J. Ward: Possession

“What are you going to do about all this, G.B.?” she asked.

“About what?” he mumbled.

“What are you going to decide to do?”

God, how did she know? Because he was torn, the urge to act warring with the sense that it was in his best interest to let this shit with Cait go.

But his brother was in the way. His fucking goody-two-shoes brother was getting her. And he just couldn’t let that happen.

The shit with that whole Nicole thing had been for fun. But he actually liked Cait.

“You know she cheated on you.”

“Who …” he asked.

“That blond you like so much. She fucked your brother last night.”

He frowned. “How … how do you—”

“You know she did. You saw him kiss her at the grave site. You think that happens between two people who are just friends? Don’t be naive.”

G.B. brought up a hand and started to rub his forehead, back and forth, back and forth, as if he were sanding the skin off. He had always hated Duke. Had come out of the womb detesting the guy. And yeah, sure, it had never been logical, but some things were so strong that you didn’t need to understand them. They just … were.

It was like he had a demon inside of him, and sometimes the evil needed to get out before it ate G.B. alive.

Like with Jennifer in the theater basement. A switch got flipped and … everything else disappeared except the malignancy—and keeping that inside? Impossible.

Man, one of the single biggest satisfactions in his life had been taking Duke’s boring-ass girlfriend away from him—seducing her right out from under his brother’s nose. God, so fucking pathetic—the pair of them had been so “in love,” parading around that college campus arm in arm, full of dreams. But there had been fractures in the relationship to exploit—Darling Nikki, as the song went, hadn’t been quite the nicey-nice girl Duke had believed she was. What a skank. And she hadn’t been on the pill—so when G.B. had poked holes in the condoms before he used them? Not long before she was nauseous every morning and then—oopsie! She’d had to tell her BF she’d cheated on him.

When Duke had found out, his first stop had been G.B.’s apartment—and the guy had beaten him so badly, he’d needed dental implants afterward. But it was so worth it—and the payback had lasted for years.

Was going to last at least until the kid was eighteen, right?

“G.B., I think you need to do something about all this.”

Coming back to the present, he shook his head. The brunette was right. So fucking right.

“Go to the mall, G.B. Turn your car on, and go to the mall. The food court, G.B. Go there, and find your path. I’ll be waiting for you at the end—and I’ve got a lifetime contract to offer you.”

He blinked, thinking that was a strange way of putting things. “What…?”

“I’m offering you what you’ve always wanted, what you sing about—I’m prepared to give you eternal life.”

“In the public eye?”

“You will be surrounded forever, G.B.—I’ll take care of everything. I’ll take care of you. Go to the mall, right now—think of this as your audition. Pass? And you’re in like Flynn.”

“I need to go to rehearsals.”

“Like I said, I’ll take care of it all.”

“I don’t understand how you—”

“You’re boring me, and wasting time. Stop with the questions. Start with the actions.”

The call was ended and he looked down at his phone. Man, those A & R people really did have a lot of pull, didn’t they.

Before he was conscious of making a decision, he found himself driving, his hands and feet doing all the right things as he made turns and accelerated down straightaways and slowed down for other traffic.

The Caldwell Galleria Mall was a huge, sprawling expanse of stores that was surrounded by a Ford Motor Company production plant’s worth of parking lots. He hadn’t been there in years, but he remembered, back from his orphanage era, being brought here around Christmastime … paraded around the red and green window displays … unable to buy anything because he’d never had any money.

Which was what happened when you didn’t know who your father was and you killed your mother in childbirth.

He and that fraternal twin of his had had such a great start, hadn’t they.

The food court was around the far side, and he found a parking space that was pretty close to the doors. Walking like a zombie, he zeroed in on the entrance, passing by the smokers who were standing around the trash bins, and the mothers pushing infants around in strollers, and the next generation of bar sluts with their prepubescent legs showing under postage-stamp skirts.

Something told him to tuck his ponytail in under his jacket, and hunch his shoulders while keeping his head down. He didn’t want any attention on himself, and sure as shit, there were probably fans here somewhere.

He entered through the side push doors, not the revolving center one, and hung back. There was quite a distance between him and the teeming trough area, a Kay Jewelers store, a RadioShack, and a Brookstone separating him from the stalls of high-calorie junk food. For a moment, his head cleared enough for him to wonder what the fuck he was doing considering rehearsal was no doubt waiting for him, but then, off to the right, he saw a pair of dark heads going along. One was about two feet shorter than the other, the boy who walked next to the man looking sullen, the man who was beside the boy wearing a hard expression.

G.B. inhaled, a strange feeling in his chest making him want to cough.

The brunette on the phone had been right. Seeing those two together?

Certainly laid a path out for him, nice and clean.

Dipping his hand into that inner jacket pocket again, he got a hold of his phone.

His heart rate skyrocketed as he thought about dialing. For some reason, he had the sense that the decision he was about to make was going to affect so much more than just the situation with Duke. And not in a good way.

Turn away, he told himself. Just stop this.

After all, why the fuck did he care about Cait and his brother? He was on the verge of getting noticed, about to finally make it…

No, you aren’t, an inner voice pointed out. They’re going to get you for that murder.

He blinked and thought about the follow-up by good ol’ Detective de la Cruz, as it had turned out the guy was called.

They’d found something, hadn’t they.

“Goddamn it,” G.B. muttered. He should have stopped that shit with Jennifer. And he should be stopping this.

But come on, if he was going to go out, it might as well be with a bang … right?

The brunette had a point. He knew just what to do.

Cait sat back at her drafting table and inspected the second-to-last drawing of the book. The puppy, who had gotten himself in trouble trying to hide his bone, was being scolded by his owner, the little five-year-old boy telling him he had to be careful down by the river so he didn’t drown.

Which was the point of the whole series: It wasn’t so much what life did to us, but what we tried to do to keep life from happening that caused most of our problems.

I.e., don’t get so worried about keeping your things safe that you end up putting them on a raft that floats away from you.

She knew what the next page said, and she could feel herself easing up, sure as if she were the little chocolate Lab: She was a happily-ever-after person at heart, and as always, the puppy reunited with his bone made her feel like everything had been worth it.

She was just taking the drawing over to her display table when her phone rang. Jogging over to get it, she hoped it was Duke checking in. Maybe she was up to having him come over, after all.