Even though I took a shower this morning, I find myself shedding my evening dress. Stepping under the spray of hot water, needing something familiar again.
The hot needles against my skin remind me of Niko.
Something about him doesn’t add up. The way he came twice in three days. The way he ventured into the house both times. And the fact that he was only a few feet away from a massive stash of diamonds when I found today.
People would kill for these diamonds. Blood diamonds.
In fact they already had.
CHAPTER FOUR
I lay in bed awake for most of the night, restless and wary. When I do fall asleep I’m struck by dreams with sudden cliffs and shining pointy rocks at the bottom. Mom appears in the doorway at eight a.m. fully decked out in the black leggings and skin tight neon top she wears to the gym.
“You should come with me,” she says without preamble. “There’s a new Tae Bo class.”
“I don’t even know what that is.”
“It’s like Tae Kwon Do but more fun. It was created by this completely hot—”
“No, let me rephrase. I don’t care what Tae Bo is.”
She frowns, which doesn’t look very different from her regular expression due to the Botox injunction yesterday. “You’re going to have to do something to maintain that body once you start getting older.”
“I’ll mark that on my calendar.” If I actually get older.
“You’re a brat,” she says without heat.
“Hey, Mom.”
She pauses, holding the doorframe as if she might launch herself away from me. I’m the worst kind of daughter to parents like these. One who isn’t impressed by the new car or the diamond tennis bracelet I got for my birthday. I want only one thing: a way out of here.
“What’s Dad into?”
A new tension enters her body. “What are you talking about?”
“Well, he met with a mobster. You basically said that.”
She fusses with a brown workout towel slung over her shoulder. “You don’t need to worry about that. Your father knows what he’s doing.”
I’m not sure that’s really a comfort when what he’s doing is incredibly illegal—not to mention unethical. “Then where did he get those diamonds?”
Her eyes turn dark. “Don’t start, Emily.”
“I’m not lying. There must be a hundred diamonds inside that box. I saw them.”
“You don’t want to go down this path again.”
That much we can agree on. Nothing about this will end well for me. “It doesn’t worry you that there’s that kind of money just sitting in the house?”
“I’m not worried because there aren’t any diamonds.”
Tears prick my eyes. I should be used to this by now. Being called a liar. Made to question my own eyes. It’s been like this for ten long years. People with advanced degrees already dismissed anything I say with their diagnosis, so why do I even bother talking?
Why even bother telling the truth?
The new gardener has been in the house. Not once. Twice.
Mom would freak out if she knew, despite what she says about the diamonds. At a minimum he would be fired. If not worse. What if she told the mobster that Niko had been trying to steal them? I keep my mouth shut as my mother goes downstairs. I can hear the faint rumble of the garage door open and then close.
I don’t even want to know. That’s what I tell myself. She’s right about one thing. Wherever this leads—with me claiming something about Daddy, with more doctors and needles and electric shock therapy, with pain and tears. It’s not worth it.
At least until I hear a loud whooshing sound from outside.
I peek out the window to see someone power washing the far wall with a machine. Up and down in neat lines that turn the brick from light to dark. That someone wears a black T-shirt and acid washed jeans. And muddy work boots I would recognize anywhere—even from half an acre across and two stories up.
For a moment I imagine storming across the lawn and confronting him. I could demand to know what he was doing in the house—and don’t tell me you were getting a drink, I’d tell him.
And he would deny everything.
I remember how easily he turned the tables on me yesterday. All the things he said about me being his employer, as if I was in charge. The whole time he was the one controlling me, seducing me so I wouldn’t see what he was doing.
Which means I need the same kind of strategic stealth.
I head into my closet and pull out a bikini with tags on it. I think Mom paid something outrageous at Nordstrom’s the day I turned eighteen. Maybe it was supposed to make up for not being around when I got my period, having the maid show me how a pad worked. I didn’t have any interest in the tiny straps when I got it, but it’s just right for what I need now.
I strip down and put on the bikini, wincing at the scrape of plastic tags on my bare skin, at the tight elastic barely holding me in. The tags are easy enough to yank off. Meanwhile the elastic strap nestles in my butt with disturbing intimacy.
Two little triangles cover my breasts. And one down below.
The towel that had felt so revealing yesterday now seems like an exercise in modesty. I can’t really imagine going out like this, but I want to. For reasons that have nothing to do with stealth or escape. I want to see what Niko’s expression will be when he sees this bikini.
I grab a towel and a half-empty bottle of sunscreen before heading outside.
Sunlight hits soft, private skin for the first time. I shiver despite the warmth. Crossing the patio I settle into one of the reclining deck chairs beside the pool. Throw my hair over my shoulder. Somewhat discreetly adjust the band of my bikini top so it covers me.
The entire time, Niko continues to power wash. He doesn’t even look over.
Well, I tell myself reasonably, he probably didn’t hear me. That machine is pretty loud.
Disappointment pulls a loud sigh out of me.
Right then, in the space of seconds as breath leaves my mouth, Niko glances back at me. A moment later he’s looking back at his work, having not even given me a second look—but he doesn’t have to. It’s enough. Enough to know he’s aware of me, maybe even as sharply aware of me as I am of him.
Smiling a little, I apply creamy white sunscreen to my arms and legs.
I smooth it across the slopes of my breasts.
Every cell in my body is attuned to the man who’s resolutely not looking at me. Except he’s running out of brick on that side of the grounds. He’ll need to stop soon. Maybe he’ll pick up and move to a different side of the house. Or maybe he’ll go inside the house again…
Setting the bottle on the speckled concrete, I turn over and lay myself flat on the plastic slats. I let my head drop lazily over the edge. The sun beats on my bare neck and back, its insistent heat a warning. There’s no sunscreen back there.
The machine stops, leaving only ringing silence.
My eyes close and open, slow with a self-assuredness completely new to me. A shadow crosses over me, almost a cool touch across hot skin.
“You’re going to burn like that.”
I don’t even lift my head. “I can’t reach.”
“Is that your way of asking for help?”