Blue Notes (26 page)

“Another lotto ticket to cash in, Keeley?”

“None of your business.” I flip my hair back, accidentally grazing my fingers over where Jude claimed me. I leave my hand there. Clasping. Taking strength from Jude’s intimate words.

They’d see that I’d taken you.

“Just watching to see if I can get any pointers,” Brandon says. “You seem to be a pro when it comes to moving up in the world. That’s a pro’s outfit, all right.”

“How’s Opal these days?” I ask with a sneer.

Because of course I told the poor girl. She didn’t speak to me for a few weeks, which hurt, but I guess she needed to put the blame somewhere. Only after she caught him with another girl on the fourth floor did she shove him to the curb—and apologize to me. She didn’t need to, but it made me feel like there was some justice in the world.

“Wouldn’t know,” he says with a tight shrug. “You did your best to make sure of that.”

“I protected a friend.”

“And when you piss off the wrong person, who’s going to protect you? It sure won’t be him.”

He stands when I begin to walk toward the elevator. God, don’t let him get in with me. He takes his desk duty stuff seriously.
Just . . . stay there.
His smile—I used to think it so friendly and handsome. It’s macabre now, twisted in ways I can’t understand. Have I really treated him so badly that I deserve this?

He doesn’t need to follow me physically, not when his words hit me so hard.

“Jude Villars won’t be around to protect you forever.” His smile deepens. “One of these days he’ll find out who you really are. Trash knows trash, Keeley. That means I know it when I see it.”

 Thirty-Four 

I
’m in tears in the elevator. The mascara I put on to become Catwoman is coming off in streaks on my fingers as I wipe my eyes.

My name was Rosie Nyman.

I haven’t been called that for years. I can handle thinking occasionally about the fake names that came after, but Rosie is so much harder. That girl was innocent. That girl didn’t know what it was like to sleep in a car or listen to prostitutes and their johns through paper thin walls of seedy hotels. That girl had something approaching a normal life in Chicago. The names that came after—Sara and Lila—had it rougher. At hotels, I stopped sleeping on rollaway cots, always feeling too exposed. I slept under nightstands and desks and upholstered chairs, tight in a ball, hands over my ears. Eventually Mom and Dad stopped giving me crap about it. “Let her sleep where she wants. At least she’s quiet.”

Now, with Brandon. I was an idiot for revealing as much as I did, hoping to find a bit of humanity when, apparently, there wasn’t much to be had. I genuinely feel for him, because I knew how iffy the foster system could be. With Clair and John, I got luckier than my talent at the piano will ever eclipse. But he has a grudge against me. Worse, he has connections in the world of journalism. The two put together . . . What if he’s hell bent on digging up dirt on me? Following the right trail, he could’ve found a whole compost heap of it.

My blood is running sprints through my veins. I can’t breathe. I’d already been breathless with my pulse racing only an hour alone, with Jude, being daring and exquisite. Now this . . .

I don’t want the elevator doors to open. I actually look up at the ceiling ventilation cover and imagine the dozens of films where people escape through air ducts. They’re usually on a secret mission or on the run from bad guys. What if Brandon learns my real name, my history, and tells people? My dad never forgave me for testifying against him.
I’ll find you if you do
. I’ve felt safe and protected in Louisiana, swathed in my new name and my new life. I don’t feel safe anymore, and bad guys most certainly exist.

Would Dad send someone to get me? Could he hold a grudge that long?

Yes.

I’m dressed as Catwoman, but I’m not a girl in a movie. I’m terrified. And elevator rides don’t last forever.

The doors part to reveal the third floor. I stand there with my feet frozen. Janey will be distressed to see me like this. We’re friends. I have
friends
. It’s a beautiful thing, but I don’t know how to lean on them when the hard stuff comes along. Will it inconvenience them? But I’d be upset to learn Janey felt this way and didn’t turn to me for help, or at least to be a shoulder to smudge with mascara and tears.

I lean against the elevator door to keep it from closing.

If she’s home from the haunted house already, Janey will listen to me all night. But I’d have to explain why I’m so upset. I’ve been able to keep most of this haunted bullshit in a deep, deep pit for years. Now it’s a guillotine over my head. People could find out.

Jude could find out.

Tonight was just breathtaking. We were everything a couple should be, from funny to sexy to heartfelt. I ran through a thousand emotions in just a few hours, but looking back, each of those hours meant holding myself slightly apart from Jude. It felt like we were intimate—as close as two people could hope to be—but he didn’t know who he was dancing with. How would I feel if he kept something this huge from me?

How would I feel if I heard it secondhand?

But there’s no guarantee Brandon will do anything. He’s a stupid coward, like he was with Opal and me. He was just poking a raw place so he can feel important, using what he knows to make me freak out. Yeah, I’m scared as all hell about what he’ll do and how far he’ll go, but I can’t think about it. I can’t think about much of anything.

I want to play. I want to compose. I want to use black and white keys when my brain is too overloaded to speak.

Dixon is closed, though. Too late tonight.

But what Adelaide said . . . Jude, with a piano in the ballroom of the Villars mansion . . .

No way.

I step back into the elevator, my heart pounding even harder. I’ve been to Jude’s house by invitation, many times now. To show up in the middle of the night, though . . . ? Will he be as welcoming as I know Janey would be?

Trust.

Back down in the lobby, my knees a wobbling mess, I force myself to strut. I play “Poker Face” in my head and grapple for some Gaga attitude, despite what must be the world’s worst raccoon eyes. Brandon stares. He looks like a moron, dressed as a dead undertaker condemned for all eternity to swallow bitterness and salty noodles. In that garb, the ramen looks like he’s shoveling in a mouthful of worms.

“Running crying to your sugar daddy?”

“Fuck off, Brandon,” I say sweetly, then stride outdoors.

One Google search for cab service and a phone call later, I’m in a taxi on the way to Jude’s place. Funny thing. I don’t know his address. I could’ve done another search, but I take a chance and simply tell the driver, “The Villars mansion, please.”

It’s starting to rain. Wonderful. The cab navigates up the quarter-mile road to the mansion, which I can’t see until we’re almost there. I never noticed the gate outside. “You’ll have to buzz in,” the driver says.

I hop out of the busted up old Taurus and push the intercom button. Does he have a camera as part of his security? Can he watch me standing there in the streaming water, looking for him, dying to find him? Does he see
me
?

Of course not. I haven’t told him who I am yet.

Moment of truth. Moment of sheer, sluicing panic.

“Adelaide, if you’ve forgotten your damn keys again,” comes his voice past the slight crackle of static.

“Jude? Can you let me in, please?”

“Keeley? Jesus.”

The gate clicks open right away. Maybe his invitation, that his doors are always open, is true. And
he’s not hiding some secret double life. Why am I so convinced he’s got one? My parents, maybe? I’ve answered to four names in my life. There’s a lingering feeling of Doesn’t everybody?

I go back to pay the driver. My heart sinks when I realize I have my phone but not my purse. What the hell?

I buzz the intercom again. “Jude, I don’t have money for the cab. I . . .” I start crying. “I don’t know where my purse is.”

“It’s here in the house. You left it in the car. I’ll be right there.”

It turns out that five minutes in the rain with a head full of buzzing anger and fear and foreboding is a
really
long time. Jude emerges from the streaking sheets of rain. He wraps me in a blanket and unfolds an umbrella over my head before paying the cabbie. He’s wearing an overcoat, but the shirt beneath is soaked. So’s his hair. Droplets of rain cling to his lashes when he comes back, hands on my shoulders, his expression concerned.

“You’re still in costume? What happened? Keeley, you’re scaring me.”

“Inside? Please?”

“Yeah, inside.”

I let him shuffle me into the mansion, mostly because my strength is gone. He towels me off. Without more than one or two stray touches, he unzips me from the catsuit for the second time that night. This is one hundred and eighty degrees around from stealing a quickie in his car. He bundles me in a robe and makes me a decaf. Sugar and cream. I don’t even have to tell him anymore. I’ve been spending as many waking hours and as many hot nights with a man so damn wonderful that I’ll cry again if I think about it too hard.

I’ve been with a wonderful man. He’s been living with my lies.

It’s gone. It’s
so
far gone. I’ve been Keeley Chambers for more than six years. That doesn’t mean I’m any less shaky.

Jude sits beside me on the sectional, where we snuggle under a fresh blanket. “I’m getting your new shirt wet with my hair.”

“You think that’s top of my list? It’s two in the morning and you show up on my doorstep. Start talking.”

“Oh, shit! You have that meeting this morning! I shouldn’t be here. You didn’t invite me and—”

I try to push away, nearly spilling my coffee. My whole body is trembling. I’m a robot on self-destruct.

He calmly takes the cup of coffee and sets it aside, then drags me back onto his lap. “I can sleepwalk through the meeting. You’re always welcome. Don’t you know that by now?”

“I know now.” I let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding. Then I blurt out what I want but won’t be able to explain. “Can I play your piano?”

His unapologetically aristocratic features warp into a frown I wish I could erase. “Of course.” He pauses. God, I knew he would. “But you gotta tell me what’s going on.”

I stroke the bare, slightly damp hair on his forearms and clasp his fingers with mine. “You remember what I said about you and Adelaide? How sometimes you have to trust that everything’s okay and just hold on?”

“Keeley, sugar, you’re going to ask that of me? About you?”

We’re wrapped up together. I’m naked under his borrowed robe. He’s wearing nothing but a T-shirt and boxer briefs. I feel his every reaction, including his flinch. I’m hurting him. I’m testing him. I’m keeping things from him. But that’s an old life. It’s not
my
life. How would he look at me if he knew? It’s already taken me this long to have faith when he gazes at me as if I’m something truly, amazingly special. I believe him now when he says I’m fascinating and beautiful.

Don’t I deserve time to enjoy that a little longer?

I can’t bear thinking about the alternative.

“That’s what I’m asking.” I shake my head, not knowing what else to say but “Please.”

He takes a deep breath. There’s so much vitality in the chest that supports my trembling body. I want to dive into his strength and live there forever. Protected and . . . hiding.

Jesus
.

I call myself all manner of coward, but I still wait. I want too much: his permission, no questions asked.

I see the war on his face. His brows are furrowed first. That was a given when he frowned. Then twin muscles bunch on either side of his jaw. His nostrils flare. He squeezes my hand, nearly to the point of pain. I can feel him trying to accept what he can’t change. How often has he had to fight like this? That he’s doing it for me is terrible on my conscience, but I need it so badly. I need
him
.

And I need that damn piano.

With one last shuddering exhale, he nods. “C’mon.”

We stand, and he cinches up my borrowed robe. He grabs a pair of jeans on the way past his bedroom. His bedroom . . . I want to be in there almost as much as I want to bang away on a keyboard, but it isn’t the time. I don’t have the energy to be intimate in that way. It’s only been a handful of weeks since Jude and I first slept together, but in the time since, I know that fears and anxiety would steal the pleasure of indulging and being indulged.

We climb one more flight of steps and enter the ballroom. He flicks on a light that illuminates nothing but the piano. The concert grand sits dead center, as if onstage. The way the light strikes its gleaming black surface and blocks out the ballroom’s other features adds to that impression. I only know the place is huge because my footsteps echo as I walk forward, and because of the slight draft from what must be the storm lashing against windows.

I approach in a trance and sit on the bench of matching black lacquer. There’s no audience here, other than Jude. After I touch Middle C—no matter how much I need him—even he disappears.

Minor chords are a given. There’s no need for perky major chords, with their fresh vibrancy. I start off more tentatively than I would’ve expected, but the acoustics and the rain get under my skin. My pulse picks up the pace, as does the swift dance of my fingers and the thump of my feet on the pedals. I don’t think I’m crying, not with my body anyway. This is the release I needed—even more than sex. This is confession and salvation in one, even if I can’t admit to one and accept the other.

For once, while composing, I’m not insensate and possessed. I’m telling tales about being scared and in pain. About being lonely. About rain drenched nights and being welcomed into a shelter from the storm. I’m crying with parts of my soul, and screaming, and shaking from fears that I’ll never be able to say with words. Who needs words when eighty-eight keys are more eloquent and far more beautiful?