He looked at it, confused, but took it without question or complaint. “Hello? Oh,” he said, softly, clearing his throat. “Sir, yes, good to speak to you too…Yes, I know; I’m still not sure about the timing…Of course. I’ll talk to you soon.”
He said good night and ended the call just as the taxi pulled up to his building. I held my tongue all the way up to his apartment. For some reason I couldn’t ask questions whose answers I feared in a stairwell. As soon as we were through the door, I blurted, “What was that about?” My voice sounded thin and high to me.
Jack dropped his bag, flicked through his mail, and rooted around for take-out menus, seemingly oblivious to my angst. “When we met in October, you know, when we had drinks so you could talk with your aunt? The senator talked to me about the Perceptum Council internship. The position is…available. Okay,” he said, holding up three papers like a fan, “sushi, sushi, or—why do you look so freaked out?”
I opened my mouth to answer and then snapped it shut. I’d told so many secrets today it was easy to forget about all the ones I couldn’t. What could I actually say that would make sense? “It’s just, you know, the Council.” I waved my hand like this should be obvious. “And he’s—Senator Astor—he’s my…ex’s uncle. It’s weird, is all. For me. It’s just…weird. I tried to tell you before.”
Jack plopped down onto the couch next to me and pulled the piece of hair I’d been playing with out of my hand. “Okay. Well, now it’s weird for me too.”
“It is?”
He nodded solemnly. “I’ve seen this nephew of his and if what I once overheard the girls in my discussion groups saying about him is true, I leave a lot to desire in comparison.”
Oh, the wonderful restorative properties of laughter. It bubbled up and over without my permission. “You know they talk the same way about you when you’re not around, right?”
“Do they now?” His crooked smile slid into place and he leaned closer. “Did you?”
“Absolutely.”
“Good.” His lips were so close I could feel the puff of the word against mine, but he didn’t kiss me. He leaned back, and I let out a sigh of air. “Now,” he said, grinning like the devil, “sushi?”
After dinner, we relaxed on the couch, listening to music, while I read a book and Jack graded papers. My head rested in his lap and he played, absently, with my hair. “Can I ask you something?” he said.
“Sure.”
“Why are you so afraid of the Perceptum?” My fingers froze on the pages, and I lowered the book to my chest before I dropped it. “See,” he said. “You tense up every time I mention it.”
“They want me to kill people,” I said, giving my answer as much truth as I possibly could. “That’s enough to make anyone tense. And now they want you to work for them, too.”
“Don’t you believe in their mission?”
Did I? I didn’t know. But for sure I didn’t believe in their leader. “I don’t believe in my part in it.”
“Do you think there’s another way?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted.
“We could do it,” he said softly. “Together. I could help you.” I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing. I didn’t know what to feel either. It was either the sweetest or most terrifying thing anyone had ever said to me. “Okay,” he said. “I guess…just think about it.”
I threw a hand up over my eyes. I didn’t want to tell him how, since talking with Jill, I’d been thinking about it. “Will you leave?” I whispered. Would Daniel Astor take Jack from me too?
Jack pulled the hand away and looked down at me. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Oh,” I said, and he kissed my nose.
“You’re not getting rid of me yet.”
I smiled up at him and he kissed my hand before setting it back over my eyes. With a chuckle, I picked up my book, but the words wouldn’t come into focus. My brain was in a million places: with Senator Astor in the shooting range, staring down a gun; at my aunt’s apartment with Jill, and her sweet voice saying who’ll protect them?; with Jack, in the studio, and the way he’d accepted me. Thinking about our afternoon reminded me of something.
“Can I ask you something?” I said, and his eyes flicked down to meet mine.
“Do you want to show me what you erased from my memory again?”
I bumped his stomach with my head. “What did you mean you’d probably be a hero?”
“What?”
“If I was pregnant, you said—”
“Oh.” This flash of—something flew across his face. Guilt? No, of course not. He shook his head and smiled. “Nothing. I just—my mom would probably throw a party. My grandfather too, if it was a boy.”
“You’re only twenty-three!” Not to mention how not-old I was. My aunt was about to have a baby.
“When it comes to bearing grandchildren, the earlier and more often the better. When they know you, they’d be even more excited about it.”
“Even when they know you’re dating the grim reaper?” I said, flushing red.
Jack touched my neck, his fingers a cool flash against the heat that had bloomed there. “Even then.” He scooped me upright so he could kiss the spot he’d just touched. I shivered. “You said I didn’t really know you, but I do. I know the person you are here.” Feather light fingers touched approximately the spot where my heart was, then moved to my temple. “And here, and she’s incredible. I don’t deserve her. You’re special, Lainey,” he finished, his lips just brushing my ear. “And it has nothing to do with your gifts. Don’t forget that.”
He kissed me then, slow and deliberate, the kind of kiss that made me forget about anything besides the feel of his lips, his tongue, his hands slipping beneath the hem of my shirt, cool then warm against the sensitive skin at my waist. His skin on mine was almost as effective as my memory erasing. Before long, I forgot how my clothes, and his clothes, ended up on the floor and all I did was feel.
LATER, I HEARD my phone buzzing from the depths of my bag. Again. I’d heard it a few times before but ignored it all. Guilt got the better of me, and I got up to fish it out. Holy shit! Twenty missed calls? It started buzzing again while I stared at it stupidly. Amy.
“Something up?” Jack asked, an unusual touch of concern in his voice, and I answered the call.
“Hello?”
“Jesus Christ, Lainey!” Amy shouted. “Where the hell have you been? Are you on your way there?!”
“Where?” I asked. I didn’t understand the hysteria in Amy’s voice. “I’m at Jack’s. Sorry I didn’t—”
“Jesus Christ!” she repeated. “Do you even know?” She plowed right through anything I might have said. “You don’t want to take my calls anymore, fine. But turn on the fucking TV!” And then she hung up.
Jack was standing now as I stared at my phone again, a feeling like frigid fingers tickling down my spine. “What’s going on? Was she shouting?”
“I—I don’t know.” My voice sounded far away to my ears. Most of the missed calls were from Amy, and some from numbers I didn’t know. “She said to turn on the TV.”
“Okay,” Jack said, perplexed but accommodating. He clicked on a news channel and had just enough time to catch me when I started to scream.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Carter
Lights, camera, action. Finally. So far attending the ballet gala had felt exactly like Northbrook’s Winter Ball, right down to my waiting around in a tuxedo, reading a book and trying not to get wrinkly. Alexis had insisted we get picked up at her dorm, because she had classes and it was closer to her salon, she’d claimed, but I knew it was so everyone could see us.
The sleek, black limo pulled to the curb, looking imposing and very, very expensive. Just like Uncle Dan, who stepped out to hold the door himself.
“Alexis, my dear, you’re an absolute vision,” he said, kissing her cheek before handing her into the car. He inspected me, too, brushing non-existent lint off my shoulders.
&n
bsp; “Well?” Maybe I was an asshole, but I knew I looked good.
“Sam does fine work,” he replied, grinning. He clapped a hand on my back. “Remember to stay close to us tonight, all right? Save Manny some stress.” He’d said the same thing to me this afternoon, when they’d dropped me off. While I endured a final fitting, Uncle Dan had gone with Manny and John to meet with the private security covering the event.
“We’ll be right behind you,” I promised and ducked into the limo. “Oh,” Tessa gasped.
“Oh, my.” She put a knuckle to her lips and I prayed she wouldn’t cry. “You look—both of you. Just beautiful. Alexis, that dress.”
Lex leaned forward to kiss her cheek. The amazing thing about Tessa was how she never even flinched. “Thank you!” She wore this dress of tulle and satin that hugged her like a cocoon. It was a strange and magnificent combination of green and gold that sounded fancier when she called it oro verde. “Do you like it? It’s vintage,” she added.
At that, finally, Tess’s mask cracked. A look like accidentally swallowing a too-large piece of ice flashed across her face. She should rightfully have hated Alexis, and I wondered if Lainey had never told her the things that happened. But then, if not for Lainey, Alexis wouldn’t be the one wearing a vintage dress and getting into this limo with me. So maybe Tess understood.
“It was made for you.” Tessa’s smooth smile slid back into place. All her time with Uncle was paying off. “And you.” She turned to me, eyes alight with the genuine affection that forever made my heart ache.
“This was made for me,” I said, running a finger over the smooth lapel, and she laughed.
“I was going to say you were made for formal wear. I’m so glad you’re with us tonight.” She tried to reach forward to squeeze my hand, but fell back with an oof. She patted her rapidly growing bump. “Between baby and this dress, I can’t be doing that!”
“Relax while you still have the chance,” Uncle Dan said. I wasn’t sure if he meant before we got there, or before the baby came.
“I feel like I’ve been in this car forever!” Tessa fanned her face as we herked and jerked toward the event. If only Uncle Dan were president already, we’d have had a police escort to speed up the trip. “Funny how quickly you forget the awful things about home—like the traffic—when you move away for a few years.”
“How long is it now?” Alexis asked. She sipped the champagne she’d found chilling next to her seat, another thing just like the Winter Ball. Except her glass was real crystal and the vintage was fine. “Until the baby, I mean.”
Tessa smoothed her hand over her bump again. “Oh, about 56 days, but who’s counting, right?” We all laughed. “So around eight weeks,” she said, “give or take. The home stretch. My doctor thinks I might go a little early.”
“Is that bad?” Alexis asked.
“Not as far as I’m concerned!” Tessa said. “I look forward to being able to eat again. Anything I manage to keep down goes straight to the little guy.” She was joking, but she did look thin. Her arms were skinnier than I remembered them. Pregnant women were supposed to gain weight, I thought.
Before I could ask a probably stupid question, the divider slid down and John’s voice drifted through. “All right, folks. Rolling up to the show at last. One more turn and it’s go time.”
Spotlights drifted back and forth across the darkening sky, a sure indication we were finally close. Idling limos crammed the side streets, their drivers clustered in groups, enjoying the warm night. And then we turned the corner and the limo slid to a halt. Manny opened our door with a flourish.
“About time,” I heard him quip as my uncle led Tessa into the melee.
Stepping out of the limo was the closest I’d ever felt to a celebrity. I’d been on TV, was occasionally recognized in public, but that was nothing. Dozens of spotlights glanced off the imposing white stone building hosting this year’s jazz-themed event, creating peek-a-boo shadows with the thick columns that lined the front. Cameras popped and flashed. Voices shouted, sometimes even my name.
The red carpet, plusher than I expected, was dotted with men in black and women in the entire spectrum of colors, looking disconcertingly like pretty flowers floating up a river of blood. Jazz musicians drifted through the crowd, chased by dancers in costume, doing ballet versions of Foxtrots or Charlestons, or some other dances I had no idea the names of. I turned and extended my hand to help Lex out of the limo. It felt gentlemanly, and looked good for those watching.
The atmosphere was unbelievable, the kind of thing Lex was born to attend but usually made me feel like a fraud. But not tonight. I looked the part, and I felt it. Maybe Sam was right, and the clothes made the man. Maybe I was still riding the adrenaline of the shooting range. Hell, maybe I was just hungry and had become delusional. Whatever it was, it felt good. Like good things could happen. I breathed it in and let it carry me forward.
Up ahead, Uncle had one hand free for shaking and one on Tessa’s waist, guiding her along as she smiled and waved. She stood out, in a dress red as a raspberry that hugged her pregnant belly, like a cupcake or a Christmas present. I made sure to stay only a few feet away, as promised. Martin was here too, just in front of them, his smile as bright as the spotlights.
Uncle Dan caught my eye and inclined his chin as if to say I told you you’d enjoy this. I nodded back, because he was right. I was. I put my arm around Alexis’s shoulder and stopped, taking it all in. I truly couldn’t believe I was here.
And then I blinked and it all changed.
RAT TAT TAT.
For one moment, silence fell on the crowd like a blanket smothering flames. It could almost have been applause, or part of the music. But I knew the sound of a gun.
I’d fired one just like it that afternoon.
RAT TAT TAT RAT TAT TAT
Shots echoed over the ground.
I blinked again and the entire world erupted into screaming. Instinctively, I dove on top of Alexis. Beneath me, she screamed, adding her voice to the other screams filling the night. Feet pounded in every direction, shaking the ground.
“STAY DOWN!” John shouted as he sprinted past us. The lucky MP5 was already in his hands.
“It’s okay,” I could hear myself repeating to Lex, which was ridiculous, because we could be dead at any moment. My body screamed at me to do something, but I couldn’t leave her.
I raised my head until I could see Uncle Dan and Tessa buried under someone’s broad shoulders. The edge of Tessa’s red dress peeked from the bottom of the pile and flapped in the breeze of rushing feet. Just past them was Martin, his face contorted in pain. Oh, God.
Manny stood over them, waving his hands toward the side of the building. It was yards away, but I could just make out someone holding up a machine gun, ready to shoot again or—
BANG BANG Bang Bang Bang Bang Bang
Guns fired, closer now, and I hugged Alexis as tight as I could, praying her screams wouldn’t be the last thing I ever heard.
And then it was done. The noise changed, the running feet shifted directions. Tangles of limbs and chiffon unfurled into people. A few seconds from the first shots until now. That was it.
“GO, GO!” Manny was shouting. “LIMO, NOW!”
I hauled Alexis to her feet but I couldn’t move, not until I saw that my uncle was okay. John and the other agent were pulling him up, practically carrying him off Tessa and back the way we’d come. Someone was helping Martin stand, thank God. One arm was clutched to his to his chest.
People with cameras and professionally concerned voices pressed around us. Alexis tugged me toward the cars screaming back up to the curb.
“Carter, c’mon! Please!” she pleaded.
But I still couldn’t move.
Because Tessa was still on the ground. She was screaming. Screaming and screaming, a sinister stain darkening the bright red of her dress and pooling around her.
I was wrong. The carpet wasn’t the color of blood at all.
�
��TESSA! NO!” my uncle screamed even as John lifted all six foot five inches of him off the ground and dragged him toward the limo. “NO!” My uncle was still screaming. “This can’t have happened, this wasn’t meant to hap—”
The car door slammed and tires peeled away, louder even than the gunfire. Tessa’s cry rose over the noise and I sprinted to her, shoving through the growing crowd of people.
“TESSA!” I landed hard on my knees next to her.
She looked at me, face the color of a chalk outline and arms clutched to her abdomen. Her breaths were quick rasps.
“The baby,” she gasped out. “Carter, the baby!”
And then she screamed again, gripped by another contraction.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Lainey
Allen Jacob Fernando Astor Espinosa had a name longer than he was and would never have the chance to grow into it. He was buried on a day so clear and beautiful it was painful even to open your eyes.
I stood apart from the others in the cemetery, alone, or almost. My parents’ grave stood before me, looking more cheerful than it had any right to in the bright sun. Fresh flowers surrounded the heavy stone, complementing the soft rose color of the marble. My mother had been so bright and beautiful, Aunt Tessa had once told me, she couldn’t stand the idea of her spending the rest of forever under a drab gray piece of rock. So pink it was. My brother’s stone would be white.
Even with my dark sunglasses, I had to shade my eyes with my hand so I could read their names. Allen, my brother’s namesake, was on the left. My mother was on the right. I wanted to kneel down, to trace the letters, to be closer to them, but I knew if I did that, I wouldn’t have the energy to get back up. And it wouldn’t matter anyway. They weren’t really here, except for their bones and their memory.
“Take care of him, mom,” I whispered, knowing wherever they were, she would. She already was. I’d never spent much time thinking about the afterlife. Before today, I wasn’t sure I even believed in one. But now? How could I not. There had to be something more for my brother than a few measly hours.
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