Page 14 of Final Cost

With that, I take great pleasure in turning my back on him and striding off with my drink and my books before he can get another word out.

6

Tamsyn

I can’t stay here.

The idea keeps me awake all night and powers me through getting dressed and throwing my hair into another ponytail early the next morning. It pokes me between the shoulder blades and taunts me when I stand at my sunny window and hide behind my curtains watching Lucien set out for his morning jog, his face hard and set as he pounds toward the dock.

You must get out of here, Tamsyn. Ackerley is not for you.

The voice is right. I know it is. This renewed exposure to Lucien is dangerous to me. Of course it is. It’s like a daily hit of asbestos or drink of lead contaminated water. Worse, it’s like a snort of cocaine when I know I’m addicted. Everything about this scenario is bad for me, and if I need any further proof, it’s right here in the body that doesn’t even feel like mine anymore. My stomach is knotted up. My skin is too tight. Unwanted thoughts buzz around my head like hornets in a shaken jar.

I need a recap since I’m having trouble remembering the events of the recent past. Something to knock some sense back into me. So here goes:

Lucien treated me like a moldering pile of garbage smelling up his dining room the other day when he dumped me. The wound is still fresh and oozing inside my chest. Yet last night, when he hit me with those smoldering eyes and acted kinda sorta sorry about the whole thing, I lapsed into a sudden catastrophic case of amnesia. Now here I am trying to figure out what he’s thinking. What he really wanted to say to me and would have confessed if I’d given him the chance. I’m wondering if I should open the door— just a tiny little crack — toward forgiving him. Or at least letting him fuck me once or twice more for old time’s sake.

And all of this is happening while his newly dead wife lies on a slab in the coroner’s office refrigerator and suspicion hangs over his head. Lucien Winter may be a murderer for all I know. But when I’m with him — when I’m mesmerized by his magnetism — I can’t make myself care about any of that.

How sick does that make me?

I step away from the curtain, hungry for the sight of Lucien’s departing back and disgusted with myself. I knew I shouldn’t come here, but I wanted to see him and let myself be talked into it. Well, now I’ve seen him. Now it’s time for me to make a new plan. And I thought of it during the dark hours of the night when my overheated body refused to let me sleep. I’m going to call the head of my department at the hospital and ask if I can start my job a few weeks early. My contract says September 1 but fuck that. If I start early, I’ll have the money to pay to rent a room or an Air B & B until my apartment is ready. I won’t have to inconvenience Mrs. Hooper or go to Florida with her and Penny.

I can use my credit card to pay for things as needed. Although my spending limit has training wheels on it and the cost of living in the city is crazy expensive. Still, doing things this way will keep me independent of both Lucien and Mrs. Hooper. I call that a win.

And now that Lucien’s out of the house for at least an hour, I can safely head downstairs and grab some breakfast without threat of him lurking near the coffee and twinkling those magnetic eyes at me. Another win.

I leave my room and head for the staircase, but the murmur of excited female voices behind me catches my attention. I glance over my shoulder and discover that the bedroom door almost at the far end of the hall is open. I frown, trying to remember if Lucien ever showed me that bedroom. I don’t think he did. And whatever’s happening in there is absolutely none of my business. But I’m just nosy enough and bored enough to head in that direction anyway.

I make it to the threshold and dart out of the way just in time to avoid getting bowled over by one of the housekeeping staff hurrying by with a stack of dresses draped over her arm.

“Sorry, Ms. Scott,” she calls, continuing her trajectory downstairs.

“It’s okay,” I say.

“Good morning, Tamsyn,” calls Lucien’s housekeeper, Maddie, from the depths of the room. “How did you sleep?”

“Fine,” I say, my jaw dropping as I realize where I am and what I’m looking at. It’s a massive bedroom, as grand as the master bedroom where Lucien sleeps, with high ceilings, floor to ceiling windows framed by heavy satin drapes and a balcony overlooking the glittering bay outside. The walls are a stunning pale gray. I take a closer look. Is thatsilkwallpaper? Yeah. I think it is. Paisley. Exquisite. Elegant.

But the room is bare. No bed. No wardrobe, chairs or anything needed for day-to-day life. Just several long folding banquet tables set up along with racks and racks of clothes. I’m talking about the kind of racks you’d see in a major department store or the garment district. Some of the clothes are zipped into pale gray garment bags (of course Ravenna’s custom garment bags would match her bedroom decor!), all of which are embroidered with a bold and intertwined RW, as though anyone could possibly have any doubt about whose wardrobe this is. Other racks feature dresses that are arranged by rainbow color, with the reds to my left all the way over to the violets on my far right. There are stacks of giant designer boxes on the banquet tables, most of them labeled by designer. All the greats are represented here. Chanel. Dior. Schiaparelli. Dolce & Gabbana. And the biggest box of all? An open Vera Wang monstrosity overflowing with white tissue paper and gleaming folds of the richest white satin imaginable.

Ravenna’s wedding dress. I stare at it feeling sick, my heartbeat a dull thump in my throat.

“I didn’t expect to be doing all this today,” says Maddie as she grabs a couple of dresses from the rack in front of her and drapes them over her arm. She looks harried but crisp and resigned. “But Lucien wants it taken care of, and I can’t say I blame him.”

I peel my attention away from the wedding dress with difficulty and find myself immediately dazzled by a purple beaded evening gown that glitters in the morning sun. I want to touch it to see how heavy it is but don’t dare. I don’t knowwhyI don’t, but I don’t. Even so, I can only imagine how beautiful Ravenna looked in that dress with her pale skin and dark hair.

And the shoes! Row after row of killer heels lined up around the perimeter of the room, most of them red-soled. Not a pair of flats in the bunch. And no athletic shoes. Chuck Taylor would not be welcome in this crowd. I glance down at today’s pale blue pair on my feet feeling as tacky and poor as I’ve ever felt in my life.

“What are you…” I trail off, needing a moment to clear my throat and pray that my burning cheeks cool down a little. “What are you doing?”

Maddie uses her free hand to push a strand of hair out of her flushed face. “We discovered more of Ravenna’s clothes in the attic the other day when Lucien asked us to grab some of her things for her to wear when she left the hospital. I don’t know how all this got missed. But it’s a good thing it did because Ravenna needs something to wear for her funeral. After that, Lucien wants one of the discrete consignment stores to come in and catalog all this and sell it. I doubt anyone can come before next week. Lucien won’t love that.”

“Why not?” I say, constitutionally unable to quash my curiosity about him.

Maddie hesitates. “He doesn’t like reminders hanging around. Of his old life. You know.”

“Right.”

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