For a second Liam just stood there, his arms at his sides. He didn’t know what to do, what to say.
“I have to go,” Mai said. “So can we just get this over with?”
He pulled her into his arms, crushing her against him, fighting the waves of emotion that kept rising again and again, threatening to knock him down. And if he went down, he was afraid he would never get up again. “Just because I didn’t say it, Mai,” he whispered in her ear, “couldn’t say it, doesn’t mean I don’t feel it.”
She pulled back a little, looking into his eyes. “It’s not about the words, Liam. It’s about what’s here.” She laid her hand on his chest, over his heart. “And I know what’s here.”
And then she kissed him. It was the sweetest kiss; she barely brushed her lips to his. “I’ll never forget you,” she whispered.
And then she was gone.
Liam stood on the curb and watched Fia drive away, fingering the single pink diamond in his pocket. It would be his keepsake, to remind him of Mai, of how she made him feel.
When the tail lights had faded, Kaleigh stepped out of the shadows.
“So now what?” he said.
“What now?” the teen repeated. “Now you suck it up and you go back to work, and you fight the good fight.”
He stared at her in the darkness. “Back to work?”
“Peigi just texted me. High Council’s in session tonight. You’ve been cleared in the Gaudet case. You’ll get your new assignment in a day or two. And she convinced them that the mess in the park today wasn’t your fault. I think Fia must have put in a good word for you.”
Liam was stunned. “I’m cleared of the Gaudet case? But how can that be? I . . . I was never interviewed.”
She smiled mischievously. “Actually, you were. No one ever questioned your ability to do the job, Liam, just your emotional well-being.”
“No, you’re mistaken.” He shook his head, still confused. His arm ached from the gunshot graze Mai had bandaged. His head ached. It was spinning. “No one interviewed me.”
“I did.” This time her smile was smug. “Several times, in fact. Those little chats we had.” She waggled her finger, pointing at herself, then him, then herself again. “Interviews. Once the report is typed up, you’re welcome to see it. Just check with the Council secretary.”
“I’ll be damned,” he swore. He studied her again, but with new eyes. This was a big deal for someone her age, being put in charge of an internal investigation. “But you never asked me what happened that night. What I did.”
“I already had the report from the scene. I was just jerking your chain on the whole cannibalism thing.” She punched his arm playfully.
Then her face changed and he was no longer looking into the eyes of a teenager, but the eyes of a woman. A wisewoman. “I knew what you did. I saw the photos.” She rested her hand on the same arm she’d just punched. “Needless to say, Liam, you can’t do that again. We don’t mutilate bodies. Not even the bodies of men like the Gaudets. They’re still God’s creatures, made in His image.”
He hung his head. “I’ve waited for this for weeks, and now . . .” He looked up again, thinking of Mai. “I don’t know if I can still do it.”
“Sure you can. Because you might have lost the girl”—she lifted up on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek—“but you found your heart again.”
Liam was still smiling when he entered his empty, dark apartment. And as he made a bowl of Rice Krispies, he wondered if it was time he got a dog.
KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by
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Copyright © 2011 by Colleen Faulkner
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ISBN: 978-0-7582-6788-7
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