Butterfly in Amber (Spotless Book 4) Read online

  God, it’s in moments like this that I miss having someone to really talk to . . . Officially, my sessions with Dr. Bentsen are a “safe space,” where I’m “free to bring up any subject, no matter how intimate.” But I can’t bring myself to tell Bentsen about that kind of stuff. It sounds so crude, so pathetic, even to myself. I’ve lost my best friend, my memories, my life. I need to focus on healing, rebuilding . . . and here I am, squirming under the sheets with a faceless incubus.

  I did wonder if he might be the ghost of an ex, but I was apparently single when I had my accident, and no one has mentioned any significant relationship. According to my mailbox, I went on a slew of terrible dates through Yaycupid a year ago or so—no trace of any sex god with quiet dark blue eyes and epic chest hair though. It appears I also curated a large collection of research material on the subject of heterosexual romantic involvement, such as the Forbidden MC Desires series or His to Save and Submit. I’m kind of relieved that I don’t remember those books, because the very covers made me blush . . .

  Anyway, pretty much like every time I try to dig up a little piece of my past self, I’m left with only one option: asking either Stiles or my father. Or not. This goes at the top of my personal list of conversations that won’t happen. I shake my head to dispel the memory of his body against mine and hop out of bed. Under the heavy wooden doors of my bedroom, a thin ray of light filters that gilds the Persian rug. Shadows come and go as the castle awakens. On the other side of the doors, boots stomp by: Stiles never leaves the hallway unguarded—another detail that annoys me to no end, even if I know he means well.

  I quickly shower, and by the time I’m done slipping into a pair of jeans and the blue cashmere sweater my father offered me a few weeks ago, there’s a gentle knock at the door.

  It’s pancake time.

  •••

  Raisins, dammit!

  “Not hungry this morning?” Stiles asks as he watches me repeatedly poke with my fork the offending pile sitting on my plate.

  “Not really.” Because no one likes raisins. It’s like vegan bacon and wet socks in your shoes: whoever pretends to tolerate those is just lying.

  Culinary mishaps aside, I’m actually in a fairly good mood, sizzling with excitement at the prospect of buying Christmas balls. Outside, at last, back to civilization! Okay, with its twenty thousand souls, Hamina, the nearest big town—a few miles east—isn’t exactly a megalopolis. Still, there are at least four supermarkets and a handful of kebabs whose ranking is a subject of hot debate among the castle’s personnel. That’ll be more human activity than I’ve seen in months; the thrill is real.

  I dissect a pancake under Stiles’s patient stare, extracting the raisins one by one. After I’ve gulped down the last bite, he takes my plate with a wink. “Please don’t slam me on Yelp.”

  I give him a level stare. “It’d need to load for that.”

  He turns around with an air of contrition I know all too well. “Oh? They blocked it too?”

  I glare at him. “We really need to do something about that firewall.”

  All I get for my efforts is a chuckle. “I e-mailed support again about that.”

  “I’m telling you that company is a joke. I don’t even know how you put up with this.”

  “I use my data,” Stiles replies with a shrug.

  Because he has a phone, and I don’t. Over the past few weeks, the Internet had become one of my primary sources of frustration, along with the general need to expand my horizons. I didn’t think about it much until the end of October, mostly because before that, I’d been lying either in my bed or on a couch, oscillating between stages of mild apathy and crippling depression. I have to give credit where it’s due: the meds helped in that regard.

  As I got better though, boredom reared its head, and I quickly came to the conclusion that there wasn’t much to do in the castle. I wanted Internet. Except we only have satellite-Internet access at Ingolvinlinna, one of the planet’s many buttholes. Our signal is sketchy at best, and it doesn’t help that we have a nazi firewall on top of it. Twitter and Facebook are a lost cause, but I do manage to load some pages on Wikipedia or CNN, and I even watched a few videos on YouTube. Most of the time though, the connection is so slow that I give up before the firewall can even kick me out—and our TV signal is hardly any better . . .

  I’ve started filing regular complaints to the staff about this pressing issue. Translation: I bitch to Stiles that Facebook won’t load. Every time, he assures me that yet another support ticket has been sent to our ISP, who will handle it ASAP. My best guess is that those tickets are remorselessly deleted upon reception by an employee who deserves to spend the rest of his life cursed with a nine-hundred-millisecond ping and no hope to ever load Facebook again.

  I shake my head, ready to leave the table, when Stiles moves toward the fridge. The simple sound of the door opening makes me fidgety, but my recent transgressions have awakened the thug in me: I look at him in the eye as I take the glass of juice, knowing fully that today’s meds will be on their merry way to the sewer system before we leave the castle.

  After I’m done and he’s put the glass in the sink, I spin on my heels. “I’ll go get my coat.” And I’ll make a stop to the bathroom . . .

  “Already?”

  “It’s not like we got anything else to do today. Plus it’s Saturday: we better get there early, before the shops get super crowded.”

  “All right, but”—he points to the ceiling, or rather to the second floor, where my father has been locked in his study since the break of dawn—“he told me wants to see you before we leave.”

  •••

  Absinthe isn’t the only thing capable of lifting my father’s mood: morning walks in the park can work wonders too. The sun peeks through the clouds to warm our cheeks as we tread down the French garden’s central alley. Around us, the rows of perfectly round and evenly spaced evergreen shrubs look like ice-cream scoops with their smooth snow topping. I blow a little fog through my mouth with childish delight.

  The faintest smile plays on my father’s lips: now is a good time to chat—possibly the best. “So, how are your shipments going?” I ask, stroking my chin like I actually know what I’m talking about.

  I don’t—well, not really. My father owns stakes in a variety of industrial ventures, but he doesn’t share the details of his business with me. That leaves me with the option of either eavesdropping or asking Stiles, who loves to pretend he’s too dumb to understand all that complex financial stuff I shouldn’t worry about anyway.

  “We’re almost done. We’ll be ready to launch in less than two weeks.”

  But launch what? So far, none of my efforts to find out have been successful. I know he’s been working on something big in South America over the past year. I’ve also come to understand that the Big-Ass South American Project—BASAP—relies on complex logistics and requires many large shipments. My father’s mood is linearly correlated to the speed and safe delivery of those shipments, and heads are expected to roll when they get late—which is apparently not the case this time.

  “Still won’t tell me what’s the big reveal?” I give it a try, knowing full well it’s useless.

  “Not yet.”

  Yup, useless . . .

  He offers me his arm as we reach the central parterre, a series of tightly clipped hedges forming arabesques around a wide, circular fountain. The four stone lions sitting in the center have stopped spitting water for the winter; they’ll watch over this frozen Eden until spring returns. My father looks up at one of them. “It’s perhaps a bit selfish, but I want to enjoy the surprise in your eyes when you see it for the first time.”

  When the meaning of his words registers, I nearly quiver with excitement. “You’ll take me with you? To Ecuador?”

  “Yes,” he confirms.

  I perform a mental fist pump. “When do we leave?”

  His smile grows mysterious. “Chaque chose en son temps.” Everything in its own ti
me.

  My father doesn’t speak French, and his accent is pretty thick as he recites the old saying. Much like the gardens or Gwennaël’s presence, it’s a reminder that Ingolvinlinna was meant for my mother. She died before she could ever see it, in a car crash in Tokyo that I can’t even remember, eleven years ago. My heart weighs a little heavier, as it always does when I think of her. It’s an instinct that doesn’t need words or even memories, a love that’s part of me. I wish my father and I were that close . . .

  “I can’t wait,” I tell him, looking up at the pearly sky. “I need a change of air, and that way Stiles can take some time off too.” I didn’t mean to make it sound like I want him gone, but I’m afraid that’s exactly how it came out.

  “He’ll be joining us,” my father replies, with a side-eye I’m not sure how to interpret.

  “Ah.”

  “I was pleasantly surprised to see you so well. Joshua has been taking excellent care of you.”

  Joshua? Now that’s new. I’ve never heard my father pronounce Stiles’s first name before. To me, and everyone in the castle, it’s Mr. Stiles, and while his affable manners are a hit with maids and contribute to earn him the security teams’ complete devotion, no one gets too personal with him. He’s built those invisible walls around himself, walls you hit soon enough—except he’s let me in a little lately, I remind myself . . .

  Gravel cracks under my boots as we stroll around the fountain. “Yeah, I suppose he’s been very patient.”

  “Kindness and patience. All too rare qualities in our world.”

  I try, in vain, to decipher my father’s shuttered expression. I’m not sure if he means in business, or if this is a general statement that all men are baboons except his favorite employee. Either way, I’m not entirely comfortable with the direction this conversation is headed.

  “True,” I say lamely, waiting to see where he’ll go with this.

  He nods. “He’s proven trustworthy . . . and he told me he enjoyed spending time with you here in Ingolvinlinna.”

  My mouth falls open. I don’t know what surprises me the most: Stiles’s obvious lie or what I fear might be an awkward attempt from my father to play cupid.

  Without warning, he pauses in his stride. A birdcall in the distance rips through the sudden silence. He gazes down at me with those unfathomable hazel eyes—almost golden, when the light is right. There’s no spark to be found in them today though; he looks bone weary as he draws a long sigh that carries a whiff of herbs and alcohol. The peculiar scent of absinthe. “We don’t live for ourselves, Island. We build for the generations to come.”

  I ponder the implications of this statement in the light of the recent changes in “Joshua’s” behavior. If this means what I think it means, it’s a no from me. He can date Stiles himself, since he likes him so much. I’m not sure my father would take that kind of snark well though, so when he resumes walking, I follow him back to the castle without a word. My thoughts drift to Pirate Morgan, with his gianduiotti box and his obsequious loyalty—I wonder if he understands he’s not the chosen one . . .

  FIVE

  SPRINKLES ON TOP

  The boat was a shock. It’s nothing huge or anything: just a small navy blue yacht, fast and comfy, designed to cover the distance to the coast but not much more. No, what stunned me was the realization that there was a boat. Several, in fact, but also a road leading to the snowy pier, lined by barracks and a couple of stone houses in which I assume the castle personnel lives. There was an entire world at hand’s reach, even within the confines of the island. A world I never suspected was there because, curled up in the fog of my meds, smoldered by Stiles’s constant monitoring, I never made it beyond the fricking park. Sweet Jesus, I’ve been vegetating in a two-hundred-yard-wide perimeter since April . . .

  As we trail across the gulf of Finland toward Hamina’s harbor, I can’t take my eyes from the windows, even for a second. Every detail of the barren immensity surrounding us feels new and awesome: the dark waters, the pristine floe blanketing the sea in the distance. Ingolvinlinna is part of a cluster of islands off the southern coast, most of them mere skerries. I never cared much for the local topography until now, but seeing them feels like a revelation, and I marvel at each snow-covered rock emerging from the water.

  For a while, I’m barely aware of Stiles, sitting by my side on a long couch. It takes me a few minutes to notice that he’s not looking at the scenery but, rather, at me.

  “What?” I ask, fiddling with the white beanie and matching gloves I shoved in my parka pocket before leaving.

  “Nothing. You look enthralled.”

  “And you look blasé. Don’t you like it here?”

  A brief wince twists his mouth before he readjusts his black leather gloves under the sleeves of a brown coat. “I’d have picked someplace warmer.”

  I think it’s the first time I’ve ever heard Stiles express any disagreement with my father. Because we both know that’s what he means by that. The island is my father’s retreat—a cold, silent place most would find desolate but where he sees beauty and finds peace, to quote him. Which is why I’m here: for an old-fashioned patriarch, it goes without saying that what’s good for him is good for his offspring.

  “Where?” I prod, turning away from the window.

  “Where what?”

  “You said you’d pick someplace warmer. Where?”

  His gaze grows unfocused, lost in the foggy horizon. “Savannah. Nice weather, even in December.”

  “Sounds good. Is that where you live?”

  Stiles blinks—I’ve taken him off guard. On his face, the surprise quickly morphs into an impenetrable smile. “I live where my job takes me. Which is here, at the moment.”

  Gotcha. “Stop dodging the question. I’m talking about the place where you keep your cats.”

  His eyebrows shoot up. Here’s another low blow he didn’t expect. The Roomba cats . . . I have no idea if anyone knows about them besides me. They’re his secret hobby, and it basically goes like this: Stiles has four cats, who live in the mysterious sunny place where he finds solace when he’s not doing my father’s bidding 24/7—they may or may not be the only thing he loves in this world. He trained them to ride on the many Roombas ambling around his house, and he buys silly costumes for them—mostly on Etsy, where the boldest names of feline fashion gather. Anyway, he dresses them up, lets them roll, and films the whole thing.

  I love his stuff. You don’t know the true meaning of art until you’ve seen a sphynx in a glittery unicorn costume sitting on a Roomba that repeatedly bumps against a fridge. The dreaded firewall did allow me to check some of his videos on YouTube, and his account is insanely popular. I have no idea how much he makes from online advertising, but he hit twelve million views for that vid of his tabby dressed up as a monkey and licking a banana, so I bet he could retire today if he wanted to.

  “So,” I insist. “Where does the magic happen?”

  “I could tell you,” he eventually says. “But where’s the fun without a little bit of mystery?”

  I’m tempted to give it another try, but I can tell he traced a line he doesn’t want me to cross. Stiles works for my father, and what he does in his free time, or where he does it, is technically none of my business.

  “I guess you’re right,” I concede as the first houses come into view, and the yacht slows down toward a small marina.

  Stiles glances through the window and clasps his hands. “Get ready. It’s adventure time.”

  Adventure it is, when our pilot helps me down a frosty pier. On a wooden shelter furnished with not one but two benches, a sign proudly reads Hamina Yacht Club. There’s a parking lot lined with naked birch trees and a few traditional Finnish log houses, with their characteristic falu red paint and white trims and windows. I spot a café and, nearby, what appears to be a minigolf course, half-buried under the snow. Yes. This. This is something I’ll need to investigate. Thoroughly.

  With a nod to the pilot, Stil
es leads me to the parking lot, where a black Jaguar sedan awaits. It’s a short drive to downtown Hamina, past more wooden buildings, but also neoclassical ones, like the town hall and Vehkalahti Church—a stunning ensemble of arches and columns supporting a portico, all painted in bright orange with white trims: a Roman architect’s dream . . . in the land of the Finns. Stiles takes his time driving us around and playing tour guide—I love that. I feel like my mind, my body are awakening at last, and I want to absorb everything, the lights, the sounds, the colors . . .

  As we near the marketplace, the picturesque wooden houses are replaced by concrete buildings, restaurants, and shops. I rub my hands in anticipation when I notice a supermarket sign. Most of the place is occupied by a Christmas market—this too shall be visited extensively, I decide, eyeing the food trucks lined up around the place.

  As soon as we’re parked in front of a supermarket with an impossibly long name I instantly dub the S-Mart, I spring out of the car like a jack-in-the-box. “Let’s grab the Christmas stuff first; after that, we can check the market and, um, I need to buy a phone too.”

  “A phone?”

  “Yes. I thought about it yesterday. I haven’t had one since I came to Ingolvinlinna, and I figure I lost mine back in April. But I need one.” I swallow to catch my breath—my brain is working faster than my mouth, which is a welcome novelty. “I can’t believe I spent so long without a phone, right?”

  He gives a skeptical nod. “I don’t know if that’s something we can find—”

  “We can probably find one there,” I counter, pointing at a store across the street, whose sign features a yellow phone next to a big Ericsson logo.