Ana lights another cigarette, blows blue smoke toward the ceiling. “Let’s not get hasty. I know this comes as a shock, Jackson. It was a surprise to us, too. No one ever expected her to actually surface. But we have a plan, we always have had one, just in case.”
“Another plan, Mother? The last one nearly took us all down.”
“And who’s fault is that, Jackson?”
“I’m not like you, Mother. Lying isn’t my strong suit.”
Ana’s lips tighten but she continues on. “If you stick to the plan, there won’t be any problems. We’re going to share that the DNA tests have shown this is Elevana, Fatima’s mother. It’s been so many years since she went missing, without exceptional scrutiny of the body by outsiders, the identification will hold. The documents are being fixed as we speak. Karmen has already taken care of things.”
Of course, she has. Karmen is beholden to the family too deeply. There is nothing she won’t do to keep them safe. She’d offered to take the blame for Morgan’s death herself when the accident happened. Jack wouldn’t hear of it.
He runs a hand through his hair. “How do you know this is really her, Mom? How do you know this is Morgan? Clinodactyly is not that uncommon a malformation. These remains could be from anyone. The hand could have been broken at the time of death, from a fall, just as easily. There’s no way to know for sure.”
Ana’s eyes grow distant. “You’ll just have to trust me, Jack.”
“This is unbelievable.” He feels rage brewing in him, knows he must shut it down until he can figure out the right way through this.
Ana, too, is struggling to keep it together. She’s not used to arguing with her son. Her word has always been the last, and the law. Since Morgan’s death, they’ve clashed too often.
“I know this is hard for you. It’s hard for us all. But we need to stick together, like always, and we’ll get through it. We’ll get you married to your pretty little artist and your life can start again, unsullied by this mess. Honestly, knowing it’s her makes things better, doesn’t it? This is real closure, Jackson.”
“I want to see the body.”
Alarm flashes in his mother’s eyes. “No.”
“I insist.”
“What good will that do? It’s been a decade, there’s nothing to see but the bones.”
He starts to speak again but she puts a finger across his lips. Moments later a servant rushes past, head down, red hair streaming. Jack can’t help it, his heart stutters for a moment. Any time he sees a woman with long, loose red hair, it’s the same, a sudden rush of adrenaline and then the endorphin release that feels like panic, leaving him out of breath as if he’d just run a mile at top speed. Morgan affected him that deeply. Still does.
Yes, it makes him feel better to know her remains have been recovered. As sick and awful as it sounds, there is a certain sense of closure. Not that the lies can be reversed, not that their lives won’t be affected, not that the specter of Morgan won’t hang over the wedding, and his new life, forever.
Putting her bones in the ground and knowing there is six feet of earth on top of them will allow him to at least try and close this chapter. He can go into his marriage to Claire with an open heart and open mind.
Still.
“I want to see the body, and I refuse to take no for an answer.”
“Fine,” his mother snaps at him, finished. “She’s been taken to the crypt. I trust you can manage to say your goodbyes without alerting Claire to this story? There’s no need for her to know Morgan died here. Let her, like the rest of the world, think she went missing in California. I refuse to have you implicated, Jackson. That tramp wasn’t worth it.”
“Mother—”
“If you won’t do it for yourself, do it for Claire. Do you think she’d really understand if she knew the whole truth?”
“Yes, I do. You underestimate her, Mom. Trust me, she is stronger than you know.”
“Perhaps I do.” She delicately grinds out the butt of her cigarette in a crystal ashtray on the marble table to their right. “But there’s no sense cluing her in on the whole story before the wedding. Let this be. We have an answer now, and we can finally, truly put the chapter behind us. I must go—your father needs me. I’ll see you later.”
She presents her cheek for a kiss, which he dutifully provides, then sweeps off down the hall, leaving Jack with the lingering scent of cigarettes and the still smoking butt in the ashtray. The ash is the color of bones.
Her bones.
Her bones.
Morgan’s bones.
He refuses to think about that night.
That awful, terrible, unforgettable, inevitable night.
The night Morgan died.
13
A Watcher in the Night
I was there the night he met her, you know. He wasn’t hard to track at all. A few keystrokes and his weekend itinerary appeared on my screen. Alfred Hotel. Nashville, Tennessee. Penthouse and three rooms under the name Jack William. A bachelor weekend for Elliot, the scum.
Drunk, Jack had wandered into the studio, spied that gaudy painting, signaled to the owner. A blonde in the corner, slightly tipsy from the cheap champagne, was summoned. She strolled over, the excitement on her face clear. She looked a mess, like she hadn’t brushed her hair in weeks. It twisted and twined around her face and all I could see were snakes, snakes, everywhere.
He bought the painting and took her back to the hotel bar to celebrate. The room was quiet and elegant, and in the darkness, she had something transcendent about her, some ineffable quality that drew all the eyes in the room. When she laughed, he acted like it was cashmere against chilly skin. When she picked up her champagne glass, he watched every move as if imagining her hand gripping something other than the flute’s stem. Her hair glowed like a halo; her lips were the color of rubies. The slender ring through her septum sparkled despite the bar’s dim light, as did the diamond stud in her nose and the parade of silver up the edges of her left ear.
She wasn’t his type. Not in the least. Jack had never shown the slightest interest in the bohemian. But here was this ethereal, artsy, snaky blonde with her piercings and her well-worn leather jacket and her Doc Martens and her cashmere laugh and her glowing emerald eyes and her questionable talent with a canvas, and Jackson Compton was lost.
The moment he dipped his wick, she had him by the balls. Fucking predictable.
He bought her a studio, launched her career, pushed a reconciliation with her mother and sister, controlled, controlled, controlled. I watched him wine her, dine her, and sixty-nine her—they fucked like bunnies; Jackson’s hip, hot Goth girl had bedroom eyes.