The Signature (A Perfect Forever Novel)

by Ward, Susan

  That she had not called again was something that Grace understood and took hope from. It meant she was safe. But now...there was no need to ask questions.

  “Can you get to Shasta?” Grace asked.

  Shasta? It had taken Krystal a moment to rummage through her frantically whirling brain to figure out exactly where that was. California. Northern California.

  “Not tomorrow. The day after, Grace,” Krystal replied hurriedly.

  The voice on the other end was a calm beacon of hope and the promise of safety, the gentle tone of a woman Krystal had never met. A woman who risked so much for those unknown strangers whose desperation she understood because of pain she had suffered firsthand.

  “Call me then, Krystal. Be careful. Godspeed!”

  Hanging up the phone, Krystal frantically gathered and processed the thoughts that claimed her fiercely. It was gone. In a flashing instant onstage, by being captured in a photo that would see print, her entire world was gone.

  And now there was nothing. Only that kind voice on the phone, and hope. There would be nothing left of Christine Dillon once she walked from the room. Christine Dillon died today. No Fritz and Maggie. No Jason. No Devon...

  She shut down her thoughts at Devon. If she thought of him more, she would crumble. She needed to be strong, strong enough to at least make the journey to Shasta.

  She could crumble then. She couldn’t let the pain bubbling upward find release. There was only room in her thoughts for Katie, only of her and Katie’s safety.

  Grabbing the bag, she hurried from the room, hot tears streaming down her face, knowing each step took her farther away from Coos Bay and into a future that was cold and uncertain and without Devon.

  Krystal’s front door was standing ajar when Devon reached the house. Standing in the middle of her living room, he knew that she was gone. He could feel it in the emptiness of the room, in the lifeless air that touched him.

  Krystal had already been here and gone. She was on her way to Fritz’s cabin to collect Katie and then off to god knows where. Why hadn’t he asked where Fritz’s cabin was? Why didn’t he know that? Such a simple thing to ask, and he would be able to catch up to Krystal now.

  Staring down at his shaking hands, he felt emotion, powerful and painful, shatter the thin thread of composure that had somehow managed to survive since he left the high school.

  She was out there, alone, terrified, running again, without even the knowledge that very soon the running would no longer be necessary.

  Another day. Two. Why couldn’t God have seen fit to give them that? Give them this precious time until it was safe to take her home.

  He had asked for so little. So very little. He’d hoped for just a little while longer, to savor this sweet love he had never expected to feel for anyone, before events took control and forced the uncertain, inevitable change.

  He should have told her yesterday what he had learned. He should have told her about Morgan from the beginning. Now his silence had cost him everything.

  Krystal. Their future. He ran a shaky hand through his hair. Why had this happened? Why?

  He sank to the floor in the center of her cheery room, with its bright and whimsical décor. It now seemed to damn him, and he was damning himself.

  Krystal was halfway to Fritz’s isolated cabin before she pulled to the side of the road. For a long time she sat in her car, shaking.

  The gravel seemed to disappear into nothing. Blackness that revealed nothing. Because there was nothing there.

  That’s what there was ahead of her: sleepless days and nights that would pass in terror and dulled unawareness. Fear and regret and hopelessness. She was so tired of running, of letting go, of knowing loss. Of leaving without goodbyes.

  Hot tears crowned her eyes. Without goodbyes.

  She brushed at the burning moisture on her cheeks unable to stop her thoughts of Devon. There was no point in going back to Coos Bay. Her world was already forever altered.

  By tomorrow, her picture and new identity would be in print. Only one person had to recognize her for her life to spiral into destruction. It would be foolish not to fear the danger of that.

  But whatever happens, it won’t happen before tomorrow.

  There was still this night, this last sweet, precious night, before all choice would be taken from her. Tomorrow she would run, run without Devon because she loved him too much to let him sacrifice himself. But these brief hours still belonged to her, without fear. And these hours belonged with Devon.

  It was nothing. It was everything.

  She started the car again. This time she was driving to Coos Bay and Devon and the little time they had left together.

  The light was on in Devon’s bedroom, like a bright flare in the darkness of the night.

  Krystal entered the house without knocking and ran up the stairs. At the end of this journey there was Devon.

  She held back in the open doorway and drank in the sight of him. He was seated on the floor in front of the fireplace, and his expression cut at her heart because what she saw on his face she felt, as well.

  They had spent only four hours apart. It had been agony. What would a lifetime without him be like?

  “I was almost to Fritz’s cabin before I turned back,” she whispered into the lonely silence of the room.

  Devon’s face swiveled to her, then his eyes flashed in disbelief, as though he were unwilling to trust that he was truly hearing her voice.

  What she saw on his face made the danger of being here worth it.

  He came to her in quick steps and pulled her into his arms with a tightness that seemed like he was afraid to let her go.

  “Oh, god, Krys.” He choked out his words as if he couldn’t manage them any other way. “I was so afraid I wouldn’t see you again. That I wouldn’t have a chance to make up to you for what I’ve done. I’ve been half out of my mind worrying that you were out there, alone, fright—”

  She stopped his frantic words with her fingers placed over his lips. “I don’t want to talk, Devon. Not now. Tomorrow. Let it be real tomorrow. Just let it stay away a little while longer.”

  His ragged words wouldn’t be checked. “Oh god, sweetheart, it was like dying, going into your house to find you already gone. Like someone had ripped out my heart and I died. I don’t want to risk that again. We have to talk, Krystal, there is so much I need to tell you. So much I should have told you since day one, but I couldn’t. I didn’t want to hurt you more. You have to believe me, sweetheart. I just didn’t want to hurt you more.”

  His voice was a rambling torrent she couldn’t make sense of, and he was kissing her face, his arms holding her so protectively that she didn’t want to comprehend his words. She wanted this. This sweet feeling of hope and love. Let it come tomorrow, whatever he was trying to tell her, whatever it was she needed to deal with. Tomorrow...

  “Krystal, you have to listen to me—”

  She stopped him with her mouth this time, and he felt it, that frenzied, desperate passion he had felt last week. Her body was twisting urgently closer, as though their joining bodies could block out the dangers closing in on their lives.

  His breath began to quicken in response to her open need, but he whispered insistently in a ragged tone, “Krys, we need to talk...”

  But she was too tired to talk, too frightened to do much beyond satisfying this hunger in her body that would soon be unsatisfied again. She needed to pull him inside of her, to feel that completeness, that total loss of emptiness once more. Nothing else permeated her raging thoughts. He tried to talk her; she circumvented each word.

  “No, Krys, please,” he said, his breath a hot mist on her flushed cheeks. “After, if you decide to forgive me, after...”

  She was crying. “Not after. Now. Whatever it is it will still be there, but right now I need you. So badly, Devon, so that this pain will go away even if only for a little while.”

  The sweetness of their coming together was so intense that his words wer
e lost, as she shed fiercely flowing tears into his shoulder.

  Her tears flowed even at their deepest bonding, dripping down her face, draining her body of the last of her strength. She was slipping away into darkness where there was no fear, no unknown future. Only Devon’s arms to hold her one last night.

  The comforting darkness that Krystal found in sleep didn’t last long. The dreams came. Only they were different. Another door in her subconscious had been unlocked...

  Pleasant orange-red sunshine drifted through the sprawling branches of a massive oak, a light winter breeze making dried leaves dance around her, tangling in loose wisps of her hair, and lightly scratching the smooth surface of her bare legs.

  She was laughing, her hands held out as she waited for the man beside her. Her eyes were half closed, surrendering to what would come, and then all at once there was an unbearable emptiness inside of her, and pain; deep, enveloping pain.

  Morgan sat beside her, with sad dark eyes begging her to stay.

  She saw herself crying, and suddenly she was back in Los Angeles that last day she had spent with Morgan. She was leaving. She would never see him again. Would never know his touch. The gentle warmth of his love for her.

  The pain was crushing her. A voice in her mind told her this wasn’t real, that it was only a nightmare, but that memory zone she couldn’t control reminded her that it had once been real.

  She fought to pull herself away before it was too late, but the darkness was too powerful, the image too strong to break free of it.

  She was crying. “Morgan...”

  Her hands closed over him, her finger digging into his like iron bands, trying to hold him back, but he was slipping away. She was calling his name, over and over again.

  He was gone.

  “Krystal!”

  At first she didn’t recognize the voice. It wasn’t a part of her tormented memory, but different, gentler, nearer, and more real.

  “Morgan?” she whispered, not fully awake, no longer asleep.

  “No, Krystal! It’s Devon! Devon!”

  Devon?

  She sat up in bed, breathing in deeply as she tried to clear the unfocused buzzing in her head. Devon. His concerned green eyes were on her. For some reason, her gaze was drawn to his naked forearms. Her eyes locked on them. Long red gashes remained where her fingers had been. Oh, no, what have I done?

  “A nightmare,” he whispered, pulling her trembling lengths against his chest.

  She buried her damp face against the warmth of his flesh. “No, Devon. The past. Always the past. You can’t make it go away. Not ever. It was foolish to think I could pretend it away.”

  Suddenly, he was watching her strangely. “Is that what you’ve tried to do? Pretend the past away?”

  “Yes...no, I don’t know.”

  She felt bitter shame. No wonder she had had another nightmare. She was trying to steal scraps of happiness out of misery. So many fears. They were suffocating her.

  And yet, how did one break free from a trap while gripping so tightly? And how could she explain her need to salvage this last night when she knew she wasn’t staying?

  She withdrew from him, gathering the blankets around her, her expression frozen, vulnerable.

  “You were dreaming about Morgan.” His voice was stiff.

  Krystal felt her insides chill. Devon sat back with a questioning look, his hands gently holding her shoulders. What she saw in his eyes cut at her heart.

  “You were screaming out his name, Krystal,” Devon added.

  “It’s not what you think.” She tried to keep her voice steady.

  It was not the right thing to say. Devon held her in a gelid stare, each word whispered with a scalpel’s precision. “Then tell me what I should think, Krys, after you fell asleep in my arms and woke up screaming for Morgan?”

  Before she could summon a response, he was out of the bed, pulling his age-softened jeans over his hips. She raised her eyes slowly to his.

  “After all that happened, it’s little wonder I should dream of Morgan. But my coming back has changed nothing. I didn’t come back to stay with you in Coos Bay. I can’t. Surely you understand that everything has changed. I’m leaving tomorrow. Without you, Devon.”

  The anger vanished from Devon’s high-boned face. “You won’t leave Coos Bay without me. And I won’t leave without you.”

  Taken aback, Krystal said, “What makes you think there’s a choice? Do you think I will let you come with me knowing that you could go to prison because of me? Knowing that, if you walk through that door with me, your past will be lost to you, just as mine is lost to me. I won’t let you run with me. Don’t ask me to let you.”

  He lifted her chin with his palm. “When we leave Coos Bay it will be together, Krys. You’re more than a part of my life. You are my life. Either in some unknown future or back to LA. We’ll face whatever we have to together.”

  “Is being with me really worth what it could mean to your future? Darn it, Devon, stop looking at me like that.”

  “I don’t say things I don’t mean, kiddo,” Devon said, and for some reason there was an angry edge to his voice.

  She dropped her eyes. “Would you really leave everything behind, lose everything to be with me? For a woman who doesn’t exist? Who never existed except here in Coos Bay? There is no Christine Dillon, she’s a person I invented, Devon. And when I walk through that door she’ll be gone. It’s not even me you’re making the sacrifice for.”

  Through numb lips, she uttered the words, the fears she had never put between them, afraid to meet his eyes.

  “I’m Krystal Stafford, Devon. Even when we’re alone, you rarely call me Krystal. You call me Krys as if that will make that part of me not exist. But Krystal Stafford does exist, Devon. And she is a different woman, not at all like Christine Dillon. You don’t know her at all. You may not even like her. Are you willing to give up everything for a woman you don’t, can’t ever truly know?”

  It seemed to take him a long time to answer her. It was obvious that she had surprised him and angered him even more.

  Devon sat down in front of her, sitting on his knees, lifting her chin. She lifted her eyes slowly, steeling herself for the inevitable.

  “Do you really think that the person you are inside will be anything different if you leave Coos Bay? Do you think that changing your environment or your name will make me love you any less than I do now? That the person you are changes? I’m in love with Krystal Stafford. Whatever happens, wherever we end up, that won’t change.”

  “You say that with such certainty, Devon, and I want so desperately to believe you,” she told him, hugging the blankets to her breasts. “You say you love me, Devon, but you don’t know me. Not really. I won’t let you give up your life for an invention.”

  “You’re no invention, Krystal. We’re just in a place where we don’t have to weed through layers of garbage to connect, but you’re still you and I’m still me, and what we feel won’t change with our environment. The question is, do you trust the love we’ve found to carry us through the next step?”

  The next step: what did he mean? There was no step forward except for letting go. She had always known that, and it terrified her.

  “I love you, Krys. You believe that don’t you?”

  “I believe you think you do.”

  She turned so he could see her face. She wanted him so badly it hurt. But she knew she didn’t deserve Devon’s love, knew that she would never have anything to truly offer him as Christine Dillon.

  “But you love only those pieces of me which are Christine Dillon. You can’t love the rest. You don’t know it. There isn’t anything in the future for us, Devon.”

  Devon touched his fingers to her lips. “You don’t know the future, Krystal. No one does. But whatever there is out there, it won’t change how I feel for you. It won’t make me love you any less. It won’t change what we have unless we let it.”

  She knew that Devon had moved closer to her,
knew that he was staring down at her, even though she couldn’t summon the courage to lift her face.

  “I know that I love you, Krys,” Devon said softly. “I’m in love with Krystal Stafford, that wonderful woman you used to hide from the world, afraid to show her. But she’s there. Inside of you, Krys. Not invention. Real. She’s who you are. Who I want. I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life. You’ll know the truth for yourself very soon, Krys. It was what I wanted to tell you when you walked through that door last night. You don’t need to hide in the Network any longer. It’s time to go back to Los Angeles and your life. We’re going back to LA, together, tomorrow.”

  She looked bewildered. “I don’t understand,” she whispered.

  Devon had come this far, and he knew there was no turning back. He wanted to get the truth out, the entire truth and be done with it. Until he did, there was no future. But, bottom-line, he was terrified.

  He had come to Coos Bay for Morgan. He had followed a story which had led him to one remarkable woman. He had never counted on falling in love with Krystal Stafford. And yet, staring at her now, he knew that this crazy errand had been intended to end with him loving her.

  He took her in his arms and held her against his chest. “I should have told you in the beginning. I didn’t come to Coos Bay by chance. It wasn’t an accident I found you. I knew you were here and I came to find you. For Morgan. He sent me to you, Krys. To be here with you while he negotiated your return with the federal authorities and to bring you back to LA when it was safe to take you home.”

  His arms tightened. “Forgive me, sweetheart. Forgive me.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  It took several minutes for Krystal to fully absorb Devon’s words.

  In a quiet voice, she asked, “Morgan...Morgan sent you to Coos Bay? To find me? To bring me home?”

  Devon met her eyes squarely. “He contacted me four months ago in LA. He had read the pieces I had done on other women who had disappeared in the Network. He thought if he could trust anyone to make contact with you, it would be me.”