Vanessa in the Dark

Vanessa Sinclair sat on the floor of a studio apartment in Queens with her back against the couch and a bottle of cheap wine in her hand and watched the news on mute.

The apartment was not hers. Not really. It belonged to her former stylist's cousin, who was renting it to her for six hundred dollars a week in cash while Vanessa decided what to do next. Three rooms. Bad lighting. A view of a brick wall. A refrigerator that hummed at night loud enough to keep her awake.

Six weeks ago she had lived in a penthouse.

Now she lived here.

The news was showing a clip from last night's gala. Damien and a woman in a gold dress, dancing. The chyron at the bottom of the screen read: BILLIONAIRE CROSS AND MYSTERY CEO SPARK REUNION RUMORS.

Vanessa had watched the clip nine times.

She was watching it a tenth.

The wine bottle was empty. The apartment smelled like Thai takeout from three days ago. She had not washed her hair since Tuesday. She had not eaten a real meal since the luncheon. Her phone buzzed with calls from journalists and debt collectors and a man named Marcus who used to work for her and was now apparently blackmailing her ex husband, which, under other circumstances, would have made her laugh.

She did not answer any of them.

She had one call she needed to make.

She picked up her phone. Scrolled through her contacts. Stopped on a number she had not called in over a decade. Stared at it for a long time.

The woman on the other end of that number had been waiting for this call for twenty years.

Vanessa pressed dial.

Ring. Ring. Ring.

"Hello."

The voice on the other end was older now. Softer around the edges. But the shape of it was the same. Vanessa would know that voice in her sleep.

"Mum. It is me."

A pause.

"Vanessa."

"Yes."

Another pause. Longer. Vanessa could hear her mother breathing on the other end of the line, trying to decide whether to hang up.

"I read about you in the papers."

"I know."

"I did not raise you to do what you did."

"I know, Mum."

"Why are you calling me."

Vanessa closed her eyes.

She thought about the woman who had raised her. A nurse. Worked two jobs. Never remarried after Vanessa's father left. Had sat at the kitchen table when Vanessa was sixteen and told her that the world was going to be hard on a girl who looked like her and that the only way to survive was to be harder than it was. Had cried at Vanessa's wedding to a man who was not Damien Cross but some other New York nobody. Had never come to visit after the divorce because Vanessa had been too busy reinventing herself as a Cross to have room for a mother who smelled like antiseptic and wore cardigans from the discount store.

Vanessa had not spoken to her mother in eleven years.

"I need help, Mum."

"What kind of help."

"I do not know. I do not know. I have lost everything. I have no money. I have no friends. Aria is back and she is destroying me and I cannot breathe. I need. I do not know what I need."

Her mother was quiet for a long moment.

"Are you drunk, Vanessa."

"Yes."

"Are you safe."

"Yes."

"Do you have somewhere to sleep tonight."

"Yes."

"Then sober up. Eat something. And call me back in the morning when you are ready to say what you actually want. I am not going to talk to drunk Vanessa. I never have. You know that."

"Mum."

"Sober up, baby. And call me back."

Her mother hung up.

Vanessa stared at the phone in her hand for a long time.

Then, for the first time in three years, she put her face in her hands and cried without performing it for anyone.

Somewhere in the pit of her, underneath the rage and the self pity and the plans she was already beginning to draft to get Damien back, something very small moved. Not repentance. She was not capable of that. Just a thought.

What if she stopped.

What if she just. Stopped.

The thought frightened her.

She drank another glass of wine to make it go away.

Her phone buzzed on the floor next to her.

A text. From Marcus Greer.

"Need to meet. Important. I know something about the Cross family that can change everything. You want your life back? Call me."

Vanessa stared at the screen.

Her first instinct was to delete the message. Marcus was a parasite. Marcus had been a parasite three years ago when she had hired him and he was still a parasite now. Whatever he had, it was not worth the price of dealing with him again.

Her second instinct, which came three seconds after the first, was to call him.

Because Marcus was right about one thing. She did want her life back. She wanted it so badly she could taste it. She wanted the penthouse and the car and the stylist and the charity board and the photographers calling her name on the way into galas. She wanted Damien in her bed and Aria in the grave where Aria belonged.

She looked at the wine bottle.

She looked at her phone.

She thought about her mother, hanging up on her an hour ago.

Then she picked up the phone and called Marcus.

He answered on the first ring.

"Vanessa."

"Marcus."

"I thought you might call."

"What do you have."

"Not over the phone. Come to the diner on 112th and Broadway. Tomorrow. Noon. Bring cash."

"How much cash."

"You bring what you have. We will talk about how much I need."

He hung up.

Vanessa set the phone down slowly.

She looked at the empty wine bottle. Looked at the tiny apartment. Looked at her own face reflected in the dark window.

The small thought from earlier was still there. The one who said she could stop. She could call her mother back. She could take the train to Queens tomorrow morning and knock on the door of the house she had grown up in and she could be someone new.

But the other thought was louder.

She was going to get her life back. Whatever it took. Whatever it costs.

Even if it meant climbing into bed with Marcus Greer.