Behind the Green Curtain (30 page)

Chapter 45

With every passing moment, she
wanted Caton more. It was a frightening truth she couldn’t deny. Waking the
next morning, though, in the empty, sterile bedroom she shared with her
husband, Amelia wanted Caton most of all.

She had felt the dip of the
mattress when Jack came in late and crawled into bed across from her, and again
when he got up. In the next room, she listened to him getting ready, marching
robotically through his morning routine, and, at the sound of him in his
dressing room, the familiar scuff of the brush buffing day-old marks from the
toe of his shoe, Amelia climbed out of the bed and pulled her robe on.

Jack looked up as she entered, with
little expectation of having a civilized conversation, and returned to what he
was doing without greeting, the rhythm of brush-on-leather filling the empty
space.

There had always been misfirings,
had always been something lacking, but it hadn’t always been quite so vacant
between them. There was a time when Amelia held out hope she would be able to
create a cautious friendship with her husband, but Jack didn’t want friends
either. This was what Jack wanted, a partnership that was a hollow stand-in for
something real. Watching him look for imperfections in the toe of a shoe that
looked perfectly fine to her, she almost felt sorry for him.

“Do you know a Mr. Slater?” she
asked, knowing from the way Jack paused mid-brush, his movements less fluid as
he returned to the task, that he at least knew the name.

“I’ve talked to him,” Jack
returned. “How do you know him?”

“I talked to him too,” Amelia
answered. “Yesterday.”

Stopping instantly, Jack spun the
brush in his hand, a nervous habit Amelia was certain he didn’t know he had, as
he looked up. His gaze moving freely over her, Amelia pulled the robe tighter
at her waist, feeling inappropriately exposed.

“He came here?” Jack asked.

“No.” Amelia shook her head. “I was
out running errands. I assume he followed me.”

Eyes trained on her, Amelia could
tell Jack wasn’t seeing her. Finally nodding, there wasn’t an iota of surprise
in his expression. “What did you talk about?”

“He asked me about the charity
work,” Amelia returned carefully. “The finances.”

“You don’t know anything about
that,” Jack rushed to say, as if she needed a reminder.

“Yes,” Amelia stated, defenses
pricking up at the condescending tone she had no reason to accept. “That’s what
I told him.”

“Did he say anything else?” Jack
questioned.

“No,” Amelia responded.

With a sigh, Jack dropped his brush
back into the holder on the side of the bench and slipped his shoe on. “I’ll
take care of it,” he said, glancing dismissively up at her, and Amelia left at
the cue, knowing there was nothing left to be said between them.

~ ~ ~

She had no desire to investigate.
She told Jack what she knew, well aware Jack would give her nothing in return,
and she wasn’t going to concern herself with what she had no power to change.

It was wise in theory. In reality,
the investigation came to her.

First, the man came to check the
wiring, and Amelia longed to be naive enough not to recognize the code. Caton
showed up as he was sweeping the house for bugs, and Amelia felt hatred flare
up at Jack when she shrugged and lied “Old house” in response to Caton’s query
about the man’s presence.

Then, Jack, who had behaved as he
normally did, perfectly in control of the situation, when she told him, grew
erratic in his near-routineness. He would come home on time, sometimes early,
he would leave late some mornings, and Amelia and Caton were caught in the
crossfire, never sure when he might walk in, never safe in a moment.

Though Jack seemed strangely
indifferent to what was happening on the bottom floors, leaving Caton alone for
once and spending the time he was there up in his office, Caton was still
standoffish, and Amelia felt abandoned amidst Jack’s insanity, even when Caton
was in the same room.

A few days into Jack’s new routine,
Amelia followed Caton home, unable to stand the distance between them that
seemed to flourish under Jack’s influence. It was the first restful night she’d
had since Jack lost his sense, but when she returned to the house the next
morning, Jack was waiting for her.

“I need you home now,” he ordered,
no real explanation, and Amelia knew she was being made to pay, once again, for
his bad behavior. Still, all she could do was follow the command, unaware of
how much the auxiliary life she had established with Caton had been holding her
together until it was ripped from her without warning.

Jack was the unexpected snag, but
it was Amelia who began to unravel at the seams.

“I need you to plan a dinner
party.” Jack marched into Amelia’s office one night without warning, after his
unexpected, overbearing presence had already caused Caton to leave early and to
flinch when Amelia kissed her goodbye at the door, her eyes casting anxiously
around as if Jack was omnipotent.

“For when?” Amelia responded
dutifully, despite being precariously on edge, knowing she was partly
responsible for Caton’s distance, since she hadn’t exactly put her foot down
against the new order of things.

“Tomorrow night,” Jack replied.

“Tomorrow night?” Amelia finally
looked up at him.

“It doesn’t have to be a big deal,”
Jack stated. “It’s just for a couple of guys from the law firm. Just make it
look good, so it looks like it’s been planned for a while.”

Standing inside the doorway of her
office, Jack looked more authoritative than human, and Amelia wondered for a
fleeting moment if he was always that way, if he delivered his commands at
Halston & Company with the same demanding tone he delivered them to her. Or
if the people Jack paid for their services got some courtesy she didn’t.

“So, you need to talk to your
lawyers without it looking like you’re talking to your lawyers,” she surmised.
“What’s going on, Jack?”

“You know.” He threw his hand into
the air, as if he was at the mercy of the investigators and had as little a
clue as to what they were looking for as she did.

“No,” Amelia countered, getting up
and moving around her desk, approaching Jack with scrutiny. “I don’t know,
because you have been investigated before, and you have never acted this way.
Why is it different this time?”

“It isn’t,” Jack argued.

“Did you do something?” Amelia went
to the heart of the matter.

“No,” Jack scoffed.

“Then why are you panicking?”

“I’m not panicking.” Jack attempted
a laugh, but it did nothing more than distort his face into something
completely unknown to Amelia. And she thought she was familiar with all of
Jack’s faces. “But things can slip through the cracks.”

“Not if you’re well inside the
law,” Amelia responded, out on a limb, distance to the ground unknown.

When Jack glanced back at the open
office door, she expected him to abandon the conversation, to let her know in
his usual way that he didn’t have to tell her anything. It was surprise when he
took a step back to the door and pushed it closed, lowering his voice
warningly. “I am inside the law. How far is none of your concern.”

“Then where I spend my nights is
none of your concern,” Amelia argued for the only thing she truly needed.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Jack spit.
“I should have left you in Venezuela.”

“Fuck you, Jack,” Amelia shot back,
and when his hand flew up before her, Amelia flinched on instinct.

The anticipated strike remaining
undelivered, Amelia cautiously raised her head, white hot anger spreading down
her neck, despite the fact that Jack looked more nervous than angry as his hand
fell limply to his side.

“Give me a reason,” she encouraged.

An excuse was more like it.

She knew well Jack’s limits, knew
she had been pressing at them for weeks. But Jack knew her limits too. He knew
what she would and wouldn’t live with - it was part of their detente developed
over years of arguments and narrow misses - and just how close he had come to
crossing a firm line showed in his slack face.

Moving away from her, Jack looked
as weak as Amelia had ever seen him. “Would you please just take care of this
for me?” he asked with surprisingly sincere contrition. “I’m sorry.”

“Fine,” Amelia returned, finally
finding a leg to stand on. “I will do it tonight, but then I have to get out of
here. I don’t know what’s going on, but I can’t stand this.”

Though he appeared loath to accept
those terms, business instincts kicking in, Jack seemed to realize his
interests were best served by negotiating. “Fine,” he said. “Set everything up
with Sole, and you can go wherever you want.”

Pulling the door open, Jack left
with no way near the enthusiasm with which he had entered, and Amelia thought
about following him out the door, grabbing what she could and just going. She
knew she wouldn’t make it far, though. In the hallway or on the stairs or in
the foyer, she would come to her senses. They had negotiated a treaty and she
would hold up her end. First, she would do what Jack needed done, and, only
then, would she do what she wanted.

Chapter 46

Social courtesy dictated warning
someone before showing up at her door first thing in the morning. Knowing it
would be easier for Caton to say no to her on the phone, though, and that
saying no would be Caton’s first impulse, Amelia opted to ignore propriety.

When Caton answered, fully-dressed
and obviously confused, Amelia almost hoped she took some convincing.
Apparently, being with Caton in vertical bursts with one eye on the door, after
having leisurely afternoons in which to indulge in her, was like walking out of
the rainforest and into the Sahara.

“Amelia, what are you doing here?”
Caton asked, but, thoughts already halfway in Caton’s bed, Amelia was slow to
comprehend.

“Come away with me,” she said at
last, watching Caton’s eyes widen in premature refusal. “Just for a few days.”

“Where?” Caton tempered the
reaction to ask.

“It’s a surprise,” Amelia smiled,
recognizing Caton’s subsequent hesitation as an attempt to find a reason she
shouldn’t, knowing she wouldn’t have to search far to find a whole arsenal.
“Please,” she added.

“Come in,” Caton sighed in apparent
defeat. Pushing the door closed, she stood unmoving for a moment, a near
statue, before finally turning to face Amelia. “Where does Jack think you are?”

“He knows where I’m going,” Amelia
responded, wishing Caton could leave Jack out of the conversation where he
belonged. “He may know you’re going. I don’t care.”

Gaze sinking through Amelia’s skin,
Caton looked as if she was scanning and interpreting data only she could see.
“Is that what this is about?” she asked, X-ray eyes moving away. “Sticking it
to your husband?”

“Is that what you think?” Amelia
couldn’t find the strength to be truly offended by the accusation.

“I don’t know what to think,” Caton
replied, one finger pressing into the skin above her eye, as if trying to
massage her own thoughts away.

Closing the distance that Caton had
made sure to keep, Amelia eased her hand over Caton’s hip, feeling her own
anxiety dissipate, wondering why Caton could never just let things happen. “I
think you do know what to think,” she responded.

When Caton’s hand moved to her
wrist, for an instant, there was the equal chance she would tell Amelia she had
to leave or give in. “Let me grab some things,” she said at last, and, with a
relieved sigh, Amelia let her temporarily go.

The notion that Caton might want a
moment alone, some illusion of privacy, did occur to her, but it didn’t stop
Amelia from shrugging her coat off and throwing it over the back of the couch
to follow Caton into her bedroom.

“Will we be inside or outside?”
Caton asked as she entered, and Amelia smiled, not entirely sure until that
moment Caton wasn’t still looking for a way out.

“Mostly inside,” Amelia responded,
imagining what act of God it would take to budge her from the warm refuge of
Caton’s body once she got back to it.

“Casual, I assume,” Caton coaxed,
pulling open the door of her closet.

“You don’t have to wear anything if
you don’t want to,” Amelia returned, and Caton paused in the doorway, glancing
back with a slight smile she couldn’t suppress.

Returning to the bed a moment later
with a duffel bag in one hand and a handful of clothes in the other, she tossed
them to the bed and slipped out of her pants without warning. Drawn by the
sight, Amelia was behind Caton before she even registered she was moving. Hands
sliding around Caton’s waist, they dipped lower to caress exposed skin so warm
Amelia wasn’t sure how she hadn’t frozen to death before Caton came into her
life. The familiar scent of Caton’s shampoo winding around her, Amelia pressed
her lips to Caton’s shoulder just above the neckline of her shirt.

“Stop.” Caton’s hands covered
Amelia’s, and she made an effort to put distance between them. Trapped between
the edge of the bed and Amelia, she had no place to go.

“Why?” Amelia breathed.

“Because we’ll never leave,” Caton
said. It was the only good reason she could have given, and, reluctantly,
Amelia backed away, acute desire trumped by the desire to have uninterrupted
time with Caton, to have her, for once, truly to herself.

Without interruption, Caton was
changed and packed in a few minutes, turning to Amelia with a hesitant smile,
as if she knew she shouldn’t be happy, but felt it anyway.

~ ~ ~

Amelia had looked tired when she
appeared at the door. It was only when she asked Caton to drive, though,
programming the address of a destination into the built-in GPS before promptly
falling asleep in the passenger seat, that Caton realized the toll Jack’s
sudden reemergence as a prevailing force in both their lives had taken on
Amelia.

The display showed more miles to
their destination than Caton was expecting, and Amelia slept through most of
them, waking with a contrite smile and an apology when Caton stopped for
coffee, only to fall back asleep ten miles down the road with her hand in
Caton’s and her own coffee going cold in the console beside her.

Aside from north, Caton had no idea
where they were going, but she was still surprised when she drove beyond the
cities into forestland, and even more so when the robotic voice at last told
her to make a left into a drive she couldn’t see until she was right on top of
it. Slowing Amelia’s SUV to a crawl, she turned onto the gravel path, bumping
deeper and deeper into a tunnel of trees until the real world disappeared from
the rearview mirror and they appeared to be heading straight to nowhere.

Waking at the turbulent ride,
Amelia sat upright in her seat, shoulders stretching back as she glanced over
at Caton. “Sorry,” she said again.

“It’s all right,” Caton assured
her, half-expecting Amelia to tell her she’d made a wrong turn. Then, the cabin
came into view, nestled against the lake behind it like the focal point of a
painting. Of course, it would be utter perfection, Caton thought. No idea where
she was going, and yet she knew it would be a dream when she got there.

Despite the fact she had driven the
miles herself, and was aware how far north they were, the cold still shocked
Caton’s system as she climbed out of the car. Teeth chattering, she wrapped her
arms around herself to no avail.

“It’s warmer inside, I promise.”
Amelia climbed out of the passenger’s seat and grabbed her bag from the back.
Grabbing her own bag, Caton threw it over her shoulder, hurrying behind Amelia
to the door.

Despite the frigid temperature, the
key slid into the lock without effort, and a blast of warm air hit Caton as
Amelia pushed the door open. Guiding her into the small vestibule, Amelia
closed it, before turning to unlock the interior door into the cabin. If the
place could reasonably be called that. Everything top of the line and nothing
out of place, it was more like a miniature palace. The temperature set and a
fresh bouquet of flowers on the kitchen table were evidence someone had been
there before them.

Of course they had. Amelia had a
life where people took care of things for her, in which, even if nothing else
was right, her needs and desires were met with style.

“This is...” Caton worked past the
lump that formed in her throat at the thought. “Impressive.”

“It serves its purpose,” Amelia
conceded.

“What purpose is that?” Caton
turned to face Amelia, straps of her bag clutched so hard her hand ached.

“Escape,” Amelia responded, taking
a deep breath, the stress of the past few days visibly leaking from her as she
exhaled. “This is my own private getaway.”

“So, Jack doesn’t come here?” Caton
couldn’t stop the question, but it didn’t seem to bother Amelia.

“Occasionally,” she responded.
“He’s used it in the past to meet with people on business, to host parties. He
doesn’t come just to be here, though. This isn’t exactly his scene.”

“But it’s yours?” Caton asked.

“Does that surprise you?” Amelia
countered, and Caton had no logical answer. Sometimes, she felt as if
everything was a surprise with Amelia, as if she would never fully know her,
but since she expected surprise, nothing surprised her anymore. Seeming to
realize Caton wasn’t going to respond to the question, Amelia glanced around,
looking oddly fitted to her surroundings. “This is the only place on Earth that
feels more mine than his.”

The admission struck Caton as
desperately sad, but, having seen her shake off far deeper pain with the
casualness of a paper cut, it wasn’t all that surprising when Amelia dropped
her bag to the table and approached with a smile. “Come on,” she said, sliding
the straps of Caton’s bag from her hand. “You have to see the view.”

“Does that mean I have to go back
outside?” Caton returned warily.

“Yes,” Amelia responded
matter-of-factly, setting the bag next to hers and taking Caton by the hand.

Soaring into exposed beams, stone
fireplace dominating one wall, the living room of the cabin made the kitchen
look practical. The wood chest Amelia stopped at was antique, the kind bought
at auction for thousands of dollars. Nothing like the antiques of the real
world, which were really just hand-me-downs by another name.

Propping the lid, Amelia pulled a
blanket from inside and shook it out, wrapping it around Caton’s shoulders with
a smile Caton couldn’t resist, before grabbing one for herself and beckoning
Caton toward the glass doors.

Following Amelia onto the porch,
the brutal temperature compelled Caton to turn back, even as the masterpiece of
nature held her spellbound. The frozen lake before them was a spectacle, marked
by places where the wind picked up the water and froze it so quickly, the
liquid turned to sculpture. The trees around it hung heavy with icicles,
branches so thickly encased even those that couldn’t bear the weight wouldn’t
break free until spring.

It was exquisite carnage, sheer
destruction masquerading as perfect beauty.

Mesmerized as she was by the sight,
Caton still saw the small smile that played at Amelia’s lips as she turned
toward her, always too aware of Amelia not to notice. “Okay,” Amelia said. “Now
we can go in.”

“No.” Caton shook her head. “Not
yet.”

Wordlessly agreeing, Amelia slid
behind her, parting her blanket to pull Caton inside. With Amelia pressed
against her, cocooned in the layers of fleece, Caton grew so warm, she was
surprised the icicles on the overhang didn’t dissolve into puddles, heat
emanating outward to melt the art of the lake.

It was a contradiction she never
could have seen coming. Five months before, Caton was convinced Amelia was as
cold and uninviting as the frozen landscape, but, just like the lake before
her, there was a whole world, warm and alive, hiding beneath the surface.

Settling into Amelia’s arms,
feeling the steady rhythm of Amelia’s heart beating against her back, Caton
tried not to get lost in the fantasy of an impossible future. She tried to
remember things were not as they felt, but as they were. Amelia had made a
commitment, so had she, and neither of them was to each other.