The Secret Thief

by Nina Lane

  He pins me to the ground, his body heavy over mine. Cold anger masks his features. Blood swells from my arm.

  “Why…” I drag a breath into my aching lungs. “Why are you doing this?”

  “I can’t have you messing up my plans.” He wraps one hand around my throat. “You should’ve just minded your own business.”

  He’s choking me. My breath grows shallow. The glint of silver appears again. The chopping knife from my kitchen.

  Terror floods me. He tightens his grip on my throat and brings the knife up. My vision blurs. I grab his wrist, trying to loosen his hold. The knife tip slips into the hollow of my throat. Black seeps into my consciousness, my—

  His weight lifts off me with a sudden, sharp jerk. Flung to the side, he crashes against a tree with a grunt.

  Flynn.

  Relief billows in my chest. He casts a quick assessing glance over me. Gasping, I struggle to sit up.

  “He has a… a knife,” I rasp.

  In the distance, a dog barks. Ghost.

  William straightens, the knife still clutched in his hand. Moonlight flashes off the blade. Flynn circles him warily, his body lined with tension.

  “Eve, run,” he orders.

  I won’t run. Not again. I back toward a copse of trees, clutching my wounded arm.

  Flynn lunges forward, tackling William around the waist. A shout. They both go down, slamming hard against the ground. The knife falls from William’s hand. I rush forward to grab the knife just as William rolls over it. Flynn pulls back a fist, landing blows on the other man’s face. Grunts fill the air.

  “Sonuva…”

  William brings a knee up and catches Flynn in the groin, bucking him off. Flynn doubles over. An eerie shock crushes me at the sight of him in physical pain—this man who has never seemed anything less than invulnerable.

  I start toward him. William staggers to his feet, his breath heavy and eyes murderous.

  Oh, shit.

  The knife.

  William and I spot it at the same time. I lunge for it, panting and scrambling past a briar bush. If I don’t get the knife before he does—

  Thorns rip my blouse, scrape the open wound on my arm.

  William closes his hand around the knife. Horrified, I recoil and stumble back. He grabs my wrist, halting my retreat.

  “Stop.” He yanks me against him and presses the knife to my throat.

  I drag air into my aching lungs. Every part of me hurts. His heavy body pushes against me from behind, chest heaving, his arm locked around my waist. The knife blade digs into my throat. Hot tears of panic spill down my cheeks.

  Flynn straightens, holding his hands up, his eyes darkened to black. Our gazes meet, but there’s no comfort to be found, no unspoken reassurance. We both know the bad guy sometimes wins.

  “You should have listened to me.” William’s breath rasps against my ear. He jerks his head toward Flynn. “This fucker has been lying to all of us.”

  A noise rustles through the leaves. An animal or—

  The moon emerges from behind a cloud. Ghost charges into the clearing, barks echoing deep into the forest.

  “Ghost!” Hope swells past my fear.

  The dog lunges at William, snapping and growling. William kicks him hard in the side. With a yelp, Ghost flies backward and hits the ground.

  “No…” I struggle forward. The blade cuts a thin line in my skin. I stop.

  Flynn advances again, eyes burning. “Let her go.”

  “I’ll let her go,” William replies coldly. “In fact, I’m walking out of here with her. Or everyone will know you murdered your twin brother.”

  The earth tilts. Shock numbs me to the bone.

  Flynn freezes. He darts his pitch-black eyes to me.

  William forces me a few steps backward. The knife digs into my throat. Cold panic ices my blood.

  Murder? Twin brother?

  Ghost gets to his feet and stalks William from behind Flynn. Growls rip from his throat. William drags me backward again. My bare feet skid on dead branches and rocks.

  The forest whispers and stirs. In a part of my brain that isn’t dark with terror, my internal compass sharpens.

  He’s going deeper into the woods. He’s not walking out of here with me at all.

  “Eve!”

  Flynn’s shout reverberates through me. The sound shocks me into action. I drive my elbow into William’s gut, loosening his grip for an instant. Long enough for Flynn to tackle him again shoving him away from me. He brings the other man down. They struggle.

  Ghost races around them, snarling and snapping, trying to get at William.

  Does he still have the knife? Muffled shouts fly from both men. Flynn gains the upper hand and slams William’s head against a tree root.

  William collapses. His body goes limp.

  Flynn pushes to his feet, chest heaving. He staggers.

  “Flynn.”

  I reach him the instant he slumps against a tree trunk. His face is pale and ghostly, his breath growing shallow. Dread surges in my gut.

  “Are you…” He winces and claws at his chest.

  “Flynn, what…” I put my hand on his abdomen. My palm comes away wet. “Oh my God…”

  Blood spreads over his shirt. He sinks to the ground, his back against the tree.

  I struggle against a fresh wave of terror. He closes his eyes. He’s losing too much blood. He’s going into shock. I don’t know what to do.

  Ghost barks, breaking me from my paralysis. Without thinking, I strip out of my skirt, wad it into a ball, and press it to the wound. His blood smears on the slip I’m still wearing.

  “Flynn!” Putting my hand under his chin, I force his head up. He peels his eyes open and looks into mine. Blurry. Dim.

  “Listen to me.” My heart jackhammers. “I’m going for help. Keep a steady pressure against the wound, okay? Don’t let up.”

  He nods and holds the makeshift bandage. Ghost nudges my arm.

  “Stay here.” I run my hand over the dog’s tense body and point to William. “Guard him and watch over Flynn.”

  Taking a deep breath, I start through the woods again.

  Trust yourself. Trust your instincts. Trust the forest.

  I focus my concentration on finding my way back home. The snowfall is getting heavier, flakes collecting on the ground. My feet ache, scraped raw and bloody from pebbles and brush. I keep going, turning right, left, right again. Straight. The cold penetrates my skin.

  Don’t think. Don’t panic. Just run.

  I skid to a halt, my chest heaving. Trees and brush tangle in front of me, unpassable. A dead end. Panic boils in my veins. I whirl around and run back.

  Ghost barks. The distant echo orients me to his location. I need to go in the opposite direction.

  Wiping my eyes on my sleeve, I start running again. Right. Right. Left. My lungs burn. Pain grips my bones. The moon slips out from behind a cloud again.

  Old tales whisper through my fear—the princess who seeks help from the four winds to rescue her prince in the castle that lies east of the sun and west of the moon. Uncle Max weaving his stories, almost forgotten lore about the moon lifting into the sky.

  It’s still early evening. And if the moon rises more or less in the east…

  I turn right and race toward the moon. Clamber over a fallen tree trunk, force my way through the prickly brush.

  Pinpoints of light appear in the distance. The porch lamps of Ramshackle Manor. Relief engulfs me. Tears spill down my cheeks.

  I sprint the rest of the way and fling open the door. My cell phone is on the bedside table where I’d left it. I call 911 and quickly pull on a pair of jeans and sneakers.

  I hurry back downstairs. By the time I reach the porch, sirens resound in the distance. When the police and paramedics arrive, I lead them back to Flynn.

  Gerda’s love melts the ice in Kay’s heart. Beauty’s devotion lifts the Beast’s curse. The water of life brings Ivan back from the dead. A dragon’s
tea plant cures an ill child. Rapunzel’s tears heal the prince’s blindness. A single Firebird feather illuminates the dark.

  If only.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  The fluorescent lights of the emergency room cast a greenish-yellow glow, the color of an illness. Exhaustion and fear battle for supremacy inside me.

  Flynn is taken into immediate surgery. An ER doctor bandages my arm and feet, and tends to my various cuts and scrapes. I give a statement to the police and answer their barrage of questions. William regains consciousness and is kept in a guarded room.

  An attendant asks me to fill out a form for Flynn, but I don’t know any of the information except for his name. I’m not even sure I know that anymore. Is Flynn Alverton his real name? Has he been lying about everything?

  Murder? Twin brother?

  I’m not about to believe the truth of the accusation, especially coming from William King, but part of my brain burns with recognition.

  The boy Westley and his lost reflection. Flynn and “someone else” exchanging roles as Captain Hook in a school production of Peter Pan. His reaction to my remark about Rumpelstiltskin, who tears himself into two pieces at the end of the story. The photo of his grandfather and a boy who might or might not have been Flynn.

  He’s a twin. He lost his twin.

  A deep, dark pain spreads through my heart.

  After a three-hour surgery, he’s brought into the ICU. I’m allowed to see him after he comes out of the anesthesia. Though I’ve been numb for hours, the instant I walk into the room, everything inside me crumples.

  Flynn.

  It’s impossible for me to believe this is him. My impenetrable, stern lighthouse keeper. My mysterious crush. My hot fantasy. My beloved lover. My secret thief.

  I approach the bed and brush my fingers over his arm. An oxygen mask covers his face. Tubes snake from his body to various machines. His eyes are bloodshot and heavy, his breathing still shallow.

  “The doctor said you’ll be okay. They’re going to watch you closely for the next few days, but the knife missed any major organs. Now you need to heal.”

  He shifts, frustration rising to his eyes. I lift the oxygen mask covering his mouth.

  “You…?” His voice is barely audible.

  “I’m fine. They have William in a guarded room, and the police will get your statement when you’re able to talk.”

  He closes his eyes. A breath escapes him, like a sigh of defeat.

  The next day passes in a blur. William is taken into custody, and the knife is recovered as evidence. Flynn had found me after arriving at the house and seeing the back door open. He’d followed the tracks into the forest, where my discarded shoes had marked the path.

  The city council meeting was cancelled due to “extenuating circumstances” and will be rescheduled at a later date. My phone buzzes with calls and texts. I ignore them. I spend the day keeping vigil at Flynn’s bedside before returning home to feed Ghost and try to sleep.

  At night, I sit in bed with a stack of Riley Flynn books, re-reading and studying them with near obsession. I pick out the clues and riddles, make my way through the mazes as if somehow they’ll lead me through the path of Flynn’s heart. Through all his untold secrets.

  It’s all there, woven into the story and illustrations. The complicated mazes with their twists and turns, the narrow passageways and dead-ends. The single exit. The boy who never finds his reflection. The undersea worlds and icy landscapes. The mirror images.

  I run my hand over the glossy picture of an underwater castle, laden with sea plants and coral. I trace the exterior of a seashell attached to the castle door. The spirals and whorls decorating the shell are so delicate and thin they might have been painted with a brush composed of a single bristle. I follow a shape that looks like the letter A.

  I stop. Peer more closely at the shell. The A is attached to another swirl-like shape resembling an L.

  My heart thumps. I sit back and stare at the picture. It’s entirely possible I’m seeing something that isn’t there. But no. That’s definitely the letter L.

  I fumble in the nightstand for an old magnifying glass. I turn the open pages to the light and peer at the shell through the glass.

  I… am… afraid…

  My breath catches. I trace the letters all the way to the tip of the shell.

  I will… always be… alone.

  I straighten, suddenly feeling as if I’m poised on the edge of a momentous discovery. I run the magnifying glass over the page, my eye catching lines, loops, and coils that only take the shape of letters upon very close scrutiny.

  I wish I fit in.

  I liked being a bully.

  What I did was so wrong.

  Secrets from the wall, concealed in the elaborate, whimsical illustrations of Riley Flynn’s books.

  When I return to the hospital in the morning, Flynn is awake. Dark circles ring his eyes, and heavy stubble coats his jaw. I stop beside the bed and touch his arm.

  “Hi, Sleeping Handsome.”

  A faint smile twitches his mouth. He lifts a hand to take off the oxygen mask.

  “How do you feel?” I ask. “Do you need a nurse?”

  He shakes his head and struggles to sit up. I adjust the pillows behind him and pour him a cup of water.

  “You’re still here,” he whispers.

  “I’m still here.”

  His expression darkens. “Eve, I…”

  “Tell me later.”

  “No, I…”

  “Flynn.” I squeeze his hand. “Later.”

  Though I’m delaying the inevitable, part of me doesn’t want to know what he’s going to say.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Over the next two days, Flynn regains his strength. One morning I enter his room to find him sitting beside the window. He turns to look at me.

  A sense of foreboding crackles between us, like barbed wire slowly unrolling. Fatigue and sorrow etch his face, the lines around his eyes aging him.

  My heart thumps. A sudden anxiety seizes me. I close the door, pull up a chair, and sit in front of him. Our knees touch.

  “His name was Riley.” He swallows, his voice raspy. “He died the winter before our twenty-first birthday.”

  I clasp my hands together. Chills slither through my blood. “What… what happened?”

  “My real name is Flynn Donovan.” He slides his gaze to the wall. Tension laces his shoulders. “My father used to own the Donovan’s chain of sporting goods stores. They went bankrupt a while ago. But when Riley and I were kids, the business was great. Our father was tough on us, but we had everything we wanted.

  “And we were close. Inseparable. We liked the same things—Legos, astronomy, sports. The only thing I liked that he didn’t was drawing and making up stories. For a while, it seemed like that was our only difference.

  “We were so identical we used to pretend to be each other. Sometimes it was a joke. Sometimes we took tests for each other or just did it to trick the teacher, even our parents. The only person we couldn’t fool was our grandfather. He always knew who was who. Remember that photo you found in the kitchen?”

  I nod. The picture of that smiling, dark-haired boy is etched in my mind forever.

  “That was Riley and our grandfather.” His throat works with a swallow. “I took the picture. If I’m you, then you’re me. He and I said that to each other all the time. Then things started to change.”

  “Why?”

  “It was clear pretty early on that Riley was superior in a lot of ways.” He stares at his hands, flexing his fingers. “He was the first born. According to our mother, he did everything first—walked, talked, read. I’d watch him and then do whatever he did. Throughout school I was stronger academically but he was more popular, athletic, outgoing, got away with stuff. Girls liked him better. Teachers liked him better. I was okay with that for a long time because he was my twin. We had the same DNA. Maybe I thought some of his magic would rub off on me.

&
nbsp; “We both played a lot of sports and had been skating since we were five, but when we were nine, our father wanted us to focus on hockey. Riley wasn’t just more talented than me—he was a natural on the ice. Amazing speed and instincts. Coaches took notice and were soon grooming him for amateurs and possibly even the pros. My father couldn’t believe his luck. He’d always been a huge hockey fan, and now here was his prodigy son like a future Gretzky.”

  “Didn’t you play too?”

  “Yeah, but only because he did. I liked hockey okay, but it was more about sticking close to my brother. Not wanting part of me to go off in some other direction. I couldn’t stop it, though. Neither could he. He once told me he felt like he was on a roller coaster, unable to get off or slow it down even though it was making him sick.

  “Our father pushed him hard. He was up at five for weight training, on-ice practice. I went with him at first, then our father and his coach said he needed to focus on his own. He had a military-like regimen. We didn’t even see much of each other anymore. When we did, he didn’t want to talk to me.

  “I knew he wasn’t happy, that he didn’t know how to handle everything. No way could he tell our father to let up either. I had no idea how to make it easier on him. For the first time, I couldn’t take his place.

  “That was when I stopped drawing.” He spreads his hands out and studies his fingers. “I guess I felt like if my twin had to be miserable, to give up part of his life, I should too.

  “I didn’t make any of the youth hockey teams. Riley was the center and team captain. Our father hired a former NHL player to be his personal trainer. Agents and pro recruiters came calling. He got a lot of praise, accolades, scholarship offers. The Canadian Globe and Mail did a series of reports about him. He could’ve entered the NHL draft, but our father wanted him to go to college before turning pro. Riley and I had gone to the same schools our whole lives, so we both ended up at the University of Minnesota, my father’s alma mater—Riley because of hockey, me because of my GPA.

  “We lived in the same dorm room, but we had different lives. He had hockey, tons of friends, girls, fame. I studied. We argued a lot. Did stupid things. He hit on a girl I had a crush on and started dating her. I didn’t remind him about homework and tests. We stopped looking out for each other.