“Soon it will just be the three of us,” Julia finally says, “and I’ll be the one who’s outnumbered.”
“Well,” Cole says, “I thought the whole point of moving in this direction was that we were the ones with common ground.”
“Which is?” she asks.
“None of us wants Charlotte in a lab.”
“Charley,” Noah says.
“Excuse me?” Julia asks.
“She actually likes it,” he says. “She likes being called Charley.”
Cole’s tempted to ask Noah when Charley had the chance to mention it to him, then realizes it must be something she told him back in Arizona.
“I’ll make a note of that,” Julia says, as if she won’t, probably because it’s a concern for people who actually plan on being in Charley’s presence, and Julia doesn’t. Not anytime soon.
“Easy, stallion,” Cole says to Noah. “She hasn’t been your patient for a long time.”
Noah seems to realize the folly of chastising the two of them over details he learned when he was deceiving Charlotte Rowe under an assumed name.
“Apologies,” he says. “I do have a tendency to get . . . committed.”
“That’s one way of putting it,” Julia says. “And it manifests as a tendency to do things entirely on your own.”
“Indeed,” he says; then he reaches into his pocket and drops something in the middle of the glass table. A silver Saint Christopher’s medal Stephen Drucker used to wear around his neck.
From the pinched expression on Julia’s face, it’s clear she recognizes it.
“I see,” she says quietly. “I was aware the job was being done, but I wasn’t aware you were doing it yourself.”
“Both jobs,” he says.
This is news to Cole, but not too much of a surprise.
“I was able to go through his phone thanks to Bailey.” Noah forks a bite of crab salad into his mouth and chews carefully. “I learned two things. One, he was absolutely working with Philip. And two, the plan wasn’t to stop us from remote dosing Charley. The plan was to overdose her.”
“To kill her,” Julia says. “Well, then, so they didn’t just want to confine her to a lab.”
Noah nods, takes another bite of food. Of course he can relay this news casually. Killing the men responsible allowed him to purge his ill will toward them.
“And paradron?” Cole asks.
“I think their code name for it was Pay Dirt. I downloaded the texts onto a flash drive. I’m sure they’ll be helpful.”
Pay Dirt . . . paradron. So there it was. Noah was right. Stephen had decided to blow apart The Consortium because he and his scientists had discovered something within the molecular structure of the supercharged cancer strain paradrenaline created, something Cole and his scientists must have missed. For reasons they’d have to uncover, Stephen thought paradron wasn’t just an effective poison; it was something far more significant. Something that could produce benefits to him and Philip more profitable than anything they could harvest from paradrenaline alone or from the mysteries of Charlotte Rowe’s blood. Pay Dirt.
But what was the dirt, and who was going to get paid?
“We have to make a move on his lab,” Cole says.
“Easy, Cole,” Julia says. “Build a surveillance file first like we agreed. Let’s see what Bailey can turn up. I’m at my massive-cover-up threshold for the month.”
The discovery that Noah’s theory was right, that Cole’s hasty surrender of paradron was the cause of so much of their recent troubles, is easier to accept now that Noah’s sitting right next to him, quietly eating lunch. There’s also the simple fact that Julia’s decided not to rake his ass over the coals for it, either.
“A toast,” Julia says, raising her glass. “To whatever it is we are now.”
“An investment opportunity.”
“There’s that,” Julia says, “or Dr. Brains here could make a breakthrough that we could actually reveal to the world without upending it. Something that would give a veneer of legitimacy to the project. Then we could direct funds to it through proper aboveboard channels.”
“You’re talking about making it a project of Graydon Pharmaceuticals?” Cole asks.
“Perhaps, yes,” she says.
“Where does that put you and your stake?”
“I don’t know. I’ve always thought I’d be quite at home on the board of Graydon Pharmaceuticals.”
“I’m not sure that would work, Julia.”
“You don’t want me on your board?”
“I don’t think my mother does, given you had an affair with her husband.”
“Oh, I’ll work on her. It’s a new chapter in both our lives. And there’s one thing that’s more important to your mother than any sense of fairness or justice.”
“Me?”
“I wish I could say differently, but no. Money and connections. And I have plenty of both.”
“Good luck with that charm offensive. You’re on your own.”
“Good to know. I’ll leave you to find the few billionaires in the world who are into developing secret weapons and will also happen to share your great affection for letting Charlotte Rowe enjoy small-town life.”
“Our affection. I was under the impression neither one of us wants to make her a prisoner.”
“That’s correct, but I can’t say I’m a big fan of her town. I had them drive me through when I went to visit friends in Carmel. It’s sort of dreadful, if you ask me.”
“I don’t think anyone in Altamira did,” Cole says.
“Very well, then. I don’t have to live there. She does. That said, allow me to say, even though it was presented as more of an announcement than anything else, I am very happy that Dr. Turlington will be absorbing the paradrenaline studies into his lab. While I was a big fan of Dr. Chen’s demeanor and presentations, her actual progress left a lot to be desired.”
Julia rises to her feet, picks up her purse from where it’s hanging on the back of her wrought-iron chair. “All right, I’ll leave you boys to do whatever it is you two do to each other.”
“We haven’t had the entrée yet,” Cole says.
“Oh, that’s so dear of you, but I’ve got to run. I’m having drinks with a Saudi prince who is a huge fan of my new microdrones.”
“Ask him if he hates serial killers,” Noah says in between chews.
“No, thank you. I’m not jumping into that pool again feetfirst. Even if we do have to get creative with our financing for a while. Goodbye, gentlemen.” She’s at the sliding deck door when she turns as if a thought’s struck her. “And Noah?”
“Yes?”
“Thank you for killing Stephen and Philip. I hope they burn in hell for what they tried to do to Charley.” Then, as if she did little more than compliment them both on the menu, she smiles, waves, and leaves.
“News flash,” Cole says. “Julia Crispin believes in hell.”
Cole sips his wine and reminds himself that the expansive view from his terrace is one he should never take for granted. Kayakers make bright dots on the sparkling blue water, and the cliffs on the northern side of the bay are gaining definition as the sun travels west. Noah appears to be enjoying it, but there’s no telling unless Cole asks. His glazed eyes could mean he’s lost in thought.
“She’s not giving me a hard time about everything because she wants on my board,” Cole says.
“Ah, the perils of being a master of the universe.”
“Cynical,” Cole says.
“Sarcastic,” Noah responds. “There’s a difference.”
“I see. Was it quick?”
Startled by this abrupt subject change, Noah looks into his eyes. But he doesn’t stop eating.
“Stephen, yes. Philip, no. He saw it coming sooner and had a lot to say.”
“Like what?” Cole asks.
“Something about the greatest scientific breakthrough in history being in the hands of a spoiled, incompetent little fag and his inexplic
able affection for a mouthy white-trash girl from nowhere.”
“Charming.”
“We can’t all go out in a blaze of elegance.”
“Do you agree with him?”
“Of course not. Why do you think I killed him?”
“Because we told you to,” Cole says.
Noah takes the last bite of his salad, chews it thoughtfully.
“And I owed it to you,” he finally says.
“How’s that?”
“You were right. I had no idea what I was asking when I told you to activate The Consortium again. I didn’t know them well enough, and I didn’t stop to consider how they’d react when they learned we had one living test subject. But the truth is, I only had to ask because I never expected her to run.”
“Charlotte?”
He nods. “I thought once she realized what I’d really slipped her, she’d be grateful. And we’d end up working together. That was my weakness, I guess.”
“Arrogance,” Cole offers.
“I was going to say optimism, but OK.”
“Were you in love with her?” Cole asks.
The question seems to startle Noah, and that was exactly Cole’s intention. He reaches for his wineglass and takes a sip. But he doesn’t break the eye contact, and so the moment starts to feel like a stare down.
“I hated her. Before I met her. I thought she’d exploited everything about what happened to our mothers. And then I learned the real story and . . .”
“And what?” Cole asks, his heart racing.
“She became like a sister to me.”
The question’s at the tip of his tongue, but he can’t bring himself to ask it. Were you in love with me?
“Scott told me my flight’s scheduled for tonight at ten,” Noah says.
“Correct.”
“I’d like you to push it until tomorrow night.”
“Why?”
“So I have time to fuck you. A lot.”
What startles Cole isn’t Noah’s choice of words but the unaffected tone with which he’s just delivered them, without any of the leering flirtatiousness he’s used to tease Cole on this subject in the recent past. As if Cole—or his body, at least—is something he’s decided to acquire after careful consideration.
“Murder turns you on, does it?” Cole asks.
“Thinking of all the ways we might change the world turns me on.”
“I see.”
“Do you?”
“You know you’re not obligated, right?” Cole says.
“For Christ’s sake, Cole. It’s not like I’m going to make a complaint to HR.”
“OK. Well, I’m not sure the way we used to is going to work anymore.”
“We can do it any way you want.” Noah stands, sets down the wineglass he just emptied in one long swallow. “Within limits,” he says. Then he steps through the sliding door into the living room.
“I guess no one’s eating lunch, then,” Cole says to himself, then he sets his fork down and his napkin on his chair and gets to his feet.
At the base of the stairs, Cole finds Noah’s crumpled polo shirt. At the top, his beige jeans. And by the time Cole enters the bedroom, Noah is naked and on all fours atop the bedspread, head bowed, a human coffee table of muscle and unexpected submission. He probably thinks Cole’s special box of toys—handcuffs, restraints, and other implements that were once the only things capable of reducing him to wordless and thoughtless surrender in the arms of another—is still tucked under the bed. But it isn’t. Cole hasn’t used those things in forever. Because he wasn’t lying. Something in his desire had shifted. Maybe it’s evolved or grown, or maybe those words for it are too charged with value. Maybe killing a man has given him a taste for exerting power in the bedroom.
All he knows is that he doesn’t want to be tied up, and he doesn’t want Noah tied up. He wants Noah to look into his eyes, and that’s what he does now as Cole rolls him onto his back atop the still fully made bed with its metallic-silver bedspread and night tables that look like steel cubes. His home is such a nest of sharp angles that at present Noah, for all his hard muscle and battle scars, seems like the softest thing in it. There’s more stubble across Noah’s chest than in years past, but all the traces of old combat wounds Cole used to caress and gently nibble are still there in flowery patterns along his waist and stomach.
Noah sits up, reaches for the hem of Cole’s shirt. Every graze of his fingers against Cole’s stomach sends gooseflesh racing up his chest. But untucking Cole’s shirt causes him to break eye contact, which is the last thing Cole wants. He cups Noah’s chin, raises it until they’re looking at each other again.
“I wish I knew who you really were,” he says.
“You do,” Noah says. “You just haven’t accepted it yet.”
Then he’s pulling him to the bed, and in another few minutes Cole is naked and on his back beneath the man’s delicious, welcome weight, absorbing the studied hunger of his kisses, and too late, he realizes he’s whispering Noah’s former name, the name he went by the last time he was inside more than just Cole’s mind.
44
Cambria, California
Luke suggested some recovery time at a cabin in the mountains, and as much as seclusion sounded tempting, Charlotte knew it was the last thing she needed. She needed people, life, the bright energy of a world where the Bannings and the Paynes were wolves stalking the forest shadows but the sidewalks were full of the kind of decent human being who stops to let others pass or dodges in front of a stroller with a hand up in case an oncoming car didn’t see it.
So they settled on Cambria, a charming seafront village about an hour’s drive south from their home in Altamira.
In Cambria, the shore was open and welcoming, nothing like Altamira’s little crescent of beach, sandwiched between soaring cliffs and accessed only by a steep and treacherous staircase. In Cambria, wooden walkways traversed the crowns of low oceanfront bluffs, and when fog didn’t shroud the coast—which was often, no matter the season—there were views for miles, mostly of golden mountains plunging to the sea, dappled with oaks. Hearst Castle sat atop one. When they both realized they’d never been, which seemed absurd given they’d grown up so near to it, they booked tickets. But as soon as they laid eyes on the bus they would have had to take up the mountain, they both went very still. Luke looked to Charley and Charley just shook her head. Its long, boxy shape, its giant hissing tires, the diesel fumes wafting from its tailpipe, invoked too many memories all at once. And so they lingered in the large gift shop, sat for a while outside the snack bar, watched the silly movie with all its dramatic reenactments from the life of William Randolph Hearst, and made jokes under their breath about whether a similar hagiography would ever be made about Cole Graydon or his late father.
They watched life. Children evading parents, only to be caught and lifted skyward in their mother or father’s arms, giggling hysterically or wailing in protest or doing all the things that children do without regret. Then they drove south to Morro Bay, walked along the seafood restaurant–lined Embarcadero and out to the giant haystack rock that sits at the entrance to the harbor like an ancient monolithic temple from a lost religion. They smiled and nodded at the people they passed—tourist couples, families, college students from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo who’d made the short drive to the coast to ride some waves with their surfboards.
And occasionally as she and Luke sat quietly on benches and at outdoor tables at restaurants, she thought, We are strangers here. We have seen more darkness than anyone else on this sidewalk or at this restaurant or possibly in this tiny, quaint town, and that means we don’t belong. But it was a lie. They belonged. How could she bring light to the darkness if she cut herself off from light altogether? And who’s to know what seas of darkness lay in any stranger’s memories? How many war veterans had she passed on the street in her lifetime who were locked in a near constant struggle with their painful memories of combat? How many criminals whose crimes wer
e still undiscovered?
This is who I fight for, she reminded herself. Not just the woman traveling alone. I fight for the right of a family to remain unbroken by the perversions of a human monster. I fight for the ones who stay vulnerable by risking connections with other humans, and so I can never withdraw from them again, no matter how tempting.
Their bed-and-breakfast is one of many that line Moonstone Beach. They are on the second floor, and each night they’ve opened the double doors to let the cool ocean air blow through their cozy little room. Tonight is no different, with the exception that they’ve made love for the first time since leaving Texas. They’d made the agreement before the operation started that their first time after they got back she’d have to initiate. And something about the sight of Luke shaving in the mirror ignited a hungry urge. She thinks it was the combination of the boyish furrow in his brow as he studied his reflection and the slow military precision with which he drew the razor across his shaving cream–covered jaw. It wasn’t the first time she’d seen him do this. Luke shaved as if the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel were at stake in his every razor stroke. Most nights it made her laugh, but tonight it was something else. It was familiar. Something from before that had easily survived all they’d been through. Cyrus Mattingly’s truck, Marjorie’s last wheezing breath, her unexpected reunion with Noah. Something as untouched by those things as the happy children they’d spotted on the street outside Linn’s Café that day.
She’d slid up behind him, crossing her arms over his chest, surprising him into sudden stillness. Then she grabbed the nearest rag and used it to wipe the remaining shaving cream from his face before pulling him to the bed. It wasn’t the right moment for his best alpha routine, not after the hours of confinement she’d recently suffered. He realized this as she mounted him, taking him inside. As she pressed their foreheads together, he gripped her waist firmly and forcefully, his eyes working to meet hers as he let her maintain control. By the time she finished, he’d risen to a seated position, his arms wrapped around her. When the sound of her release tore from her in a cathartic, unguarded cry, she felt something beyond the physical unclench.
Blood Victory: A Burning Girl Thriller (The Burning Girl) Page 28
