Fuel the Fire (61 page)

Rose is quiet as well. How do you tell a young girl that she’s been violated? I remember how I bought and destroyed pictures of her backstage undressing—from a photographer—to avoid this for Daisy, and with strange circularity, she’s about to experience a version of that anyway.

“Guys?” Her smile wanes. “What’s going on?”

A chill snakes down my back and arms. “I just found out that Scott still has footage of you from
Princesses of Philly
. In your bedroom.”

Her face falls. “What…that’s…”

“It’s not online. It can’t be,” I try to ease her concern. “It’s child pornography, Daisy. It’s a felony for him to film it, let alone watch the footage.”

She stares up at the ceiling, horrified like Rose had been.

“He’s going to pay for this,” Rose says adamantly. “Okay? He’s
not
getting away with it, but we need your consent to call the cops.”

She shakes her head in a daze. “Why do you need my consent? It’s illegal…”

“Daisy…” Rose detaches from my hand and kneels in front of Daisy, collecting her sister’s hands in hers. “He has footage of you, which will be the basis of the case against him. You may have to go to court and testify…or at least make a statement.”

“He hurt
you
,” Daisy says, tears rising, almost as pissed as her sister’s. “He hurt
me.
Who else is he going to hurt?” She inhales strongly and then extends her hand to me.

I frown, not understanding this action.

“I want to call the cops.”

I think two years ago, Daisy would’ve had a hard time standing up for herself, even in a situation as grotesque and abysmal as this one. She would have asked me to call the police. She would have asked her sister to finish the job. Anyone but her.

Rose stands up straight and motions for me to give Daisy the phone, and there is pride in Rose’s eyes. She even
hugs
her sister to her side.

“How long will he go to jail for?” Daisy asks as I pass her the cell. For Rose, to put Scott in jail for eternity would’ve been easy. For me, it would’ve been a guiltless action. For someone like Daisy, it’s difficult, but I hear no remorse in her voice.

She raises her chin like Rose, following her older sister’s powerful, confident demeanor.

“Maybe five years,” I tell her, “and he’ll be registered as a sexual predator.” He may also face federal charges, but right now, I’m looking at the state law and that alone will ruin his life.

It’s not blackmail. It’s not unjust. Scott is going to jail for crimes that he’s escaped and twisted for years. If I never became his friend, I would’ve never found out what he had in his house. He would’ve never even
thought
to show me or trust me with it.

I would’ve never reached this place.

Daisy puts the phone to her ear. “Hi, I’d like to report a crime…”

[ 60 ]

ROSE COBALT

Two police cars hug the street curb, one beside Scott’s house and one beside ours. I drill holes at Scott’s mailbox, waiting for his disgusting, wretched self to appear in cuffs.

“He’s cooperating,” the officer tells us. “We’re taking his computer as evidence, and with what we’ve seen so far, we’ll be able to get a warrant to search his house for anything else.”

Perfect.

Connor stands at the end of our driveway with me, poised and collected while I’m
fuming
, a shark with jaws wide open, a lioness crouched and ready to pounce with claws bared.

“If you need my cellphone records, you can have them,” Connor says. “He texted me to come over there today, and when I saw what he was planning to watch, I immediately ran back to call the police.”

The officer jots this down in his notebook. “That’d be helpful, thank you.”

I perk up the minute I spot the other officer across the street, a bit diagonal to us. He escorts the three guys out of that house. Connor said two were named Trent and Simon, and of course I can distinguish Scott among them, no longer smiling with smug delight. He scowls at the cop car, all three men handcuffed behind their backs.

Turn around
, I mentally command to Scott, but his face is still pinned to the vehicle. They’re out of earshot, and I watch Trent and Simon slide into the car, and the officer shuts the door on them. He sets a hand on Scott’s shoulder and directs him to the police car in front of us.

“Excuse me,” the police officer says, leaving our side to talk to his partner.

Scott Van Wright is handcuffed.

Scott Van Wright is going to jail.

Scott Van Wright is never obtaining
anything
he desires, ever again.

“There were so many days,” I tell Connor, “where I thought he’d always walk free, travel in his
yacht
.” I cringe in distaste. “Get a tan, get high, and apparently watch my little sister…” I can’t even finish that truth.

It’s one thing to watch me, but to know, all this time without our knowledge, he’s been getting off to
Daisy
—it’s past conscionable.

Connor wraps his arm around my waist. “Those days are gone,” he announces the best truth of all.

The two officers chat off to the side while they leave Scott by the car door, closer to us than to them. I hear the word “cocaine” so I assume he’ll be booked for more than just filming and viewing child pornography.

Scott has largely kept his back to us, but he finally shifts, leaning his hip on the car door. His snide fury morphs his face into a repulsed snarl as he looks between my husband and me.

Connor laces his fingers through mine. I stand even taller with my husband, my five-inch heels mighty beneath my feet.

I have no trite jeers for Scott, no
how do those handcuffs feel?
or
have fun in hell.

What he did was so vile, so gross that there is
no
word in my vocabulary that is even worthy of attaching itself to him. I just let my glare puncture him tenfold.

Scott lets out a short, incensed laugh beneath his breath. “You fucking bitch—”

“No,” Connor says, silencing Scott at this. “The next time you ever say anything derogatory about my wife or about any woman, it’ll be in jail.”

Inside I am doing victory laps around my driveway with fists raised, barefooted, and howling at the sun. It’s something my sisters would do. Something I’m proud to imagine, them here feeling the triumph with me.  

Scott sets his murderous gaze on Connor. “You haven’t been real with me at all, have you? It wasn’t just this one thing that pushed you over. Or was it?”

In the most even-tempered voice, Connor says, “Do you know what an Aesculapian snake is? No.” He looks to me. “Rose?”

I know where he’s going with this. “A species of nonvenomous snake,” I answer with my head held high.

“Among which is the rat snake.” Connor focuses on Scott again. “Rat snakes are like ordinary snakes, except when held captive. When you trap a rat snake, it will attempt to swallow its own body and eventually self-cannibalize.” Connor says, “
You
are the rat snake, and you’ve been slowly eating yourself to death ever since you moved across the street.”

Scott’s face—a twisted ball of shock, rage and terror—is priceless. He looks like he may puke, and he braces more of his body weight against the police car. He stares faraway, as though adding up all the months Connor deceived him. The shots Connor took at me, at the only person he’s ever loved. To accomplish what Connor did and still have a soul—it takes rare strength and power that no human being could ever match, not to this uncharted degree. 

Scott slowly raises his gaze to my husband. “You’re a psychopath.”

“No,” Connor says, “I just really fucking hate you.”

Then the police officers begin to return to the car. Connor and I say a short goodbye to them and walk back up our driveway, distancing ourselves from Scott.

Connor kisses my hand. “On a gagné.”
We’ve won.

I hear the slam of the police car door. And I expel the
last
wounded breath that Scott imprisoned inside of me.

“On a gagné,” I repeat with a rising smile.

We’ve won.

[ 61 ]

ROSE COBALT

I thumb through the rack of baby clothes in one of the largest children’s department stores. A-line pleated dresses, tulle skirts, peter pan collars—all in an array of pastel spring and summer colors. The boy’s fashion line is nautical-inspired with striped shirts, khakis and jean material.

My lips lift at the sight of a teal floral dress with a white collar. No zebra-prints, no frogs licking flies or monkeys with bananas. The simplicity, the femininity, is all my style. I pluck the dress off the rack and inspect the tag.

There it is:
CCB
with a small inset
HC.

Loren sidles next to me and hands me a lemonade. “Ew,” Lo mock cringes and puts his hand up to his eyes. “The smile is back.”

This particular department store is closed for a party, everyone from Hale Co. in attendance, and instead of schmoozing with men who’d rather do the opposite of everything I tell them, I just join the company of my ultimate reward.

These clothes. This fashion line. In a department store.

“Get used to it, Loren,” I retort.

He tilts his head at me. “I already am.” It’s a small, actually
nice
moment between us, and I’ve realized that working with him isn’t so bad after all. I mean—it’s not ideal but it’s not horrible either. God, complimenting Lo will always be a feat.

He nods towards Mark and Theo and all the other employees who gather around the boy’s clothes. “If you keep it up though, they’re going to think you got what you wanted.”

“I did get what I wanted,” I say. “This is my victory lap.” I set the hanger back. “Maybe in time I won’t have to pretend to despise all the things I like in order to be heard.”

“I want that for you too, you know.”

“Is this your way of saying that you’re
always
on my side?”

He lets out a short laugh. “Let’s not push it, Angelica.”

I narrow my eyes. “That comment alone makes you more Angelica than me,” I always note. He flashes a dry smile, not denying the truth. We both turn into bratty, hostile kids from time to time. I sip my glass of lemonade, avoiding work talk amongst my lovely coworkers.

“Have you checked Twitter recently?” Lo asks me.

“No. I’ve logged off since the press conference.” I didn’t want anyone to ruin Connor’s speech for me. He was brave, and having people say
he doesn’t love that bitch! They’re using each other! This is all so fake!
would’ve tarnished something beautiful.

Lo suddenly
reaches
into my black handbag, and I whip away from him with wide, wild eyes.

“Excuse me?” I snap.

He gives me a sour look. “I’m trying to get your phone.”

“You can’t just go through a woman’s purse.” I press my lips together. He hasn’t learned since Lily hates carrying purses.

He reaches for my handbag again, and I slap his fingers away. He leans closer and says beneath his breath, “You just
hit
your boss, Rose.”

I poke his chest with my finger. “Oh look, I accidentally
poked
my boss with my manicured nail.”

“Your talon.” He swats
my
hand away and then ends up taking his own phone and spinning it towards me.

I don’t understand. “What’s this?”

“What I’ve been trying to show you—holster the glare, ‘gelica. Just read.”

“Fine,” I grumble and collect his phone. It’s a tweet from Lily.

#RCC This is love.

RCC is my initials and Connor’s. Lily attached a photograph to the tweet, one of Connor and me from Mexico last year. I’m pregnant, our yacht lounge chairs tucked close together. My yellow-green eyes are pierced on Connor, and his grin towards me is equally as prominent. Fire to water.

There are 4.8k retweets and 12k favorites. I scroll through Lily’s feed and it’s filled with similar pictures of my dynamics with Connor. Some candid that she snapped without us noticing. Like at the lake house slumber party, where Connor and I were staring at each other for a long, long moment to see who’d concede first.

She wrote:
#RCC This is love. #nerdstars

My heart swells.

“She’s been doing this for weeks,” Loren explains. “Look at what’s trending.”

I click out of Lily’s profile, and I see more tweets with a similar hashtag.

@morningside32
:
#RCCthisislove when intelligence is sexier than abs.  

@heatherveronica:
#RCCthisislove when you play chess with me, and we refuse to let each other win

@fashionpleeeaze
:
#RCCthisislove when you look at me like you love me, no matter what mood I’m in :)

@neverneverland
:
#RCCthisislove
when we share secrets behind a newspaper <3

@hearmeroar29
:
#RCCthisislove when I’d rip my hair out to protect my daughter & you’d shame the media for shaming us.

My fingers are frozen to my lips, overwhelmed. I’d question how all these people know some finer details of my relationship with Connor, if Lily hadn’t taken so many photos of us. She posted so many honest moments with Connor and me—things I’d never think to capture, things I’d never think to share.

It makes me realize how much love my little sister sees between us, and now how much other people are beginning to see too.

The worldwide trending hashtag:
#RCCthisislove

“She’s crazy,” I say dazedly. “She’s crazy and I love her.”

Loren laughs. “I’ll tell her you said so.”

“I’ll tell her,” I say adamantly. I’d tell my sister that I love her a thousand times over. Before she made my love known to the world. And definitely after.