“I don’t believe it,” I say coldly.
“I know. I was trying to protect you from the truth.”
Protect me. A strange thing to hear coming from this man’s lips—and not a fully welcome one, either. I’m beginning to see why Penelope bristles at the sound of it.
“That didn’t give you the right to shoot me in the back,” I say.
“It wasn’t on purpose, I swear! When you said there was a video camera, I panicked. I knew it would contain footage of me deliberately tampering with the crime scene. I had to get to it before you did, but you wouldn’t listen. I was just going to scare you a little, get you to back down long enough for me to erase it before you saw.”
“That’s one hell of a scare tactic.”
“My finger slipped on the trigger.” Christopher drops his head into his hands with a groan. “I’m a terrible marksman. Guns make me nervous—they always have. It’s why I was so quick to take that deal during our first training exercise together. I wanted so badly to make a good impression on you, to show you I was up to your weight. I didn’t think about how mad you’d get at me for shooting you out of the game before you were ready.”
“How the hell did you manage to get promoted so often if you can’t handle a gun?”
He has the decency to look chagrined. “The associate deputy director dated my mom when I was younger. I know it sounds bad—it is bad—but he knew about my interest in the FBI and offered to give me a leg up. Paid for my education, covered up a stupid mistake I made as a teenager, called in a few favors to get me placed, the whole thing. And when my mom died, he felt so guilty for not being there, he got me a promotion to go along with it.”
It’s difficult to tell a man what you think of him when he talks about his dead mom, so I clamp my mouth shut. It’s a lesson to me, because with silence comes introspection, and with introspection comes my wife’s voice telling me to see what’s right in front of my stubborn, unseeing eyes.
His Ivy League education. His case files wiped of any mention of armed robbery.
“Your ten-month leave,” I say. “Fuck.”
He shrugs. “Yeah. There wasn’t anyone else to take care of her, so I took some time off. Breast cancer.”
“Jesus. I’m sorry, Christopher.”
His shrug this time is less pronounced. “Thank you. It was better, toward the end, for her to go. But it was hard. My dad left when I was young, so she was all I had growing up. She’s all I’ve ever had.”
“I’m sure that’s not true,” I begin, but Christopher stops me short.
“It is true, and we both know it.” He draws a deep breath. “The other guys at the Bureau don’t like me. I may be a joke, but I’m not stupid. I can see how little they respect me when I walk into a room. I notice how they turn their backs and change the topic of conversation. It’s fine. I’m used to it. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been the poor kid, the weird kid, the kid who tries too hard.”
“You do try too hard. You could scale it back a little.”
He offers me a self-deprecating smile. “I could, but how else was I supposed to get you to notice me?”
There’s an odd flattery to that statement, but it’s an uncomfortable flattery. I’ve never asked for that kind of admiration from anyone except my wife, and she’s the one person who refuses to give it to me. “Why do you care so much what I think?”
“You haven’t discovered it by now? I thought for sure you would.”
Despite my reservations, I ask the question he wants to hear. “Discovered what?”
“That your dad who left and my dad who left were one and the same.” He rises from his chair and approaches me with his hand outstretched, and I’m too stunned to stop him. “It’s nice to finally meet you, Grant Emerson. Bet you didn’t know you had a little brother, did you?”
* * *
If anyone had told me that I would spend a full hour talking to Christopher Leon while my beautiful, exhausted wife waited in a dingy hospital hallway, I would have laughed them out of the room. In terms of life priorities, she rests unquestionably at the top. My mom takes up her share, and I’d give my life for my teammates and partners, but other than that, I lead a fairly straightforward existence. Food, work, wife. My needs are few.
But by the time Christopher convinces me of the truth and we sort out the details of our painfully similar childhoods, a large chunk of time has passed. I also wouldn’t admit to a grudging respect for the man I once considered my nemesis, but that’s there, too.
Christopher Leon might be a terrible agent and a shitty shot, but he’s persistent—I’ll give him that much. It takes a strong man to keep pushing after all the crap I’ve loaded on him—and from the sound of it, I have him to thank for keeping Penelope out of a bigger mess than even I could extricate her from.
Which is why, when she finally walks into the room, I’m so relieved to see her intact that my first words are gruff.
“You perfect idiot,” I say as soon as I catch sight of her. “Do you have any idea what could have happened tonight?”
She’s changed out of the dress and into a pair of hospital scrubs on loan from some nurse she cajoled into doing her bidding. She’s trouble, that wife of mine. She could charm gold ore out of an iron mine.
“Oh, lots of things,” she says. “Don’t worry. We accounted for them.”
“Really? Christopher made it sound like he’s the only thing that stood between you and a lifetime behind bars.”
“Christopher was trying to sweet-talk you into not hating him. He can’t be trusted.” Her hesitant smile and hitched breath give her away. “You used his first name. Does this mean you’re not mad at him anymore?”
I hold my hand out to her. “Of all the things we have to talk about, the thing worrying you the most is how I feel about him?”
“He’s your half brother.” She takes my hand but doesn’t draw any nearer. If ever there was a case for the travesties of being bedridden, the inability to whisk your wife into your arms is it. “I know what it’s like to feel alone in this world, to believe no one understands or cares. After all this time, he deserves some family.”
I clasp her fingers even tighter. “Is that what you think? That you’re alone? That no one understands you?”
She turns her head, showing me the neat line of her profile. Even from the side, she’s achingly beautiful, the image of her seared into my soul so deeply, she’s become part of it. “Yes. No. Sometimes. These past few months have been hard for me.”
“Penelope.” I wait for her to turn to me, but she doesn’t, so I sit up—or try to, anyway. That gets her attention, but it’s officious and maternal, the care of my physical body instead of my heart. So I say it again. “Penelope Blue. Look at me.”
She does, and I can see the shimmer of tears in her gaze.
“I tried to make you proud of me,” she says, her voice so small, it cuts through me. “I tried to make it work. I played housewife and pretended gardening was something I cared about. I gave up my old habits and made new, more socially acceptable ones.”
Her lips wobble.
“I hate it.” A tear falls down her cheek, catching on the edge of her lips. “I don’t want to hurt you, but I can’t lie anymore. Not to you, and not to myself.”
This time, I accept the price of knives in my back for pulling my wife into my arms. She comes softly and readily, curled up next to me on this sterile, antiseptic hospital bed I’ve hated since the moment I woke up in it.
All of a sudden, it feels like home.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” she says, her body rocking against mine. “I wanted it to be enough. I wanted you to be enough. But I need there to be more.”
I tighten my hold on her and still her rocking movements, forcing the dual beat of our hearts to compensate for it.
“Is this about our deal?�
�� I ask as soon as I’m able to find my voice. “About my demand that you find something safe and ordinary to do? Because I’ll take that off the table right now. It was a stupid idea to begin with.”
She sniffles against my chest. “It’s not about the deal. I kind of like making deals with you. It’s fun.”
Her words, which would have set my heart soaring a few days ago, only make me grow cold. “Is it because I’m always trying to protect you? I can do better, give you more space. I didn’t realize how condescending it sounds until Christopher said something similar to me.”
“It’s not that, either. I mean, it is annoying, but I’m used to it by now.”
“Then is it me? Is being married to me the problem?” I can barely get the words out, but I force them anyway. “Penelope, you’re everything that matters to me in this world. I mean to stay true to our vows until the day I die, but if your freedom is what you need to be happy, then I give it to you, without question and under any terms you request. I don’t like it—I’m not so selfless I can pretend otherwise—but I’ll do it. For you.”
She doesn’t reply, and my heart cracks a little. She feels so small, so vulnerable, so sad.
“And if that’s not what you want, if what you’d rather have is for me to quit the FBI and start breaking into jewelry stores with you, then we’ll do that instead. Starting tomorrow. Right now, if you want.”
Her soft laughter moves the bed—and me with it.
It’s a promising start, and I bury my face in her neck, breathing the sweet scent of her skin.
“I’m not kidding. I would rob a bank tonight, in this condition, if that’s what it takes to make you happy.”
She shifts to face me, her movements gentle as she navigates around my IV and bandages. “Of course I wouldn’t make you do that. You’d be terrible at it.”
“I beg your pardon. I’d make an excellent bank robber. I know more about security than anyone on your team.”
She buries her head in my chest, pressing her cheek against the beat of my heart. “Yes, but it would eat you up inside. To be bad, to break rules—it would kill you. What kind of a monster would I be if I tried to change you?”
The very worst kind. The kind I was in danger of becoming in my overzealous need to keep this woman safe. But if there’s one thing I’ve realized over the past few days, it’s that holding my wife back is the worst thing I can do to her. You don’t cage a woman like Penelope Blue. She’s at her best when she’s wild and free.
“I care much less for the laws of mankind than I do for your happiness,” I say. “And you know how much I enjoy rules, so that’s saying something.”
“But we’re so fundamentally different, Grant. I want to see our future the way you do, but it’s hard. What happens if I can’t stay out of trouble for very long? What if I keep stealing things? What if this is all I am? I had a revelation, you know. I’m pretty sure this is as good as I get. If you want me in your life—the real me—then that’s something you’re going to have to get used to.”
My intentions to stay calm and in control snap.
“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” I say, so vehemently, I startle her. “Penelope, I know I’ve been overbearing these past few months, and I wish I could go back and change things, but I can’t. Please believe that I look at you and feel nothing but admiration. I always have. You’re brilliant and sneaky and fearless. You can bend the hardest people to your will using nothing more than a smile and a laugh. Every morning, I wake up next to you and feel that my life is infinitely brighter because you’re in it.”
She releases a soft huff of disbelief, her breath warm.
“Oh, you’re still a pain in my ass, no question about that,” I say. “I have no doubt you’ll cause me any number of problems at work, and keeping you and your friends out from behind bars will be a full-time job for the rest of my life.”
That noncompliment is naturally the only one to make it through, so I follow it quickly with, “But all of that is just details. What really matters is that you have more heart than anyone I’ve ever met, and you never hesitate to share it with others. You’re everything to me—good, bad, and all the stuff that exists in between.”
Her breath catches. “You really think that?”
“I know it.” I put a finger under her chin and tilt her head so her clear, glittering gaze meets mine. “I love you, Penelope Blue.”
She pauses to digest this, her thoughts marching neatly across her face. She doesn’t want to believe me, but even she can’t deny a truth that’s so patent, it’s literally holding her in its arms.
“You know, there might be a way we could make this work,” she says slowly. “But I’ll need something from you first.”
“Name it, and it’s yours.” Anything, everything—all she has to do is ask.
A smile begins to form on the edges of her mouth. “I wouldn’t get too excited. A few weeks ago, you told me Christopher wanted to bring me into the office, and I freaked out about it. Do you remember?”
Do I remember? With her warm, pliant body against mine and my heart so near to breaking? Yeah, I remember. I was wearing only a towel at the time, and the way her eyes devoured me, like I was a piece of cake for her delectation, made me feel stronger and more powerful than I’d ever felt before. I wanted to tell her that everything I possess—everything I am—exists for her alone.
“You said he wanted me to come in on a consult. Obviously, we thought it was a trap at the time, but since it turns out he’s not an evil master criminal, he must have been sincere.” She takes a deep breath. “Is that a thing? Consulting for the FBI? Is that something I could do?”
My heart stops. When it picks back up again, I feel more alive than I have in months.
A solution. Another chance. This woman has no idea how much she gives me every day she remains in my life.
“Yes, it’s a thing. We sometimes work with independent contractors who lend us their, uh, expertise in exchange for an inordinate amount of money.”
All the breath leaves her body. “And would you let me do something like that?”
Two weeks ago, I know what my answer to that question would have been. No. Consulting for the FBI means putting her close to the very people who can harm her most, and the last thing I want is to expose her to them.
But—“You don’t need my permission, Penelope. It’s your life. I trust you to do what feels right with it.”
“Okay. Then that’s what I want to do.” She wraps her arms so tight around my torso, it hurts like the pain of death all over again. I don’t care. Some things are worth dying for. “But you have to promise to give me all the dangerous, scary cases.”
Oh, fuck. What did I just do?
“No.”
“Murders especially. I think I’d be good at murders.”
“Nope.”
“Oooh, or serial killers. Do you get many of those?”
“Absolutely not.”
She squeezes me tighter, and even though I want her to hold me that way forever, the pain eventually gets the better of me. I grunt.
“Oh, God! You poor thing. I squished you.”
She flies to her feet and starts making a fuss over me, performing useless tasks like smoothing already smooth blankets and forcing me to eat ice chips. I’m so happy to see her moving again, back to her usual, bouncy self, I let her continue for as long as she wants.
With any luck, she’ll want to keep doing it forever.
“I’ll have to get business cards made, of course,” she says as she scrapes a chair along the floor to sit at my bedside. She grabs a pen and pad of paper from the nurse’s table to start jotting notes. “Riker and Jordan won’t be happy to find me switching teams, but I’m sure I can get them to come around. And of course, I’ll want top security clearance.”
“I beg your pardon?” I ask as I stru
ggle to sit up. At this rate, I’m going to need new stitches by morning.
“Well, you can’t expect me to do my job well if I don’t have all the facts, can you? Just look at what a disaster this last one was.”
“You’ll get exactly as much information as you need,” I growl.
She makes a gentle tsking sound and reapplies herself to the pad of paper. “We’ll see about that. Maybe I can even head up my own department someday. You can come work for me, if you want.”
I can’t help but laugh. Penelope is in charge and on the case, and there’s nothing I can do but play along.
I don’t care. As long as she’s here with me, I’m just happy to have a seat at the table. No matter how this hand unfolds, the FBI couldn’t ask for a better consultant.
And I, lucky bastard that I am, couldn’t ask for a better wife.
35
EPILOGUE
“Hello, Mother.”
At the sound of my voice, Tara looks up in alarm from the Lombardy bar—a turn of events I’m quite pleased to have orchestrated on my own. It’s no fun being startled all the time by someone sneaking around in the background. Let’s see how much she likes it.
“What are you doing?” she snaps. “Don’t call me that.”
I ignore her and gesture to the bartender, who’s pretending not to watch us. “I’d like a club soda, please, and get my mother here another of whatever she’s having.”
“For God’s sake, Pen. Keep your voice down.” To the bartender, she purrs, “I’m not her mother. She’s delusional.”
“My mother likes to crack jokes, but she’s quite loving once you get to know her.”
“I’ll call security and have you escorted out,” she warns. “One look at the two of us sitting here, and I promise they’ll think you’re the crazy one.”
She’s not wrong. In her skintight orange minidress, Tara has never looked less like anyone’s mother, let alone mine.
I roll the suitcase I’ve been dragging behind me up to the bar and take a seat, pressing the handle down with a click. “I brought your clothes back. I don’t think I’ll be needing them anymore.”
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