Page 146 of Pieces of Her (Andrea Oliver 1)

Then, when they returned from Palm Springs, Nick had shown him the Polaroids.

Look at what your father did to your sister. We have to make him pay for this. Martin Queller has to pay for all of his sins.

Nick had assumed that Jane would play along, and why wouldn’t she? Why wouldn’t she keep from her brother the fact that it was Nick who had beaten her face, who had ripped open her skin with his teeth, who had pummeled her stomach until blood had poured from between her legs and their baby was gone?

Why wouldn’t she?

Jane dropped the Polaroids into the metal box. She wiped her sweaty hands on her legs. She thought about sitting with Agent Danberry in the backyard. In less than a week, the cops had seen right through Nick.

He had everybody in his circle convinced he was smarter than he actually was. More clever than he was.

Paula said, “I used to be so jealous of you. Did you know that?”

Jane stacked the files and put them back in the box. “No shit.”

“Yeah, well.” Paula had moved on to chopping a potato. She was using a meat cleaver. “The first time I met you, I thought, ‘What’s that snooty bitch doing here? Why does she want to change shit when all the shit in the world benefits her?’”

Jane didn’t have an answer anymore. She had hated her father. That’s where it had started. Martin had raped her when she was a child, beaten her throughout her teenage years, terrorized her into her twenties, and Nick had given Jane a way to make it stop. Not for herself, but for other people. For Robert Juneau. For Andrew. For all the other patients who had been hurt. Jane was not strong enough to pull away from Martin for her own sake, so Nick had contrived a plan to wrench Martin away from Jane.

She put her hand to her mouth. She wanted to laugh, because she had just now realized that Nick had done the same with Andrew, using the Polaroids to weaponize his anger on behalf of Jane.

They were like yo-yos he could snap back with a flick of his wrist.

Paula said, “Andy has everything, too, but he’s so conflicted about it, you know? He struggles with it.” She used her teeth to tear the plastic wrap around a bundle of celery. “You never seemed to struggle, but I guess that’s the point with gals like you, right? All the right schools and the right clothes and the right hair. They Pygmalion your skinny white asses from birth so you don’t ever seem to struggle with anything. You know what forks to use, and who painted what Mona Lisa and blahdee-duh-blah. But underneath, you’re just—” She clenched her hands into tight fists. “So fucking angry.”

Jane had never thought of herself as angry, but she understood now that it had lived just beneath the fear all along. “Rage is a luxury.”

“Rage is a fucking narcotic.” Paula laughed as she attacked the celery with her knife. “That’s why Nick is so good for me. He helped me turn my rage into power.”

Jane felt her eyebrows go up. “You’re babysitting his girlfriend while he’s out planting bombs.”

“Shut your fucking mouth.” Paula threw the knife on the counter. “You think you’re so fucking clever? You think you’re better than me?” When Jane didn’t answer, she demanded, “Look at me, Dumb Bitch. Say that to my face. Say you’re better than me. I fucking dare you.”

Jane turned sideways in the chair so that she was facing Paula. “Did Nick ever fuck you?”

Paula’s jaw dropped. She was evidently thrown by the question.

Jane wasn’t sure where it had come from, but now, she pressed on. “It’s all right if he did. I’m pretty sure he fucked Clara.” Jane laughed, because she could see it so clearly now. “He’s always been drawn to fragile, famous women. And fragile, famous women are always drawn to guys like Nick.”

“That’s bullshit.”

Jane found herself puzzled that the thought of Nick and Clara together elicited not even a flicker of jealousy. Why was Jane so okay with it? Why was all of her envy directed at Clara, who had somehow managed to get what she wanted out of Nick without losing herself completely?

Jane told Paula, “I bet he didn’t fuck you.” She could tell from Paula’s pained expression that this was true. “It’s not that he wouldn’t fuck you if he needed to, but you’re so brazenly desperate for any show of kindness. Not giving it to you was much more effective than giving it to you. Right? And it provides your drama with a villain—me—because I’m the only thing keeping him from being with you.”

Paula’s lower lip started to tremble. “Shut up.”

“One of the FBI agents called it days ago. He said that Nick was just another con man running another cult so he could bed the pretty girls and play God with all the boys.”

“I said shut your goddamn mouth.” The bluster had gone out of her tone. She pressed her palms to the edge of the counter. Tears dripped down her cheeks. She kept shaking her head. “You don’t know. You don’t know anything about us.”

Jane closed the lid on the metal box. There was a tiny handle on the side, too small for Andrew’s hand, but Jane’s fingers easily slid through the loop.

She stood up from the table.

Paula reached for the knife as she started to turn.

Jane took a step forward. She swung the box at Paula’s head.