Chapter Fourteen

He'd have to order take out. All attempts to make a meal from her from scratch had apparently failed before Julia got home. Aaron looked at the effort in front of him...he'd burned mashed potato. The internet informed him that it was impossible, but he'd done it.

Not through bad cooking...he had stepped into his office to answer a few emails...and had neglected the potatoes simmering on the stove. Disaster. Glancing at the clock, he wondered if he could make another batch. It was still early; he couldn't remember the last time he was home that early.

He'd barely peeled four potatoes when the door to the apartment was flung open, and Julia barged in. Without glancing in his direction, head very low, she crossed the hallway and entered the corridor that led to her room.

Aaron grimaced then looked at the half made shepherd's pie...his home favourite, and the recipe his mother had sent him. An upset woman...and he presumed she was upset, really needed a little time. So he'd complete the meal...then maybe seek her out.

Julia fell face down onto the bed and tried to breath, tried to calm her over beating heart, adrenaline and pain surged through her system and she wasn't sure she'd ever get out of the bed again. Closing her eyes she stifled the sobs, wanting with all her heart to throw her phone against the wall...but then she'd never be able to speak to her friends...or negotiate the streets of NYC without it.

Struggling again to defeat her anxiety, she took several deep breaths. She'd avoided her mother, the incessant phone calls, deleted the messages, and it had been the BBC app, sat on the metro, cutting across the Hudson that brought her to her knees.

Even though she'd only read it once, the words seemed ingrained into her brain.

The funeral of Edward Clarkson, formally of the Clarkson Hedge Fund Corp, occurred today in a private family only ceremony in the St Mark's church and cemetery, Chelsea. The former business mogul, well known Conservative donator and entrepreneur passed away in prison last month where he was serving a thirteen year sentence for historic abuse. Clarkson had been in the process of appealing against the sentence after he claimed new evidence had come to light. His family will decide whether they want to persist with the appeal and clear his name.

She felt sick...her family were going with an appeal? Appealing against the conviction of what he did to her? What evidence could he possibly have unearthed against her case? And who would defend that bullshit? She had told the truth...there was no alternative evidence, no other version of events. He DID it, every bit of it, she knew he had. She hadn't lied. Yet even from beyond the grave, he was controlling her life. She hated him, hated him more than anything else.

The tears were rolling down her cheeks, uncontrollably, and she hated that he could hurt her so easily. That after all these years his name still crucified her, swept her back to the time when she was at unable to get away from her charismatic and popular uncle. No one saw him as she did, and no one had believed her. Maybe they never had.

"Hey?"

Her door opened a crack, and she could feel a pair of eyes on her, but she wasn't ready to face Aaron, with his knowing eyes and friendly ways. He saw too much, he'd made her talk, to open up. She couldn't do that now.

"I'm a little worried, Julia." When she still didn't move from her place face down on the bed, he added, "well I've made dinner...my favourite from home. I can put yours in the fridge...just let me know if you need anything?"

The door closed and she let out the breath that she was holding in. No one but Abi had seen her like this, broken. She couldn't let him. It would change everything, and that would turn her world on its head.

Aaron had music on, some nineties mix on spotify, loud enough that he couldn't hear anything from the direction of Julia's room. She'd been in there for almost an hour. The dinner on low in the oven was approaching spoiled, but he had lost his appetite. Instead he was reclined on the sofa, his laptop on his bent thighs, reading through a contract for a new business acquisition. Not how he imagined spending a Friday night. Rolling his eyes, he opened yet another email from Tom, full of legalese and technical shit that tonight was blowing his mind.

Finally the door opened and he sensed Julia emerge, he was reluctant to look up, to stare at her, but Coco and Cliffy had other ideas, they bounded across the room like the puppies they weren't yapping at her heels. He heard her sigh, and she'd squatted down next to them before he glanced over.

Her damp hair hung around her head and immediately he had visions of her sobbing in the shower, her tears washing with the spray as it hit her, the saddest most forlorn image he could have ever conjured up, and it saddened him. But if she wanted to talk, to share what was upsetting her, then she would have earlier. He was worried about her, but couldn't envisage what had made her so unhappy. Work was unlikely, and she hadn't been here long enough to have her heart broken by a friend or lover...it left home...the family she was so reluctant to discuss. A topic he was in no rush to push her over.

Suddenly he realised she was looking at him, her eyes piercing, despite the puffiness that hinted at her earlier tears.

"You want to sample my dinner?" He grimaced, he sounded so desperate to his own ears, but he was really concerned. She looked dreadful, and this was almost the realisation of all that he'd suspected. She had secrets, or at the very least was hiding something. His brother and Abi had indirectly hinted at that back at their engagement party...now he was seeing evidence himself.

She shook her head, "I'm going out."

"But I made dinner." So desperate he chastised himself again.

She smiled, a sad smile, "I'm sorry. Can I eat it later...I just need to get out."

He studied her for a long moment, and then gave a nod. "Be careful."

She barely acknowledged that before she disappeared out of the front door.

This was her kind of club. Dark, dirty and best of all no phone reception. Julia could only imagine who was trying to call her, for a million different reasons. Abi would be devastated that she wasn't there once she spotted the headlines, her parents...she shook her head, she couldn't think about their agenda. Then there was her landlord. She had to relegate him to that position now; he'd got too close, seen too much.

Glancing around the dark room, she spotted a few couples grinding against each other in the corner. She had no idea where she was in the scope of the world; she'd stumbled through Brooklyn and finally taken a metro into the city. Then she'd sat on a park bench for a while and drunk a half bottle of whisky. She was warm inside now, but with alcohol came despair and melancholy. It was never the answer. But she'd almost fallen upon this bar, not really expecting a door to emerge in front of her. Now she was free from everything but the rest of the night. She knew what that usually meant. Alcohol...and oblivion.

The club was quiet, but then it was early. So with a large whisky, she took a stool right at the end of the bar, and watched the room as it got busier.

A woman alone seemed to garner a lot of attention, and she was in no mood for company. After a few men approached and she snapped at them, others seemed to get the hint, even the barman avoided her, the female server was the one who repeatedly refilled her glass. Which pleased her. She had no idea how long she'd stay there, it was almost as though she was too safe, too scared of leaving the building. Reality beckoned and she was happier to stay in her little bubble.

The cold chill of the bathroom seemed to shock her out of the comfortable stupor she'd been in since arriving in the club, as she lowered herself on to the toilet, her head lolled to the side. Nausea was rising and she wasn't sure she'd resist vomiting. She should have eaten something. Aaron was right.

Aaron.

Her landlord. Her mind wandered from the things she hated about him, to the things that she liked about him - definitely more of the latter, and she sighed. He'd been good to her, and she'd walked out on him. Suddenly she felt guilty. Picking up her phone, she called him. She had a desperate need to apologise.

He answered, sleepily on the third ring.

"Julia? Are you ok?"

Out of the moving thoughts and the moving room, the confusion of the day, the alcohol, she managed, "I wanted to say sorry...you made me dinner."

He made you dinner! Her inner voice told her. You ungrateful cow.

She grimaced, even though he couldn't see her, "I was stressed, and...I needed to get out."

She heard him sigh, "I would have gone out with you...are you ok?"

Nodding, then realising he couldn't see her, she groaned, "fine. Tired..."

"Do you need a ride? I couldn't come collect you."

She fought to focus on her watch, and failed to identify the time, "it's late. I am ok."

"Where are you?"

Julia was too drunk and emotional to assess how serious his voice was. "I'll get a taxi, soon."

She heard a rustling sound, before he spoke again, "I'm coming to get you. Where are you?"

"Black Diamond, that's what the napkin says..." she looked at the black square that she'd taken from the bar. "Don't know where I am, but I will come home soon."

"Stay where you are. I'm coming to get you."

She staggered back into the bar oblivious to her surroundings, "lovely bar lady...another whisky please."

Aaron had fallen asleep on the sofa; it had been hell not to call Julia, especially when Abi had called her sounding desperately worried.

"She left, earlier."

"Was she ok?"

He sighed, "what the fuck is going on, Abi? She was breaking her heart, then stormed out."

"Fuck, fuck, fuck. You have to find her."

He laughed at that, "like you have? You are her friend, if she isn't replying to your messages; there is no way that she'll reply to mine. What's going on?"

"Nothing, it's just a bad day for her. She needs a little TLC some times."

He KNEW there was more to it than just that, but he also understood girlfriend loyalty. "I'll call you if I hear anything."

Now that he HAD heard something, he wasn't sure whether to call her friend or not. As he raced to his car, in the hastily pulled on jeans and sweater, he sent her a quick message. She was on the phone before he'd left the underground car park.

"You've found her?"

he huffed as he pulled out onto the road, "no. She called me. Look, I'm driving, I need to go. I promise I will let you know is there's a problem, I'm going to collect her."

At that Luke came on the phone, telling him how Abi hadn't slept all night. He reassured her as much as he could, then hung up; even more confused by this spider's web of confusion that surrounded Julia Curtis.

The club she'd named wasn't anywhere he was familiar with, and when Google offered no insight, he called Carrie, his PA. She was the only person he could call at almost two am who wouldn't flinch, and the only person he knew who'd have a clue as to what and where this place was.

"Black Diamond? I have never heard of that. You know anything else?" He could hear her tapping away in the background.

"Nope, nothing."

Carrie sighed, then gasped, "not Black, DARK. Dark Diamond. Shit, boss. That place is a dive, some back street meat market, what the hell you doing going there?"

He sighed, his worst case scenario. "Julia, she's wandered off there, worse for too much alcohol. I'm going to collect her."

She gave a huff, "well be careful, boss. It's north of the village, off a back street..." She named a couple of streets he wasn't familiar with, and before she'd ended the call he'd typed the destination into his satnav. Fifteen minutes. Or so the 'lovely' lady of the satnav informed him. He had to beat that, he had such a bad feeling.

The club was merely a doorway, fifty feet away from a reasonably well lit busy intersection, a neon sign missing several letters announced 'ARK DI MOND', that had to be it. Throwing the car to the kerb, he jumped out, striding to the doorway. Two bouncers blocked his path, so he grimaced and tossed twenty dollar bills at them.

"I need to find someone, she's vulnerable. Don't make me call the cops."

Both men eyed him for a moment, then stepped back, taking the bribe rather than the potential hassle. With a grunt, he marched passed them.

Steps led down to a darkened room, the black corridor empty, save a few posters. Then it opened into a huge room, dungeon like, and filled with writhing bodies. A dive? This place was practically a sex club. Where the fuck was Julia?

A bar flanked the far wall, light illuminating what the dance floor seemed to hide. Cutting through the crowds his eyes scanned furiously.

Then he spotted her.

He wasn't convinced that she'd be there, but there she was, half slumped against the bar, her blonde hair hanging around her like a curtain. He couldn't see her face, but he'd recognise her anywhere, plus she was the only sad, morose person in the whole place.

As he approached her, fighting through the busy club, he watched a man approach, sidle up to her, brush against her. And it made him livid, barging past people he got to them just in time to see the man try to touch her, her head hadn't moved, she was still fixated on the bar in front of her.

"Don't touch her!" He called out at the very same moment she elbowed the man in the chest.

"Get OFF me!"

The man looked 'worldly', in that he could make mincemeat out of Aaron, he was huge and swarthy. Fortunately he hadn't heard Aaron, so he wasn't in his vision, but he was angry at Julia. As he lunged for her again, Aaron took a deep breath and dived forward, only to stop dead in his tracks. Julia grabbed the man's hand, then performed what he could only describe as ju jitzu, as she took his hand and twisted and pulled until he had his front tight against the bar, and his head bent down so that his cheek sat in an alcoholic puddle on it.

Julia could look after herself...he'd been worried unnecessarily. He shook his head, no. Just because she had this drunken man's number, didn't mean that she could find her way home.

Stepping up as she released the man, he watched the relief wash over her face as she saw him. He had a million questions, but now wasn't the time. Smiling he reached for her hand and led her out of the bar.