Public Secrets by Nora Roberts
me in here’s Tinkertoy drugs. It’s like going cold turkey with aspirin.”
Brian pulled his hand away and turned around. He couldn’t bear to look at those dark, haunted eyes. Pleading eyes. “I’m not going to score coke for you, Stevie. The doctors say it’d be like putting a gun to your head.”
“I already tried that.” Fighting tears, Stevie pressed both hands to his face. “All right, no coke. You could get me something else. Some Dolophine. It’s a good drug, Bri. If it was good enough for the Nazis, it’s good enough for me.” He began to whine, staring at Brian’s back. “It’s just a substitute, man. You’ve done it for me before so what’s the big fucking deal? It’ll keep me straight.”
Brian sighed. When he turned, opening his mouth to refuse yet again, he saw Emma in the doorway. She stood like a statue, her lush hair caught back in a braid, baggy blue pants hitched with white suspenders lying on a crimson shirt. There were big gold hoops at her ears, and she carried a game of Scrabble. Brian thought she looked sixteen, until he saw her eyes.
They were cold. A woman’s cold, accusing eyes.
“Am I interrupting?”
“No.” Brian stuck his hands in his pockets. “I’ve got to get on.”
“I’d like to talk with you.” She didn’t look at him as she spoke, but moved to the opposite side of Stevie’s bed. “Maybe you could wait outside for me. I won’t be long. The doctor said Stevie needed rest.”
“All right.” It was ridiculous, Brian thought, but he felt like a child about to be scolded. “I’ll see you in a day or two, Stevie.”
“Right.” He said nothing else, but his eyes begged as Brian left the room.
“I bought you this.” Emma laid the board game over Stevie’s bony knees. “I figured you could practice up so you could try to beat me.”
“I always beat you.”
“When I was a kid, and because you cheated.” She lowered the bedguard to sit beside him. “I’m not a kid anymore.”
He couldn’t keep his hands still. His fingers played a nervous tattoo on the box. “I guess not.”
“So you want some drugs.” She said it so matter-of-factly, it took a moment for it to register. His fingers picked up the rhythm against the box as he looked at her.
“What was the name of it again? I’ll write it down. I imagine I can get my hands on some in a few hours.”
“No.”
“You said you wanted it. What was the name?” She’d taken out a pad and held a pencil poised over it.
There was hope, and a desperate greed, before shame flushed his skin. For a moment, he looked almost healthy. “I don’t want you involved.”
She laughed at that, a low, amused sound that made the sweat break out on the back of his neck. “Don’t be soft, Stevie. I’ve been involved since I was three. Do you really believe I had no idea what went on at the parties, on the tours? Give me some credit.”
He had believed it, because he’d needed to. She was, and had always been, the quiet light of innocence in all the noise and madness. “I—I’m tired, Emma.”
“Tired? Need a lift? A little buzz to take the edge off reality? Give me the name, Stevie. After all, I saved your life. It seems only just that I should help you lose it.”
“I didn’t ask you to save my life, goddamn you.” He lifted a hand as if to push her away, then let it fall limply on the sheet. “Why didn’t you leave me the hell alone, Emma? Why didn’t you just leave me alone?”
“My mistake,” she said briskly. “But we can do our best to fix it right up.” She leaned closer, bringing him a whiff of soft scent as her voice and eyes hardened. “I’ll get the fucking drug for you, Stevie. I’ll get it. I’ll feed it to you. I’ll push the needle in whatever vein you might have left. Hell, maybe I’ll even try it myself.”
“No!”
“Why not?” She lifted a brow as if amused. “You said it was a good drug. Isn’t that what you said to Da? It’s a good drug. If it’s good enough for you, it’s good enough for me.”
“No. Goddammit. Look what I’ve done to myself.” He held out his scarred and scabbed arms.
“I see what you’ve done to yourself.” She threw the pad and pencil across the room. “I see exactly what you’ve done to yourself. You’re weak and pitiful and sad.”
“Miss!” A nurse came through the door. “You’ll have to—”
“Get out of here.” Emma whirled on her, fists clenched, eyes blazing. “Get the hell out. I’m not finished yet.”
She left. The hurried sound of her retreating feet echoed.
“Leave me alone,” Stevie murmured. The tears were spilling out of his eyes, seeping through the fingers he pressed to his face.
“Oh, I’ll leave you alone, all right. When I’m done. I found you lying on the floor, in your own blood and vomit, beside the gun and the needle. Couldn’t you make up your mind which way you wanted to kill yourself, Stevie? It was just too damn bad, wasn’t it, that I didn’t want you to die. I pumped life back into you, right there on the floor. I cried because I was afraid I wouldn’t be quick enough or good enough or smart enough to save you. But you were breathing when they took you away, and I thought it mattered.”
“What do you want!” he shouted. “What the hell do you want?”
“I want you to think—think about someone else for a change. How do you think I would have felt if I’d found you dead? Or Da—what would it have been like for him? You have everything, but you’re so hell-bent to self-destruct you could have twice as much and it wouldn’t matter.”
“I can’t help it.”
“Oh, that’s a poor excuse, poor and pitiful and sad and completely suitable to what you’ve made yourself.” She was near tears now herself, but she fought them back, letting the bubbling anger pour out instead. “I’ve loved you ever since I can remember. I’ve watched you play and year after year been astonished by what you’re capable of creating. Now you’re going to sit there and tell me that you just can’t help killing yourself. That’s fine then, but don’t expect the people who love you to stand and watch.”
She started out, only to be stopped in the doorway by a petite brunette. “Miss McAvoy? I’m Dr. Haynes, Mr. Nimmons’s psychiatrist.”
Emma’s body braced, like a boxer readying for a new match. “I’m on my way out, Doctor.”
“Yes, I can see that.” The woman smiled and offered a hand. “Nice show, dear. I recommend a brisk walk, then a hot bath.” She moved by Emma to go to Stevie’s bed. “Ah, Scrabble. One of my favorites. Care for a game, Mr. Nimmons?”
Emma heard the tiles hit the wall, but kept on walking.
She found Brian outside, leaning against the hood of his newest Jaguar. When he spotted her, he took one last drag on his cigarette, then flicked the butt away.
“I thought you might stay a bit longer.”
“No, I said all I had to say.” As she spoke, she fastened the bottom snap on her dark blue bomber’s jacket, then pulled up the zipper. “I wanted to ask you if I’d heard correctly. Did you buy drugs for Stevie?”
“Not the way you mean it. I’m not a dealer, Emma.”
“Word games then,” she agreed with a nod. “Did you provide him with drugs?”
“I provided him with an opiate substitute—to help get him through the tour and keep him from going out to some alley and trying to score heroin.”
“To get him through the tour,” she repeated. “I thought Pete was bad, lying to the press, helping Stevie lie to himself.”
“Pete’s not at fault here.”
“Yes he is. You’re all at fault here.”
“Are we supposed to take out an ad in Billboard saying that Stevie’s a junkie?”
“It would be better than this. How is Stevie ever supposed to face up to this if he can’t admit what he is? And how is he supposed to stop being what he is if his friends, his very dear friends, keep handing him drugs so he can get through one more show, one more city.”
“It isn’t like
“Isn’t it? Or are you deluding yourself into thinking you’re doing it out of friendship?”
Too weary for anger, he leaned against the car again. The breeze that ruffled his hair was brisk with autumn and smelled of rain. Peace, he thought as he studied his daughter’s furious face. He only wanted peace.
“You don’t know anything about it, Emma. And I don’t appreciate being lectured by my own daughter.”
“I won’t lecture you.” She turned and walked to her own car. With her hand on the door, she looked back at him. “You know, I never told you, but I went to see Jane a couple of years ago. She’s pathetic, wrapped up in her own needs and her own ego. Until now, I hadn’t realized how much you’re like her.”
She slammed the door, gunned the motor. If there was pain on his face, she didn’t look back to see it.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
EMMA MARRIED DREW in a quiet civil ceremony. There were no guests, no advance press. She had told no one, not even Marianne. After all, she was over twenty-one and needed no one’s permission or approval.
It wasn’t the wedding she had dreamed of. No misty tulle and glowing white silk. No flowers except the single pink rose Drew had given her. No music, and no tears.
She told herself it didn’t matter. She was doing exactly what she wanted. It was selfish, perhaps, but she felt justified in committing one purely selfish act. How could she have told Marianne or Bev without telling her father? She hadn’t wanted him there, standing beside her, giving her away.
She would give herself away.
She’d done her best to cheer the dull, mechanical ceremony by wearing a fussy silk dress, shades deeper than the rose she carried. Lacy at the bodice and at the drifting, tea-length hem.
She thought of her father’s wedding. The first wedding she had ever seen. Bev looking gloriously happy. Brian smiling. Stevie, all in white, singing like an angel. The memory brought tears to her eyes, but she held them back as Drew took her hand.
He was smiling at her. Smiling as he slipped the simple diamond band on her finger. His hand was so warm and steady. His voice was clear and lovely as he promised to love, honor, and cherish. She so desperately wanted to be cherished. When he kissed her, she believed it.
Then they were man and wife. She was no longer Emma McAvoy, but Emma McAvoy Latimer. A new person. And, in vowing her love and her life to Drew, she was beginning a new life.
It didn’t matter that he had to race off directly after the ceremony to the recording studio. She understood the demands and the need for premium session time better than anyone. It had been her idea to be married quickly, quietly, and in the middle of the making of his new album. It gave her time to prepare the hotel suite where they would spend their wedding night. She wanted it to be perfect.
There were flowers now, banks of hothouse roses, orchids, narcissus. For her own pleasure, she arranged them personally, setting tubs and vases throughout the rooms, down to a basket of flowering hibiscus she set in the bath.
A dozen candles waited to be lit, all white and scented with jasmine. Champagne chilled in a crystal bucket. The radio was on low, to enhance the mood.
She indulged in a long bath, fragrant with oils. She creamed and powdered her body, and enjoying the female ritual, dabbed more scent at every pulse point. Like the room, like the night, she wanted her body to be perfect for him. She brushed her hair until her arm went numb. Then slowly, drawing out the pleasure of it, dressed in the white silk and lace peignoir.
When she studied her reflection in the cheval mirror she knew she looked like a bride. Closing her eyes, she felt like a bride. Her wedding night. The most beautiful night of her life. Now she would know what it was like. Drew would come in. He would look at her, those tawny eyes going dark. He would be gentle, sweet, patient. She could almost feel his long, clever fingers skimming over her skin. He would tell her how much he loved her, how much he wanted her. Then he would carry her into the bedroom, and show her.
Patiently. Tenderly. Passionately.
By ten o’clock she was anxious. By eleven, uneasy. By midnight, she was frantic. Her calls to the studio only told her that he had left hours before.
She imagined a terrible accident. He would have been in a hurry to get back to her, as anxious as she to begin their life together in the big soft bed. He might have been careless, and his car … They wouldn’t know where to reach her—the doctors, the police. Even now Drew could be lying in some hospital bed, bleeding, calling for her.
She was working her way down the lists of hospitals when she heard the key in the lock. Before he could open the door, she was there, swinging it open and falling into his arms.
“Oh, Drew, I was terrified.”
“Easy, easy does it.” He gave her buttocks a quick squeeze. “Anxious, are we?”
Drunk. Part of her mind tried to deny it, but it was there in the slurred words, the sway of his body, the smell. She stepped back to stare at him. “You’ve been drinking.”
“Just a little celebration with the lads. Not every day a man gets married, is it?”
“But you … You said you’d be here by ten.”
“Christ, Emma, you’re not going to start nagging me already?”
“No, but—I was worried, Drew.”
“Well, I’m here now, aren’t I?” He struggled out of his jacket and let it fall to the floor. It wasn’t often he got drunk, but tonight it had been so easy to let one drink fellow another. Tonight, he’d climbed one more rung to the top. “And look at you. The perfect picture of the blushing bride. Beautiful, beautiful Emma, all in white.”
She did blush. There was desire in his eyes now. The kind she’d seen before, the kind she’d imagined seeing in them tonight. “I wanted to look beautiful for you.” She went easily into his arms, lifted her mouth to his in innocent trust.
He hurt her. His mouth was fierce and hot. He nipped hard at her bottom lip as he pushed himself against her. “Drew.” She tried to struggle back, alarmed by the memory flash of Blackpool in her darkroom. “Drew, please.”
“Don’t play that game with me tonight.” He caught her hair in his hand and dragged her head back. “You’ve made me wait long enough, Emma. No excuses tonight.”
“I’m not. I just—Drew, can’t we—”
“You’re my wife now. We do it my way.”
He pulled her to the floor, ignoring her pleas and struggles. His hands were rough, tearing the filmy lace as he bared her breasts to suckle and squeeze. The speed and urgency frightened her. It wasn’t right, she thought frantically. It wasn’t right lying on the floor, the lights glaring, her gown in tatters.
His fingers dug into her hips as his mouth clamped down on hers. Choking on the smell of whiskey, she tried to say his name. When she began to fight in earnest, he locked her hands in one of his, and took her virginity in one hard swift thrust.
She cried out both in shock and pain. Then he was plunging and pumping into her, panting, groaning. She was weeping when he collapsed, when he rolled aside and fell instantly to sleep.
HE WAS FULL of contrition and shame and tenderness in the morning. With shadowed eyes and trembling voice he cursed himself and begged her forgiveness. He’d been drunk, a poor excuse, but his only reason for behaving like a monster. When he held her, gently stroking her hair and murmuring promises, she believed him. It was as though another man had come to her on her wedding night to show her how cruel and heartless sex could be. Her husband showed her only sweetness. When her first day as a new bride ended, she lay in his arms, content, dreaming only rosy dreams of the future.
MICHAEL STAGGERED INTO the kitchen. He’d meant to get to the dishes. In fact, his intentions had been so firm, he was shocked to find the sink full and the counter cluttered. He gave them a bleary, accusing stare. He’d been working double shifts all week and wondered why things like dishes couldn’t just take care of themselves.
In the spirit of self-sacrifice, he decided to deal with them bef
Satisfied, he poked through the cupboards, knocking over a bottle of El Paso salsa and a jar of Skippy peanut butter. Shoving them aside, he grabbed the box of shredded wheat. He shook some into a Chinet bowl, then lifted the coffeepot and poured the steaming brew over the cereal.
He’d discovered this delicacy purely by accident on another groggy morning. He’d nearly eaten his way through his breakfast when he’d realized the coffee was on the cereal and the milk in the