Sheer Consequence Read online

  SHEER CONSEQUENCE

  (Sheer Submission, Part Five)

  Hannah Ford

  Contents

  WANT TO BE IN THE KNOW?

  SHEER CONSEQUENCE

  SHEER CONSQUENCE

  Copyright © 2018 by Hannah Ford

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  SHEER CONSEQUENCE

  (SHEER SUBMISSION, PART FIVE)

  SHEER CONSQUENCE

  (Sheer Submission, Part Five)

  At first glance, the house seemed empty.

  And almost too beautiful for anyone to actually live there.

  If Landon’s suites and condos in New York were black and leather, his estate in Vermont was stone and ice. It was just as much of a castle on the inside as it was on the outside – two winding staircases rose from the foyer, twisting up toward the second floor. The far wall was pure windows, giving a spectacular view of the snow-covered mountings in the distance, which were covered in a fog that swirled around the still-falling snow.

  But even though the seemed still and undisturbed, as soon as I got inside I could feel that someone was there.

  My sister, specifically.

  There were signs of Violet everywhere. The pair of black Uggs she always wore tossed haphazardly in the front hall, her puffy purple North Face jacket hanging on the hook by the door, a copy of one of the historical romance novels she loved sitting on a mosaic glass table.

  But what really gave it away was the smell of spaghetti sauce that wafted into the foyer – the unmistakable bite of oregano and fresh tomatoes, mixed with the spice of garlic and basil.

  My mother’s recipe, passed on from my grandmother, who had died when Violet and I were little, and the one my sister and I had cooked together so many times I couldn’t count. It was practically the only thing we knew how to cook, and one of the only links we had to our past.

  Sure enough, I heard the clatter of a spoon coming from the kitchen – although I couldn’t tell exactly where that was in relation to the foyer Landon and I were standing in. But then I heard a louder clanging and the sound of a gas stove being turned up, and I could tell it was coming from off to the right, through a stone archway that led to another part of the house.

  “Violet?” I called, pushing past Landon and hurrying toward the noise.

  “Aven,” Landon said behind me, warningly, but I ignored him. Now that we were here, I could disobey him as much as I wanted and there was nothing he could do about it.

  And yet my belly clenched at his words, and a part of me wanted to obey him, the feeling so strong that I had to actively work against it. It made me realize, once again, that whatever was going on between me and Landon went way beyond him bringing me here to see my sister.

  It was something deeper.

  Something darker.

  I’m not close to anyone.

  His words burned against my brain, but I couldn’t think about any of that now, and so I pushed it all away and called my sister’s name again.

  “Aven?” I heard her call back.

  “Violet!” I walked through the archway, and now I was in the kitchen, a huge room with a set of three stairs that led to a sprawling and open great room, both rooms with floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out across the snow-capped mountains.

  The kitchen was so big, the views so sweeping and disorienting, that at first, I didn’t see her.

  There was a mess everywhere, another hallmark of Violet’s cooking.

  Empty cans of tomatoes littered the marble counters, and the double basin drop sink was filled with dirty dishes. Bottles of spices were scattered across the counter next to the stove, all of their caps undone, grains of oregano and basil peppered across the marble.

  Over the island, there was a hanger filled with shiny stainless steel pots, and it swung lazily, as if someone had just pulled something off it quickly.

  A pot of spaghetti sauce simmered on the stove, but no glimpse of Violet.

  “Violet?” I tried.

  “Aven?” A cupboard slammed shut, pans clashed together, and then Violet popped up from the other side of the island. She was wearing a white chef’s hat, the kind that flopped over on the top and that no one wore outside of animated films.

  Her hair was pulled back from her face, and she wasn’t wearing any makeup. She looked younger, her face scrubbed clean, her cheeks flushed with warmth from the kitchen and what appeared to be excitement.

  She put down the pan she was holding, and rushed toward me, wrapping her arms around me. “Aven! I’m so glad you’re here!”

  “Violet,” I said, and suddenly I was choked up. Whatever was going on, here she was, in front of me, safe. Not dead. Not hurt. Not anything but cooking. For a second I couldn’t speak, and the emotion I felt at her being here, in front of me, was overwhelming. I squeezed my eyes shut, my chest tight.

  I held onto her, inhaling her scent, the peach face wash and the morning glory body spray she bought from CVS because she said it smelled better than anything high-end she could get at Sephora.

  I pulled back and she smiled at me, revealing her perfect, braces-straightened smile.

  “I’m so glad you’re here,” she said, her face shiny with tears.

  And she did seem like she was happy to see me. Which didn’t make sense. If she was happy to see me, if she wanted me here, then why hadn’t she answered any of my calls, why hadn’t she texted me back except for the short little missives filled with emojis?

  “Violet,” I started, and cleared my throat. “Why haven’t you – ”

  But she was looking past me, over my shoulder.

  “You must be Landon,” she said.

  “Yes.” Landon nodded at her, his blue eyes blazing, his jaw set. He was in the archway, holding onto the sides of the frame as if blocking me (or Violet?) from leaving.

  “It’s nice to meet you,” Violet said, giving him a genuine smile. She reached up and tightened her ponytail and then smoothed down her apron, as if she were worried about making a good impression on Landon. She seemed suddenly anxious, and she shifted her weight to her other foot.

  I noticed her nails were bitten down to the quick, a nervous habit she’d picked up when she was younger, one she’d been able to kick due to a combination of willpower and special bad-tasting nail polish.

  She’d had one slip-up, during finals last year, but obviously she’d slipped up again.

  “Conner’s told me so much about you,” she said to Landon, giving him another smile.

  I turned to look at Landon, who was still standing in the doorway, cutting an impressive figure. His eyes were dark and hooded, as if this was a charade he didn’t want to participate in but had been forced to.

  “Where is Conner?” Landon glanced around the kitchen suspiciously.

  “He ran out to get pasta,” Violet said, giving a little laugh. “All this sauce I made, and there was no pasta in the house. Well, not the kind of pasta Conner wanted. Apparently it has to be a certain brand, and a certain shape – spaghetti only, because Conner thinks if it’s not spaghetti then there’s no sense in eating it.
But you probably know that, as his brother and everything.” Violet was babbling, and she wasn’t a babbler. Her eyes were flicking back and forth between me and Landon, but I knew her so well that I could pick up the nuance in her movements and in her tone.

  She was nervous that I was here, yes.

  But she was definitely more concerned with trying to impress Landon, or if not impress him exactly, forge a connection with him, get him to like her. Which did made sense on some level – if Violet was dating Conner, of course she would want his brother to like her. But this seemed beyond that.

  I shook my head, trying to clear my thoughts and focus. “Violet, why haven’t you texted me back?”

  She turned to look at Landon. “You drove her here?”

  He nodded, but stayed quiet.

  “What’s going on?” I demanded. “Vi?” I never called Vi, not since we were little.

  She sighed and scrubbed at her face.

  “Listen,” she said. “I’m going to tell you everything. I want to tell you everything. But I just want to make sure – ”

  She was cut off by the sound of an engine in the driveway. Violet’s eyes went wide. “Conner,” she said. She began hastily untying her apron. “I’m going to go help him with the groceries. Um, I’ll be right back.” She rushed by me, gripping my arm as she went, squeezing it gently, her eyes locking on mine, the expression there telegraphing one thing:

  Please forgive me.

  As soon as she was out of the kitchen, the sauce started bubbling and popping, and I walked to the stove and turned down the flame. The dial on the burner turned easily, the surface of the stove shiny and unmarked except for the tiny bits of sauce that had boiled out of the pan.

  I picked up a nearby dishtowel and began wiping them up. I wasn’t a neat freak, not even close, but suddenly it became extremely important that I get every last speck off the stainless steel surface, that I leave no marks.

  “Aven,” Landon said, his voice low.

  “She’s going to burn the sauce,” I said.

  “Aven.”

  I turned to look at him, but the sight of him caught my breath in my chest. The look in his eyes left my breathless, a mix of possessiveness and assertiveness, his shoulders so broad they took up the whole doorway.

  “I just don’t want the sauce to burn,” I said, and now I was acting like some kind of crazy person, and I wondered wildly if I should go and wet the towel so that I could get some more of the stubborn spots, or maybe a spray cleaner.

  Landon came up behind me and took the dishtowel from my hand, turned me around and wrapped his arms around me.

  “She’s not hurt,” I said, as if I were trying to convince myself.

  “No.”

  “You said she wouldn’t be.”

  “Yes.”

  I sunk into him, letting his arms envelope me as kissed my head.

  Suddenly, I didn’t want to be here, didn’t want to find out whatever it was Violet was about to tell me. I’d been so desperate to get here, so desperate to make sure she was okay, but now my stomach twisted with a sharp anxiety. It was like waiting for test results from your doctor – it was torture, and even though you knew the news might be bad, you just wanted to know. But now that the moment was here, now that I was faced with it, I was realizing there were some advantages to my ignorance.

  “Listen,” Landon said, pulling back. He tilted his head so he was looking straight into my eyes. My stomach loosened under his gaze, and goose bumps prickled my skin. “Anytime you want to leave here, all you have to do is say it. And we will go.” He cupped my chin in his hand, the pad of his thumb brushing over my lower lip. “Do you understand?”

  “Yes, but why –”

  I was stopped from asking the rest of my question, because at that moment, Conner Sheer walked into the kitchen.

  The first thing I noticed was that he looked like Landon.

  Which made no sense since the two of them had both been adopted from different families – they weren’t biologically related in any way.

  But on second glance, I realized the resemblance wasn’t exactly physical.

  It was in the way the Sheer brothers carried themselves, the same thrown back shoulders, the same lowered brow, the same defiant look in their eyes that made it clear they could care less what anyone thought or said about them.

  But where Landon was dark, Conner was light, all blond hair and green eyes, his skin fair. Landon’s features were strong, as if they’d been slashed from stone, while Conner’s were softer, more pretty boy than bad boy.

  “Landon,” Conner said by way of greeting to his brother. He was a holding a clear grocery bag filled with two boxes of spaghetti, and he tossed it onto the island. Violet stood behind him, her hand at her mouth, biting her nails.

  “Conner,” Landon said. He took his arms from around my waist, and I saw Conner’s eyes land on our embrace, and I wasn’t sure if it was my imagination, but I thought I saw a look of annoyance flash across his features.

  “You didn’t have to drive all this way,” Conner said, as the two brothers patted each other on the back. His tone was jovial, but there was a weird tension in the air now. While Violet had seemed genuinely happy to see us, I got the distinct impression that Conner definitely wasn’t. “Didn’t you get my voicemail?”

  His voicemail.

  The one he’d left for Landon, the one that had played through the car speakers, the one I’d heard by mistake. The one that had instructed Landon to give Conner more time alone with Violet.

  “Yes, I got it,” Landon said, not offering any further explanation for his presence.

  There was an awkward silence, and then Conner Sheer turned his attention toward me. He smiled, then reached his hand out. I took it. His skin was cool, his hand smooth, so smooth that it almost felt slick, even though it wasn’t wet. It was the opposite of Landon’s hand, which was always warm and slightly rough.

  “Conner Sheer,” he said. “You must be Aven.”

  “Yes,” I said. “It’s nice to meet you.” The words came out of my mouth automatically, before I could decide whether or not they were true. “I’ve been really worried about Violet.” I thrust my chin in the air and refused to look away from him.

  Conner’s eyes flickered with something – fear? No, not fear. It was something else. It was almost as if he considered me some kind of threat. But a threat to what? His relationship with Violet? He didn’t have to worry about that, obviously. Violet had made her choice. When it came down to it, she hadn’t answered any of my texts or calls.

  “That’s ridiculous,” Violet piped in from behind Conner. “Why were you worried?”

  “Are you serious?” I asked, incredulous. “Um, maybe because I didn’t know where you were and you weren’t texting me back.”

  “I was texting you back,” Violet said defensively.

  “A couple of emojis and an ‘I’m okay’?” I rolled my eyes.

  Violet’s gaze flicked to Conner, as if she were looking to him to help her with what to say. But Conner’s eyes were still on me, his expression cool and aloof.

  “But I’m on school break,” Violet tried. “There’s nothing for me to do until next semester. You should have known I was okay, that I just needed some time to relax and get away.”

  “Violet needs her rest,” Conner said, and he pulled Violet toward him and kissed her on the top of the head.

  I shook my head in disbelief. “This is ridiculous,” I said. “Am I in the Twilight Zone here? Someone needs to tell me what’s going on, and they need to do it now.”

  “After dinner we can all sit down and – ” Violet started, but I was over this bullshit.

  “No, not after dinner. Now.”

  She opened her mouth to protest again, but before she could, I stopped her. “No,” I said. “Now, or I’m calling the police.”

  I turned and glanced at Landon, who was standing behind me, his strong hands resting on my shoulders. He’d been quiet, but his presence w
as a source comfort, giving me the feeling that no matter what, as long as he was here with me, I was safe. He didn’t try to stop me when I threatened to call the police, even though Conner looked at him expectantly, as if telling Landon to get me in check.

  “Okay, okay,” Conner finally said, holding up his hands in a gesture of mock surrender when he saw Landon wasn’t going to be of help. “Everyone just relax before this turns into something it doesn’t need to. Of course I can sit down and talk now if that’s what you prefer, Aven.”

  “Great!” I said, sounding like a smartass and not giving a crap.

  “Conner,” my sister said, nervous. Her hand went back to her mouth and she chewed on her thumbnail.

  “It’s fine, Violet,” Conner said, taking her hand and raising it to his lips. “I’ll get some wine from the basement. Help me pick some out?”

  She nodded, biting her lip, and then followed him through the archway.

  “What the fuck is going on?” I demanded of Landon. “Why are they acting like everything is fine, like I’m the one who’s being crazy?”

  He sighed and closed his eyes, scrubbed at this face with his hand. “Listen to me,” he said, his voice low and serious.

  “I’m listening.”

  “Whatever she’s about to tell you, I want you to know that nothing has to –”

  A beeping noise echoed through the kitchen followed immediately by a robotic woman’s voice. “Bulkhead door open,” it said. “Zone eight compromised. Please enter code to accept.”

  Landon reached behind me and punched a code into a keypad mounted on the wall, and the voice chirped, “Thank you. Alarm cancelled.”

  “What the hell does that mean?” I demanded.

  “It means they left,” Landon said.

  “What?”

  “It means they left through the bulkhead,” Landon said, obviously not getting that my “what?” had been rhetorical.