What I need is for Ashley to appear in a dream and not spout cryptic clues about who-knows-what, but instead to offer some real insight into all this stuff that’s banging around in my head. After all, the dream-Ashley’s just a manifestation of my subconscious, right? Which means that she knows what I know, and that—
Remember.
I push back from the table, rising so quickly I bang my leg and knock over my mug. Coffee pools on the tabletop, then starts to drip on the floor. But I don’t care.
Remember, she’d said.
And holy crap, I think that I do.
But I can’t be right—can I?
With my heart pounding painfully against my rib cage in a mixture of both excitement and dread, I stumble from the kitchen into the bedroom and finally into my closet. It’s a huge space. So massive that it even has library-style ladders so that I can reach the boxes on the top shelves that hold out-of-season clothes and memorabilia I want to keep, but don’t need to have out.
I tug down a battered pink hatbox and take it to the granite-topped island in the center of the closet. For a moment, I do nothing. Part of me is afraid that I’m right, and part of me is afraid that I’m crazy.
And I’m not entirely sure that I want either of those scenarios to be true.
I consider calling Damien, but that’s just silly. There’s nothing to call him for yet. This is a hunch, nothing more. And now it’s time to see if my hunch has panned out.
Before I can talk myself out of it, I open the hatbox, then plow through the photos. Images of Ashley flash before my eyes, but I don’t pause. I’m looking for one photo in particular, and when I finally find it, I clutch it tight, then back away from the island, my knees so weak I have to sit on the floor.
It’s him.
It’s Frank.
The photo is of me and Ashley. I’m not even a year old; she’s about six. There’s a man holding me cradled on his lap as Ashley snuggles against him. He’s looking down at me with an expression of such love and devotion that it’s hard to believe this is the man who walked out on his family and never looked back.
It’s even harder to believe that he’s the man who was watching me on the island. Who came to my office and praised my life, my talent, my marriage.
But I’m certain of it. He’s aged, yes. But the face is the same. The shape and color of his eyes. The wide mouth. And though I didn’t see it in the man, in the photo I can even see that I have his forehead and his ears.
There’s not a doubt in my mind. Frank is my father.
I’ve met my dad. I’ve spoken with him. I had drinks with him. He’s right here in my life, and the enormity of that keeps me there on the floor, because if I stand up, I’m afraid I’m going to have to sit down all over again.
Without thinking, I brush my cheeks, and it’s only when my hand comes away damp that I realize I’ve been crying. Sad tears, yes, but also happy ones.
My father.
But even as the word rattles through my mind, the sharp blade of fear sets in. Because my father’s name was Leonard Fairchild, and when I turn the photo over, I see that penciled on the back in my mother’s neat handwriting are the words, Nichole, Leonard, Ashley.
But the man who walked into my office calls himself Frank Dunlop.
And Frank Dunlop didn’t say one word about being related to me. Why?
If he’s my dad—if he came to meet me, as I suspect he did—then why not say something?
Fear twists in my stomach, and a bitter nausea begins to build, growing more noxious as I put even more of the pieces together.
I stumble to my feet and hurry back to the kitchen with the photograph still clutched in my hand. I find my phone where I’d left it by the coffeemaker, and then I do the one thing that I could never have imagined doing five minutes ago.
I phone my mother.
“Nichole,” she says when she answers. “What are—is something wrong?”
“The other day,” I say, jumping straight to the chase, “you called me. Why did you call me? Why were you thinking about my dad?”
“Oh. Oh, dear. Is he bothering you? What has he done?”
“Done?” The dread in my gut begins to calcify into a giant boulder. “What do you mean?”
“Sweetheart, I’m so sorry. I should have told you everything when I called the other day, but I’d hoped…”
“What?” I demand.
“It’s just that he called me after all this time. And he wanted to know where you lived and if it was true that you’d married Damien Stark. And then he said he was going to LA. And…” She trails off into silence.
“Dammit, Mother, what?”
“And the last thing he wanted to know was just how much Damien is worth.”
Chapter 8
How much Damien is worth?
He wanted to know how much my husband is worth?
Fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
With a wild sweep of my arm, I send the toppled coffee cup flying off the table to crash on the floor. Then I curse aloud, because that accomplished exactly nothing except to make the mess in the kitchen even bigger.
I mutter another curse, then squat on the floor to start collecting the ragged pieces of ceramic, and as I do, I accidentally slice the edge of my thumb, raising a thin line of blood.
I stay there, perched on my heels, staring at the small red beads as they rise against my pale skin. My breath slows, and I feel a low, familiar craving.
I can quell this rawness inside me. I can control it with pain. I can harness it with blood.
If I just cut—just a little—I can pull myself back to center so that I’m not freaking out about all this bullshit.