by CD Reiss
One-Mississippi-two-Mississippi-three-Mississippi.
I’m not going to say a damn thing. Inside, I’m smiling from ear to ear. I can see his discomfort in the way he looks around the room and in the way he strokes my fingers.
Four-Mississippi.
“You’ve gotten a bit under my skin, Agent Grinstead. If that surprises you, imagine how I feel. There aren’t many people who can do that. And certainly not any women I’ve had before. But there’s something about you. Maybe it’s the artful dodger in you. Maybe it’s that badge. Could be the way you threw me against my car. I don’t pretend to know, but I can promise you…”
He presses his lips between his teeth as if he’s stopping himself from saying more. He’s so sexy when he does that. The scruffy hairs around his lips stand up like porcupine spines when his skin bends to the new curve. He was so cocky that first day in the interrogation room. I can’t believe this is the same man.
“I can promise you that no matter what happens, I’ll never leave you willingly.” He shakes his head once as if knocking a pinball in place, then stands and holds his hand out to me. “Let me get you home. You must be tired.”
I am tired, but I’m also alive and exhilarated. I want to find out more about this man, who he is, and what I’ll find when I peel away the next layer. I don’t think I’ll ever run out of layers. I don’t think there are a limited number of facets to the diamond of Keaton Bridge.
45
keaton
I’ve stripped her down and laid her on her bed. She already has things folded, piled, packed. Her room has the look of something completely lived in, with its knick-knacks and attention to detail, but the dresser is moved a little away from the wall and the wardrobe’s been half emptied.
But my focal point is her, naked on her stomach, toes pointed, the arches of her feet calloused and hard and facing the ceiling. Her eyes are closed, and her hair is splayed across the sheets. I haven’t fucked her yet. First, I want her to feel as safe as I don’t feel. I run my hands from her shoulders to her lower back, pressing against the skin and releasing tension from the muscles. She groans in release.
“I’m going to drive you to and from work for the next few weeks,” I say.
“You don’t have to do that,” she grumbles sleepily.
“I know.”
The fact is, I’m lying. I do need to do that. I need to make sure she’s safe. I need to see her walk in and out of her office. If she leaves during the day, she’ll be with other agents. I can’t do more than this. Not without alarming her.
“I want to,” I say, running my hands along the backs of her thighs. She’s warm between them, and soft everywhere.
“Thank you for coming to the hospital.” Her voice is barely a breath. She didn’t sleep at all the night before.
“I will always try to be there if you need me.” Again, I’m a liar. I’m voicing my desire, not my reality.
“I’ll always need you.”
She’s killing me. Her dependence is a sugar-coated knife twisting and twisting and twisting, spooling my guts around it.
I slide my hand between her thighs. Her skin and muscle yield under me when I slide toward her core. When I touch her, she groans, already wet for me.
“Hush, my love.”
She makes a satisfied hum, opening her eyes for just a second. I pull her ankles apart, not more than enough to give me access to her. I don’t want her to be uncomfortable. Not this time.
“Just stay still and relax,” I say. “Let me take care of you. Just for now.”
Gently, I touch her and stroke in a way that isn’t aggressive or forceful, but soothing. With my other hand, I hold her down between her shoulders, giving her something to push against. When she comes, her toes curl and her knees bend. She groans from deep in her throat.
I get my pants off, then her eyes flicker open, a smile playing across her lips.
“Keep smiling. I’m going to fuck you right to sleep.”
I only pick her hips up as much as I need to angle myself inside her. I move slowly and deliberately, wedging my arms under her and holding her tight. I don’t want to jar her out of her stupor. I don’t want her to worry about her grandmother or us. I want to surround her with my love.
She grips the sheets, and when she’s close, I come inside her. I want to fill her with everything I have. I want to mark myself on her soul.
I fall on top of her and let my weight press against her body. She can’t see my face, and I’m grateful. Because she would see regret and loss.
I let her sleep, but I can’t fall into it. My deception keeps me up.
46
cassie
When I put in for two weeks to move, and I got it, I figured the timing was tight but I could manage. Now, with Nana in the hospital, I’m not sure if I have enough time to make sure she’s well enough to even go back to the house we already live in.
I enter her hospital room and drop the toiletry kit she asked for on the table next to her, bending over and kissing her cheek. Her skin is warm under my lips. She’s getting better.
“It’s about time you showed up,” Nana says, taking the puzzle from me. It’s an idyllic seaside scene with palm trees and a beach chair. She’s never interested in the picture as much as the process, but now I’m realizing I just handed her a box of California.
She hands the box back to me, and I slit the tape that holds the top to the bottom. She looks better, she sounds better. I’ll be stunned if she dies in a year or ten.
“I had to find one you hadn’t done already.” I hand the box back to her. It’s only a hundred pieces, but it’s better than the twenty-piece My Little Pony puzzle she’s been taking apart and redoing for two days.
“When are we leaving?” She pokes through the box for the edges.
“You have a week of inpatient physical therapy, and then—”
“They have physical therapists in San Francisco, don’t they?”
“I don’t think you should move,” I blurt. “I don’t think it’s safe for you.”
Her fingers hesitate for a moment in the soup of puzzle pieces, then continue as if nothing important has been said. Anyone who ever said that a hospital stay dims the mind of an elderly person never met my grandmother.
“Thank God,” she says. “I can turn your room into the sewing room.”
The fact that she hasn’t sewn a god damn thing in years notwithstanding, she has never shown an interest in my bedroom before.
“You’re not getting rid of me that easily.”
“I’ll put a guest bed in there. I’ll make it a queen so you can invite that nice boy over.”
“I’m staying. I can get a promotion another time.”
She pushes the puzzle box away to the other edge of the tray. It’s only two inches, but the statement is clear. “You will do no such thing, young lady.”
“I am a grown woman and I can decide what’s important to me. You are the only family I have. I’m not leaving you alone, I’m not moving a thousand miles away, and I am most certainly not going to put your life in danger by taking you with me.”
“How is my life in danger?”
“You can’t move with a broken hip. It’s bad for you.”
“Then you can just move the hell out of my house.”
“It’s my house! Give me a break.”
She jerks the puzzle back, sending pieces flying. I pick them up off the blanket and put them into the box, flicking an edge piece onto the tray.
“You know,” she says, “you’re the first one of us who had a chance to be something.”
“I am something. I’m your granddaughter.”
“That’s very sweet, but stupid. You know I’m not that old. And I’m not some crotchety old biddy that can’t get around.”
“I know, I—”
“Just go. I’ll meet you there.” She deliberately picks a piece out of the box and lays it flat. Tapping it twice. “You missed an edge.”
I know
my grandmother. My mother didn’t come from nowhere, and I inherited a bunch of genes from the both of them. She’s manipulating me. She’s reverse engineering the whole argument to get me to leave her alone. Or she has a point. I have no way of knowing. She’s too good at this.
“I don’t want to leave you.” I have more to say, but they’re only illustrations of those six words. “I was fourteen when you took me in. You were supposed to have a life then. All you did was make sure that I was taken care of. I didn’t make the same mistakes that you made and that my mother made, my great-grandmother made. Why did you have such faith in me? Why did you love me so much?”
She rests her hands on the tray, covering a bunch of pieces we laid out. “I always knew you were special. I knew you could do anything you wanted if you just had someone to love you and teach you the right way. When I got you, I knew I could make you the best thing that ever happened to me. And you are. I’m so proud of you. So proud to know you. If you stay here because I fell like a fucking fool, you’re going to ruin all of that. So go for me. Get the hell out of here for me.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose, hoping she can’t tell that I’m crying. But she’s way too sharp for my pathetic obfuscations.
“Can you reach that little makeup kit for me?” It’s the one I brought from home for her. When I pick it up, she says, “Open it.”
I unzip it. Inside is a collection of old powders, blushes, eyeshadow from the 1980s. And a blue velvet box.
She points at the box. “Open that.”
I snap it open and inside is a diamond solitaire. “Nana! How did you get this?”
“You mean with the Fisher-Price credit card you gave me?” She raises an eyebrow. I’m starting to think that breaking her hip has actually made her smarter. “That there is a gift from a man named Jack. He was okay. Or I thought so. When your mom went to prison and I told him I was gonna raise you, he gave me that ring. He said he’d marry me but he didn’t want any children. Can you believe that? I told him to take that ring and shove it up his ass.”
My jaw drops. “Wait. You could have gotten married? But you took me in instead?”
“Nothing like a crisis for a man to show his true colors. Mark my words, once he gave me that ring, he showed me who he really was. Being married is not worth that much. In any case…” She waved as if the whole thing is water under the bridge. “He told me to keep it, so I did. I kept it for you, so you wouldn’t have to wait for a man to get one.”
It has to be a carat and a quarter. What kind of man tells a woman to keep a ring that big?
A rich man. A man who could have made her very comfortable. A man who didn’t want to take in a stray.
“Thank you. For everything.”
“Might want to see if that nice British guy wants to give you one of his own before you start wearing it around.”
I slowly close the box and cocoon it in my palms, one on top of the other, as if it is a powerful talisman.
Keaton is a mysterious and probably dangerous person. I haven’t given much thought to him wanting to spend his life with me. It’s too soon and there’s too much going on, but for the first time, I allow myself to hear her suggestion.
I want him. I want him now, and I want him in twenty years. I want to know all of his mysteries and peel back the danger, the sharp edges, the puzzles, until I find the raw vulnerable place that makes him who he is. I know it’s there, and I know I’m going to love it.
“Can we make a deal?”
She’s poking through the box again. She’s a real piece of work. My mother was more like her than I ever understood. My grandmother conned me into being my best self when I was on the path to becoming someone completely different.
“I will go to San Francisco without you. But as soon as you heal, I’m coming to get you.”
“We’ll see.”
“We will, Nana. We sure will.”
47
cassie
Two weeks off work isn’t actually two weeks off work, apparently. Not when there are dossiers on the desk.
I let him drive me to work because I like him. I like making him happy, and he’s a nice guy to be around in the morning. He cooked me breakfast, washed my hair, took care of me in a way that is surprising, comforting, and delicious. I’m pretty confident that whatever happens with my new job, we’ll figure it out. No one’s proving a damn thing against him, and look, he’s a legitimate businessman. Anyone can see that. I practically whistle my way into Orlando’s office.
“Good morning, sir,” I say. “I heard the dossiers came in.”
“Live cases and assets.” He hands me a thick accordion file. “They’re going to expect you to hit the ground running as soon as you get there. I told them you can do undercover work.”
“I won’t make a liar out of you.”
“I know you won’t.” He smiles and pats my shoulder.
I take the dossiers to the viewing room. They’re on paper, which seems counterintuitive for the Cyber Crime unit, but there’s nothing more secure than pencil and paper. I leave my phone at the guard station outside the door and go in, making myself comfortable at the empty desk.
The first surprising thing I find in the dossiers is that Keyser Kaos is two people. The first folder is for Keyser, who’s a tall man with a round face and little glasses. He dresses as if he’s seventy-five, but he’s probably not older than thirty. Romanian. I memorize the rest of his stats and the particulars of the photographs of him.
The next dossier belongs to Kaos. There’s much less known about him. His general age, fifties or so. Home country is Romania again. He claims to be a doctor, but it’s never been proven. The only photograph is from behind. There’s something surprisingly familiar about his posture, but it’s hard to say.
The next surprise shouldn’t have been a surprise. I should’ve seen it coming like a high-speed train at the end of the tunnel. Or an anvil falling from the fifth floor, set to drop on my head exactly as I passed underneath.
The presence of Keaton’s dossier should have been cartoonishly obvious to me, but when I open it and see his face, I almost want to throw up. Looking straight at me with desaturated eyes and a mouth that accuses me of willful blindness, he freezes me. It’s not a mug shot, but that doesn’t matter. The notes swim. The details aren’t sentences; they’re meaningless boxes and dots. A code I can decipher if I can just push through this wall of panic. My instincts scream so loud, I can’t hear myself think.
I shut the folder, gripping the edges as if I want to tear it in two.
I should want this. I should read it from cover to cover to find out who he is. Every lie he ever told me is right there, and every tiny truth might be exposed.
But it’s not what I want. I don’t want the truth. I want reality. Reality is his touch. Reality is his voice. Reality is him showing up when I needed him. Reality is my trust in him.
What is this folder full of paper going to tell me about Keaton Bridge, or whatever his name is, that I need to know?
I shift it aside and go through the last two dossiers. Sure, sure, sure. Catch this guy, he’s done terrible things. And this lady, she’s stolen more money than I’ll see in my lifetime. And what about Keaton? Where does this money come from? Who can afford a penthouse at the Bellagio in Las Vegas? Or to invest in a new kind of computing? Can’t be cheap. What did I sign on for? What am I asking of myself?
As I put the folders back into the accordion and figure-eight the string to close it, I know I can be told all the truths, I can have all the facts, but I also know that what I have with Keaton is real. I love him, and it’s real.
I will never trade reality for ambition. Ever.
48
keaton
I left Cassie in hospital with her grandmother to make a quick visit to the factory. Taylor’s about to leave the office. I push him back in and slam the door behind me.
“What the hell, Keaton?” He takes half a step back, which gives me enough room to get by him.
“Sit.”
“I have a plane to catch.”
“It’s a private plane. It’ll wait.”
“Harper’s meeting me at the airport in San Jose. I don’t like making her wait.”
“I’m sure she’ll be devastated, mate.” I snap the chair around and wheel it toward him. “Or she’s an adult and she’ll manage.”
He’s going to say something, some little clever quip that’ll make me want to punch him in the face. I know it. I’m girded for it. But instead, he sucks his cheeks, glances out the window, and shuts his mouth.
“You almost gave up everything for Harper,” I say. “Why?”
Taylor smiles a little bit, shaking his head, giving up the fight over the next ten minutes. “I can’t believe it took you this long to ask me that.” He throws himself into the chair as if he’s staking his claim on it.
“I figured it was your business.”
“You’re a strange fucking guy, you know that?”
I guess I do know that.
“The whole thing that happened with us? QI4? She broke me. I mean, she really did a job on me. And I was pissed off, but then she changed me. I saw things differently. And… I’m not trying to be a pussy, but I couldn’t go on doing things the same way once I got to know her. Once she showed me who I really was and who I could be… a better guy. Okay, I’m a pussy. But I could be who I always wanted to be, all right? I could be even better with her. It really wasn’t too much of a choice. Can I go, asshole?”
“Are you saying she made you a better man? You’re a prat.”
“I prefer it when you call me a cunt.”
I can’t help but laugh at him. “You know a lot of things about me. More than anyone else, but you don’t know it all.”
“I had a feeling.”
“I’m not who I always said I was, but you were always a friend to me anyway. So I’m going to tell you something else because you really are a cunt.”