Cindy and Syd, however, stood firm in their desire to be eventually outed and deal with the flack. At least, everyone agreed, they’d have Phoenix’s powerful wings to shield them from the worst of it. She could help them, even if she couldn’t save herself.
Life would go on and so would she.
There. Yet another flat cliché to add to the sham her life had become.
In too many ways, though, she started to slip back into her old habits. The bad ones from the dark days before she’d found new purpose and become Phoenix—never leaving the house, ignoring her reminder when it popped up telling her to go run. Maybe she should have gone to Indonesia in truth. Buried herself in the very real suffering of people just trying to survive. Maybe she’d have discovered some new level of maturity in herself. Bizarrely, she just wanted to go see Fox and talk to him about it.
But she had at least that much pride. She owed him a clean break.
She knew that. Then caved anyway. She’d handled things badly and the insistent craving to see Fox again wouldn’t leave her. He was a generous and forgiving guy. Big into talking. Maybe they could work things out. Truly, part of her had been expecting him to show up on her deck, with a rueful smile. Or even to demand an apology. It just rubbed salt in her wounds that he didn’t.
Finally she made herself go run with Anansi, who acted like she’d handed him the doggie equivalent of Christmas morning. The Kapsuck house, however, was dark. Ominously so. It stayed dark the following morning too. She’d lost track of time and everything else. Could he be gone entirely?
She’d so buried herself in working on the new module that she’d begun to feel like the living dead. Before she could chicken out, she dragged herself into town to check for packages—okay, she hoped Glory might know about Fox—and her friend’s expression suggested that she might as well be encrusted with grave dirt.
She also said Fox had left the island some days since. No forwarding address.
Glory didn’t even seem surprised that Emily hadn’t known, just looked her over, shook her head and suggested she take a shower before coming to town next time. Emily took the advice, even going so far as to put on some makeup to meet Glory that night for a sympathy dinner at her house. Likely she’d be expected to cough up the details of what happened, which she didn’t know that she wanted to do. But, when Glory invited her and she nearly said no out of reflex, she’d made herself agree.
No more of that.
Fox was gone for good, doing whatever mysterious thing he did, as she’d always known he would. Tempted as she’d been to look him up, see what he was doing, she wouldn’t let herself. Part of her new program: no dwelling on the past. If nothing else, being with Fox had reawakened her to feeling alive, to maybe being something more than the physical avatar of her real, online self.
So, she’d meet Glory for drinks and maybe spill her guts or maybe not. They could also talk about something that had nothing to do with men. She even looked forward to it.
* * *
It took Fox another full day to get a ticket to Seattle, time he spent fixing all the stuff his mom needed doing around the house, while she fussed at how he did it. For once he didn’t mind all that much. Messing with the plumbing, the broken window sash, that light in the vaulted-ceilinged hallway that had burned out months ago—and why did they put fixtures so high no one could reach them?—all gave him time to think about what he’d say to Emily.
The damage would be done. There was no taking it back.
But, if he told her before the story broke, maybe she could prepare for it. If she wanted to change her identity again and run somewhere else, he’d help her. Not that she needed him for that, but maybe she’d let him.
With a sense of churning impatience, he barely made the last ferry to Lyra, more ready to bite Emily’s head off than apologize. Did she have to be so fucking impossible to reach? He couldn’t even get a message to her. He’d tried looking for her on the forums, but Phoenix ghosted every time he got near, as always. Judiciously he fed a few rumors of an impending story, but didn’t dare do too much, for fear of precipitating the avalanche.
He even considered calling Glory, but what kind of message could he give her?
No, he’d have to wait to tell Emily face-to-face and hope she didn’t keep a gun around the place. Then, if she wanted to have a big, screaming fight about it, they could. In fact, he’d insist on it. They’d thrash out every single lie they’d exchanged and figure out what to do from there. He’d make her talk it out, as he should have to begin with.
At the last minute, on instinct as he boarded the flight to Seattle, he sent an anonymous tip to Jacker, so they could prepare for the first salvo. It likely wouldn’t help, but at least they could assemble their PR team. He risked spooking Emily with it. If they told Phoenix, she’d obliterate this identity too.
But he couldn’t not give her the opportunity. The first step in his apology.
Back in his Gore-Tex jacket, he stood on the deck, even though everyone else rode inside in the warmth. Lyra appeared from the fog, the misty blue hump turning green as they approached.
With a shock, it hit him that this was what he’d wanted, when he decided to go home. Not to his mother’s house, but here.
To Emily.
Chapter Thirty-One
The email to call Jared immediately arrived just as she was shutting down to head to Glory’s. Before Fox, she would have blown it off for a while, until she felt strong enough to deal. Now, though dread spurred her to leave, she flipped on a picture of a tarantula and called Jared. That was the second new rule—no running away.
Besides, something had gone wrong. As demanding as her team lead could be, he rarely used that sort of insistent wording with Phoenix. Anxiety snaked through her gut, the same sense of impending doom she’d had since Fox stormed out. Since she’d kicked him out.
Jared didn’t even blink at the image, though he hated spiders with a loathing that bordered on phobia, which spoke to the dire nature of his emergency. Also, he looked haggard. More than from putting in long hours on the new module. Something had happened.
“Well, hello, Phoenix. You’ve heard then?”
“Heard what?”
Jared looked a little ill and poured himself coffee. “I figured you calling me so fast meant you already knew and were on top of it.”
“Don’t dick with me, Jared—knew what?” The lurking sense of anxiety bloomed, speeding her heart. Calling up the old fear. Shit, shit, shit. “What happened?”
“There’s a rumor going around that there’s going to be a story in Geek Crunch and a bunch of major pubs, revealing your true identity.” He gulped the coffee, grimacing at either the temperature or the bitterness. Or at his bad news.
Was it that bad? “There are always rumors.”
He was already shaking his head. “This seems to be a legit tip. The PR boys sniffed around and dug out some info that...well, they think it could be a big story. Set to break when the module releases in a few days. Scandal. Mayhem. Whatever.” Jared stared at the screen and winced. “Fuck you for that fucking spider, by the way. You’re welcome for the warning.”
Chagrined, she swapped it out for a sparkly unicorn, but even that didn’t change his expression. “I’ll check it out,” she finally said, anxious to get off the call.
“Sure you will.” Jared clenched his jaw, the muscle bulging to hold in what he wasn’t saying.
“What else?” Please don’t let there be more.
“Okay, look. I’m not supposed to say this, but I’m damn well going to. I know you can disappear on us. Whoever you are—if it even matters—if it kills the module release, it kills the team. You can waltz free and clear, that’s your gig, but remember that you’ve left us hanging out here. I know you don’t care, but—”
“I care,” she interrupt
ed. Mostly because she needed to say something. Had someone really broken her identity without her knowing? Was it Fox? If this was real, it had to be.
“Maybe you do.” Jared’s head bobbed as though he might lay it on the desk. “Hearts and flowers and yon sparkly unicorn. But you don’t have to meet with the brass at two-fucking-o’clock tomorrow to plan the emergency response. If there’s something we should know about who you are, it would be nice to know it before the rest of the world does. I can’t do jack to make you though, so forgive me if I don’t care if you care while you sit on your balcony overlooking the Italian-fucking-Riviera or wherever the hell you are.”
He cut the call and she sat there.
The dread surged up in an ugly bore-tide, way too fast and full of long-fermented waste. She could imagine herself on the long, flat beach of her life, feet mired, while it all rushed at her. She’d never escaped, she’d only delayed her final drowning. What did the common wisdom say—that you couldn’t run from your problems? Yes, that they would always find you.
Son of a bitch.
Tamping down the panic, she went through the ritual of shutting down. She didn’t bother to check the forums, the vipers and the rumors. The truth of the impending disaster sat like a boulder in her gut. It would kill the release. All of Labyrinth most likely, because the noncompete meant it belonged to Gametronix, right? They’d all go down because of her. Just like last time.
Fox.
Of course I’m a writer. Only not a novelist. A reporter. One who came to Lyra for the story and left when he had it. He hadn’t come after her because he didn’t need to. Later she’d deal with that new wound, that he’d never been attracted to her, the way he’d claimed. She should have seen through that one. He’d manipulated her from the beginning, with his determined pursuit and seductive ways. She’d gone down so easily. Just another bimbo bagged and used to further his career.
Of course she deserved her comeuppance.
Careless and stupid.
Worse, she’d dragged in her team. Again.
The self-loathing made it hard to breathe and she considered, for a long, dull moment, going out to the beach, walking into the cold water and drowning herself. At least she wouldn’t feel this pain, the excruciating paralysis of not knowing what to do.
Dinah leaped onto her keyboard—something she rarely did—full of purring affection. Anansi would be waiting outside, ready to ride along to town.
She didn’t know what she should do, but Glory would be waiting for her.
And, as much as she dreaded the crisis to come, she didn’t want to be dead.
So she got up and gave Dinah her supper, taking a few extra minutes to scratch those hard-to-reach spots. Then she fetched Anansi and drove to Glory’s house.
One step at a time.
* * *
Glory stared at her over the half-finished creamed chicken casserole and their second bottle of wine. “I don’t know what to say,” she finally said.
“Well, that was better than saying nothing,” Em said, still rattled from telling Glory the whole story. Well, the condensed version.
“So, you’re some kind of super-hacker?”
“Not really a hacker, but close enough.”
“And Fox came here to sniff you out and write a story.”
“That’s my guess. I don’t know. I haven’t...” talked to him. And won’t ever. As pissed as she felt, that almost broke her heart more than anything else. How could he have touched her as if he cherished every inch of her skin, all the while plotting the most profound and public of betrayals?
“So, everything about you is a lie, is what you’re saying.” Glory, unexpectedly, looked close to tears, her face growing blotchy with it.
“Glory, I—”
“No. Don’t give me whatever excuse you were thinking up.” Glory glanced accusingly at Em’s plate. “You didn’t finish your dinner. Did you lie about that too—do you even like my creamed-chicken casserole?”
“No.” The word came out hushed but sounded unbearably loud. Much as she wanted to tell Glory otherwise, lying yet again seemed too exhausting, too fundamentally wrong. She couldn’t do it anymore.
“Was anything about you real?” Glory flung the question out, an accusation. “Or were you playing me the whole time? You and your fucking ‘I don’t know what the girl code is’ routine.”
Inexpressibly weary, Emily rose from the table, gathering her plate.
“Leave it,” Glory snapped. “I think you should go.”
“I am.” She found her jacket and shrugged into it, trying not to look at all the photos of Glory’s family and friends, frames covering every surface. All the connections Emily lacked. No—that she had burned away in the nuclear fire of her escape. She made herself face Glory, who still sat at the table, glaring at the disheveled casserole. “For what it’s worth—and I know it’s worth less than nothing at this point—but I wanted to be a good friend to you. I know I sucked at it, but I did. I was never playing you.”
Glory only shook her head furiously, refusing to answer. So Em let herself out.
* * *
After that, she didn’t sleep really at all. It could have been the heartburn from what little of the casserole she’d eaten. Or too much wine, because she had more when she got home, morosely pondering what the next day would bring.
Mostly it was the anxiety, eating at her. How could she make this not happen? If only she could go back in time and change things. Make it so it hadn’t come to this.
But it had and she felt even more alone than when she came home from a run to find Henry had left, a goodbye note waiting on the kitchen table. Worse, it was all her own damn fault. She’d just had to dally with the hot guy, the classic dumb female mistake.
No dwelling.
Around 4 a.m., she finally got up and made coffee and went out to sit in the hot tub. She hadn’t been out there since that afternoon with Fox and the little gazebo seemed thick with his presence.
If he hadn’t meant any of it, then he had to be pathological. A master manipulator of the level Glory had accused her of being.
And if she wasn’t that, maybe he wasn’t that, either.
Not that it mattered, but it made her feel better to think it—along with a lovely fantasy of feeding him to the orcas. She relished hateful thoughts of revenge even as she contemplated that maybe some of it had been real for him too. Ironically, if he’d been there, sitting in the tub with her and not out there writing the articles that would destroy her and her team, she’d ask him for advice on what to do.
Running again, Miss Emily? He’d give her that charming smile to go with the chiding question. She wished she could run. Run and run and not have to face this.
But she’d done that before and here she was. Insanity was doing the same thing, over and over, and expecting a different result. She needed to do something different. Something opposite, maybe.
If it were a game, she’d set it up so the player could only win by going through the danger.
Time to face herself in the mirror.
Chapter Thirty-Two
“What do you mean she’s gone?” Fox demanded.
Glory shrugged, pretending nonchalance but peeling the skin off him with her angry glare. “Which part of the sentence did you not get, Mr. Novelist? Subject, verb, object. She. Is. Gone.”
He reined in the desire to throttle the snark out of her by a narrow margin. Spending the better part of an hour outside Emily’s house, banging on the front and then back door, had only pushed him to the brink. “Let’s try again. Where did she go?”
“You think she’d tell me? She left without a word to me. Dyson saw her on the first ferry out, Anansi with her. Apparently this is her M.O. and my security clearance falls somewhere below Doesn’t Need to Know.”
“What about Dinah?”
“Who’s Dinah?” Glory furrowed her brow. “Secret baby or something?”
“Her cat.”
“She couldn’t even freaking tell me she had a cat.” Glory sighed. “What a bitch.”
“She’s not like that,” Fox blurted and Glory raised her brows, still standing in her doorway without even the slightest hint that she’d let him cross the threshold. “She had her reasons.”
“Yeah, she told me about it.”
“She did?” Surprise and uncertainty took some of the drive out of him. “Everything?”
“Well, not about the cat, obviously. But enough.”
“Was it enough? If you knew everything she went through, you might not judge her so harshly.”
“Right—cuz that’s your job.”
“I don’t judge her,” he replied, stung.
“No, you’re the one who figured out who she really is and wrote these articles that will come out and ruin her. What does that make you in this analogy—executioner? Maybe smarmier, like a Kenneth Starr-type special prosecutor.”
So Emily knew. Probably his anonymous tip. And she’d scattered to the wind. Gone.
Well, good for her, right?
“It’s more complicated than that.” Why was he defending himself to her?
“But you decided to expose her secrets, right? Maybe you just bypassed handing down your sentence and decided to let the world do it? You’re unbelievable. She was head over heels in love with you and you—”
“Wait. What? She was in love with me?”
“You’re such a guy.” Glory squinched her face in disgust but lost some of the anger. “Note the past tense in that sentence, Mr. Novelist.”
Going Under Page 26
