Who Will Save Your Soul: And Other Dangerous Bedtime Stories Read online

  That would be a cheap win, though. Too easy. Too banal. Besides, I like the thought of him stomping all over her oriental rugs with his muddy work boots.

  “Of course,” I say, sarcasm sharpening my words. “We always offer gardeners top shelf vodka.”

  He merely lifts a dark eyebrow. How is it possible for eyebrows to look low class? His do. They’re a mess, broad and unruly. I want to run my tongue over them, smooth them out.

  “Do you always show up half-dressed for them, too?” he asks in a musing tone. “Because that’s a real perk. They should put that in their classified ad.”

  My cheeks burn hot as I realize how little I’m wearing. The bath towel covers from the slope of my breasts to the tops of my thighs. It’s held together by so little—only the tuck of terry cloth. If it came undone right now I’d be naked in front of him.

  “Tell me your name,” I demand, lifting my chin.

  “So you can tell your mother about me?”

  “Maybe I will.”

  “And if I tell her that you came downstairs in only a towel? That you tried to have sex with me? That you were the one who drank half the bottle of scotch?”

  My mouth drops open. “That’s a lie.”

  “Does that surprise you? That other people lie, too?” He must see the shock on my face; his smile is smile and smug. “Yes, I know about you. Poor little Emily Coulter, can’t tell the truth to save her life.”

  A knot around my throat, pulled taut by thick dirt-stained fingers. “How would you know that?” That’s my family’s dirty little secret, but not the worst one. Not by far.

  “I know lots of things.”

  “And anyway, why are you back already? It’s only been three days. The hedges don’t need to be trimmed every damn day.”

  His smile comes slow. “You don’t trust me?”

  “Not as far as I could throw you.”

  There’s something strange about him, something a little dangerous.

  Unfortunately that only makes me like him more.

  “In that case my name is Niko. And I don’t think you’re going to tell your Mom a damn thing. Not when she’s drunk half the time and gone the rest. Not when she wouldn’t believe you anyway.”

  “How do you know anything about her?”

  “And your dad,” he continues as if I didn’t speak. “Well, he’s barely ever home. I wonder if that’s why your mother drinks. Or maybe it’s because her daughter is a liar.”

  My eyes narrow. “What I tell my parents is none of your concern. They aren’t here right now. You’re in my house, and I’m your employer.”

  His dark gaze calls me on the bluff, sweeping over me in from my neck to my ankles, the space in between flushing warm as if he can see through thick towels. He can’t, he can’t. But my nipples bead tight beneath his perusal, and God, I think he can see the points of them. His smile is blinding white mischief. He can definitely see them.

  “My employer,” he says softly. “What will you make me do?”

  The question runs through every nerve ending, a flame on dry wood. I’m left burning with the suggestion of all the things I could make him do. The things his dark eyes challenge me to say.

  There’s only air in my head, only water in my veins. I’m made from earth, swept away by the wind of him, made into something new. “I’d make you clean off your boots.”

  He doesn’t even glance down. He must know they’re caked with mud. That he leaves large black marks across the marble. He must feel how heavy they are as he walks.

  “And you have to address me—” My words falter under the weight of his amusement. “You have to address me with respect. My name is Emily.”

  “What if I like calling you princess?”

  A hitch in my chest. Longing. Fear? “It doesn’t matter what you like.”

  He takes two steps toward me, unstoppable, the glint in his eyes more of a warning than a promise. “What if you like me calling you princess?”

  “I don’t,” I say, closing my eyes against the lie. More is at stake than the garden or the front room, than the help or the household. It feels like I’ve been fighting this my whole life.

  Air brushes my arms as he circles me. His voice comes low and hard, almost a growl. “You’re lying, princess.” A calloused finger pushes my wet hair back, strokes down my temple. I imagine a darkened line over clean skin, something to hold onto when he leaves.

  A tremor shakes my voice. “I would definitely make you leave the house. You belong outside.”

  Outside where it’s sunny and beautiful and free.

  “You’re probably right,” he says, his lips almost touching my shoulder. I can feel the heat of his breath as if that sunshine is bottled up, as if he releases a little bit just for me. “But I think you like me inside. I think you like me calling you princess. And I think you like me dirty.”

  With a soft gush of cool air I feel him leave the room.

  It’s several more minutes before I can open my eyes.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The mobster turns to look at me, his eyes dark. “What grade are you in?”

  Even I have to admit it’s a little creepy to have him talk to me like I’m a little girl. Meanwhile the woman next to him has skin like porcelain and wide brown eyes. Her dark hair falls in ringlets. It feels almost weird to check out her body, even though when I do, it’s clear she’s all grown up.

  She might be older than me. But only by a year or two.

  “Emily’s a sophomore at Tanglewood College,” Dad says, waving a hand like it’s not worth discussing.

  I know the real reason he doesn’t want the conversation on me. Because I’ll shout something wild, like the sky is purple. Or I’m a captive in this house. Or maybe I’ll just tell this Sergio that my dad isn’t trustworthy enough to do business with. The deal might still go through but pulling out all that paperwork, all those diagnoses to discredit me would be a pain in the ass.

  Sergio doesn’t take the hint. “College?” His glacial blue eyes run over me as if he re-examining me, placing me where the girl beside him is, drawing a shiver to the surface of my skin. “What are you studying?”

  Dad presses his lips together, unwilling to field this one.

  “Geography,” I supply. “Specifically earth sciences and sustainability.”

  There. I told the truth and I told it as simply and straightforward as possible.

  Gold star for me.

  A derisive noise punctuates my words. I keep a blank smile on my face, accustomed to my father’s opinion of my major. I’m not really sure what would have made him happier, though. I could have said fiction writing for a little inside joke, but I don’t think he would have laughed.

  “You’re interested in the environment?” Sergio asks.

  He sounds doubtful, though whether of my interest or the merits of the environment I can’t tell.

  “I’m interested in the interplay between human society and our eco-system. How we use the resources and what we impart back to the earth. In particular my focus is on global food and farming.”

  Now there’s surprise. “Farming?”

  “It’s shocking to me that there’s still hunger in the year 1995, sir.”

  “Ah,” he says. “Charity work. Anastasia is on the Tanglewood Society for the Arts.”

  And with that, I’m carefully boxed and tucked away. Placed on a shelf alongside society wives who plan parties for the elite to give away a tiny percentage of their money.

  The worst part is that I’m not even sure he’s wrong. It’s my dirty little secret that while studying the terrain and history of every region on the globe, I’ve never stepped one foot outside the city limits of Tanglewood. I can’t go anywhere without permission I’m never going to get.

  The conversation moves to business with startling efficiency, the social portion of the evening concluded, Anastasia and I having done our duties as polite female add-ons.

  “Do you have them?” Sergio asks.

  “Of course,” Dad says, pointing to the wet bar. “In that black box.”

  It takes a moment of awkward stillness for me to realize that had been a command. I’ve been the dutiful daughter at dinner parties plenty of times. This is my first time ever standing in for my mother for drinks and illicit deals with mobsters, though.

  A half-wall made from teak hosts an array of antique pieces from Asia. A priceless vase. A sculpture of an elephant. A bamboo plant that I’m pretty sure Mom picked up at the Rite Aid. As worldly as she liked to appear the farthest she ever traveled was the dusty antique store downtown.

  A red-lacquered box carved with a landscape of bamboo reeds and clouds sits in the middle. I’ve never opened the box. Never seen it moved. But when I pick it up, it’s heavy.

  I didn’t need to take out my old Barbies to play with dolls; I’ve become one, my arms made from plastic, half-bent as I carry the box in unfeeling hands. I set the box down on the glass-top coffee table between the two sofas, lifting the lid to see black velvet inside.

  Sergio doesn’t quite snap, but it feels like that. A quick gesture, a sharp sound. That’s all it takes for me to sit back on my heels. All it takes for Anastasia to reach for the velvet pouch with cool efficiency. She seemed docile, but that looks like a mask when she pours diamonds onto a leather mat, no shock on her porcelain face, no expression of any kind.

  She produces a smooth metal bar, kind of like a nail file, and separates what must be thousands of dollars in diamonds. Distantly I remember Mom mocking an engagement ring after a society party. Hardly a family heirloom. What did it cost? Two thousand at most.

  And that diamond had been smaller than these. There are so many.

  Not thousands. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in diamonds.

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; I have no idea how actual jewelry businesses operate, but I have an image of armored cars and glass cases. Not a secret antique box in our house.

  “I’ll have to examine it at the lab,” Anastasia says with a hint of an eastern European accent. “But it appears to be quality. The right amount.”

  My father nods as if impatient. “And the money?”

  The look on Sergio’s hard-lined face could freeze water. “I’ll send a fax to my banker when we get home. The money will be wired to your account next week.”

  “Next week?”

  “Surely you didn’t expect me to carry a briefcase full of money.”

  From the annoyed look on Dad’s face, he expected exactly that. “What guarantee do I have that you’ll follow through?”

  The temperature in the room drops ten degrees. “We need time to verify the stones. And since your daughter is in the room, I won’t tell you what happens if you question me again.”

  Dad doesn’t back down. Instead he leans forward, looking like a bulldog facing down a mountain lion. I can’t decide whether that makes him brave or stupid. “Since your jeweler is in the room, I don’t see why you need a week to pay me.”

  Sergio gives a small laugh, as if impressed by my father’s stubbornness. “You can keep them until the transfer is complete. Anastasia will collect a random sample to look at under microscope. Nothing will go wrong as long as these are quality.”

  After considering this a moment, Dad gives a short nod. “Next week.”

  Sergio and Anastasia leave quickly after that, taking only a small pouch of five diamonds with them. Small compared to the rest of the stones. The largest one was still the size of my thumb nail.

  Part of me wants to ask Dad where he got those diamonds. How long he’s had them.

  His scowl through dinner doesn’t invite questions. It quickly turns into an argument once Mom comes home, looking sharp with French-tipped nails and what appears to be Botox.

  I slip upstairs, still feeling more like plastic than flesh, more air than blood.

  It’s one thing to know my father does shady things for money. Another to take part in them myself, to see the glittering fruits of his labor. I know about diamond mines, the way the earth is ripped apart for a few compact pieces of stone in the center, the laborers who break their backs for pennies. The regional violence for control of the mines that takes the lives of women and children.

  Not every diamond is sold to fund armed conflict, but with this kind of secrecy, this underhanded dealing, a living-room deal with a mobster, I can only imagine these are the worst. I may not know much about purchasing jewelry, but I learned about the international diamond certifications, designed to confirm the ethical providence of the stones in my class on natural resources. There were no little plastic cards accompanying those diamonds, however little reassurance those might be.

  Which means they’re definitely blood diamonds. I held them in my hands.

  Even though I took a shower this morning, I find myself shedding my evening dress. Stepping under the spray of hot water, needing something familiar again.

  The hot needles against my skin remind me of Niko.

  Something about him doesn’t add up. The way he came twice in three days. The way he ventured into the house both times. And the fact that he was only a few feet away from a massive stash of diamonds when I found today.

  People would kill for these diamonds. Blood diamonds.

  In fact they already had.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  I lay in bed awake for most of the night, restless and wary. When I do fall asleep I’m struck by dreams with sudden cliffs and shining pointy rocks at the bottom. Mom appears in the doorway at eight a.m. fully decked out in the black leggings and skin tight neon top she wears to the gym.

  “You should come with me,” she says without preamble. “There’s a new Tae Bo class.”

  “I don’t even know what that is.”

  “It’s like Tae Kwon Do but more fun. It was created by this completely hot—”

  “No, let me rephrase. I don’t care what Tae Bo is.”

  She frowns, which doesn’t look very different from her regular expression due to the Botox injunction yesterday. “You’re going to have to do something to maintain that body once you start getting older.”

  “I’ll mark that on my calendar.” If I actually get older.

  “You’re a brat,” she says without heat.

  “Hey, Mom.”

  She pauses, holding the doorframe as if she might launch herself away from me. I’m the worst kind of daughter to parents like these. One who isn’t impressed by the new car or the diamond tennis bracelet I got for my birthday. I want only one thing: a way out of here.

  “What’s Dad into?”

  A new tension enters her body. “What are you talking about?”

  “Well, he met with a mobster. You basically said that.”

  She fusses with a brown workout towel slung over her shoulder. “You don’t need to worry about that. Your father knows what he’s doing.”

  I’m not sure that’s really a comfort when what he’s doing is incredibly illegal—not to mention unethical. “Then where did he get those diamonds?”

  Her eyes turn dark. “Don’t start, Emily.”

  “I’m not lying. There must be a hundred diamonds inside that box. I saw them.”

  “You don’t want to go down this path again.”

  That much we can agree on. Nothing about this will end well for me. “It doesn’t worry you that there’s that kind of money just sitting in the house?”

  “I’m not worried because there aren’t any diamonds.”

  Tears prick my eyes. I should be used to this by now. Being called a liar. Made to question my own eyes. It’s been like this for ten long years. People with advanced degrees already dismissed anything I say with their diagnosis, so why do I even bother talking?

  Why even bother telling the truth?

  The new gardener has been in the house. Not once. Twice.

  Mom would freak out if she knew, despite what she says about the diamonds. At a minimum he would be fired. If not worse. What if she told the mobster that Niko had been trying to steal them? I keep my mouth shut as my mother goes downstairs. I can hear the faint rumble of the garage door open and then close.

  I don’t even want to know. That’s what I tell myself. She’s right about one thing. Wherever this leads—with me claiming something about Daddy, with more doctors and needles and electric shock therapy, with pain and tears. It’s not worth it.

  At least until I hear a loud whooshing sound from outside.

  I peek out the window to see someone power washing the far wall with a machine. Up and down in neat lines that turn the brick from light to dark. That someone wears a black T-shirt and acid washed jeans. And muddy work boots I would recognize anywhere—even from half an acre across and two stories up.

  For a moment I imagine storming across the lawn and confronting him. I could demand to know what he was doing in the house—and don’t tell me you were getting a drink, I’d tell him.

  And he would deny everything.

  I remember how easily he turned the tables on me yesterday. All the things he said about me being his employer, as if I was in charge. The whole time he was the one controlling me, seducing me so I wouldn’t see what he was doing.

  Which means I need the same kind of strategic stealth.

  I head into my closet and pull out a bikini with tags on it. I think Mom paid something outrageous at Nordstrom’s the day I turned eighteen. Maybe it was supposed to make up for not being around when I got my period, having the maid show me how a pad worked. I didn’t have any interest in the tiny straps when I got it, but it’s just right for what I need now.

  I strip down and put on the bikini, wincing at the scrape of plastic tags on my bare skin, at the tight elastic barely holding me in. The tags are easy enough to yank off. Meanwhile the elastic strap nestles in my butt with disturbing intimacy.

  Two little triangles cover my breasts. And one down below.

  The towel that had felt so revealing yesterday now seems like an exercise in modesty. I can’t really imagine going out like this, but I want to. For reasons that have nothing to do with stealth or escape. I want to see what Niko’s expression will be when he sees this bikini.