by Meli Raine
Chapter 2
Silas
“Where is she?” I ask Drew, the question a demand. We’re in his car now, the cops long gone, the whole mess waved away with smoke and mirrors. Literally, with smoke. A group of uniformed blues smoking in a pack. No blood on the ground, no damage from the gun. Piece of cake when it comes to cover-ups.
I wish it were so easy with Jane.
“Duff said he’s taking her to the Lilac Inn. Lindsay’s meeting her there.”
“Lindsay? Does she know what happened?”
“I imagine she does. I’ve got nineteen texts from her in my notifications, and I suspect the last few will spontaneously combust the second I open them.”
“Your test was one big mindfuck, Drew.”
“Tests work, Gentian. You of all people should know that.”
I go cold. “Don’t bring Rebecca into this. Don’t.”
“I have to. You refuse to talk about the fact that your fiancée turned out to be a double agent. You’re finally in love with another woman. A woman who might have been a deep state operative. You sure do know how to pick them.”
Any other guy said that to me and he’d be flat on the floor, cheekbone busted open like a blooming onion.
“I do know how to pick them. I was right. You were wrong. Deeply wrong. She’s trustworthy and innocent. She’s not the mastermind.”
“No. She’s not. We know who that is,” Drew says with a sour look.
“We do. And we need all the evidence we can get to prove it.”
“Not sure that proof exists.”
“Doesn’t help me with Jane.”
“Yes, it does. Because the more confident we are that Jane isn’t behind all these deaths and conspiracies, the better.”
“‘More confident’? How about rock-solid sure? She could have killed you, Drew, if she’d wanted to.”
“No. She couldn’t. But she didn’t. That’s all we need to know. Unlike Rebecca, she didn’t turn traitor and kill our own people.”
Angry silence swarms around the front seat of the car like deadly bees.
“And if Jane had turned out to be a double agent?”
“Then I’d expect you to do what you did to Rebecca. And I’d be damn sorry about it like I was then, too.”
Buzzing takes over my head. A flash of the past, of Afghanistan, of the moment I realized on the tarmac, the air warped and wobbly in crystal-clear heat, that my own fiancée was on a killing mission. The lock on Drew’s eyes. The silent words communicated between us in nanoseconds. The way a buddy dropped, blood splattering from his guts. How she took out a sitting member of the United States House of Representatives, half his skull shattering next to a flag.
My gun, moving in slow motion, the sight on her eyebrow, the same one I’d kissed that morning.
How she was seconds away from killing Drew and a visiting diplomat whose death could trigger a nuclear war.
And how I didn’t hesitate.
I just didn’t.
Rain starts to stipple the windshield, the view outside wobbling just enough to test my reality. It all shifts, my head bowing down as I close my eyes. I open them quickly. Memory lives inside us, buried in places we cannot see.
We can only feel them.
Rebecca’s betrayal lives in parts of me I can’t access when I’m awake. I dream about her sometimes. In the dreams, she’s not tainted. Not a double-crosser. Not a liar. Not a bedmate who used her body nor a temptress who used my own heart as a weapon against me.
She’s just Rebecca.
And I am enough.
Then reality asserts itself.
Sitting in silence with Drew is its own form of penance. I received a medal for what I did on that tarmac. Mom has it in a drawer somewhere back home in Minnesota. That’s where my heart lived, too.
Until recently.
As we inch along in traffic until Drew takes surface roads leading closer to the coast, I let my mind wander. I’m not protecting Jane. We’re not in a meeting. Drew just goddamn shot me. I deserve to live in my own mind for a while.
Standing down is hard.
Doing it in your own head is even harder.
It never occurred to me when Drew came up with this nutso plan that Jane wouldn’t stay to hear me out. That I couldn’t rebuild the trust I’d established with her. With Rebecca, there was no hope. She put me between duty and love. She turned herself from moral to evil.
There is no conflict once someone shows you they are evil.
“Say something, Gentian,” Drew demands as we get closer to the ocean, the salt air seeping into the car whether I like it or not.
I do.
“You’re a hair’s breadth away from asking me what I’m thinking. You turn into a woman overnight, Foster?”
“Nope. Not so lucky. But I know a man lost in the past when I see one.”
“That a crime?”
“It is if you’re blaming yourself.”
“I’m not.”
“Good.”
“You blame yourself for what happened with Lindsay,” I lob back. Most people foment conflict to separate themselves. To put distance between them and others. To isolate and alienate.
To separate.
Guys like us do it for the opposite reason.
To get closer. Connect. Be in tune.
“I do. I’ll never forgive myself for what happened.”
“She’s forgiven you.”
“Thank God.”
“Wasn’t your fault.”
“Neither was Rebecca yours, Gentian. You know that.”
“Yep.”
“And now you know Jane’s clean.”
“Yep.”
“Which means you’ll never have to kill her.”
And there it is.
The gut punch.
Jane
Lindsay’s already there at the Lilac Inn when Duff escorts me in. The place is tastefully decorated in a retro style, with floral prints and fresh flowers everywhere, an emphasis on lilacs, of course.
A silent hug greets me, her tight embrace saying more than any words. Duff stays back, tasteful like the decor but ever-present. He’s a theme we can’t shake.
“I am so sorry, Jane. I knew Drew was paranoid, but this takes the cake.” She leads me to a small semi-circular table with tea service already set up. Little cakes and sandwiches dot a three-tiered serving tray, and it turns out coffee is in what I thought was a teapot.
My stomach doesn’t just growl. It roars.
“Hungry?”
“You would think I’d have no appetite, but I guess I do,” I confess as we sit down. She pours me a cup of java while I shove a tiny, really yummy triangular sandwich in my mouth and sigh. Something with hummus and roasted red peppers does my mouth – and heart – good.
“You’re human. Unlike some people,” she says pointedly.
“They tested me, Lindsay. Your husband pretended to shoot Silas in the heart in front of me, to see if I would kill Drew instead of drop the gun and take care of Silas.”
The teaspoon in her hand falls, banging on one of the sandwich tiers, clang clang clang.
“Drew what?”
“Right? I could have killed him! If I were evil. You know,” I mumble at the end. She’s a little shocked. My words after what I told her about Drew don’t matter.
“But you didn’t,” Lindsay says calmly. She finds the spoon and stirs her milk-filled coffee. “He set you up to see if you would.”
“I had an unlocked, loaded gun pointed at Drew’s head in a three-person standoff. Drew and Silas were wearing vests. They set the whole thing up. If Drew shot Silas and I tried to shoot Drew, I was guilty. If I didn’t, I was – am – innocent.”
“It’s like the Salem witch trials! Sink and drown and you’re innocent.”
“I KNOW!” I sip some coffee, hands still shaking. “You didn’t know Drew was doing this to me?”
“No! I knew he was paranoid about you and wanted to figure out if you’re p
art of the deep state or not. Obsession doesn’t quite cover the extent of his concern. But I never expected him to do this.”
“It’s disgusting,” I say, shoving another sandwich in my mouth, willing my heart to slow down.
“And Silas,” she says quietly. “Why would he do such a thing to you?”
You can’t cry easily with your mouth full.
Easily.
I swallow quickly, knowing the feeling of doom and despair is about to overwhelm me. The coffee helps get my system out of the danger zone. The sandwich is a heavy lump in my stomach. Lindsay can tell she’s upset me.
Except she didn’t upset me.
That’s all on Silas and Drew.
As I fight tears, she drinks more coffee, absentmindedly munching on a cookie. I feel unmoored. I am only grounded when I look at her.
So I do.
She looks healthy. Happy. We’re never going to be the nineteen-year-old innocents we were before that fateful night nearly five years ago when Stellan, Blaine, and John ruined everything. You can heal from damage.
Scars, though – scars are forever.
Reminders of the pain, they are trail markers. We know who and where we were by the spaces these physical memories inhabit. I can only imagine how littered with marks and tears the skin along Lindsay’s bones must be.
And then there’s the mind.
The damage done there isn’t visible.
Until we behave our way into visibility.
“You know,” Lindsay says, interrupting my thoughts. Her tone is apologetic. “I think it’s time to tell you something you should have known all along.”
“You know who your biological father is?”
“What? No. I wish. Mom and Dad won’t stop keeping secrets from –” Abruptly, she cuts herself off with an anguished groan. “Oh, God. I’m doing it, too.”
“Doing what?”
“Keeping secrets.”
“We all have secrets.”
“This one affects you, Jane.”
“What is it? You know something about my mother? About who is behind all this? My informant?”
“No. None of that. It’s about Silas. It’s about the woman he was with before you.”
“The woman he was with before me?”
“His fiancée. Rebecca.”
“What about her?”
“You know she died, right?”
“Silas said she died in combat.”
Her eyes flash with some emotion that is so kinetic, I can’t stop staring. “Yes. She did. Silas was there.”
“He was there? She died in front of him?”
“Yes.”
“Poor Silas,” I whisper, more tears coming. “He must blame himself. I know him. He would die to protect someone he loves.”
“He would also kill to protect,” Lindsay says.
Her words make my flesh creep, the tingly sensation spreading like it’s following my bloodstream. “Of course he would. That’s not only his job. It’s who he is.”
“Jane.” Lindsay reaches for my hand, holding it gently in hers. She’s so warm. I feel like I’m turning to ice. “Silas did kill to protect.”
“He had to kill people to try to save her?”
“No, honey. Silas had to kill Rebecca in order to save everyone else.”
A high-pitched ringing comes into sharp focus. It has no origin. It covers my ears, my scalp, the air around me, shooting straight up through the ceiling. Maybe I’m hearing the distant screams of stars.
No thoughts. No words. No motion other than blinking. Lindsay’s words are a mushy texture of nothingness. Kill. Save.
Kill.
Save.
“Jane? Did you hear me?” Lindsay asks, but I can’t answer. Jane is gone.
Jane is just gone.
My body is here. My ears work. But the pieces I assemble to make the machine called Jane operate so that the mind and heart can function are in piles on the floor, disconnected and cast aside, waiting for someone to put them all back where they belong.
Where they were a moment ago.
Before Lindsay said that.
“It’s a lot to take in,” Lindsay says with a squeeze of my hand. “He did it all in the line of duty. Rebecca turned out to be a double agent. She started killing government officials execution-style and Silas had to kill her to save them. Drew witnessed the whole thing. If Silas hadn’t killed her, she’d have killed Drew, too.”
That shakes me out of my stupor. “The other day,” I say, my eyelids fluttering so hard, the world becomes an old-fashioned movie, “Silas said he didn’t want to have to kill me.” I shudder.
Lindsay snatches her hands back as if I’m a live wire.
“Wow.”
“Yeah, wow,” I says slowly. “Did he know? That Rebecca was... whatever she was? Some sort of spy?”
“No. Until the second she shot a congressman on the airstrip tarmac, no. He had to make split-second decisions about what to do.”
“That’s... he had to kill someone he loved. Deeply loved.”
“Yes. He had to do it to save other people. And because it was the moral choice.”
“I don’t think morality is all that powerful in those split seconds.”
“What is? You’d have to override a lot of instinct and morality in me to make me kill Drew if he were a traitor.” She lets out a strange sound, a little huff of contemplation. “Then again, I’d take a bullet for him in a heartbeat. I’d kill for him.”
“You did kill for him,” I remind her.
She swallows, hard. “Love really screws us up, doesn’t it?”
“Was he charged with murder?”
I don’t have to clarify who I’m talking about. “No. In fact, he won some medal. He hated getting it, Drew said. Sent it home to his mom. He wanted to scrub the memory of what happened that day.”
“Who wouldn’t?”
“Drew said the hardest part was the fact that no one saw it coming. She was that good at deception. Fooled Drew. Fooled the higher-ups. Fooled everyone.”
“And Silas was made to be the biggest fool of all,” I gasp. “Or, at least, he felt that way.”
“I’m sure he did. These men don’t like to be wrong,” she notes.
“No joke.”
“And they love fiercely.” She smiles sadly.
The part of me that feels so entitled to my anger toward Silas begins to melt. Through this whole mess, he’s had to fight two battles: the one involving finding the truth, and the one inside himself, wondering if the truth really was the truth.
I knew all along I was being honest.
He didn’t.
He couldn’t.
Because a woman he loved so deeply that he proposed to her turned out to be an enemy of the state.
An enemy he had to kill.
“Damn it,” I groan as I grab a small chocolate petit four and eat it. “This is impossible,” I mumble around the food. Manners are long gone now. I’m clinging to the edge of reality by broken fingernails.
“It is, isn’t it? An impossible situation. I’m not trying to make excuses for what those two idiots did. Setting you up and testing you like that was insane. Drew’s getting an earful from me about that, for sure.”
“But,” I say, interrupting her. “But under the circumstances...”
“Exactly.” Her eyebrows drop, eyes troubled. “It makes more sense.”
I nod. “Not a lot, but yes. It does. They needed to know.”
“And now they do,” she declares, sitting up straight, spine suddenly reaching high. “They do, and my husband owes you an apology or seven.”
“Yes, he does,” says an amused man’s voice from behind me. My shoulders tighten. I do not look back. I know who is there. Lindsay looks over my shoulder and gives Drew a one-eyed skeptical look that says he has a lot of explaining to do.
Another man moves to my side, his suit in the periphery, one hand in his pocket, the other touching the back of my chair as he bends down and whis
pers:
“And so do I.”
Chapter 3
Silas
“Yes, you do,” Jane says, unable to look at me. She’s inordinately obsessed with the little cake in front of her, some pastry covered in marzipan that does not deserve the shredding her fingers give it.
“I’m sorry for upsetting you. I’m not sorry for testing you.”
“What if they’re the same thing?”
“Then I am fifty percent sorry. You choose.”
“I suppose I should be grateful,” she snaps, finally making eye contact. Her look is a furnace, a sunspot, heat in concentrated form, so powerful. It’s like looking at the core of a nuclear reactor.
“For what?”
“That you didn’t kill me.”
Drew inhales sharply. “Lindsay?” he says, looking at her accusingly.
“I told her,” she answers, moving out of the chair she’s in against the window. My body becomes a thousand lightning bolts shoved in a small cage. Every one of them touches the metal bars at once.
“Jesus Christ, Lindsay.” Drew’s voice is corded steel.
“No.” I look at her, Lindsay’s chin up in defiance, her eyes glued to Jane, who looks like she’s about to turn into dust blown on the wind. “No, Drew. It’s fine. Lindsay did the right thing. I was going to tell Jane myself, but it was never the right time.”
“It’s always easier to lie, isn’t it? What was it you said to me when we were first together? You needed to get used to opening up. You weren’t kidding. This is kind of a big piece of information about you,” Jane says to me.
“Can we talk? Privately?” I ask.
“Until Lindsay told me what happened with Rebecca, I said I never wanted to see you again. Ever.”
“And now? Now that you know?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’ll leave if you want me to. Just say the word.”
I go mum. I wait. I can wait as long as she needs.
“Let’s go get a drink somewhere else,” Drew says to Lindsay, who is giving him an angry glare.
“You sure you don’t want to pretend to shoot me first? Test me?” she snaps.
He rolls his eyes. “You passed all my tests a long time ago. With flying colors.”