at the hospital to check on me before heading home. Sometimes she cooks dinner and has Jade join us. Sometimes we just sit together and watch TV. Occasionally Claire tells me about her day, the argument she had with one of the doctors, the kind look she got from a stroke victim unable to speak. She doesn’t ask about my day, knowing that one is essentially the same as the next.

There is a knock on the door, followed by the ring of the doorbell.

“Who’s that?” Jade asks, looking from her mother to me, as if at least one of us has the answer.

“Isn’t the doorman supposed to call you before allowing anyone up?” Claire is already moving toward the hall.

“It must be Heath,” I tell them. “They all know him.”

“Who’s Heath?” Jade asks.

“My brother.”

I watch the branches of our twisted family tree arrange themselves behind her eyes. “Oh, yeah,” she says. “The other chosen one.”

“Jade, for God’s sake. Do I have to put a gag in your mouth?”
Claire’s face reflects both irritation and embarrassment. She closes her eyes, her cheeks glowing bright fuchsia. “I’m sorry, Bailey. That was before …”

“It’s okay,” I assure her. “I know.”

“Where’s he been all week?” Jade asks.

I shrug. Heath has always had a tendency to come and go, often disappearing for days at a time, usually into a dense, voluminous cloud of marijuana smoke. He’s never been very good in a crisis, and my rape has shaken him almost as much as it has me. I know he wrestles with the same disquieting feelings of guilt and helplessness, the same impotent rage.

Truthfully, I think he was relieved when I told him about Claire and Jade during our last phone call. Their visits have taken much of the onus off of him. He no longer has to act the part of the brave older brother, a role he was never particularly suited for. Heath is a bit like all those arrangements of flowers I received just after my rape, the ones that withered and died from a lack of fresh water and attention. He requires constant nurturing, and these days I don’t have the strength to provide it.

I climb out of bed to follow Claire and Jade to my front door. Jade has tried several times—and mercifully, failed—to jimmy open my new lock. “Hello, Heath,” I hear Claire say, ushering my brother into the foyer, the unmistakable smell of weed coating him like a second skin. It clings to his pores and seeps right through his black leather jacket and skinny jeans. Claire’s nose crinkles with recognition of the sickly sweet aroma, but she just says, “It’s nice to see you again. It’s been a long time.”

Heath pushes his bangs away from his delicately handsome face, his dark green eyes staring blankly at his older half-sister, as if trying to place her.

“You’re stoned,” Jade says, giggling as she approaches.

“And you’re Jade,” Heath says, breaking into a wide grin. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

“Really? I’ve heard nothing at all about you. At least, not from Bailey.”

Heath laughs. “You’re right,” he says to me. “She’s fabulous.”
He sloughs off his leather jacket and lets it drop to the floor. Claire moves instantly to pick it up. The navy silk shirt he’s wearing is buttoned incorrectly, so that the left side hangs down longer than the right, but he doesn’t seem to notice. He’s obviously wasted, more wasted than I’ve seen him since our mother’s death.

“Are you all right?” I whisper under my breath.

“Perfectly peachy,” he says loudly. “And you? You’re out of your pajamas, I see. I guess that means the Sisters of Mercy have been taking good care of you. Good job, ladies.”

“Why don’t we sit down?” Claire motions toward the living room.

But Heath is already on his way to my bedroom. “I think I’d rather lie down,” he says as Jade and I follow after him.

“And I think some coffee might be a good idea,” Claire says, retreating to the kitchen.

“A
grand
idea.” Heath enters my bedroom and stops dead in his tracks by the side of my bed, his eyes riveted to the TV. “What the hell is this?” A young woman in a low-cut blouse and tiny sliver of a skirt is climbing out of a helicopter when she steps too close to the still-whirling blades of the propeller. “Holy shit,” Heath whispers as a terrifying whoosh of blood splatters across the screen.

Being beheaded by a chopper,
the television announcer almost swoons.
Number 59 of 1000 Ways to Die.

“What the hell are you watching?”

Jade explains the show’s premise as Heath throws himself across my bed, bunching all the available pillows beneath his head.

“Cool,” he says, closing his eyes.

I watch Jade studying his face in repose. “Your brother’s really good-looking,” she says.

Heath’s eyes open again instantly. He props himself up on one elbow, clearly flattered, although I’m sure he’s used to such unsolicited compliments by now. “Why, thank you, Jade. How kind of you to notice.”

“Did you ever watch the show
Teen Mom
?” she asks.

“Can’t say that I have.”

Jade provides a brief synopsis of the show. “It’s not on anymore, but there’s talk of bringing it back, and if they do, I want to be on it,” she says. “Then I could get on the cover of
US Weekly
and be famous.”

“Sounds like you have to get pregnant first,” Heath says.

“I know. That’s where you come in.”

“I come in? When did I come in?”

“You’d make the perfect baby daddy.”

“Excuse me?” Heath looks toward me. “Is she joking?”

“I don’t think so.” I stifle the urge to laugh.

“Hear me out.” Jade plops down on the side of my bed. “You know that the producers have their pick of every teenage girl in America, right? So you have to be pretty creative.”

“I’m not remotely creative,” Heath deadpans.

Jade ignores the comment. “You have to have a gimmick.…”

“You calling me a gimmick?”

Jade nods enthusiastically.

“I’m your uncle.”

“Which is exactly the point, what makes this idea so irresistible.”

“You find incest irresistible?”

“You’re only my half-uncle, and besides, I barely know you.”

“Which might give a normal person pause.”

“I don’t think either one of us is exactly normal, do you?”

Heath smiles, and I can see he’s beginning to enjoy Jade as much as I do. “You may have a point there.”

Claire enters the room, carrying a mug of freshly brewed coffee in one hand and a half-pint of cream and several packets of sugar in the other. Heath takes the mug from her hand and quickly adds cream and four sugars, then deposits the mug on the nightstand without taking a sip.

“I think we should probably get going.” Claire retrieves her daughter’s ankle boots from the floor and drops them in Jade’s lap.

“Will you at least think about my idea?” Jade asks Heath, pulling the boots on.

“I will not.”

“What idea?” Claire asks. “Never mind. I don’t want to know. Nice seeing you, Heath.”

“Always a pleasure,” comes Heath’s instant rejoinder.

“Wait!” Jade grabs my binoculars from the nightstand and hurries to the window. “Just one more look.”

“What perversion is she up to now?” Heath asks.

“See for yourself.” Jade offers the binoculars to Heath. “Third floor from the top, four windows from the left.”

“No, thank you. It’s a bit too
Rear Window–
ish for me.”

“Come on,” Jade teases. “You know you want to.”

Her words send me skyrocketing back to the past. I’m twelve years old, wearing my school uniform, about to board the downtown bus when I feel a man’s hand on my buttocks.
Don’t look so shocked, little girl. You know you liked it.

My knees buckle. I grab the nightstand for support, almost knocking over my brother’s coffee. “Oh, God.”

Claire is immediately at my side, holding me up. “What’s wrong?”

I shake my head, fearing I will collapse to the floor if she lets go. “Nothing.”

“You look like you just saw a ghost.”

“I’m fine. Really.” It takes all my strength and determination to remain upright.

“You’re sure?”

I nod.

“Okay,” she says, although I can see she’s far from convinced. Eventually she loosens her grip on my arm. “We’ll get out of your hair. Give you some time alone with your brother. Say goodnight, Jade.”

“Goodnight, Jade,” Jade says.

Heath laughs.

“Is she always like that?” he asks after they’re gone.

“Pretty much.”

“No wonder you’re so fond of her.”

I
am
fond of her. Fond of both Jade and Claire.

“Too bad they’re only after your money,” Heath says.

I turn off the TV and climb onto the bed beside him, pushing his legs out of the way to make room for my own. “You really think that’s why they’re here?”

“You don’t?”

“I don’t know. I guess I’d like to think …”

“You’d like to think … what? That they’re here because they find you, in the words of my most formidable niece,
irresistible
?”

The private investigator in me tells me he’s probably right. But I realize I don’t really care why Claire and her daughter come over. “Am I so difficult to love?” I wonder, surprised to hear I’ve spoken the words out loud.

“What? No, of course not. Don’t be silly.
I
love you, don’t I? Mom and Dad loved you. And God knows Travis is still crazy about you.”

“I don’t want to talk about Travis.”

“Really? Because you’re all
he
wants to talk about. If you’d just pick up the phone and call him, I guarantee he’d be over here in two seconds flat.”

“I don’t want him to come over.”

“Come on, Bailey. Throw the poor guy a bone. He’s driving me nuts with his pining and whining.”

“And
you’re
driving
me
nuts,” I counter, grabbing my binoculars from the nightstand as I climb back off the bed and proceed to the window, more for the distraction it provides than because I am interested in anything I might see. I locate the apartment Claire and Jade were looking at, three floors from the top, four windows from the left. The light is still on, although the room appears to be empty.

“He just wants to apologize, make things right,” Heath is saying.

“It’s too late.”

“What happened with you guys anyway? He won’t tell me, you won’t tell me.”

I ignore the question. To say that things didn’t end well with Travis would be a colossal understatement.

“So, what have you been up to all week?” I ask without turning around. “Besides smoking copious amounts of weed.”

“Working on my screenplay,” he says, and I sigh. Heath has been working on his screenplay for years. “And I had an audition for Whiskas cat food. It’s a national spot.”

“Did you get it?”

“Who knows? They had me rolling around on the floor, making a total ass of myself over some stupid cat. Is it any wonder I do drugs?”

I smile in spite of myself. “When will you find out?”

“Probably next week. It doesn’t matter. I don’t care one way or the other,” he says, and I hear the shrug in his voice. Heath claims to be used to rejection, but I wonder if that’s something any of us ever really gets used to.

That’s when I see the man.

He first appears as a smudge on the lens of my binoculars, a blur that quickly morphs into a shape. He looks to be about thirty and seems reasonably handsome, his features pleasant, his posture impeccable. Dark hair, average height, a slim build. Mercifully I’m spared the sight of his “pretty impressive six-pack,” as he’s now wearing a shirt and toying with the idea of adding a tie, two of which he holds up to his chest in front of the full-length mirror. Probably he has a date.

I think of Owen Weaver’s recent invitation to dinner, and I wonder if I would have called him. I remind myself that dating is one of the things women often forego when they get involved with married men.

Even women who haven’t been raped.

After a few minutes of indecision, I watch the man reject both ties and toss them toward his bed. One misses and floats to the floor. The man disappears into his closet, returning seconds later with a sports jacket, which he puts on and adjusts carefully, studying his reflection all the while, obviously enamored with what he sees.
How can any woman compete?
I think, lowering my binoculars and turning back toward Heath. “You should see this guy,” I begin. But Heath’s eyes are closed and the easy regularity of his breathing tells me he is asleep.

I climb into bed beside him, toy with the idea of turning the TV back on, watching more people die in an assortment of mind-boggling ways. Instead I find myself watching my brother sleep, in much the same way I’d watch over my mother when she was sick, carefully monitoring each breath, counting the space between it and the one before, holding my own breath when hers became labored, whispering words of love into her ear as she slept, hoping that my words would penetrate her morphine-induced dreams, that they would be enough to keep death at bay for another year, another month, another day.

Of course they weren’t. Words in the face of death are never enough. Neither is love. No matter what anyone tries to tell you.

I’m not sure when I first become aware that someone else is in the room. There is the sound of footsteps tiptoeing across the carpet, the floor creaking with each furtive step, and the air above my head stirring and then parting, like curtains. Someone is on top of me, his knees crushing my rib cage as a pillow is pressed against my face. I struggle, but I am helpless against his weight. An arm stretches across my windpipe, cutting off my supply of air. I scream, but the sound that emerges is more of a rattle. A death rattle. Gathering up whatever strength I have, I scratch wildly at my attacker’s arm.