Keeper of Crows (Keeper of Crows #1)(3)
What killed me the most was that all she needed was a reason to live, and I didn’t give her one. I wasn’t enough for her to want to stay.
“It says she left a suicide note behind. What did it say?” Doc sat, poised with his pen, ready to scribble psychobabble. Fuck that.
“I’m not gonna tell you that. The note was for me.” Only me. It didn’t say much, not nearly enough to justify taking her own life. It just said she was sorry, she felt like a failure, she would miss me, and that I should stop partying and go to school, to do something with my life.
Quite a lecture from a woman who felt life wasn’t worth living.
“You need to open up to me, Carmen. It’s the only way I can help you.”
I snorted. “Maybe I don’t want your help, Doc.”
He sighed and sat back in his desk chair, testing the weight limit with his ample stomach.
“Will you tell me about the incident with the paparazzi?”
I smiled. “Since you asked so nicely… That jerk deserved what he got. I want to state that first. When my father was actually around, he always lectured me about being proper. He would say that cameras were everywhere, and they could capture us at our weakest moments. We couldn’t afford to be seen as weak. He needed the White House. ‘Imagine another Kennedy in the Oval office,’ he would boast.”
The photographer clicked as fast as his finger would move. ‘Ms. Kennedy, would you like to make a comment about your father’s latest affair? Is it true that she took you to Cancun for the weekend? You look awfully pale. Is she really only twenty years old?’
Flash.
‘Did your Father give your mother the sleeping pills that killed her? Were they manufactured by Lyta Pharmaceuticals? Are the police investigating the matter?’
I ran around my car, pushing the lock button on the key fob.
Flash.
‘Get out of my way!’ I shouted, shoving him out of my personal space. If I shattered his lens, he would think twice about coming near me again.
My key fob remote that unlocked and locked the gate surrounding our house had broken earlier that week and I hadn’t gotten around to asking for a new one. The guy had popped up out of our bushes when I left my car to punch the security code into the pad to close the gate behind my car. If I’d left it open, my head would have rolled. Not that the whole shit show was my fault. Who could have predicted Hurricane Kennedy would tear a path through the networks? The news of Father’s latest affair had been made public and my life fell apart in a blink. Father was on a rampage, his cronies trying to squash the news with pictures of our fake, happy family.
But the press saw through the fa?ade and they wanted blood. Vultures like this guy made it that much worse, because he didn’t care who he wounded to get it. Day one was a swarm of the camera-toting bastards. Day two, three-quarters had given up or went to bother someone else. Day three and there was only one left. I gave him props for tenacity and patience.
Flash. Flash. Flash.
‘Would you like to make a comment? This isn’t your father’s first indiscretion. How do you feel about his unfaithfulness?’
I shouldered around him.
‘How do you think I feel?’ I answered briskly.
Spitting at his lens, I wrenched my car door open and peeled out through the iron gate that was parting like the red sea. Let him tell his friends about how the Kennedy diva handled pigs like him.
“The guy ambushed me and I wasn’t in the mood for it. I spat on his camera and shoved him out of my way. He called the police and said I assaulted him—which I was cleared of.” I held my finger up to stop the questions I knew were about to tumble out of his open mouth. “Father was livid because he automatically believed the reports and said I’d done nothing but cause him more problems. Mom was six feet under fresh earth and Father was already on the phone, pacing across his office and much too busy to notice when I left. I couldn’t listen to his voice for one more second.”
Steepling his fingers, Doc leaned forward expectantly. “Where did you go?”
“The Castle.”
Bass pulsated through my body, reverberating through my bones. The vibrations were the only reason the backs of my thighs weren’t sticking to the leather seat. Father forbade me from leaving the house, but the joke was on him. He couldn’t keep me locked away. As soon as he left for his girlfriend’s house, I slipped out the back door. With the top down on my convertible, I sped through the warm Cali air. My tight black dress barely covered my ass. With my unfortunate flat chest, I wasn’t in danger of a wardrobe malfunction from the top, but the bottom was another situation entirely. I had wide hips and a booty to match.
Gripping the steering wheel tightly with my left hand, I shifted with the right. My thighs trembled with need and I knew exactly where to get what I craved. From the front door, The Castle looked like a nightclub, like one of dozens of others that peppered the city of Angels; but in the back, the magic waited. Blow—so finely cut, it would fill the ache in my stomach for a little while. It was euphoria in powder form, and I couldn’t wait to fly.
I parked in the alley, put the convertible top up, and locked my little white Mercedes up tight. The spikes of my heels clicked across the gritty pavement, littered with shards of glass and puddles of oil and piss. The overflowing dumpster hadn’t been emptied in weeks, maybe longer judging by the stench. Holding my wrist beneath my nose, I inhaled Chanel No. 5.