Taz, page 7
I perked up. That meant we’d be getting the rest of Liam’s business and, to be honest, I wasn’t sure where we stood financially if Taz couldn’t go back to work once his paid sick leave ran out.”
“That sounds like a plan, Liam. Do you want me to coordinate with Mom to arrange for her to join us?”
“I think you and I can probably handle this. Besides, isn’t she pulling babysitting duty?”
I felt my cheeks warm with a bit of irritation laced with embarrassment. Was I that transparent? “Taz should be home by then,” I replied.
“Still...uh...it’s just that Samantha mentioned that he had no recollection of anything. Amnesia, is it?”
Now I was kind of pissed at my mother.
“Just temporary,” I lied again. “He’ll be back to himself in no time.”
“Brilliant,” he replied, dropping his credit card onto our lunch bill. “Just call me and let me know what night works for you. I’ll pick you up since we’ll be dining at my country club.”
“Sounds good,” I said, smiling. “Thanks for lunch.”
“My pleasure, as always, Lindsey.”
Mom could tell I was pissed off when I stopped to pick the kids up later that afternoon. I filled her in on the conversation I’d had with Liam.
“Oh Lindsey, that is fantastic!” she said, putting a jacket on Jackson. “We’re officially in the big leagues now, I guess.”
“Yep.”
She peered over at me, her forehead creased in confusion. “Is something wrong?”
I buttoned Harper’s jacket and looked up at her. “Gee, Mom, what could possibly be wrong? Everything is fine—perfect! I have a husband in the hospital that doesn’t know me from shit, and apparently can’t fathom that he was ever married to me, let alone loved me or made babies with me. I mean, what the hell? The whole two months he was missing he sure as hell didn’t let any of what we had—or what I thought we had, stand in the way of him doing exactly what he wanted with whomever he wanted, now did he?”
“Lindsey—stop,” she warned, looking over at Harper whose little face was scrunched up ready to let loose with the tears.
“Stop? Why should I stop, Mom? She’s going to get the stark reality soon enough, isn’t she? When he comes home to a house he doesn’t recognize, or to his family of strangers?”
Harper was sobbing now and I bent over to pick her up, holding her close to me. “Is Jackson ready?” I asked.
“Lindsey, you have to keep it together for the children. Taz is back. He’s in the hospital, and he will get better. You have to believe that. Honey, you can’t hold what he went through against him and you know it.”
“Really, Mom? Well answer me this—who should I hold it against? Slate? I mean, come on! He was the one that arranged for Taz to be pulled from the BAU to go on this covert mission to hell, wasn’t he?”
I can tell my mother is speechless because I’ve never unloaded like this on her…or anyone for that matter.
“That’s not fair,” she said quietly, picking Jackson up to carry him out to my car.
“What’s not fair is that it should’ve been you receiving those sick videos of your husband fucking someone else and looking like he was enjoying it. How would that make you feel, Mom, if that had been Slate?”
Tears were streaming down my cheeks once again. Mom was crying right along with me, and Harper made it a hat trick with her sobs.
We got the kids fastened into their car seats and Mom turned from me, not saying a word and fled back into her house, slamming the door shut.
I tried my best to compose myself and then comfort Harper in the backseat. “Everything’s okay, baby,” I said softly. “Don’t cry.”
“Mommy mad at Gammaw?” she asked, furrowing her brow.
“Just a little, baby. But everything will be okay.”
“Daddy home?” she asked, and this was probably the hundredth time she’d asked that.
“He will be soon, I promise.”
That seemed to appease her momentarily as she gave me a meek smile. “‘Kay,” she said, “Daddy home soon.”
Once we arrived home, I got the kids inside where I fed, bathed and got them to bed by eight, just like every other empty night I’d had since Taz had left.
I poured a shot of bourbon and downed it, and then poured another one. And then I did what I had done almost every night once the kids were asleep and I was alone since receiving the last of the videos that had been sent to my smart phone. There had been others, but this one had hurt the most.
I sat in Taz’s La-Z-Boy and pulled the video up on my phone, and watched as I sipped my second bourbon, while some beautiful chick that I’d never seen before, settled herself onto my husband’s rigid cock and rode him like she owned it. I finished my drink at the same part I always did, watching Taz gripping her hips and fucking her hard and saying those words to her: “That’s it, baby girl.”
I was sitting in an overstuffed leather chair, watching Dr. Ralston jotting down notes as he continued with his interrogation. Okay…it wasn’t an actual interrogation like the ones you see in the movies or on television, but it sure as hell felt like it.
He was a psychiatrist employed by the Bureau, and his mission was to assess my mental stability and ascertain what things I could remember. The truth was, I didn’t remember much beyond my initial awakening after being shot.
It was weird because I could remember stuff that didn’t mean shit in the grand scheme of things. For instance, the doctor put me through the paces of tying my shoes, and then we moved on to a necktie, and finally he had me tie a square knot—all things I was able to accomplish satisfactorily and without hesitation. He explained these were all part of a person’s procedural memory, and mine was quite intact.
When he asked me my birth date? I was clueless. That, he explained, was part of the long-term memory referred to as declarative or explicit. That was what had been damaged…by something.
He knew I was frustrated as fuck. We’d been at this continually for the past three days, spending four hours each session.
“Wonderful progress,” was all he ever said. Followed by, “I’ll see you again tomorrow.”
I’d just gotten back to my room where Nurse Ratched had patiently been waiting to draw more blood. That, too, was a daily thing and I felt like a pin cushion. The results hadn’t come back in from the lumbar puncture, but I’d been assured it could take up to a week with the complex type of analysis being performed.
As soon as the nurse left, I had another visitor.
My wife.
Lindsey.
I hadn’t seen her since the day she’d left in tears and my alleged younger sister had chewed my ass out for my boorish behavior.
“Hey,” I said softly, giving her a smile. Hell, if I could choose only one thing from my past to resurface in my memory it would be anything or everything having to do with her. She was beautiful and it wasn’t hard to see why I’d been drawn to her.
“Trace,” she said, coming over to take a seat in the chair closest to my hospital bed. “You look better than you did the last time I was here.”
Yeah. Trace is my real name. Learned that a week or two ago.
“It’s been awhile,” I replied. “I’m sorry if I scared you off, Lindsey. I’m trying like hell to remember.”
“It’s nothing you can help,” she replied quickly, giving me a weak smile. “All we can do is work with what we have, I suppose.”
She’d brought some photo albums with her. “I thought maybe we could look at some pictures together, that is, if you feel like it.”
“Sure,” I said, “My doctor recommended doing just that.”
“Okay, well let’s start with this one then,” she said, pulling the one from the bottom. “We’ll take this in chronological order, how’s that?”
And she opened the album and began showing me pictures that had been taken five years prior. She pointed out my mother and father, her best friend Darcy who I recognized from her earlier visit with her husband—and my half-brother, Easton. I saw Slate in many of the pictures, along with his wife who was also Lindsey’s mother. Very pretty. I could picture Slate with her.
“How did we meet?” I asked, and noticed a blush cross over her face.
“Well, I knew you because of Mom and Slate—but we actually didn’t get involved with one another until after they got married. I…uh, I kind of got toasted at their reception. You were nice enough to offer me a ride home, and well…I threw up all over your truck.”
I laughed at this and, for some reason, I loved the fact that given the choice, Lindsey could have provided a much more appealing story of how we met and I wouldn’t have known the difference. Yet she put the truth out there, no matter how disgusting it was. “God, I hope I wasn’t an ass about it.”
She laughed too and it was music to my ears. “Not at all. You were actually very sweet about it. You took me back to your place, put me in the shower, gave me some of your clean clothes to wear, insisted I brush my teeth and gargle, and then put me to bed.”
“Wow,” I replied, looking over at her and noticing how fucking green her eyes were. “So, did we hook up that night?”
“No, Taz,” she replied, giving me a soft smack. “In fact, I had a hell of a time getting you in the sack.”
“What?”
I could tell she was getting embarrassed, but I seriously needed to know why in the hell I would’ve resisted claiming such a hot babe as my own.
Seriously? Did I just think “hot babe?”
“Uh…Lindsey, babe. You’re going to have to clue me in on the particulars of that. I’m finding it a little hard to believe.”
She looked away briefly, as though she was uncomfortable explaining it to me. “I was a virgin,” she murmured. “You said you didn’t do virgins.”
Holy fuck!
“Oh honey,” I replied, “Hey, I guess I was an asshole, wasn’t I? I mean, what the hell? I’m really sorry.”
“No worries,” she replied, turning the page of the album, “You finally rectified all of that.” I could see her beautiful mouth curve up in a sweet smile.
“Damn, I wish I could remember that.”
“You were quite the teacher, Professor Matthews.”
“Pardon me?”
“Never mind.”
She turned the album so that I could see the page she had opened. “We have two children, Trace. Our daughter, Harper, will turn four in December and our son, Jackson is a year-and-a-half. Here’s a picture of you with both of them taken about three months ago.”
I studied the babies in the picture. They were both cute as could be. The girl resembled Lindsey a lot. The baby boy had my darker hair, but it was difficult to tell yet if he would favor me in other ways. Speaking of hair…
“I fucking knew it!” I growled.
Lindsey jumped. “What’s the matter?”
“I knew I didn’t keep my head shaved,” I remarked, looking at the picture of me with my kids. “See there?”
“Why did you shave it?” she asked gently.
“I don’t think that I did. I think the bitch must have. Part of her mindfuck, I guess.”
Lindsey immediately clammed up, and I could tell with her rigid body language she didn’t like the path the conversation had taken.
“Hey, I’m sorry,” I apologized quickly. “I didn’t mean to get all loud like that. It’s just that…well shit, Talia put me through a lot.”
“Yeah, I can imagine,” she replied coldly. “Listen, Trace, I’m going to leave these here with you. You can look at them at your leisure…or not. I’ve got to get back to work.”
“So soon?” I asked, feeling somewhat let down. “Where do you work?”
“My mother and I operate a redecorating and interior design business out of our respective homes. It’s starting to take off. We’ve got a big contract…in fact, you actually met the owner before you…left this last time. He came over for dinner? His name is Liam Avery?”
I shrugged. “Doesn’t ring a bell.”
“No, I guess it wouldn’t. Anyway, I’ve got to pick up some material swatches for his approval and then pick up the kids.”
“Lindsey,” I interrupted, “Are you pissed at me for some reason?”
She was putting her jacket on, not looking me in the eye. The silence was deafening. She finally turned and looked at me. “Why would I be pissed at you? I don’t even feel like I know you.”
“I guess I can understand that feeling. It works both ways, baby. But shit, it’s not because I want it that way.”
“I’ll be back tomorrow.”
“Looking forward to it. Be careful out there.”
Lindsey
Once outside of the hospital, I paused to take a long, deep breath. When Trace had mentioned Talia, I had felt as if my throat had closed shut. I couldn’t breathe and I needed to get away from him…and from here.
I finally calmed myself and walked to the car. I wasn’t speaking to Mom at the moment. I’d dropped the kids at Darcy’s for the day, so I headed over to pick them up. Darcy had been my best friend since college. We’d been roomies together, maid of honor in each other’s weddings, godmothers to each other’s children. Darcy had met Easton, a multi-millionaire, before I had. As it turned out, Easton was Trace’s half-brother who had been raised in Europe. He was a few years older than Trace, and they hadn’t been close growing up.
I hadn’t shared with Darcy any of the videos I’d received compliments of Trace’s captor. Part of it was because I knew the FBI didn’t want it made public knowledge, at least until they had located my husband. But they had located him and I still hadn’t shared it with her.
And I knew it was because I was ashamed. Even though Darcy was my best friend, what I saw on those videos was just too horrific to share with her. She would be appalled, and devastated enough for the both of us. Mom hadn’t even seen them, although she knew the general content. I’m sure Slate had seen them, along with others at the Bureau, which only served to make me feel even more disgusted and embarrassed.
Slate had instructed me to delete them. He said nothing was being served by tormenting myself with them, and in fact, he said I was allowing Natalia to terrorize me every time I watched them. He said the silver lining had been their ability to use those streams to track her whereabouts, and to locate Trace. Now that they had, he encouraged me to get past it.
It wasn’t a fucking silver lining to me.
I pulled up to the big iron gate at Easton and Darcy’s mansion, and pressed the button. The electronic gate opened and I drove through, continuing up the circular drive to the front of the house. Easton was in Europe, so it was just Darce and her staff.
Her housekeeper let me in, indicating that Darcy was upstairs in the children’s playroom. Mom and I had designed and decorated both the playroom and nursery.
Twice on the nursery.
Their son, Weston, was a just a few months older than Jackson. They played nicely together. Their baby girl, Carson, was just four months old, but I could already tell that the apple hadn’t fallen far from that tree. Darcy had dressed her in couture from the moment she’d brought her home from the hospital.
“Does she ever wear the same outfit twice?” I had asked Darcy after the third or fourth time I had visited in the weeks after her birth.
Her answer had been, “Seriously?”
I’d known then and there she probably wouldn’t appreciate my passing on Harper’s hand-me-downs to Carson.
“Hey Linds,” she greeted from the floor of the playroom where she was helping Harper build a block structure of mammoth proportions. Carson was rocking in her automatic swing, with a pink pacifier in her mouth and I looked around the room for the boys.
“Napping,” she said, “They just went down about twenty minutes ago.”
“Oh really,” I said, wishing that I could just grab the kids and be on my way home. I didn’t feel like socializing much these days, and even though Darcy was my best friend, let’s face it, our lives were worlds apart now.
“Oh come on,” she chided, “It’ll give us some time to chat. We need to catch up.”
I eyed her warily. What was she getting at?
She pressed the intercom on the wall.
“Yes, Mrs. Matthews?”
“Rita, could you come up and watch the girls in the playroom for a little while? I’d like to visit with Lindsey for a bit.”
“Certainly, Ma’am. Be right there.”
“You certainly live British,” I mumbled, helping Harper with her building blocks.
Several moments later Rita appeared, and I followed Darcy back downstairs. “Want some coffee or iced tea?” she asked, heading towards the kitchen.
“Whatever’s easiest,” I replied.
Once seated at her kitchen table, I sipped my coffee waiting for her to get to the point, because I knew she had one.
“So,” she started, taking a seat across from me, “What’s the reason you and your mother are fighting?”
“What makes you think we’re fighting?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe it’s the last minute call I got asking if I could keep the kids for you today while you went to the hospital to see Taz? Or it might be because Harper mentioned something about Mommy being mad at Gammaw and crying.”
“It’s no big deal,” I lied, “I’m under a lot of stress. Mom doesn’t seem to understand or empathize with that.”
“Hmm,” she replied, sipping her coffee. “That doesn’t sound like your mom at all.”
“Why would you say that?”
She shrugged. “Because I’ve known you both forever and if anyone knows about stress and empathy with something like this, she would. You two are as close as sisters.”
“Maybe I blame Slate for what’s happened. I might’ve given her that impression.”
“Look,” Darcy said, reaching across the table to pat my hand. “He’s home now. He’s safe and, in time, I’m sure that his memory will come back. Shouldn’t you be focusing on that rather than playing some kind of blame game?”
