by JA Huss
“And you? What did they do to you?”
“They tried to do things to me, but…” I smile. Because that’s a moment I take out often. That memory of that has gotten me through so many, many hard times. “Well, I’m still here.”
“So Declan…”
“I dunno, Finn.”
“Do you… know me?”
It would be a strange question coming from anyone else. But it’s not coming from him. He is Irish Mob. I am too. By default, but still. That connection is there.
“Murphy,” I say, thinking about his last name. “No, I don’t think so. I was already back in Montreal the day the indictment came down for Kelly in Philadelphia. When my grandpa died he left me a key to a storage unit back near our old house. I went there to gather up the lost pieces of my life, and then I just… disappeared. Because he didn’t just leave me money, he left me a new ID. A new name, a new past, a new everything.”
“So your sealed juvenile file?”
“It’s not me. None of that is real.”
“What was your old name?”
“Izett Gery.”
“Izett,” he says, trying it out. “It fits you.”
“I know it’s stupid to keep my same first initials. And I was fully aware that my new last name is an anagram of my old one, but it’s what I had. It’s what my grandpa left me. So I took the gift, left Canada, and started over as Issy.”
He thinks about this for a while. “You’re not surprised that Caleb found you, are you?”
I shrug again, then decide to just admit it. Why not? Why not embrace the truth? It gives you power over your fears. So I say, “In a way… I think I’ve been waiting for this day.”
“And you still want to run?”
“Well.” I huff out something that might be a laugh. “I’m not stupid. I know he’s going to win, especially now that he’s out of prison and he’s found me. So running makes sense. Staying?” I say. “Fighting? That’s a death wish.”
“Yeah,” he agrees, hugging me tighter. “I get it. Revenge isn’t worth it sometimes.”
“Besides,” I say. “I think I already got my revenge.”
“By sending him to prison?”
“No. That wasn’t me. That was the government. I got my revenge when I became the person I was meant to be. When Izett Gery finally became Issy Grey. When I wrote my book it had a story in there, kinda like this one, but not this one. And people responded to it. They saw strength in me. Which made me believe in myself. Made me take on the role of helper. So I started those courses and began speaking. And that’s the best I can do, right? Just be me, the way I was meant to be me. And go on. So I think success is my revenge.”
“If you leave tomorrow, I want to go with you.”
“Why?” I ask. “I mean, we’ve known each other one day, Finn. One. Day.”
“I don’t care,” he says. “You make all the sense to me, Issy. It’s like… all the questions I have about my life, what I’m doing, where I’m headed, why I’m here… they were like a cloud. A mist. Something intangible, like an obscure haze that had no definition. And then you come into my life and suddenly, all those stray particles coalesced and became something real.”
We both think about that for a little bit. I picture him in my head. Standing in something that looks like a cloud slowly moving around at his feet. And then it begins to move quicker, spin faster, until I appear—an apparition made of water molecules or some other life-giving element—and become his reality.
It’s a beautiful vision, even I have to admit that. Like a line of poetry.
But there’s this little nagging question in the back of my head. This feeling that something is wrong here. Not him. I believe him when he says we have this connection.
But what of the mist that wasn’t me? All those particles still left behind?
What of that?
“If you leave with me you’ll be on the run too.”
“I’ve been on the run since the moment my father handed me that box on graduation day, I just didn’t realize it.”
“Will they come looking for you?”
“Who is they?” he asks.
“Them, the Bureau. Them, the Mob. Whoever. Who’ll miss you if you run, Finn? I guess that’s the question I’m asking.”
He thinks about this for a long time. A long time. And then he says, “You know what I hate about stories?”
I’m more than a little confused at the topic change, but that’s overridden by my own curiosity at where this might be going. “Stories as in books?”
“Or movies,” he says.
“What?” I ask. “What do you hate?”
“The endings.” He pulls me tight against his chest and I take him in. His scent, the curve of his biceps as I trace my finger down the length of his arm. His large hands. “I never get the endings.”
“What do you mean? You don’t like them?”
“No, I like a good ending as much as anyone. But I don’t get them. Because there’s no end to a story. Just because you run out of pages doesn’t make it the end. So I get to the end of a movie or a book and I think… I feel like I was cheated, ya know?”
“OK. I’ve read some good endings. Seen a few movies that leave me satisfied when they’re over. But I get what you’re saying. And I guess the author or movie director just wants people to make that part up.”
“Right,” he says, playing with my hair, twisting the dark strands around in his fingers, looking at me thoughtfully as he does this. “Just make it up. That’s my whole point. We’re making all this up, Issy. Every second of our lives we’re creating our own reality.”
“What’s that got to do with people missing you if you leave?”
“Those people don’t count unless I let them count. So yeah, I guess the Bureau might wonder where the fuck I went. In fact”—he laughs—“I know they will. And I guess the Mob will be more than a little interested, if only because they want to know what my future looks like as it pertains to them. But that story is over now. They’re at the end and there’s no more pages, there’s no more film to see. Because this is my story, not theirs.”
“It’s deep,” I say, after giving his answer some consideration. “But not what I was looking for, exactly. So I’ll rephrase the question. What will those people do if you disappear with me?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN - FINN
I know what she’s asking.
And she knows I’m evading.
So it comes down to this. Do I give her what she’s looking for and scare her away? Or do I let it ride and see how far we get?
I’m still trying to decide when she says, “You know what Jordan told me? Last night when we were discussing the game?”
“I thought you weren’t allowed to talk about it?”
“Well, fuck that NDA. I’ll take my chances. Because he knows more about this shit than he’s saying. I might not know everything, but I know when someone’s feeding me bullshit to evade the topic.”
“What?” I ask, smiling down at her. Looking into her blue eyes. Soul to soul. Because she knows I’m doing the same thing. “What did he tell you?”
She looks at me, but doesn’t smile. “He said… some people like a panic game. That’s what my friend signed me up for. A panic game. And that could mean a lot of things. Strangulation was one of them.”
“Jesus.” I laugh. “Do you like that shit?”
“Um…” She giggles. “I mean, maybe. It was pretty hot when you had your hand around my throat, but that’s not the point. It was just one option of the panic game.”
“OK, so what were the other options?”
“Submission, because I’m a control freak. So he said some women like me crave submission. But that’s not what we settled on when all was said and done. We settled on chaos. The kind of panic that comes with chaos because I’m so rigid, I guess. So controlling. So orderly. I need everything to go a certain way because that’s what keeps me sane. It was just a guess, and he happened t
o guess right. But it was only a guess until I thought about it more. Jordan Wells might think he knows me, but he doesn’t. Me, or at least the real me, was never written down in a file somewhere. They’re not locked away in some sealed juvenile record, they’re not on any social media, and there’s no photo album to find in an attic one day by accident. The most important parts of me, the things that make me me, are all in my head. They’re memories. So all the things that make you you, they’re up here, Finn.”
She taps my head with her finger.
“They’re not what you did. They’re not what you’re doing. And they’re certainly not where you’re going, because that hasn’t happened yet. They’re just… a stack of memories and nothing else.”
I nod, getting it.
“So forget about what life looks like if you come with me and tell me what life looks like now.”
And here it is, the moment of truth. Because she has now spelled it out for me. And I have a choice. I can tell her or not. But if I don’t tell her, then she’s not gonna stick around. That’s the part I get.
“They’re gonna miss me,” I admit.
“Why? Because you’re an invaluable FBI agent?”
I almost snort.
“Because you know too much about the Mob?”
I shake my head. “No. Neither of those things. I hate being an FBI agent. I mean it was the only thing I wanted to be until my father gave me that phone. But every moment after that one was tainted by corruption. So I’m not some integral part of their team. I’m a fucked-up partner, I have no good insight into their mission, and I have no promising future with them. Even if things go my way out here in Denver, it’s over. It’s been over since the day it started.”
I know she’s got lots of questions about that, but she’s patient with me and lets it go.
“And no, I’m not part of the Mob, either. I have ties, for sure. But they can’t trust me. No one trusts me, Issy. No one until you, and that’s probably just me making a lot of assumptions.” I’m still looking at her. I search her eyes for some kind of sign of what she’s thinking, but find nothing.
“So why would they miss you?”
“Because… I do actually have another reason for coming to Denver.”
“And that’s because…?”
“That’s hidden behind a well-written NDA.”
“Ah,” she says. “And you’re not willing to break it, even if it does involve a crime.”
“I can’t. Not yet, anyway. But the way things are going, that could change very fast.”
“How?” But then she sighs. “Never mind. I understand.”
She says she does, and maybe she thinks she does, but she doesn’t understand. And she’s not giving me a pass. And this isn’t over.
She’s just being… agreeable.
I don’t want her to be agreeable, so I need to tell her something true. Something real. Something more.
“So the endings, right?” I say, continuing my train of thought. “That next blank page in the book. I know we’ve just met and we don’t really know each other at all. But I have this feeling about you, Issy. Like we’ve known each other for years. Lifetimes, maybe. And I’ve never felt that way with anyone else. I’ve never just bumped into someone by accident and… wanted to be with them. Wanted to share things with them. I guess what I’m trying to say is… before you, I’ve never wanted to keep the story going. I’ve never wanted to fill up that blank page. And I know that’s not enough and makes no sense, but it’s what I feel.”
“It’s the panic,” she says, smiling again.
“What?”
“You’re thinking, Why the fuck am I telling this girl this shit? Why am I trying so hard? Why do I care? And it’s the panic. The rush of being on the same team with someone for once.”
“And yet here I am, spilling my guts, but at the same time not telling you what you need to know.”
“Why?”
I shrug. “None of that shit is who I am, Issy.”
“OK. Then who are you?”
“Just a guy doing his best to make the right decisions. And not repeat the mistakes of my father. Not end up buried in concrete on a construction site.”
She nods her head at me thoughtfully. “Will you ever tell me why you’re here?”
“Here?” I say, touching her chest.
“No,” she says, sitting up and pointing to the wall of windows. “Here.”
“Yeah, I will. When the time is right.”
“You do realize that’s the wrong answer.” But she’s smiling when she says it.
“Yeah,” I say, smiling back. “I do realize that. But it’s the only one I’ve got right now.”
She eases herself back down, resting her head on my chest. “Where would we go?”
I place my hand on her head, enjoying the fact that she accepted that answer as truth. “Did you have somewhere in mind? Because I don’t care about the place. Only the person I go with.”
“I was thinking Kansas.”
“What the fuck is in Kansas?”
“Nothing,” she says, sighing. I look down at her just in time to see her eyes close. “That’s the whole point. There’s nothing there but farms, and fields, and tractors. I’d buy a big old piece of land and just forget about the rest of the world. Live alone.” She lifts her head up to see me now. “Unless you come. I’d make an exception for you.”
“Would ya?”
“Mmmhmmm. I would. I’d get a horse and a chicken coop. And maybe start a garden, even though I can’t grow shit. I’d try anyway.”
“Well, Kansas it is. Maybe we better get the fuck out of this hotel and go pack.”
“I’m not taking anything.”
“Nothing?”
She shakes her head. “There’s nothing there for me. I mean, I love the house, but obviously I can’t take that with me.”
“The trophy?” I ask. “The framed magazine cover? The family photos?”
“Wow,” she breathes out.
“What?”
“You were in my house for like ten minutes and you just picked out the only three possessions that mean anything to me. That’s some trick you’ve got there, Agent.”
I shrug. “I guess that’s what I do, right? I’m a fucking FBI agent.”
“For better or worse.”
“Yeah,” I say. There’s something nagging me. Telling me to pay attention. But I don’t want to pay attention. Because I think that nagging feeling is guilt.
Guilt for wasting my twenties being a carbon copy of my father.
Guilt for killing him.
Guilt for accepting the deal they gave me to stay out of prison.
Guilt for being here with her. Because somehow, some way, I’m gonna fuck this up just like I fucked all the rest up.
“OK,” she says. Like she’s been thinking about my questions. “I guess you’re right. I really don’t want to leave those things behind. I know the frame is smashed and the picture was just a digital printout, but I’d rather glue and tape it all back together if it means I can keep something that my grandfather held in his own hands when he was alive. And I know I have that family photo on my phone. But that photo was taken the day before my mom showed up with her new husband and upended my world. To me… it was the last day I was ever truly happy.”
“And the trophy?” I ask. I just want her to keep talking. I want to listen to her for days. Years. Lifetimes.
“I was presented that award the first year I started public speaking. I was brand-new to the speaking circuit, but my seminars always sold out. People were talking about me. They wanted to interview me. The wanted my opinion. And I remember thinking—who the fuck would want my opinion on anything? And if they only knew who I really was…” She sighs. “Well, when I got that award I decided… that very day, I decided that I didn’t think they’d care who I was. I really didn’t. These people—these strangers—knew the real me. They heard me talk once, maybe twice, and they knew me. And the people in my pas
t never had any idea.”
I just want to look at this woman. I never want to take my eyes off her. “That’s how I feel about you,” I say. “Like I know you. And I realize I don’t, but I feel like I do. And sometimes, you just gotta go with the feeling.”
She smiles, pats my arm, then leans up to kiss me. First on the lips, then on the cheek, then on the neck. “You know what the silliest thing about that trophy is?”
I can’t imagine anything about that trophy is silly. But I really want to hear her talk some more. So I say, “What?”
“It’s so stupid.” She laughs. “It’s like six inches tall, made of gold-colored plastic, and the base isn’t even wood, it’s resin.” She stops to look up at me and smile. Then she shrugs. “But I don’t care. It’s solid gold to me. It’s worth a fortune to me. Because that day I got that, that’s the day I thought to myself, ‘Well, that settles it. You really are Issy Grey now. Because that stupid award says so.’”
“Maybe you’ve always been Issy Grey?”
“Maybe.” And then she thinks about this for a few seconds and amends. “Yeah. I have. I’ve always been her. It just took a while to figure that out.”
“Well, I’m envious,” I say. “Because I’ve always just been me. And I wish I was someone else.”
She tilts her head up at me and says, “Well, I think you’re pretty perfect just the way you are. And yeah, maybe you’ve made some mistakes.”
That’s an understatement.
“But were they honest mistakes? That’s what I ask the women in my classes. Like… did you set out to fuck people over? Or was it more about circumstance?”
“Does it matter? I mean, if you kill your father, does it matter that it was the only choice at the time?”
“Well, let me ask you this, Agent Murphy. Suppose you were a woman. Now suppose you were young, and naive, and a man came into your life and told you everything you wanted to hear. And he made you feel good. And special. And perfect. Now let’s suppose he was lying.” She swallows hard. Takes in a deep breath. “Let’s suppose he hurt you. Badly. And let’s suppose you did something you didn’t want to do, but he was holding a gun on you, and you were holding one on him, and you just happened to shoot true first. Do you think it matters now?”
