We pop into Starbucks on the way, mostly to get coffee, but also because I want to introduce Jamie to Monica. She’s not there, however, and so we take our lattes and head to my office. I give Jamie the grand tour, which takes about twelve seconds, and then soak up her effusive hugs and cries of “I’m so proud of you!”
“If Damien’s not back from Chicago by tonight, do you want to rent a movie?” I ask as she’s about to head out.
“Sure,” she says. “And if he is back?”
I grin wickedly. “In that case, I have other plans.”
I settle behind my desk as Jamie rolls her eyes and leaves. It takes me about ten minutes to go through my emails and handle a bunch of administrative crap. I finish tweaking the code on one of my entertainment apps, then push the update through. Then I pull out the web-based app that I’ve been working on. A cross-platform, multi-user note-taking system that Damien has already told me he’ll license for Stark International once I’m out of beta testing.
First, I have to finish coding the damn thing and actually get it into beta testing.
I’m so lost in concentration that I jump when the intercom beeps. “Yes?” I snap.
“There’s a Monica Karts here to see you.”
“Oh.” I’m actually a bit irritated by the interruption. I’ve never seen Monica outside of the coffee shop, and it seems a little odd that she’s come unannounced. At the same time, I don’t know that many people here yet, and I do like her. And since Damien is out of town, I can always work late and make up for lost time. “Tell her to come on back.”
“I love it!” she says as she bursts through the door. “Your own office. That’s so cool.”
“What’s going on? Is everything okay?”
“Oh, man. I don’t mean to just barge in like you’ve got nothing better to do. Honest. But I got these head shots and I didn’t see you at Starbucks this morning, and I really wanted to show you today. Is that okay?”
I can’t help my smile. Her enthusiasm is effusive. “Of course.”
She plunks herself in the chair opposite my desk, then passes me the envelope. “Go ahead. Take a peek.”
I frown, because her voice sounds different. What I’d thought was a Northeastern prep school lilt now has much more of a British quality to it.
My thoughts about her voice, however, disappear entirely when I pull out the first photo. It is not a head shot, and as I hold it between two fingers, my body turns to ice and I have to stifle the urge to throw up.
“Gorgeous, isn’t he? But I suppose you know that. Go on, then. Pull them all out.”
My hands are shaking, and I realize I’m still holding the envelope and the photo. I flinch, then drop them as quickly as if they had burned me.
The picture falls image-side up, and though I try not to look, there is no erasing from my mind what I have already seen. Damien. Maybe eleven or twelve. And a girl, her face hidden, who I am guessing is younger. There is more, but I don’t want to think of it. It is bad enough to have the image of these children in my head, their bodies joined in some perversion of an adult act. I do not want to think of the other things I saw in the bed with them. Toys and leather and gadgets that no child needs to know exists, much less have experience using.
And I don’t want to think about the mirror that hung in place of a headboard, reflecting back the image of the man behind the camera—an adult man, naked and with a hard-on, one hand on his penis and the other holding the camera. Richter.
“I said pull them all out.” Her voice is cold and seems to come from a very long way away. Somehow, I realize I am in shock. But I don’t know what to do about that.
When I don’t move, she reaches for the envelope and dumps at least twelve photos out onto my desk. “There’s a tape, too. But we won’t worry about that now.”
I try not to look, but I can’t help but see that these photos are more of the same, though each one seems more depraved than the one before.
She leans across the desk and taps the pile of images. “He’s mine,” she says. “He has always been mine.”
“Yours,” I repeat stupidly as I fight my way out of the fog. “You’re Sofia.”
She leans back in her chair and nods approval. “Very good.”
“And this is you in these photos?”
She nods.
Everything seems to be happening in slow motion. I am hyperaware of the air, of my breathing. Of every tiny movement and every small sound. It is all deafening and foreign and I want out of this nightmare.
Damien said he never wanted me to see these, and though my heart breaks for the boy he was and the childhood that was stolen, I cannot help but agree. I do not want these images in my office, much less in my head. “Why are you showing me these?” I demand.
“Because you need to understand that he’s mine. You don’t exist to him at all. Not really. He sacrificed for me. He killed for me.”
I stare at her, confused. “Killed for you?”
She blinks her huge brown eyes. “My father,” she says evenly. “Damien killed him to protect me. Ask him if you don’t believe me. That’s not something you walk away from, Nikki. You’re smart. You should know that.”
“How did you get the first note to me? The one before the trial with the Los Angeles postmark?”
Her smile starts slow, but grows wide. “See? I knew you were smart. I have friends all over the world. I sent something. Asked them to drop it in a mailbox. Easy.”
“That spiel you made about Jamie and The Rooftop bar. Was it true?”
“Other than that I’m one hell of an actress? No. You learn to be patient in the kind of places I’ve lived. I wait and I watch and I plan.” And then, in a what seems like a total shift, she blurts out, “He told me about you, you know.”
I just sit, watching her, trying to think. Trying to figure out how to get out of here before the fuse that has been burning down on this girl reaches the end, and we both get hurt in the explosion.
“Oh, yes he did,” she says without missing a beat. “He came to see me not long ago. All the way to London. He told me he met someone who got through the pain. Who cut and who battled it back. He didn’t tell me he was fucking her or that it was you, but it wasn’t hard to figure out.”
My mind is moving too slowly. There must be a way out of this, I think, but it’s as if the answer is hidden by some dark, impenetrable mist.