Derrick glanced at me, and beneath the anger I swore I saw a flicker of regret. If he’d been anyone else, I’d have believed it.
“I told her I was putting her up in the new apartment. When she arrived…well, she wasn’t happy about my plan.” His cheeks went ruddy as memories seemed to play in his mind. “When I tried to take you by force, we fought.”
I didn’t know what I was feeling, didn’t have time to process the words. I would do that later, after all of this was over. After I knew everything there was to know. “And?”
Derrick’s face went blank. “And she fell. Hit her head.”
Hard enough to die? I glanced at Levi, but he was zeroed in on Derrick.
“Where is…she?” I couldn’t say her body, couldn’t think of Caroline decaying without anyone to mourn her or care for her.
Derrick stared at me now, his face hard, unapologetic. If he’d ever loved my mother, there was no sign of it. “Camilla knew how important my career was. I knew we had to do something. I’d started construction on the plaza just before, and they were about to pour the foundation. We took her—”
“Stop.”
The word came out strangled, and satisfaction glimmered in Derrick’s eyes all over again. “Of course you ended up costing me two women, didn’t you? Caro and Camilla. In the end my wife knew too much, had a way to control me. I couldn’t allow that.” He shrugged. “Her death came at just the right time to win my first political seat. The sympathy vote is a powerful thing.”
Tears stung, slithered down my cheeks. “You’re a monster.”
“Am I?”
The pounding of heavy footsteps over our heads startled us all. Between one breath and the next, Derrick was beside me, his hand coming up to my temple. I caught a glimpse of black metal as the sound of a second gunshot echoed like thunder in the room. Levi advanced, but with Derrick’s gun to my head, he didn’t fire again.
“I’ve been planning on making her disappear just like her mother,” Derrick said, his breath hot on my face as he knelt behind me. Cool metal stroked my cheek, the contrast sending a shudder through me. “But this works so much better. Two birds, one stone, right? Abigail ran away from her lover, but he wasn’t ready to let her go. You followed her home, fought, and she died. Pity.”
“It’s a scenario you’re intimately familiar with, isn’t it?” Levi asked. He stepped once, twice to the side, trying to get a better angle, but each move was countered by a shift from Derrick. “Too bad there’d be no proof.”
“Proof of a murder is easy to fabricate with the dead body.”
My dead body. I stared at Levi, willing him to tell me what to do, show me, help me help him. He didn’t even look at me.
“Do you know what the sentence for kidnapping and murder is in the state of Georgia?” Derrick asked.
“Doesn’t matter.” Levi took another step.
“Why not?” Derrick asked, shifting again. I could see his face now, from the corner of my eye.
“Because you won’t be around to see me convicted.”
Levi lunged, taking Derrick off guard. I watched as time seemed to stop.
Derrick slid around to my side.
The breath stalled in my lungs.
A gun went off. I braced but…no pain.
Derrick grunted. As he started to fall, I saw one hand rising to clutch at his chest. I couldn’t look away. All this time, I’d known the man who fathered me wasn’t good. Didn’t deserve the accolades and applause he regularly received. But—he was my father.
And a murderer.
I couldn’t decide which mattered more as he hit the floor hard, a red blossom of blood taking over the left side of his shirt. I held my breath as the light went out of his eyes, his grip on his chest and his gun going slack. He took one long, slow breath that gurgled near the end, then everything just…stopped.
And all I felt was…nothing.
The straps around my ribs tightened momentarily, then fell into my lap. Levi was in front of me a second later.
“Tell me where it hurts, little bird,” he demanded. The hands running over me felt desperate, frantic. They shook. I stared into his panicked gray eyes and tried to find the words to tell him I was fine, but nothing came. Nothing but the desperate need to focus anywhere but on Derrick, slumped on the floor next to my chair, dead and staring.
Levi lifted my shirt.
Instinct had me pushing my top back down. “No.” Those eyes. I couldn’t think about anything but those dead eyes. Dead. Christ.
“Eli!”
Heavy boots clambered down the steps. Eli rounded the corner, glancing over Derrick’s body as if he saw dead people every day.
Levi lifted me out of the chair. “Get rid of those, would you?”
“Sure thing.” Levi’s brother gathered the straps and walked back to the stairs. They disappeared into a large black trash bag.
A hand ran over my bruised ribs. “Ow!”
My hands came up instinctively to block the painful touch. Levi grabbed my wrists hard and got right in my face, the fierce gleam of his eyes breaking me out of my trance. This time his worry and fear registered. Levi was panicked—over me. “Be still, Abby,” he growled. “Let me see.” His tone softened the slightest bit. “I need to make sure you’re okay.”
I took a deep, steadying breath and pulled the hem of my sweatshirt up just under my breast. “I am. I promise. I’m in—”
“I’ll be the judge of that.”
I held my tongue and let him reassure himself that I was only bruised. Eli was cleaning up, and I wondered how in the hell I could ever explain this to the police without Levi getting arrested. I couldn’t live with that, not now. I couldn’t face this alone.
“Safe combo?” Eli asked.
It took a moment to realize he was talking to me. I rattled the combination off from memory.
Eli shoved everything from the safe into his handy trash bag. “Bro, gotta go.”
I shot a look at Eli, then Levi. “No, you can’t. I—”
“E”—Levi jerked his head toward the stairs—“give us a minute.”
He started up, throwing a glance over his shoulder that looked suspiciously like pity.
I closed my eyes and breathed deep, trying to calm the rising panic that wanted to choke me. “Levi—”
Warm lips met mine. I opened my eyes to stare straight into Levi’s, to see the strength I needed, to drown myself in the knowledge that he wouldn’t leave me. Except that’s not what I saw.
Levi slid his tongue between my lips, and I surrendered to the rising need, let him delve deep, savored his dark taste on my lips. When he drew back, I couldn’t stop a whimper.
Cupping my face in his rough hands, he laid his forehead against mine. “I have to go, little bird.”
“No.” Please don’t. Don’t leave me.
Levi’s brow wrinkled. “I have to. We have to make this look good, keep you safe.”
I was safe with him, but my protests didn’t change his mind. The gun was placed in my hand. Levi forced me to fire a shot at a wooden shelf near Derrick’s body “to get the residue on your hands. You fired once, missed, fired again. Got it?”
I think I nodded; I don’t know. It all happened so fast and then he was kissing me again. A sob escaped me as he turned towards the stairs.
“Will I see you again?” I managed to ask.
Levi stopped, glanced over his shoulder, and I swear I saw hell in his eyes. “You don’t need me, little bird.” He smiled sadly. “It’s time to be free.”
“Levi—”
But it was too late. He was already gone.
Epilogue
“It’s done, Mama.”
I stared at the photo in my hand and not the tombstone with Caroline Clark’s name etched into it in pretty lettering. I came here to talk to her often. Through Geneva I now had memories and a handful of pictures; I knew my mother, probably better than I had ever known Camilla.
My gaze traced Caroline's prett
y strawberry-blonde hair in the image, her beautiful smile. After meeting Anthony’s business partner and receiving pictures of him, I knew I shared the family looks. Once DNA proved our relationship, I’d had Anthony moved here, beside his sister. Their matching headstones were etched In Loving Memory, Caroline’s with the words Loving Mother, Sister, and Friend beneath her name.
I missed them, even though we’d never met. I missed a lot of things now.
“I signed the papers for the sale of the mansion this morning,” I told her picture. “St. Mary’s and the other area shelters will do a lot of good with the money, I think.” St. Mary’s had cared for Caroline when she couldn’t care for herself, and for that I’d be forever grateful. And it wasn’t like I needed the money. I was Derrick Roslyn’s only living relative too.
“The new place is a little bare yet, but I think it will work out fine. Quiet neighborhood. Close to the university.” Now that the details of the investigations were complete, I could go back. Get my degree, although I was considering changing my major. Maybe social work. Wouldn’t Derrick roll over in his grave if he knew?
Not that he had a grave. The would-be governor of Georgia had been cremated. I’d considered dumping his ashes in the sewer but settled instead for the Atlantic Ocean. The bottom-feeders out there could feast on him all they wanted.
But it wasn’t memories of my father or even the move that weighed me down today. It was memories of someone else.
“I miss him.”
The past year had brought so many changes—newfound freedom, Geneva’s friendship, breaking ties with anything and everything that had made up the life I used to live. Every time I cut one of those bonds, I felt a little lighter, a little wiser, a little more at peace. And a little more alone, because Levi wasn’t there with me. I hadn’t seen him since that night, the night Derrick died. I’d had him for such a short time; we’d had each other. I’d give anything to just know where he was, that he was safe. But that was impossible.
Sometimes I imagined I could feel him watching me. It was stupid, I know, a childish mind game I played with myself, but there were moments I swore it was true.
I stood. “Have to go, Mama. Geneva and I will be back Sunday, I promise.” I slipped the photo into my pocket, kissed my fingertips, then laid them first on her stone, then Anthony’s. “Love you both.”
At least I had that. After years of loving no one, that gift was more profound than any other change in my life, even if all but one of my loved ones was gone.
The drive back to the house was about forty minutes, and I took my time. Despite driving lessons, I was still a bit unsure when it came to city traffic, but I’d needed the independence, needed to prove I could do it. And I had, too, just like everything else, one step at a time.
My new place was a little craftsman on a tree-lined street in a neighborhood that saw little traffic. A few houses had children, and the sound of their laughter as they played outside often brightened my afternoon. My house was at the end of a cul-de-sac, a small carport to one side sheltering me anytime it rained. Parking beneath it felt like home, familiar and settled and warm. I’d never felt that way in Derrick’s mansion.
It was just so damn quiet. Maybe I should get a cat.
A couple of hours later tears were streaming down my cheeks and curses tripping off my tongue as I cut onions for tacos. When the doorbell rang, my hand jerked, the knife slicing through a couple layers of skin before I could pull it back. “Damn it!”
The doorbell chimed again.
“I’m coming!” A hasty rinse to get rid of the onion juice on my skin—I hoped—and then I was rushing for the door.
Ding-dong.
“I’m coming, I’m coming.” But the closer I got to the door, the more I second-guessed the impulse to answer. People had rung the doorbell before, mostly workmen when I’d first bought the place, solicitors, the next-door neighbor with her daughter, selling Girl Scout cookies. It was the reporters that I hated. They’d nearly driven me crazy in the months following Derrick’s death. But surely the time for a story on the councilman’s sordid past was long gone?
I rounded the corner into the foyer just as the bell rang a fourth time. Through the frosted side panel I could see a tall, dark figure turned slightly away as if staring out into the street. My step hitched, a bump of something I didn’t recognize nudging up to choke me as I considered that silhouette mere feet away.
I can’t breathe. Why can’t I breathe?
As if moving through molasses, I dropped the towel on the foyer table and brought my eye to the peephole.
And my entire world turned upside down for the second time in a year.
“Open the door, little bird.”
A laugh snagged in the back of my throat. Demanding as ever. That part I certainly recognized. And the muscular body. The dark hair. The eyes that could command me to do anything and I’d comply without hesitation.
The bouquet in Levi’s hands, though? That didn’t seem to fit. He gripped them like a weapon, though what he planned to attack with them was beyond me. I found myself reaching for the doorknob, willing him to wait, wanting the gift he’d brought to me almost as much as I wanted him inside my house, branding my space, breathing my air.
I wanted him, period. And yet I hesitated.
“Little bird.”
That growl. A shiver ran down my spine. I unlocked the door, drew it back. And stared. It was almost too much to comprehend, Levi here, at my house after all this time, dressed like—
Wow. Like he was going on a date. His clothes were dark, just like every shirt and pants I’d ever seen him in, but the sheen of the material as it reflected the streetlight outside said it wasn’t fatigues. More like something intended to impress, maybe? With the way it molded to his muscular chest, his flat abs, his long legs, his…
My eyebrows shot up. Molded wasn’t the right word—more like cupped lovingly. And what that fabric cupped was definitely all he needed to impress any woman.
My head spun, reminding me forcefully to breathe.
“Do I know you?” I asked through the screen door.
Levi grabbed the handle and tugged, but the lock kept the door closed. “Funny, little bird. Don’t make me spank your ass.”
“We wouldn’t want that, would we?”
The words came out perky and self-assured, but the weight of the past year hung in the silence behind them.
“Abby.” Levi stared hard at me, as if he could force me to let him in through sheer will. “Unlock it.”
I flicked the latch. And went back to the kitchen. With every step, the spark of resentment that I hadn’t known I felt until that very moment flared brighter, burning in my gut like a simmering pot about to reach a boil. After a year of being alone, believing I’d never see him again, wondering if I’d imagined the connection between us. Worrying about where he was and if he was safe. Dreaming of our nights together—and waking hot, achy, and unfulfilled no matter how many times I got myself off. After all that time, he was here?
I walked straight to the stove and turned it off. Knowing my luck, I’d forget about it and burn down my perfectly lovely new house. Levi brushed by me as he reached for the cabinet over the stove.
“What are you doing?”
“Looking for something to put these in.”
I didn’t help him. Unfortunately, as much as I wanted to keep myself aloof, keep my anger like a shield between us…there was something endearingly awkward about watching him fumble around an unfamiliar kitchen, this man who seemed competent at everything. It shouldn’t touch me, but as he filled a vase under the tap and dumped the flowers in without even removing the tissue paper they were wrapped in, I couldn’t help it. He was like a little boy trying to please yet resenting the instinct, and the strangeness of it tugged at parts of me I wasn’t ready to let unravel.
Instead I went to the poor flowers’ rescue.
“What—”
I nudged Levi out of the way with my hip. “You hav
e to cut the stems so they’ll have a fresh opening to draw water.”
I took my time selecting each stem—a red rose, white lily, purple anemone—cutting off the bottom inch, then placing them in the water. Each one received a silent apology; after all, I knew what getting cut was like. I’d lost everything last year, including Levi. But look at me now.
Maybe I should be thanking Levi for more than just the flowers.
Fuck that.
I slid the last flower into place. Sucked in a deep breath. Turned to face Levi. “Why are you here?”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “To see you.”
Well don’t sound all happy about it.
“Why now? I’ve been here awhile. You’re good at finding things.” Especially things that were a matter of public record. I leaned a hip against the counter. “Why did you finally come?”
Frustration flashed across his expression, like he’d expected this to be easy. Make a little effort and waltz right back into my life like nothing happened. Right. It wasn’t going to be that easy, not by a mile.
“Abby.”
I shook my head. “Why?”
Levi’s hands tightened into fists at his sides, relaxed, tightened again—fighting with himself. Chewing on whatever words he didn’t want to spit out. I waited, refusing to help. Whatever it was, he needed to say it. I needed to hear it.
He stepped closer, his gaze fixed on my arms where they crossed over my stomach. “I—”
Silence.
“What?”
Nothing.
“Look, you got yourself here, and I’m sure you can get yourself home.” I didn’t want him to leave, but I couldn’t accept a year of being alone without an explanation. I just couldn’t. “Thanks for the flowers.”
Levi cursed, squeezed his fists so tight he shook. “I— Fuck!” His head snapped up. Molten steel locked on to me, captured my gaze, just as Levi had always held me captive. “I couldn’t wait another fucking minute to see you,” he bit out. Moved closer. “I tried, I really did. Told myself you deserved someone far better than me. Told myself you deserved your freedom. But…” He took another step, then another. “I couldn’t do it, Abby. I couldn’t stay away. I need you.”
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