“Because she was your ex?”
I shook my head and took a deep breath. This was it. Fuck. I wasn’t ready for this. I didn’t think I’d ever be ready for this, but somehow I’d thought the revelation would come under different circumstances. I should’ve known better.
“Because I feel like it’s my fault she’s dead. And it’s only because of her that I’m even alive.”
The words fell from my lips almost absently, and dimly I noted how hollow my voice sounded as I said that. It’d just occurred to me that I’d only ever admitted that out loud to Rory before, which almost didn’t count because we were sisters, and that’d made the admission safe. It unsettled me how easy it’d been to disclose that fact to Allison. For all the agony the concept had caused, I felt it should’ve been more difficult for me to say.
“What are you talking about?”
I glanced around the nearly empty diner. Nobody appeared to be paying any attention to us, and I was grateful for that. I figured this part really would be easier to show than it would be to tell. I shimmied my way slowly out of my side of the booth, gritting my teeth and holding my breath in an attempt to keep the pain from showing on my face. When I finally made it into the aisle, I held out a hand to her.
Allison eyed my hand warily for a second before glancing back up at me. “What’s this for?”
“Stand up for a minute?”
“You’re not asking me to dance, are you? Because that’d be a weird way to try to change the subject. Even for you.”
I couldn’t help smiling, despite the seriousness of the conversation. “No. I’m not asking you to dance.” When she still didn’t move, I rolled my eyes. “Please? It’ll only take a second.”
With a tiny huff, Allison took my hand and extracted herself from behind the table. “Okay, now what?”
I positioned myself so we were standing face-to-face roughly the same distance Lucia and I had been before everything had gone to hell. My hands were trembling slightly as I rested them on her shoulders. Allowing my fingers to caress them lightly for a moment, I pushed down on her. Not hard. Just enough to convey my wishes. And when she didn’t react right away, I was forced to explain.
“You’re taller than Luce is.” I cringed as I realized what I’d just said. “Was.” I corrected myself thickly. “You’re taller than Luce was.”
Allison’s eyes flooded with understanding, and she bent her knees until I’d stopped exerting pressure on her. I swallowed hard and took a deep breath.
My emotions lately had been as rough and changeable as the ocean during a hurricane, with ebbs and flows that seemingly had no pattern and left me vaguely breathless. I’d been paying close attention to the cycle over the past few days, and while I might not have been able to predict exactly when the shifts were going to happen, I’d certainly been able to recognize when one was looming. I could feel that by-now-familiar building of sentiment gathering inside me like an oncoming storm. I was afraid of where this particular wave might carry me.
“If we were alone, I’d have taken my shirt off for this,” I told her, trying to lighten the mood. The joke landed flat and leaden between us, and I took a deep, shaky breath, swallowing the rancid taste that coated the back of my tongue.
I took her left hand in mine and balled it up into a fist. Then I maneuvered it so her knuckles were resting along the right side of my jaw. Her eyes were once again boring into mine, and the eddying emotions I saw there led me to believe she’d already deduced exactly where this little demonstration was going.
Holding her fist to my jaw, I leaned to my left, mimicking the chain of events that’d followed Lucia’s punch in super slow motion. When I’d reached what I figured was roughly the right position, I stopped.
The atmosphere between us was heavy, and I was having trouble breathing. The surge of emotions churning inside me was quickly becoming overwhelming. Still holding her fist against my chin with my right hand, I started tracing gentle circles on the skin of her neck with my left. I didn’t tell her I was marking the place where the bullet had torn Lucia’s life away from her. I didn’t have to. The expression on Allison’s face said it all. She knew.
Unable to stand the intensity of the moment for even another instant, I abruptly pulled back and scrambled to retake my seat, hissing at the little bursts of agony my haste ignited. I went back to absently stirring my coffee, blinking against the scratchiness in the backs of my eyes, as I waited for her to say something.
After a long moment, she finally sat back down across from me. I held my breath and stared into my cup until she folded her hands over mine. I swallowed hard and looked up at her from underneath my lashes without lifting my head.
Allison’s face was brimming with sympathy and something else I couldn’t quite grasp but which made my intestines squirmy and knotted. I couldn’t clench my hands because she was holding them, so I started wiggling my toes instead. Anything to burn off some of this tension.
“That was an unfortunate coincidence, Ryan,” Allison murmured softly.
I lifted my left shoulder in a half shrug. “Whatever you call it, it still makes me feel like shit.”
“I suppose throwing out the term ‘survivor’s guilt’ won’t do much for you?”
I smiled a little at that. “No. But it was a nice try.”
Allison sighed and started tracing light patterns on the backs of my hands and forearms with her fingertips, making me shiver. “We’re only responsible for our own actions.”
I tilted my head and gave her what I hoped was a quizzical look.
“You didn’t pull that trigger. You can blame Lucia’s death only on the person who did.”
I sagged a little in my seat. “In my head, I get that…”
“But it doesn’t make you feel any better.”
I shook my head. “Not even a little bit.”
She studied me for another long moment. “There’s something else, isn’t there? Something else you’re not telling me about what happened?”
I scowled at her. “Okay, you seriously need to tell me how you keep doing that. Are you psychic or something? A cyborg? Do you have access to some sort of machine that’s watching me every hour of every day?”
Allison raised an eyebrow at me, and one corner of her mouth lifted in a small smirk. “Like I said before, cute. But it’s still not going to work.”
I gently took back my hands and started scraping my nails one at a time against the creases in my fingers. My pulse was hammering, and my nerves rattled and shook, which made my hands tremble. This was the part I’d been afraid to tell her, the part I had no idea how to even begin to convey. I chewed at my lips as I considered. “Luce was working at the time of the…incident.” I smirked bitterly to myself at the moniker, unsure whether I’d just used it ironically or whether I’d simply been unable to call it what it really was. “She’d replaced another Intel detective who’d had to leave.”
Allison nodded slowly. “I’d already sort of figured that.”
“She’d left the Intel car to come return my phone.”
I left the words to hang in the air for a long moment, hoping Allison would grasp the implication and not actually make me utter the words. I wasn’t disappointed. After frowning for a second, her eyes grew wide, and she gasped softly. She sat back in her seat with a stunned expression.
“She’s the one who had your phone?”
I nodded. “Mmm-hmm.”
Allison closed her eyes, lifted one hand to her temple, and started rubbing small circles. My heart cracked at the sight. “She read the text message, didn’t she? The one I’d sent you after we…?”
“Yeah,” I said softly.
“That’s why she came back to talk to you,” Allison said, sounding more like she was talking to herself than to me. “That’s how your phone got broken. That’s why she punched you. She was pissed we’d slept together.”
“Yeah,” I said again, trying to ignore the violent swirling that’d started low in my g
ut. I was on the verge of moving around to Allison’s side of the booth to put my arm around her when she opened her eyes, pinning me in place.
“That’s what you didn’t want me to know.”
I nodded silently.
“Because you blame me for what happened?”
I was stunned. “No! Of course not. Because I didn’t want you to blame yourself. I was…I was trying to protect you,” I said lamely.
Allison’s face was a mask again, and when she spoke, her voice had been carefully stripped of all emotion. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself.”
“I know you can. But I can take care of you, too.”
She lapsed back into brooding silence, only moving occasionally to sip her tea. Since I’d just dropped a huge bomb on her, I was reluctant to intrude on whatever her thoughts might have been. I merely drank my coffee and watched her warily, trying to turn her own mind-reading trick around on her to figure out what she was going to say or do next.
“Is that it?” she asked finally, startling me out of my own reverie.
“Huh?”
“Is that everything you’ve been keeping from me?”
Inwardly, I bristled at her chosen phrasing, but I didn’t have the energy to argue with her about semantics. “That’s everything.”
“Okay.”
“Is that why you’ve been not-mad at me?” I was unable to resist asking. “Because you felt like I was keeping things from you?”
“You mean because you were keeping things from me? Yes. And I told you before, I was more hurt than mad.”
“I’m sorry. You’re right. I should’ve told you sooner.”
She took my free hand in both of hers, a faint smile ghosting across her lips. “I get why you didn’t. I do. But that doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
“No. I wouldn’t expect you to. I don’t like it when you keep stuff from me, either.” My words were deliberately light, but inside I was praying she’d realize I was referring to her situation with her boss and take the opportunity to open up to me.
No such luck. She tilted her head and eyed me playfully. “Well, then, we have to stop keeping stuff from one another.”
I had a heavy, sinking feeling and wanted to roll my eyes at her, though I wasn’t sure if she was deflecting or whether she really hadn’t picked up on my hint. So much for the subtle approach. Guess I was going to have to take a page out of her book and go the direct route, after softening her up a bit. No need to kill her good mood right this second. “We do.”
“All kidding aside, we need to talk more, Ryan. In general. If this thing between us is going to work, we need to start being honest with one another. About everything.”
“Everything, huh?”
“Mmm-hmm. Everything.”
“You’re sure about that.”
“Absolutely.”
“So, you want to hear that I’d rather shove hot marshmallow skewers directly into my eyeballs than watch The Notebook with you even one more time?” I’d gotten a huge kick out of discovering that she was a hard-core, closet romantic. It’d seemed so at odds with her public persona, and I’d found it unbelievably endearing, even if it did mean I had to suffer through movies I normally wouldn’t have been caught dead watching.
Allison chuckled. “Well…”
“And you seriously want to endure the look on my face when you finally ’fess up to the fact that you actually hate cherry topping on your cheesecake, and you only ever order it to share with me because you know I like it?”
Allison drew back to fix me with an astonished look. “You knew about that?”
“I’ve told you before. I’m a trained criminal investigator.”
“Point taken,” she said with a small, affectionate smile. “Maybe there are some things we can lie about.”
“Good. Because I really didn’t want to get into the whole issue I have with your cat.” I shot her a grin.
Allison’s eyes narrowed, and she pinned me with a dark glare. “What’s wrong with my cat?”
“See? Some secrets are good.” I hesitated, a little nervous about seguing into the next topic. But since she clearly wasn’t about to confess on her own, it was up to me to prompt her. “But in the interest of talking more and being honest with one another, do you want to tell me what’s really going on with your boss?”
Allison tensed beside me and suddenly became inordinately interested in studying her silverware where it rested on the table beside her saucer. My heart seized as I wondered whether I’d crossed a line. I didn’t know what was going on down there on PPD, but her body language told me it definitely wasn’t anything good. In fact, I suspected it might even be worse than I’d originally feared. I ached to help her but was afraid there was nothing I could do. And I definitely wouldn’t be able to offer any assistance if I didn’t even understand the problem. I waited somewhat patiently for her reply.
“We had a difference of opinion,” she said finally, still refusing to meet my eyes.
“About what?”
A brief pause, as though she were choosing her words carefully. “About me coming home to New York after you were shot.”
I sat back in the booth as far as I could, completely stunned by her answer. “You mean because you were in the middle of an advance?”
She nodded, gaze still locked anywhere but on me.
I frowned. “But…I mean, apparently everybody knew, so…” I didn’t even know how to finish that thought.
Allison shrugged. “Yeah, well, I guess that didn’t really matter.”
My frown deepened, and I shook my head. “There has to be more to it than that.”
Allison glanced at her watch, and her expression was apologetic when she finally looked at me. “There is. Unfortunately, we don’t have time to get into it. Not tonight. I have a train to catch.”
I wanted to argue with her, wanted to point out that she was the one who’d been touting the need for complete disclosure in our relationship, but that would’ve been futile. If she had to go, she had to go. I glanced at my own watch and sighed.
“Okay,” I replied finally. “But the next time I see you, I’m going to get you a cheesecake with blueberry topping, and you’re going to tell me everything.”
Allison’s smile was back. “Deal.” She stood and threw a handful of crumpled bills on the table before extending a hand in my direction. “Walk me to my train?”
I took her hand and allowed her to help me to my feet, smiling back at her. “I can’t think of anything I’d like more.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
After seeing Allison to her train, I was finally able to answer the sweet siren call of sleep. Unfortunately, I was wrong in my obviously misplaced hope that I’d be able to have just one night dream free. That definitely did not happen.
No sooner had my head hit the pillow than I was back on that cursed street corner in the city, staring at a bunch of empty motorcade cars. At least this time I knew I was dreaming. That was something. But that didn’t appear to influence the conversational flow of the dream, which, I assumed later, is why I spent the majority of it standing on said street corner engaging in an inscrutable discussion about the interconnectedness of life’s events and how they all came back to trust in the end. And it also didn’t stop me from awakening with a cry, tears of frustration rolling down my cheeks at my inability to save Lucia. Again.
Naturally, by the time I dragged myself out of bed the next day, I was a total wreck. Exhausted, I looked like I’d fit in perfectly with the extras of any zombie movie currently in production without a trip to makeup. If Jamie could’ve seen me, she no doubt would’ve made a sarcastic comment, but I was so tired I couldn’t have formulated a witty reply. And you know things are serious when I don’t have the energy to be sardonic.
Cursing myself for not talking to Rory during our lengthy early dinner about getting my hands on something to force me into unconsciousness—a sledgehammer came immediate
ly to mind—I booted up my computer and set my brain to going over the recent subpoena responses. The ones I hadn’t been able to even glance at because Walker had decided to come back to town.
First were the records for Akbari’s new cell phone, the one he’d given Meaghan and me the number to the Thursday night we’d first interviewed him. Beginning there would make it easier for me to keep track of the trail that way.
Even before I’d asked Greg to subpoena those phone records, I knew it’d been a burner phone. Now I was hoping that all the numbers these records provided me weren’t to burner phones as well. That’d make my job ten times more difficult, and I simply didn’t have the energy for that.
I was extremely interested in learning who—if anyone—Akbari had called immediately following our departure. If the theory that Rico and I’d hammered out held any water, it was likely Akbari had told someone I’d been to speak to him. And as I’d left him my business card, it wouldn’t have been difficult for him to pass my name and description along to whoever he was working for.
Aha. According to the time stamp on the call logs, Akbari had called someone from his burner phone barely two minutes after we’d left. And surprise of surprises, the number he’d called was the one I’d gotten from the JTTF database for Fallahi. I hadn’t expected that. Interesting.
I pushed the paperwork pertaining to Akbari’s records to one side and shuffled through the reports I’d gotten back on Fallahi, looking for the date of the interview. It didn’t take long to locate the call from Akbari. I wanted to see who Fallahi had called immediately after.
His first call had been to Golzar. I’d known they were associated with one another, as well. I just wasn’t sure how I felt about the fact that it was now starting to look like they all knew about me. Obviously, if recent events were any indication, being on the radar of suspected terrorists didn’t generally work out well. And if I had in fact been the intended target of that assassination attempt—and it was looking more and more like I had—somebody would want to finish the job. And soon.
Worthy of Trust and Confidence Page 16
