“No!” Fern rushed forward, ignoring the roll of one ankle. It didn’t even hurt. She couldn’t feel anything, her blood was pumping so fiercely. “No, I swear it. I had no idea he would do this. They gave me something to drink, and I think there was something in it?—”
Before she could finish speaking, his hand lashed out. The back of it struck her right cheek with such force and surprise it knocked her off balance, and she landed on the carpeted floor. Tears sprang to her eyes, and the bridge of her nose flared with pain as she stared at the dark purple carpet. She tried to pick herself up, her arms trembling. She’d expected anger. She’d expected punishment. Not this.
“What were you doing with him?” her father raged. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done? The position you’ve put me in?”
The door to the study opened, and through the rush of blood in Fern’s ears came Buchanan’s voice.
“What the hell is happening in here?”
She sat up, something wet on her upper lip. She touched it, and her shaking fingertips came away with blood.
Buchanan stared at her with pity as he went to theirfather’s desk. He didn’t move to help her up. He just stared at her crumpled form, then looked away, and saw the envelope.
“Don’t,” she pleaded, but of course, he did.
“Jesus,” he hissed, throwing the photographs back down as if they’d burned him. “Thisis what you were doing last night?”
Fern couldn’t understand. How could they think she’d wanted this? That she’d willingly posed for such pictures? She hadn’t left the house in ages. She lived in her turret for heaven’s sake! Did they not know herat all?
“No,” she said again, but it was a whistle of wind in her throat. It was over. Protesting or asking them to listen while she explained would be pointless. Fern wiped at her nose, and blood streaked the back of her hand.
Neither of them offered a handkerchief to her.
“Get out,” her father barked at her. “I have to fix this.”
He paced in front of the side portico doors. He stopped and pointed a finger at her. “Your mother is not to know of any of this. Do you understand me?”
Fern wobbled to her feet, her ears humming like a piano string being tuned. The two of them stared at her, waiting for her to disappear.
Something hot and heavy lodged itself in the base of her throat, and as she turned to leave the study, her steps were just as leaden.
Fern did what they wanted.
She disappeared.
7
Her nose wasn’t broken. Her father’s hand must have been open when it struck her, and what had felt like a punch was likely only a hard slap. Still, her right cheek had swelled, and a crease of purple discolored her undereye. It reminded her of Bessy, the woman in Rod’s office last night.
Fern went to the kitchen for some ice, grateful that Mrs. Jennaway took Sunday mornings off. But it really didn’t matter: The delivered photographs would not be a secret for much longer. Her father’s order to keep her mother out of it would be next to impossible.
The day stretched on, the clocks throughout the house chiming new hours, one after the other. She waited for the commotion. The raised voices. The pounding on her door. But they didn’t come.
Finally, it grew dark, and headlights and lampposts began to light the avenue outside. Maybe her father had succeeded in smothering the morning’s threat from Red Rodney’s henchmen after all.
She sat in the turret’s window, the reading bench pillows cushioning a bruise on her hip that she didn’t recall receiving. It must have been from when she’d fallen in the study. Or from the night before, when she’d been insensate in Cal’s bedroom.
Fern leaned back, crossing her legs at the ankles, her feet stuffed under a blanket. She wasn’t going anywhere—not with one half of her face bruised and the other half scarred, the way it had always been—so she wasn’t dressed to be seen. She wore an old, rayon crepe number that her mother had never liked. Too plain, she’d said when Fern had ordered it from the Sears catalog.The midnight blue makes you look pale. Fern thought it made her dark blonde hair look lighter, closer to caramel. Besides, dark colors never made a person stand out in a crowd, and that’s how she wanted it.
Traffic passed on the street, with a few autos parked alongside the curb. The headlights on one of the parked autos flashed on and off. Fern sat forward. They flashed a second time. As the bulbs in the headlamps faded, she pressed her nose to the glass. She couldn’t see much detail, not with her bedroom lights on.
Fern got up and raced to pull the chains on the three lamps around the room. One by one, they went out, darkening the room and brightening the world outside. She saw it then: a Roadster, parked in front of their neighbor’s home. The headlights flashed again.
She froze, fingers pressing into the bench cushions. It was the car Cal had taken her home in last night. It could be Rodney driving… But no, he wouldn’t bother with caution or have the patience to wait for her to notice his car.
It was Cal. Was he trying to get her attention?
Fern hoped he couldn’t still see her sitting there, hesitating. What was he thinking coming here again? She’d made a mistake last night, leaving her house to follow him. Why on earth would she make the same mistake twice?
