Page 2 of A Touch of Dark
Adding insult to injury, I look exhausted despite the smile. Nothing like the beaming, prize-winning marketer gazing from the framed photo behind me. To be fair, she’s a creation achievable only with the finest coating of makeup and tweaking in photoshop. Juliana Thorne is her name, and I barely know her.
A paragraph-long blurb on the company’s website reveals all anyone needs to understand anyway. Selling lies is her one talent, and her résumé is the only interesting thing about her—that and her coveted last name.
Sighing, I set my mug aside. I’ve wasted enough time. Simon needs his answer after all.
I open another drawer and withdraw a blank postcard before grabbing a pen from the neat row beside my keyboard.
I’m fine. To prove it, I inhale deeply and drag the nib of a pen across the page. It only shakes twice.To another year,I write as neatly as I can.
With that, the celebration commences. I swipe my desk clean and tuck the postcard into the pocket of the black coat hanging on a hook behind my office door. Then I sling it over my arm and step out into the hallway that attaches my office to the main suite.
I’m the only one left behind, as per usual. The janitor already switched the lights off, saving me the trouble of having to lock up. So I toss my postcard, addressed only by name, into the outgoing mailbag and then take the elevator to the main lobby. Gus, the security guard, is lounging against his podium, flicking through a skin mag. He looks up at me and winks as I slip past him.
“Happy birthday, girlie,” he says. Then he frowns. “Everything all right, Ms. Thorne?”
“Everything’s fine.”
“Good. I hope you aren’t paying attention to the news, either. We all know that beaner got what he deserved. He killed that girl. Your father just had the guts to prosecute. It’s not his fault he offed himself, is it?”
When I don’t reply, he continues. “I mean, a man like your dad can’t have an evil bone in his body, taking in a traumatized little girl out of the goodness of his heart—”
“Goodnight, Gus!” I force a smile before leaving the building, forsaking the heat for the frigid night air.
Outside, my grin falls flat as that mental tune starts up again, building in time with my surging heartbeat. There isn’t enough room in my skull to care about my father’s legal issues and the narrative being spun around him.
Happy birthday to you… Happy birthday to you.
I grit my teeth to refocus. A town car is already waiting for me out front. The driver appears by my side to usher me inside, and I’m left with only a blurred view of the city to distract me.
That and the chatter of a radio station coincidentally discussing the one topic that seems to be the talk of the town.
“That judge should be stripped of his title,” a presenter says. “They only convicted the kid because he was an immigrant—”
“Not just any immigrant though,” someone interrupts. “That ‘kid’ came from a family that isn’t exactly innocent. Say what you will, but the Villas have their fingers in some shady stuff. Everyone knows it. But hell, if I wind up in a river tomorrow, we know why—”
“Could you turn that down?” I ask the driver, who complies.
But as silence falls, I quickly realize my mistake when my thoughts turn to what I know is waiting for me at the end of this short trip.
Simon always sends two presents. One goes to the office, which I’ll have to open in a public setting. The second comes to my home address—which he manages to find despite how many hotels, motels, or high-rise condos I’ve rented, booked, or hidden in. The past three years, I’ve stopped trying to evade him and maintained the same sublet penthouse of a luxury hotel in the heart of downtown. It boasts the highest standard of security around, with cameras in all the halls and guards on twenty-four-hour patrols. I even paid extra for a private floor.
Regardless, like every year, I find a neatly wrapped box waiting before my door.
I stoop for it and unlock my door, knowing that, just like at my office, the guard down below will deny letting anyone up and a review of the cameras will show nothing. After so many years, the fear gripping my chest has become reflexive at this point.
Morbid tradition.
After stepping inside the suite, I cross the foyer and head straight for my bedroom, switching on every light I pass. The gift under my arm feels more familiar than the modern apartment with its open floorplan and gray color scheme. In a sick way, he became my fixture, Simon. No matter what, I could always count on him.
We will always play our game.
Tonight, I set the gift on the edge of my bed and fish a bottle of wine from under the mattress first. My toes curl shamefully.Coward.This brand is cheaper than the stuff he sent me and burns going down. I chug right from the bottle until my stomach aches and the world spins around me, a merry-go-round of monochrome. Only now do I sink to the floor and wrestle the gift onto my lap.
Happy, happy birthday.
He chose red wrapping paper, like always.Herfavorite color. I run my fingers over the surface of it. Malicious intent lingers in the neatly folded corners and carefully applied pieces of tape. He selected the color of the bow, too. It’s a deep, rich shade of purple.Myfavorite.
Details like that mattered to children the most. A favorite color, betrayed by a shirt or backpack, could spark a friendship over lunch with few words spoken. It was a craft you could hone to a T if you knew what to look for. The loner girl lurking around the edges, shuffling her brand-new shoes in the hopes they’d be noticed by someone. Anyone.
