by Tina Whittle
And I knew it wasn’t restraint that held him back. He was simply waiting for the trigger. And she was going to give it to him, any second now. And I wanted desperately to go to him, put a hand on him, bring him back from the edge, but I wasn’t about to cross his muzzle range, wasn’t about to stand so close that Rose could whip the shotgun up and take us down together.
I forced myself to sound calm. “Trey?”
He didn’t answer, didn’t lower the gun.
“I’m gonna get her weapon now. You cover me, okay?”
No response.
“Hey? Boyfriend? Answer me.”
Trey blinked. A shudder rippled through him, and he let out the half-breath he’d been holding. He slipped his finger alongside the barrel, nodded.
“Copy that. I mean, yes. You’re covered. Get her weapon.”
I didn’t hesitate. I tucked my .38 back into the small of my back and snatched the shotgun out of her hands. She didn’t protest, probably because Trey still reeked of loose-cannon dangerous. But she glared hot hate at me as I proceeded to unload her weapon.
“I’ve got lawyers,” she said. “Mean smart ones.”
“You’re gonna need them. Because I am shouting this story from the rooftops, to anybody who will listen.” I pumped the magazine, dumping the cartridges on the floor, one by one. “Braxton and Josephina. Their baby. That whole other line of Amberdeckers you’ve pretended didn’t exist for a hundred years. I talked to one of them this very afternoon. Their story is gonna be front page news.”
“You’ve got no proof.”
“I’ve got plenty, especially once I get Braxton’s bones and all his DNA into evidence.”
Her eyes blazed. “Those belong to me.”
“No, they don’t. And they never have.” I took a step back, out of her range. “It wasn’t enough that Braxton’s bones went in the ground. You had to go get them out of his damn coffin, probably gonna burn them to ashes, but Lucius beat you to them. So you killed him with the first thing you could grab, the pry bar. Only the bones weren’t in the coffin.”
Her chest heaved, but she didn’t speak. I put the unloaded gun on the floor and kicked it to the corner, put my .38 right back on her.
“You thought the same thing everybody did—that Lucius had had a partner that night, someone who took the bones off his hands. So you shoved his body in the empty casket and searched his apartment the next day. But you didn’t find anything, and when the bones didn’t turn up, you kept quiet. Until the tornado.” I raised the gun a smidgen so that she was staring straight down the barrel. “And me. You didn’t see me coming either. But the best part is, the bones were right under your nose the whole time.”
She remained silent. Trey too. Up close, I could see the wreckage of his clothing. He had to be on the verge of collapse. Rose looked on the verge of collapse too, and I probably wasn’t far behind. And then it hit me with a wallop—we were still alone in the darkened snowbound shop, me and Trey and a vengeful murderess, with Richard bleeding out in the back room.
“Trey?”
“Yes?”
I stepped closer to him. “So…what now?”
“Now we wait.”
“For what?”
He cocked his head, listening. “For that.”
And then I heard it too—the low drumming whine, coming closer, the only noise in a city frozen solid.
A helicopter.
It appeared as suddenly as a UFO, and even from a hundred feet below, I could feel the whoosh and swirl of the wind coming through the broken shop window, the savage chop-chop-chop as it swooped and hovered. It landed in the middle of the square, kicking up tornadoes of silted ice and powdery snow, shredding the steely air, gracefully, powerfully.
A Black Hawk. With FBI emblazoned on its side.
The hatch opened and Garrity jumped out, his dark gray coat flapping in the wind. He made a slashing motion across his throat, and the engine whined to a halt. He jogged toward us, but I didn’t drop the gun, not even when he came busting through my ruined door, gold shield flashing in the fierce-white light, S&W in hand.
He looked from me to Trey to Rose, then back to Trey. “What the hell?”
I gripped my own gun tighter. “About freaking time.”
Chapter Fifty-five
The next ten minutes were a blur—darkness and noise and grunts and orders. Even when Garrity slapped the handcuffs on Rose and dragged her out the door, I didn’t put my gun down. One of Garrity’s men had to peel my fingers off the grip. Patiently. Carefully.
They stabilized Richard and loaded him on a stretcher. He grabbed my hand as he passed, his lips moving but no words coming. I lowered my ear to his mouth.
“Catherine,” he wheezed.
“I’ll do my best,” I said.
The men hurried him inside the copter, and Garrity shot the pilot a thumbs up. The silence vanished, drowned out by the crystalline whine of the engine, gathering for the upmount.
Garrity raised his voice to a shout. “We’ll get to Grady, and I’ll be back here in—” He put a hand to his earpiece, cursed. “Never mind. Massive pile-up on 285. Go back inside and stay there.”
Trey stared in astonishment. “What?”
“I’m serious. This is triage. I got room in the copter for two extra people—that’s Rose and Richard.”
“But procedurally—”
“You want procedure, fine. I’m deputizing you.” He jerked a thumb at me. “Her too.”
I shoved my hands in my pockets. “Cool.”
But Trey was having none of this. “You can’t do that. Only the sheriff—”
“Lalalala, my friend. I don’t wanna hear it. Go into Tai’s apartment and stay put until I get somebody here. Collect the evidence. Get warm. We’ll deal with this later, once hell stops freezing over.”
He held a hand to his ear in the universal gesture of “call me” and loped to the helicopter. The door closed, and the copter rose into the air. Trey watched it rise, then followed it with his eyes all the way over the horizon. It left only descending quiet in its wake, and yet he continued to watch its vanishing point, squinting against the wind.
I stood next to him. “You called Garrity.”
“I did. As soon as I found the jammer and dismantled it.”
“It was in Rose’s truck?”
He nodded. “I called 911 too, but I knew they couldn’t get a unit here in time. But Garrity…” He cocked his head, his eyes still riveted on the empty sky. “Garrity has his own tac team and access to a Sikorsky Black Hawk.”
I took his hand, squeezed it. “You miss it, don’t you? Being a cop?”
“I do.” He looked at me, and the fierce desire in his face was almost too much to bear. “But missing is as complicated as wanting now.”
I moved closer to him, huddled under his wet coat. I remembered his finger on the trigger, the violent trembling anger fueling him. He’d been a timebomb. And he’d cut the right wire, defused and emptied himself before ignition. And now he was my boyfriend again.
I chose my words carefully. “That thing that happened back there, with Rose? That was close.”
“It was. I’m sorry.”
“No need to apologize. But we do have to deal with it. All of it.”
“All of what?”
I looked into his face, took both his hands in mine. “I know you’ve worked hard to create a life that makes you feel safe and protected and in control. The job, the apartment, the rules. God knows you’ve needed what calm you could scrape together. But you need this too. You need to be in the action again. You’ve got a fire heart, boyfriend, and I don’t even know what that means, but I know it’s true.”
He looked down at me, so serious, so vibrant, so practically pulsing with vitality I was surprised the snow didn’t melt around him in a wet submissive circle.<
br />
“I know something else too,” I said. “This is the first February ninth you’ve spent out of your apartment in three years.”
He looked surprised. “It is, isn’t it?”
“It is.” I managed a smile. “So what are we going to do? Because keeping things locked down is not working for you.”
“It’s not working for you either. No matter what I do or say, you still…you know.”
“I know. I have a fire heart too.”
He nodded. “Then we need to deal with that as well.”
We. The two of us. My heart thumped harder, and I grew light-headed, my whole body strumming with the post-adrenalin crash. I started walking toward the shop, pulling Trey after me. He followed, our footsteps making squeaking sounds in the snow. And his hand was cold, but it was in mine, and he was holding it so tightly my fingers ached, but it was a good ache. I savored it, reveled in it, let it rush up my arm to meet the ache in my heart, which was also good.
He kept his eyes on the gun shop. “Tai?”
“Yes?”
“Promise me you won’t ever let me hurt you. That you’ll do whatever it takes to keep that from happening.”
“Trey—”
He stopped walking, but didn’t let go of my hand. “Promise.”
I turned to face him, and he met my eyes straight on. The night behind us was as silent as the grave, the ground before us shadowy and treacherous.
“I promise,” I said.
***
Back in the shop, we climbed the stairs through the freezing, kerosene-riddled shop to my apartment and shut the door on the whole mess. We dried off with the pristine white towels I’d pilfered from his place, then changed in the dark, the bathroom shades pulled against nothing but flurries and flat darkness. I listened to the small human sounds—the slide of fabric against skin, the rustle of hangers—as we undressed and dressed, trading wet freezing clothes for sweatshirts and pajama bottoms and thick dry socks. I could hear his teeth chattering as he folded the fabric—evidence now—and put each item into a separate plastic bag.
He finished his task and motioned toward the bed. “Sit.”
“I’m fine, I—”
“Please.”
I sat. Trey watched to make sure I was staying put, then went into the closet and got one of his washcloths. He ran water until it was warm, then filled the sink and dipped the washcloth. He moved to stand in front of me and lifted my chin with one hand, dabbing lightly at my face.
I closed my eyes. “I have something to tell you.”
“I know.”
He concentrated on my forehead. Even when the tears started—slow, like first thaw—he didn’t stop. With every gentle stroke, he removed another layer of blood and sweat and grime.
I opened my eyes. “You know what I’m going to say, don’t you?”
“I think so, yes.”
He went back to the sink and dipped the cloth in the water again and wrung it out. I watched him, so precise and efficient and tender. I lost him in the watery blur of the tears, which I could not blink away. But I knew he was there. I got light-headed, and I knew I had to do it quick, without looking down, like flinging myself off the high dive.
I licked my lips. “Okay. Here goes. God help us both, Trey Seaver, but…I love you.”
He didn’t move, didn’t blink. He simply nodded as he folded the washcloth into a tidy square. I had no idea why his brain seized up at such times—an EEG of the moment would no doubt have captured the frantic swirls and dissonant flashes and neuronal firing. But he was trying, despite the hiccups, despite the grit in those gears.
“Trey?”
He held up a finger. “Ten more seconds, please.”
Exactly ten seconds passed. Then he turned to face me. And then he took one deliberate step toward me. Then another. And then he was striding across the room right to me, no hesitation, none whatsoever, running his fingers into my hair and tipping my face back to kiss me, totally without asking, and I stopped thinking about anything but that singular moment, his mouth on mine—sure, untethered, devastating. I let him pull me upright into his arms, where he held me too tightly, and I didn’t mind, not one iota. I opened my eyes, feeling the thump-thump-thump of his heart against mine.
I smiled up at him. “Wow. That was a whole lotta steps.”
He sat on the edge of the bed and pulled me down next to him, brushing my hair from my face so that he could look me right in the eye. “Of course I love you. You know that.”
And he kissed me again, and I surrendered utterly, took down the armor, opened all the way. And I expected to feel terror, but it was only relief, a sweet wrecking ball surge of it, and exhaustion, a delicious tiredness.
I tilted my head back to look him in the eye. “This isn’t how it normally ends, you know. No EMTs, no CSI teams. No interrogations, no fingerprints, no being dragged downtown.”
“We have to do that in the morning.”
“I know, but that’s the morning. It’ll be better in the morning.”
Outside, clouds lay over the city like tired ghosts, ready to sleep, even as the rain continued its relentless work. According to hope and faith and meteorology, the dawn would be gracious, and in a few hours, the sun would send shards of clean morning light straight down from a clear blue sky. Already I could hear ice crashing to the ground, falling from power lines and pine boughs, the swan song of the frozen world.
He shook his head. “It’s going to get worse before it gets better.”
“I know. But then it will get better.”
I leaned against him. The midnight hush would vanish, yes, but for the moment, it was as comforting as the folds of a weathered quilt. Trey put his arm around me without my having to tell him to do so, and we watched the white expanse through my bedroom window. And it was so familiar, almost pre-ordained, to be where we were, together, the world outside.
“Do I need to get a blanket?” I said.
“No. I’m not cold anymore.”
He wasn’t, not at all. I lay my head on his shoulder. “Trey?”
“Hmmm?”
“Admit it. I had you at ‘I know you’re watching me.’”
He made a soft noise in the back of this throat, almost like a laugh. “You had me the entire time.”
Epilogue
One Month Later
I resolved to sip the second glass of wine more slowly. The first already buzzed in my head, loosening my balance. My new red heels perfectly matched my new skirt and jacket, but they had me feeling off-kilter, and the wine wasn’t helping. Receptions weren’t my kind of party, especially not this one, which was chock full of photographers and news crews mingling with forensic anthropologists and a slew of fascinated gossip junkies.
Trey stood at my side. “I’m surprised Evie allowed reporters.”
“She said she wanted to tell the whole truth of the Amberdecker story, and heaven help her, that’s what she’s doing. To every news outlet in Atlanta.”
Across the exhibit hall, Evie shared the spotlight with her newfound cousin, Dr. Geoffrey Walker. The two made an attractive pair, even if Evie’s composed smile seemed tight. I sympathized. Her mother was in jail, charged with both first-degree and attempted murder. Her sister was conspicuously absent as well, as she was still lounging in the Seychelles on a conveniently extended honeymoon. Even Evie’s colleagues in the archaeologist’s office kept a wide berth. She was mildly disgraced, tainted and tarnished, and now she stood in the middle of the crowd utterly alone except for the blood kin stranger at her elbow. But her exhibit had gone on, closing and then re-opening as the debated, threatened, and utterly revamped show that it was.
Now another portrait hung in the hall—Josephina Luckie’s. Her remains were leaving Atlanta, however, going home with Dr. Walker to be interred in the North Carolina cemetery where her empty grave
waited. Eventually, Braxton’s bones would accompany her, and the war-crossed lovers would rest eternally side by side, less intimately than when they’d lain tangled in the Kennesaw clay, but perhaps more peacefully. It must have killed Evie to let them go, those marvelously storied, red-marbled bones. But let them go she had.
I stared up at Josephina’s image, her dark skin and bold gaze in stark contrast to the heartbreaking softness of Braxton’s features. Could true love really have flourished in such hard ground? Or had theirs been a tale of mutual desperation and inevitable reckoning?
The crimson bones kept their secrets, kept them tight.
The present-day story was still telling itself. Richard had his own reckoning on the horizon, charges ranging from improper disposal of a body to evidence tampering. Detective Perez had thrown the book, and she’d had an impressively hefty book to throw. But he’d had a visitor at his bail hearing, a sunglassed and unapproachable Cat. She’d left without speaking, but she’d shown up. Which—as I knew very well—was an enormous deal.
Garrity and his new FBI buddies had taken a scythe to Atlanta’s street drug business. I’d seen him at the press conference afterward, so tickled he could barely hide the grin. He’d sent a shout-out Trey’s way, for the work he’d done back with the Sinaloa cartel and for lending his current expertise to the case. Trey had taken the praise smoothly, but I’d seen the corner of his mouth twitch in a suppressed smile. They were coming after the big dogs next, Garrity told me afterward, the White Wolfs of the world. He said it with an expression very like a wolf’s himself.
And then there was me. With a brand new Federal Firearms License framed on the wall. And ballistic-proof Plexiglass windows in the safe room.
