Page 63 of Your Fault

Her blue eyes were piercing, just like her son’s, and I felt a shiver run up and down my spine.

“You’re a very pretty girl, Noah. But I’m sure you know that. If you weren’t, my son wouldn’t have taken an interest in you, naturally.”

I forced a smile. That remark rankled me, as if she were saying Nick’s and my relationship was something superficial, empty, but then, her relationships probably all were… All the money she’d invested in trying to look like a thirty-year-old made it obvious that was the kind of person she was.

“We could probably spend hours talking about nothing, Mrs. Grason, but you made me come here for a reason, and I’d just as soon get to the point,” I said, trying to be nice, hard as that was. My suspicions were right: I didn’t like that woman, and I never would. “You wanted me to do you a favor. Tell me what it’s about.”

Anabel smiled, maybe even with admiration. I think she liked my being so direct with her.

“I want to have my relationship with my son back, and you’re going to help me,” she said. She took an envelope out of her designer bag and handed it to me. It was made of high-quality thick marbleized paper, with Nicholas’s name written on the outside in calligraphy. “All I need is for you to make sure Nicholas reads this letter.”

I looked at the envelope with distrust. I had no idea how I could convince Nick to read it. Plus, giving it to him would mean admitting I’d seen his mother, and there was no way I was doing that.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t know how a simple letter will help you get your son back. You abandoned him.” The hatred in my eyes must have been evident to her—the same hatred I felt anytime someone hurt a person I cared about. I just couldn’t keep it inside.

“How old are you, Noah?” she asked, shoving the envelope toward me.

“Eighteen.”

“Eighteen,” she repeated, as though savoring the word, smiling like an angel—the kind of smile appropriate for a child, not a grown woman, and certainly not her. “I’m forty-four… I’ve been in this world a lot longer than you, I’ve lived through many more experiences than you, and so before you judge me the way you already have, you should stop and think about the fact that you’re just a little girl, and the worst thing that’s probably ever happened to you is when they took you away from your home and moved you into a mansion in California.”

“You don’t know one thing about my life,” I said in an icy tone.

The image of my dead father shot through my head, and I felt a sting in my chest.

“I know a lot more than you think. I know things even you don’t know, things you’d prefer never to know. And with just a few phone calls, I can make all that come out.”

A diabolical smile appeared on her face. She picked up the letter, stood, and walked over beside me. Slowly, nimbly, she slipped it into my bag, which was hanging on the back of my chair.

“Make sure Nicholas reads this,” she whispered. “Otherwise,this whole fantasy you’ve been living and all this money that’s rained down on you from heaven will go up in smoke.”

I stood, feeling something like an electric shock.

“Don’t get in touch with me again,” I said, trying to control myself after that threat of—I didn’t know exactly what.

“Don’t you worry. I have no intention of doing so. But I repeat: if you don’t want your worst nightmares to come true, be sure you do what I’ve asked.”

I turned around and walked out without even ordering anything to eat, ignoring the malice implicit in her words, passing through reception, and emerging outside.

I’d been an idiot, an out-and-out imbecile for meeting with that woman. Nicholas had warned me—he had talked to me about her, about how cruel she was, but I’d been stupid enough to let myself get dragged in, and she’d told me a pack of lies. Because that’s what they were, lies, and I wasn’t going to think about them for one more minute. I took out the letter, tore it into a million pieces, and scattered them in every trash can I passed.

For me, that meeting had never happened.

26

Nick

Noah had her phone turned off for the whole afternoon. It was starting to worry me… I tried not to let my nerves get the better of me. Regardless of the situation, that never helped. My sister was with me, Anne had brought her as promised, and I was happy she’d be with me for the next four days. I wasn’t going to let anything ruin that time for me, and as for Noah… I tried to tell myself she’d just let her battery run out.

“Nick!” Maddie shouted in that unique voice of hers. We’d gone to Santa Monica, to the pier. I’d always told Maddie about that place, about the beach, the attractions, how the kids could climb into the Ferris wheel and see the ocean from way up in the air… But my little sister, unlike most normal children, had taken off for the aquarium and had her face pressed against the glass looking at the mollusks and sea creatures on display. I walked over to her.

“Mad, be careful, one of those monsters might break the glass and get you!” I warned her before grabbing her around the waist and heading toward the exit. Night was falling, and I wasn’t sure what time she usually had dinner or went to bed.

“You cold, midget?” I asked her, then took off my jacket, bent over, and draped it over her shoulders.

A smile appeared on her puffy little lips. “Are you happy I came?” she asked, and her innocent eyes told me the answer mattered more than it should.

I smiled and zipped her up. She looked like a ghost in that garment that was nearly dragging on the ground, but it was better than her getting sick.

---