The Love Trap by Nicole French

Interlude I

1997

“Come now, hen. Jake is gone. It’s time to move on, and I have been very patient.”

“Don’t call me that, John.”

The voices filtered up the stairs to Eric’s suite on the second floor of the townhouse. He put down the book he was reading and got up to listen. He had found a cache of J.D. Salinger novels a few weeks ago and had been tearing through them, just like he did with all the books in his father’s abandoned study. But right now, Holden Caulfield could wait.

A year ago, unannounced visitors were a common thing. His parents had been the center of a thriving social scene on the Upper East Side. If they weren’t attending formal functions at his grandmother’s penthouse or others within their social station, Jacob and Heather had hosted dinner parties themselves. Eric preferred the latter—it allowed him to sneak away with friends or even with a good book when he was finished with his meals, maybe eavesdrop on the adults from his favorite spot on the landing. He would sneak glimpses of his parents laughing in the reverie, occasionally catch a glimpse of the way Jacob would flirt with his wife when he thought others weren’t looking. They were the couple everyone wanted to be. And how proud Eric had been of the fact.

But that was before. Since Jacob’s untimely death, the townhouse had been a tomb, haunted by the ghost of Jacob’s laugh, buried by his wife and son’s sorrow.

Eric wasn’t an idiot. He knew his mother was the object of interest to the men in her social circle. A few months after the funeral, the maid had opened the door to more than one man looking for Heather. Most of them, to Eric’s relief, were turned away.

This one, however, was more stubborn. This time, Heather had come to the door before he would leave.

Eric crept out of his rooms and crouched at the top of the stairs, hidden in the shadows of the railing, but fully able to hear the conversation and watch the feet pacing the stone tiles.

There was a long chuckle. “Didn’t Jake call you that? Seems like someone should keep it going.”

Eric smarted. Dad called Mom a lot of nicknames—hen was just one of them.

“John…”

“I’m not afraid of ghosts, Heather. And I’m certainly not afraid of his.”

There was some more pacing. Eric caught the gleam of a black men’s dress shoe.

“I’ve waited long enough, Heather. It’s time.”

“John, please. You can’t still be angry about something that happened more than fifteen years ago. I don’t owe you anything.”

“Angry? I’m not angry. Like I told you, I’ve been very patient. Waiting for what was rightfully mine to come back to me.”

The shadows at the bottom of the steps moved.

“Let me go.” His mother’s voice was as weak as ever, but it bore a chill that Eric had never heard before.

“Not until I get the answer I want.”

“John, please. I said let me go!”

Eric didn’t wait another second. He scuttled down the stairs two steps at a time until he landed in the foyer with a crash against the big oak table in the center. The vase of roses wobbled, but didn’t fall.

The man turned. He looked vaguely familiar. Tall, with a slightly hooked nose, curly hair that was mostly a dark brown, and greenish eyes that seemed to shift in the light. Like quicksilver.

The man dropped Heather’s wrist, and she stepped back immediately.

“Ah,” said the man. “Eric. The young sea sprite. It’s nice to see you again, boy. Been a while, hasn’t it?”

Eric stepped between them, allowing his mother to wrap her fragile hand around his arm. He would have liked her to pull him back and cage his shoulders with her arms, the way she used to do when he was small. But he was too big for that now. Last summer he had had a growth spurt, and now, at nearly twelve, he was nearly five-seven, at least an inch or two above his mother. Now he had to guard her.

He was not, unfortunately, taller than this man, who seemed to loom over them both like one of the gargoyles hanging off St. John the Divine.

The man smiled. It wasn’t a nice smile. It felt like a knife was slicing down his chest. Eric pressed a hand to his sternum, but he couldn’t look away.

“Your mother and I were speaking,” said the man. “I admire a man who stands up for himself, but let’s be clear. You won’t win this fight, Triton.”

“Who’s Triton?” Eric managed. “My name is Eric. Who are you?”

But the man didn’t answer. Instead he just pushed up the sleeve of his jacket and checked his watch. It was identical to the one his father used to wear. Above that, Eric caught sight of a thin chain bracelet with a gold coin.

“This is a conversation between adults. I’ll give you one second to move,” said the man. “And then I’ll do it for you.”

Eric gulped. But his mother didn’t try to move him. She needed him. His dad, wherever he was, needed him too.

So he went against every impulse he had and met that terrible green gaze straight-on. “No.”

The man’s smirk disappeared. “Very well.”

Eric braced himself—for what, he wasn’t sure. A blow to the cheek? A twist of an arm? Something worse? But before he could find out, there was a harsh rap at the front door. Everyone froze.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” came a voice through the door. “Has all propriety evaporated? Garrett, will you please open the door since my daughter-in-law’s maid can’t be bothered to do her job?”

For once in his life, Eric was glad to hear the familiar, irritable voice sounding from the other side of the thick oak. Keys jingled, and a few seconds later, the door opened as Garrett, the old butler, held the door open for Eric’s grandmother: Celeste Annika van Dusen de Vries.

“My goodness, Heather,” she said as she walked in, brushing rain off her Burberry coat. “Is it the fashion now to force your guests to stand outside like common solicitors?”

The older woman stopped when she realized the foyer was actually full of people. Her sharp gaze sliced through the tension, landing on the visitor, John, after touching on her grandson and his mother.

“What in the world…” she muttered. “John. I don’t know what you are doing here, but you are not welcome. I thought I made that clear at the funeral.”

The man’s nasty smirk reappeared. “So you did. But this is not your home, Celeste.”

“It’s de Vries property, just like the penthouse. That didn’t change with Jacob’s passing.”

The man quirked his head, like he was measuring whether or not to continue this argument. “You can’t protect her forever, Celeste. You’re not Heather’s keeper.”

“Perhaps not,” she said evenly. “But I do have a vested interest. Much like I do in Chariot, don’t I?”

For a long time, the man didn’t speak. Grandmother glared. And much to Eric’s satisfaction, the man looked away first.

He turned to Heather. “Until we meet again, hen. Triton.” And then, with an awful, terrible wink at Eric, he left.

It took ten full breaths before Eric could even hear his mother’s voice again, waging yet another weak argument against his grandmother. Eric rolled his eyes. There was no point to arguing with Grandmother. She always won. She was a force of nature herself.

“You know why I’m here,” Celeste was saying. “You haven’t been answering my calls. Things are falling apart. And now I see that parasite in your home with Eric guarding you like a puppy? It’s a good thing I showed up when I did.”

Eric turned to find his mother falling back into one of the antique chairs in the foyer.

“Celeste.” Heather’s voice was barely above the echoes of shuffling footsteps. “Please. I just need more time. We need more time.”

“You’ve had nearly a full year.” Celeste looked at Eric. “The boy needs more guidance than he is getting. He is my sole heir. It’s time to accept the proposal and for Eric to come where he belongs.”

“Celeste, please—”

“John Carson is not going to leave the matter alone,” Celeste continued. “You know that just as well as I. Since Jacob’s death, he has become a man obsessed, and I’m sorry to say, no amount of money will put him off. You have only a few choices here. Eric will be safer with me. You will be safer married to Horace.”

Eric watched their interaction like he was witnessing a tennis match. What was happening? Safer with Grandmother? Married?

His mother’s arguments fell again and again, and with dread building in his chest, he watched her capitulate quickly, shrinking into the chair with every flattened reply.

“Come, Eric,” Celeste beckoned. “I am on my way to Westchester for the weekend.” She said the word like it was something different from what everyone else meant, with extra emphasis on the final syllable. Week-end. “Garrett will escort you to your polo practice this afternoon, and then we will return for your things.”

Eric shook his head, finding his voice at last. “No, Grandmother. I’m staying here.”

Celeste simply pressed her pink lips together and shook her head. “I’m afraid that’s out of the question, Eric. De Vrieses do not renege on their promises. Your mother made me one, and that was on your behalf.”

“It’s just a missed practice,” Eric argued. “Mom’s upset. She needs me—”

“She needs you to let her be,” Celeste cut in irritably.

“No,” Eric said, this time forcefully enough that his voice cracked. That had been happening more and more lately. “I—I know what you’re doing. This isn’t just polo, Grandmother. You’re—you’re taking me away. It’s because of that man, isn’t it? He wants something from Mom, doesn’t he?”

“Oh, Eric,” Heather murmured, shaking her head.

The older woman’s eyes narrowed. “You heard, did you? Eavesdropping is quite unbecoming of a young man like yourself, Eric. I see we have more work to do than I anticipated.” She glared at Heather, as if Eric’s shortcomings were yet another indication of her character deficiencies.

Talk back, Eric wanted to say to her. But instead, Heather gazed at him. She reached out like she wanted to stroke his cheek, but dropped her hand almost immediately.

“I’m afraid not,” she murmured. And then, to Celeste: “He’ll go. I’ll have his things sent tomorrow.”

Celeste nodded and turned to the door. “Very well, Eric, let’s—”

“On one condition,” Heather continued.

Celeste turned and raised a wry silver brow. “What is that?”

Heather’s gray gaze flickered nervously between her mother-in-law and her son. “He stays here. In New York.”

Celeste opened her mouth to argue back. It just wasn’t done, she would say. Every de Vries heir for generations had attended the same boarding school in Europe. What right did Heather have to break such a longstanding tradition?

But Heather rattled on with more energy than Eric had seen since the funeral, where she had collapsed across his father’s coffin just before it was lowered into the ground.

“It’s what Jacob and I planned for him,” she insisted. “He’s an American, Celeste. He belongs here. And if I’m going to give him up, I refuse to do so completely. He needs to be close to his mother. To his family. Not far away from everything he knows. I won’t let him lose that.”

Too. The word was unspoken, but there, nonetheless. On top of his father, she meant. On top of her.

Eric swallowed thickly. Part of him wanted to run to the back of the house, sneak out the fire escape he wasn’t supposed to climb on, and disappear into the city. He could leave New York, jump on one of the boxcars that his family owned. Ride away on a boat or a train or a truck and never return to this place, this city full of death and anger and sorrow.

But he knew he wouldn’t. This conversation, this family—they were like chains on his legs.

Like she was a balloon that had just expelled the last of its helium, Heather sank to the chair once again and looked on wearily as Eric fetched his coat and put on his shoes. Was this really happening?

“It’s better this way,” she said. “You’ll see. Grandmother is so much stronger than me. She has things to teach you.”

She had been so sad for the last year. She hadn’t even bothered to hide the empty bottles of vodka in the bedroom, leaving them for the maids to clean up each morning. Outwardly, Eric’s mother was as beautiful as ever. But a light had shined in her eyes once. Eric realized now it wouldn’t reappear.

“I’ll see you when you return,” she said softly. “We’ll make a proper goodbye of it then.”

She watched apathetically as Garrett hustled Eric into his coat and out the door. The air was full of “see you soons” and “in a few days.” But when Eric turned, just before the door closed behind him, he caught a glimpse of Heather falling forward in the chair, face crumpling into her delicate hands. He wasn’t sure if the wail that sounded after the locks clicked was a distant siren or his mother.

Inside Grandmother’s Rolls, he turned to the old woman angrily. But before he could speak, Celeste spied the coin hanging around his neck.

“Take that off at once,” she ordered, holding out her hand.

Eric’s face screwed up in confusion. “What? No! It’s mine, Grandmother.”

“No, it belongs to me,” she said. “If you recall, Garrett offered it to me at the funeral, not you. In fact, it belonged to my husband, who gave it to your father.” Her hand beckoned insistently. “I offered it to a child mourning his father. But you are not a child any longer, Eric. Give it back.”

Eric’s eyes shone fiercely, glittering with rebellion. His entire life, everyone had been telling him what to do. At least his father used to jump in, shield him from the worst of it. He had taught him how to break the rules as much as how to obey them. Taken him to play catch in the park when he was supposed to be learning how to fence. Gotten pizza or Gray’s Papaya for dinner instead of eating coq au vin at the penthouse.

Dad would have let him keep the necklace. Eric was sure of it.

But Dad was gone. And his mother had let Eric go too.

There was no one else in his life but Grandmother, whose sharp, unwavering expression told him she, out of all of them, wasn’t giving up.

So, with a deep sigh, Eric unclasped the coin from around his neck and dropped it into her waiting palm. Maybe one day he’d find the courage to fight her. But today was not that day.

* * *

Present

Eric paged through the now-worn journal for what had to be the hundredth time. It was amazing how beat up the small black book had become in just a few days since his mother had given it to him. But when there was nothing to do but pore over the thing, he had practically memorized its strange, fragmented contents.

It was the journal his father was probably never supposed to keep. He had read the others, the ones intended for public record, the way all the de Vrieses kept papers to be stored eventually at endowed libraries or in state historical records. They were a “family of record,” as his grandmother used to say. Everyone was taught to act like it.

It was a habit that, even in his years apart from the clan, Eric had never been interested in breaking.

But unlike those records, which represented history written by its victors, this journal was something different, almost reading like a supplement to those more official histories. Its entries were chronological, but there were often months, even years between them. It was full of clues that historians usually sought between the lines of standard sources. Coded phrases that others would have read as non sequitur comments or the idiosyncrasies of a rich, frivolous man. But Eric suspected they masked secrets that his family would have wanted to hide. As such, they were infuriatingly opaque.

April 22, 1982

Johnny’s been tapped to make croutons. Three days of fighting, and I still don’t know if it was worth it. Did he know I wouldn’t have walked away otherwise? It’s better to keep him close. He doesn’t like being pushed out.

Tapping for croutons—that was obviously in reference to Janus, which tended to be shrouded in Caesar salad references, or something like it. The timing was right. In 1982, Jake de Vries would have been approximately twenty-two—a senior in college. But Johnny…was that who Eric thought it was? John was such a common name, that he couldn’t know for sure. But why else would his mother have given him the journal? The investigator had determined that Carson had also attended Princeton, just like Eric’s father. Had he been tapped there too?

August 28, 1983

Picked up Heather by the lakes. She was crying—I don’t want to even ask what J did this time. I should let her go, but I can’t. She deserves more than what he can give her. She deserves more than me too, but I’m determined to be better for her, no matter what Mother says.

Eric kept coming back to that one again and again. As far as he knew, his parents had met sometime in college, when his father was a senior and his mother just a freshman. She teased him about it incessantly—that he spent his weekends traveling to Princeton during those years instead of partying in New York as a young man. The stories had charmed a young Eric.

But if all that was true, who was this J? The one who hurt her?

September 8, 1983

Dad died today. He knew it was coming, apparently, even if the rest of us didn’t.

No one brought salad to the wake, but they asked me to toss some almost immediately. Johnny wouldn’t eat. I won’t pretend it didn’t hurt, but it wasn’t a surprise either. Poor guy can’t catch a break, or so he thinks.

Again with the salad references. Eric thought he understood that some. None of the Janus members had come to the funeral, but maybe his father had been summoned to a meeting? Something like that. But he didn’t understand why Johnny, whom he suspected was Carson, was so upset. What hadn’t he received?

There weren’t any entries after that for a while. Jonathan de Vries’s death from an aggressive lung cancer wasn’t something Eric knew much about, but he knew it was sudden. Perhaps it shouldn’t have been such a surprise, given the man was a lifelong smoker and cigar connoisseur. But anytime the subject came up when Eric was a child, someone changed it—even faster if his grandmother happened to be in hearing distance. The gap left in the family was still evident, even more than thirty-five years later.

May 11, 1985

Heather is pregnant. Bad timing, of course, with her graduation coming, but I’m over the damn moon. Maybe it’s just the thing to put all this ugliness behind us. Maybe Johnny can finally forgive the past and move on.

Again with the Johnny. What past? What had happened?

But that wasn’t the only interesting thing about the entry, which basically marked Eric’s own conception. His parents had also gotten married in 1985. A perfect June wedding. His mother had always played off the simple wedding at St. Mark’s as their own choice—neither of them wanted the fancy affair that no doubt Celeste would have desired. But she was also pregnant, a fact that had been skated over his entire life. He had once wondered how much of their marriage occurred to right that social wrong. But there was something gratifying in seeing just how, well, dedicated his father really was to the two of them.

January 8, 1986

Heather did famously. Strong girl.

Eric is a solid little brick. The doctors say he can’t see anything yet, but he knew who I was when he looked at me. Gray eyes, just like his mother’s. I swear he has my hands. How could someone this small own so much of us already?

J offered me his wishes, but I wonder if it’s to make sure I’m going with him to Suwon. He’s nervous about the Russian deal. I just wish it wasn’t happening now. I hate to leave Heather and the boy so soon.

Eric brushed a finger over the entry—one of the few written testimonies of his father’s devotion on the day of his birth. He’d spent this last one with Jane during visiting hours, wishing to God he had some means of bribing the Rikers guards for some conjugal time with his wife.

His eyes lingered on the words before dropping to the final sentence. What deal with the Russians? What was his father and the mysterious J doing in Seoul at the end of the Cold War?

Unfortunately, he wasn’t going to find out. There were only two entries left intact, as several pages had been ripped out of the book near the end, and they were nearly two years apart.

January 30, 1987

All the transport between Hwaseong and Goseong is in place. Honestly, if it wasn’t Johnny asking, I wouldn’t be anywhere near this. But I don’t know what else to do. He just can’t seem to let her go, even with this new racket with the airline. Those girls seem like trouble too.

But Heather is worth it. I’d blow up the planet for her and Eric, much less a few Ruskies.

Was the airline the same one Jane’s mother and her friends worked for? The dates lined up, just a month or so from when Jane was likely conceived.

But there was nothing more than a final entry, written in a much more jagged print, almost like Jacob didn’t want to be writing it at all.

December 27, 1989

Home, home. Heather won’t talk to me for missing Christmas, but it couldn’t be helped. We had to clean things up. Everything’s gone to hell now that the Soviets are done for. J thinks Gorbachev can still pull the country back together—he won’t forgive me for thinking otherwise.

The ships, the trucks, everything is back where they should be.

J and I are done for good.

After reading the last cryptic lines again and again, Eric finally set the book on the visitors’ table with a smack. The words meant no more to him now than they had two days ago. What had ended the strange friendship, fraught as it was with animosity? What in the hell did it have to do with DVS and the fall of the Soviets?

Eric turned to the door of the visitors’ room. He needed to talk this through with someone. What in the fuck was taking them so long? He’d been in the courthouse jail all fucking day while the lawyers played courtroom tennis. Was he going back to Rikers tonight or not?

His suit—the one Jane had brought him during her last visit—fit poorly. Too baggy around the waist. He had undoubtedly lost weight over the last two weeks. The food at Rikers was fucking disgusting. The coffee was the worst of all.

The door opened, and Eric lurched in his chair. Fucking hell, he was a jumpy mess.

“What’s going on?” he barked before everyone had even filed inside. Levi Gellert, the primary counsel on his defense team, followed by Skylar and Brandon, posing as counsel but really there for moral support, and the bailiff.

And one person…one person still missing.

What if it had gone terribly? What if, by some fucked-up chance, he had been sentenced to years and years away, without even saying goodbye to his wife?

“She’s still not back?” Eric demanded. “Jesus Christ, Skylar, does she even know the trial is happening?”

Something deep in him deflated. He knew it was unfair, but a part of him hoped that Jane would choose him over her lying, emotionally abusive mother. Because really, that’s what Yu-na was, in his opinion.

Skylar sighed. “She knows, Eric. We’ve been in contact for the last few days. But she still hasn’t found Yu-na. I just spoke to her, and she was at a doctor’s office. Getting—getting the ultrasound done.”

Eric stiffened. “She’s at the doctor without me too?”

Again, unfair. But good God, couldn’t the woman wait for him for anything?

Skylar took a seat in front of him next to the other lawyer. “Eric, you know she wants to be here. She’s just trying to do the right thing.”

Eric sucked in a deep breath, trying to calm himself. It didn’t work. So he did it again. And again. “Crosby,” he said finally. “We’ve been friends a long time. I like you. You know I do. But I swear to God, if you don’t stop defending her decision to run off like an idiot without anyone there to help her, I’m going to—”

“You’re going to stop it right there, chief.” Brandon cut in front of Skylar, with a dangerous tone Eric recognized. He recognized it because the same possessive emotions that powered it were pumping through his veins right now. It was primal, this feeling. Fucking terrifying the way it wouldn’t abate.

Which was why, of course, Eric didn’t hold back. His chair legs screeched on the linoleum as he stood up in a rush. “Stop what, asshole? Stop asking completely reasonable fucking questions? Stop wanting the right to know where the fuck my wife and unborn child are? Jesus fucking Christ, Brandon! You’re telling me you wouldn’t be losing it if Skylar ran off with Jenny and you were locked up?”

“Eric,” Brandon said through gritted teeth, trying and failing to maintain calm. “Man. Breathe. Just breathe, and tell us what you want, all right?”

“What I want? What I want?” Before he could help himself, Eric lunged over the table at Brandon, and just managed to snag his tie before the big man could jump out of reach. “I want to get the fuck out of this rat trap and find my fucking wife! THAT’S WHAT I WANT!”

The two men seethed at each other—Eric for want of control, Brandon trying desperately not to react the way he was trained. Eric knew he was playing with fire. Brandon had been raised on the streets. He was seriously tempting fate here—when it came to fight or flight, Brandon would always choose the former.

“Careful, brother,” Brandon said, his tone walking the line between compassion and threat as he unwound Eric’s fingers from his tie. “It’s not me you’re mad at. Remember that.”

Eric sucked in a breath, and as the new oxygen flowed into his overheated brain, he found he was able to let go of the silk. Like he was releasing a lifeline, he slumped back into his chair and fell forward to cradle his throbbing head in his hands. He was going crazy in here. He really fucking was.

“Please,” he begged. “Give me some good news. Tell me I can get the fuck out of here.”

“You can get out of here.”

At the sound of Levi Gellert’s voice, the three of them all turned to face the oddly calm attorney.

Eric sat up, unsure if he was imagining it. “I—I can?”

Levi nodded. “Everything is finished.”

Eric turned to the bailiff. “I’m free to go?”

The large man simply nodded.

Eric was done with words. He was done with waiting.

He jumped up, and without another word, strode out of the room, the bailiff jogging behind to escort him out properly.

“Eric! Eric, where are you going?”

He didn’t know who called the words. Whether they were male or female. His lawyer, the police, or his friends. Nor did he answer. Because all he knew was that he needed to get out. He needed to find transportation.

He needed to find his wife.