Harrow Lake Page 2

  I arrived home from my tutoring session at the library to find the apartment packed up, my life reduced to a neat stack of boxes with my name on them. When I tracked Nolan down inside the cardboard maze and asked him what the hell was going on, he just glanced at me and said, “Oh, didn’t I tell you? We’re going to Paris in the morning. I start work on the new movie there next week.”

  Then he went back to his study, humming along to that damned jazz record I can’t stand.

  Oh, didn’t I tell you? Just like that. No big deal.

  I felt my flesh hardening like volcanic rock, ready to explode at any moment. I couldn’t breathe. And he wouldn’t even look at me long enough to notice. Wouldn’t even look at me.

  Look at me!

  So I left. He noticed that apparently.

  I’ve made a list of Optimal things I can say to Nolan by the time the car sidles to the curb outside our building. Things like I overreacted and I shouldn’t have left and You were right. A list keeps me from saying the wrong thing to Nolan and making everything worse.

  Deep breath. Get out of the car.

  The Ivory is a beautiful, disapproving beast. It rises ten stories above me with curved art deco stonework. It’s easy to imagine flappers skipping out of the lobby on nights like this, all lipstick and gin and looking for a swell time.

  Nolan is obsessed with the 1920s. He loves the music, the art, the decadence. The architecture, too—it’s in the bones of every building we’ve ever lived in. He once told me ruefully that he wished he’d been around back then to witness the dawning age of cinema—to be able to shape it from that Big Bang moment. I was surprised to hear him say that. Nolan doesn’t usually admit to wanting anything he can’t have.

  “You forgot your purse.”

  Larry stands next to me, holding it out like you would to a stranger on a train, his thoughts elsewhere now that he’s done Nolan’s bidding. You wouldn’t think the guy has known me my whole life.

  He and Nolan used to be college buddies—before Larry screwed up some big investments and went broke. Maybe he was different back then, before he had to ask Nolan for a job, but it’s hard to imagine them as friends. Larry is such a Renfield.

  I take my bag and am about to head inside the Ivory when Larry moves to follow me.

  “Where are you going?” I ask.

  “To check on Nolan. He didn’t pick up when I tried calling—”

  “Larry. He’s fine.”

  We both know that’s not true; for Nolan to text Larry instead of calling him is a really bad sign. “Why would I spend ten minutes having a goddamn conversation by text when it can be wrapped up with a twenty-second phone call?”

  This is so, so bad.

  The windows of our apartment at the very top of the Ivory are glowing. Nolan’s waiting for me, and I don’t want to do this in front of Larry. He’s still hovering, though. Undecided.

  “Look,” I say. “It’s late, and we have things to sort out before our trip.”

  There’s a tense silence before Larry finally nods. “If there’s anything . . .”

  “Okay!” I call over my shoulder, already walking away.

  The street noise dulls as soon as I’m inside, leaving only the sound of my shoes clicking over the polished floor of the lobby. I pass the reception desk, ready to flash Matty a smile, even though he never smiles back anymore. Once, while he held the door for me, he let his hand curl around my arm and linger there a little too long, his fingers nestled against the side of my breast. I could’ve just stepped away from him or told him not to touch me, but the contact caught me by surprise. It actually reminded me of a time when I was leaving one of Nolan’s film premieres and some guy grabbed me and tried to bundle me into the trunk of his car. The incident was kind of exciting, honestly—like finding myself in a movie with no script. Smiling, I described to Matty how I kicked my would-be kidnapper and screamed the way I thought I should, until the man let me go. Nolan had come running over just as the guy was wheel-spinning away. Then he picked me up and let me sob against his Armani suit. That was kind of nice.

  “Nolan didn’t report it to the police,” I told Matty. “That’s weird now that I think about it. But there was a news story a couple of days later about a man who was found burned alive inside a car just like the one I saw that night . . . Maybe it was a different car—I’m not sure. But I think about that guy whenever I smell roasting meat.”

  Matty snatched back his hand then, and scuttled off to his spot behind the reception desk. In that moment, I could have said or done anything to him without a single consequence. Stories can be powerful things.

  Matty isn’t sitting at the reception desk now. He always works the late shift—he has the haggard appearance of a man who’s anxious to avoid his wife and kids—but tonight the foyer is empty. He’s probably just on a bathroom break, but it feels like the whole building is hollow. I don’t like it.

  I take the elevator up to the penthouse and step out into a marble hallway that has only one door on it—ours. I’m so preoccupied fishing around in my purse for the key card I “borrowed” from Nolan that I almost tread in the sticky dark red mess pooling under the apartment door. Looks like one of his fans has sent him another memento.

  In the six months since Nolan and I moved into this apartment, he has been the unamused recipient of a box of dead toads, a pie made from what the police forensics team informed us were dog intestines, and, most recently, a jar with a human toe in it. If Nolan weren’t so anal that he insists on opening all his own mail, Larry could intercept these gifts. But I guess I’d have no reason to send them if he did. (I’m kidding—I didn’t send all of them. Only the toe. And only because Nolan had been particularly shitty about letting me have my own laptop. He went off—again—about “the dangers of the internet” and how I’m “better off without all those lies infesting my brain.” All the same words he uses when he arbitrarily fires my tutors for not keeping a close enough eye on what I’m up to online.) Anyway, the shine of gifting wore off for me when Nolan hurled the jar across the kitchen and it smashed, sending the fake toe sailing into a pot of coffee I’d just made.

  I still don’t have my own laptop. I don’t even have a phone.

  Now the “blood” runs out in lines under the door, between the marble floor tiles, like it’s moving, reaching for me. I stop before the toes of my shoes touch the puddle. It’s an even deeper red at the edges, drying to a crust.

  Before I can swipe the key card down the lock, the door swings slowly inward. I brace myself for Nolan’s ice-cold fury, but he isn’t standing in the doorway. There’s nobody there.

  More blood-goop stains the parquet floor. The trail is patchy, like a heavy weight has been dragged and set down a few times. A prickling feeling sweeps over my skin. My grip tightens on the key card and I hold it out like a weapon in front of me as I linger just outside the door.

  “Nolan?”

  He doesn’t answer, but I hear something. Like faint music, maybe. Not a conspicuous sound, but enough for me to know that Nolan is home. Huh. He never leaves the door to the apartment unlocked.

  Sidestepping the mess, I go in. I smell last night’s takeout, the coconut oil the housekeeper uses on the leather furniture, and Nolan’s Montes—his Montecristo Relentless No. 2 cigars, which he smokes exactly twice a day. But there’s another smell, too: tangy and unpleasant.

  The long foyer is dim, but there’s enough light to see that the trail leads between the stacked boxes lining the hallway, past the kitchen, and disappears into Nolan’s study. The door to the study is oak with a colored glass inlay made to look like interlocking pieces of a geometric puzzle. I’m never entirely sure what Nolan is up to when he’s locked away in there. The puzzle door is always closed—whether he’s inside or not.

  It’s open now.

  “Nolan, are you home?”

  Still no reply,
but I’ve identified the murmur coming from inside. That damned jazz record is still playing in his study—“T’ain’t No Sin,” one of his favorites. It keeps repeating the same few bars over and over, jumping like it has a scratch. Nolan won’t like that.

  The red path is wider here; it has spread into the cracks around the parquet blocks, threading outward like bloated veins.

  “You left the door open . . .”

  The trail thickens as I edge around it and cross to the study doorway, following the path. I know there’s too much “blood” to have come from a package. I know that.

  Maybe Nolan’s been called out to the studio and didn’t have time to deal with the mess. Maybe I can get this cleared up before he gets home. That would be the Optimal thing to do.

  It feels wrong to go into Nolan’s study without his permission. But with two quick steps it’s done. Here the smoky scent of his Montes hangs like an invisible cloud. I spot the cigar stub sitting in a spray of ash on Nolan’s big oak desk, next to the ashtray. Next to it, not in it—as though it’s been knocked over and left like that. The feeling of utter wrongness chokes me.

  Stop it. Stop it! Don’t be such a child, Lola.

  Nothing has been packed away in Nolan’s study yet; he likes to keep his workspace just so. The walls are covered in shelves of books and awards and photographs taken on various film sets. These things represent his life’s work, his pride. On his desk there’s a picture of me, too. None of my mother.

  Lorelei herself has been AWOL for most of my life, so she doesn’t get a spot on the desk. But she is in the framed Nightjar poster—the only movie she ever starred in. It’s Nolan’s most iconic film, shot in Lorelei’s hometown of Harrow Lake, Indiana. Nightjar earned its place on the wall, even if Lorelei didn’t.

  I turn off the record player and the upbeat melody jolts to a stop. I can hear the desk phone now. It’s lying on its side, a tone of quiet distress bleeding out of the receiver. I pick it up and am reaching for the switch hook to silence it when I see him. I freeze.

  Nolan is slumped against a low bookcase, arms crossed over his stomach like he just decided to sit down and relax. For a second I feel foolish for imagining anything was wrong. This is a joke, obviously. Even though Nolan never jokes, not like this. My palms sting, my fingers curled too tight.

  “Nolan?”

  He doesn’t answer. His eyes roll like he’s struggling to focus, nostrils flaring. Pain—intense pain. I’ve seen that look before, I guess, but only on-screen or on-set, and never from him. He’s faking—he must be. Acting. Except Nolan doesn’t do that, either. Unless . . . is he doing this to teach me a lesson? To punish me for leaving the apartment? How am I supposed to react? What’s the Optimal thing for me to do?

  But no, the blood—it’s all over his hands, leaking from between his fingers. His cellphone lies in a puddle of it on the floor next to him, the dark screen smeared with fumbled fingermarks. A whole lake of blood.

  I’d better clean that up before Nolan sees it.

  The thought floats into my head like a soap bubble, and I almost laugh. Because that’s not an Optimal thought to have right now. Because . . .

  Because God, he’s hurt. He’s really hurt.

  The truth of it hits me with such force, such certainty, that it slams against my chest. I stutter-step in my rush to get to him and my feet skid under me so that I land hard on my knees. I grab the edge of the desk to pull myself back up, but a sudden sound stops me. It’s like fingers snapping again and again, only too quickly to be real. Like chattering teeth, but too loud—snap, snap, snap, snap, SNAP. The noise echoes through the apartment, then stops when it reaches the open doorway. My elbow hits the desk edge with a loud crack as I whirl to face it, pain lancing all the way to my shoulder. But there’s nobody in the doorway, and the sound is gone. There’s only a vacuum of empty space.

  What was that?

  I crawl to Nolan’s side, waiting to hear footsteps, a door slamming, but there’s only the thudding of my heart against my rib cage. Whatever made that chattering noise is gone now.

  “Lola,” Nolan says, but it’s more of a groan. I don’t know what to do, where to start. I need to figure out why he’s bleeding, but I can’t bring myself to touch him. “Lola, I . . . I need an amb—”

  Nolan’s muffled words kick my brain into action. I grab the phone and crouch next to him as I dial 911. I somehow sound calm as I give the operator as much information as I can, trying to drown out the other voice inside my head, the hissing static that keeps whispering that he’s going to die, going to leave me all alone, going to disappear . . .

  “There’s already an ambulance on its way to you, Lola,” the operator says. “We got a call from your dad a little while ago.”

  Of course. Did I seriously think he just lay down and waited for me to come home? No. Even here, even now, Nolan has arranged everything.

  “He’s . . . he’s bleeding a lot. I think he’s been stabbed. There’s so much blood!”

  “It’s all right, Lola. Now here’s what I need you to do . . .”

  Following her directions, I run and grab a towel from the bathroom, then force myself to hold it to his stomach. I don’t want to face what’s really covering my hands; what’s making the phone too slippery to hold steady. I can’t let Nolan see how scared I am.

  If only we hadn’t argued earlier. If only I hadn’t left him . . . He shouldn’t be lying here like this. It’s my fault. It’s all my fault.

  A thousand years pass before footsteps pound up to the apartment door and I hear the clipped, efficient voices of the paramedics. Nolan grunts in pain, then falls still. Is he unconscious or . . .

  “No, no, no, no, NO!” I repeat the word like its rhythm can take the place of both our heartbeats.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Things I learned about stab wounds while waiting to hear if Nolan was going to die:

  Plenty of people survive being stabbed. More than you think. As long as you miss the major arteries (carotid in the neck, or femoral in the groin), they’ll probably survive if they get help quickly.*

  Depending on where the person is stabbed (three times in the lower abdomen and once in the upper thigh, in Nolan’s case), it can take hours for them to die—if they die, that is. Again, most don’t.

  If the stabbing victim loses more than 40 percent of the blood in their body, they will usually need immediate and aggressive resuscitation, and will definitely need a blood transfusion to save them. (Whose blood are they giving Nolan?)

  *This is the only Optimal thing I can come up with. I’m not going to mention anything on this list to Nolan when he wakes up. I’ll just find somewhere to bury it.

  * * *

  • • •

  I remember reading a news article about four Russian teenagers who were abducted by Satan worshippers and each stabbed 666 times before being eaten: 666 times. Would you even look human after being stabbed that many times? Probably not. Maybe it made them easier to eat. Shit. Why am I even thinking about this?

  I sit in the waiting room at the hospital, tracing the veins in my arm with a black pen someone left next to a book of word puzzles. I start with the biggest veins. Three thick, angry lines thread up from inside my elbow and dive under the meaty base of my thumb. Next I draw over the smaller veins, weaving and connecting them, making dark cracks cover the surface of my fingers, knuckles, palm, all the way down my forearm. But then the lines start to swim, morphing into cracks in a parquet floor, filling with viscous red liquid . . .

  Stop it!

  Still, I don’t stop drawing, carving the memory into my skin. The ink has reached my elbow by the time two shoes stop in my peripheral vision. I blink slowly. Brown shoes.

  “Lola?”

  I follow the line up from the boring shoes, past a badly fitting gray suit, over his mustard-yellow tie—why always mustard?�
�to the thick black hair sprouting from Larry’s collar. His tie has been loosened, his top shirt button opened as if to let all that body hair jostle its way out.

  “How long have you been here?” Larry’s words are clipped. His beady eyes dart around before falling on the fault lines covering half my arm. “A while, I take it.”

  The clock on the wall says it’s a little after seven, but it could be morning or evening. People have rolled in and out of the waiting room in waves since I was ordered to stay put while Nolan recovered after surgery. At the moment, it’s just me and some old lady asleep in the corner next to the muted TV—and Larry.

  “Have you been here by yourself since last night? You should have called me.”

  “Why?” Calling Larry was the last thing on my mind while I waited for the doctors to save Nolan’s life. It’s not like he could have helped.

  A door thumps open somewhere. They wouldn’t rush if it was bad news, would they? Are those good-news footsteps or bad? A woman in a white coat bustles past, and I exhale. It’s strange how people just appear out of thin air here, inhabit your space without a word, then are gone again. The doors swing. No locks. Nothing to stop you if you wanted to run away. I read that Danish people leave a window open in the house where someone is dying so that their soul has a way to escape. Maybe that’s why they don’t lock the doors here—so many people dying all the time. The place would be packed with souls by now if they had no way out.

  I should lock the doors so he can’t leave me.

  I make a weird, strangled sound.

  “You’re supposed to tell me if you’re in trouble, or you need anything,” Larry says. “You know that.” I don’t know that, actually, but I can’t handle a fight right now. “I couldn’t believe it when I got the call to say Nolan had been attacked. And I’d just left you to go inside the apartment by yourself—!”