by J. R. Ward
“Don’t wait for me,” he said.
“I wasn’t going to.”
Matthias smiled coldly and passed some time glancing around the room. Most people were exactly what he’d expect in a hotel like this…except for one guy over in the corner who looked seriously out of place: He was wearing a suit that was cut better than everybody else’s, and seemed dated even to the fashionless eye.
Hell, the getup might have been worn to a flapper party—or maybe back in the Roaring Twenties themselves—
As if sensing he was being looked at, the man lifted his eyes with an aristocratic air.
Matthias refocused on his dining companion. Dee was going at her food with precise cuts of her fork, the thin edge pushing easily through the scrambled and the hash.
“Sometimes not remembering is a good thing,” she said.
Yeah, he thought, he had a feeling that was especially true in his case. God, if that story Jim had fed him was—
“And I didn’t mean to be evasive about my father,” she said. “It’s just…he’s nothing I like to think about.” Her fork drifted down to settle on the plate as she stared out the window. “I’d do anything to forget him. He was…a violent man—an evil, violent man.”
With a quick shift, her stare came back to his and locked on. “Do you know what I’m talking about. Matthias—”
Abruptly, another one of those headaches came from out of nowhere, barging through his thought processes and zeroing in on his temples, twin shots of pain heating up on either side of his skull.
Dimly, he saw that Dee’s perfect red mouth was moving, but the words weren’t reaching him; it was as if he had pulled out of his body, even as his flesh stayed where it was…and then the very interior of the restaurant began to recede, sure as if the walls had hinged loose and fallen outward, morphing all Inception-like until suddenly he wasn’t sitting in a Marriott’s pseudo-fancy eatery anymore, but somewhere else—
He was on the second floor of a farmhouse, rough wood planking marking the floors, walls, and ceiling. The stairwell in front of him was steep, the banister made from pine that had darkened to the color of tar from the oils of countless hands having gripped it.
The air was stale, and stuffy, although it wasn’t hot.
Matthias looked behind himself, into a room that he recognized as his own. The twin bed had mismatched blankets and no pillows…the bureau had scratches on it and pulls that were halfway attached…there was no rug. But on the little table next to where he slept, a brand-new radio with fake wood trim and a silver dial sat pristine and out of place.
Glancing down, he saw he was wearing a ragged pair of pants, and that his feet stuck way out from the rolled-up hems; his hands were the same, oversized compared to his thin forearms, his extremities too big for the rest of his body.
He remembered this stage of his life, knew that he was young. Fourteen or fifteen—
A sound brought his head around.
A man was coming up the stairs. Overalls were dirty; hair was slicked with sweat, as if a hat or a baseball cap had been locked on it for hours; boots were loud.
Big man. Tall man.
Mean man.
His father.
All at once, everything shifted, his consciousness de-coupling from his flesh such that he was no longer able to control the body he was in, the steering wheel having been taken over by someone else.
All he could do was stare out of his eye sockets as his father turned the corner at the head of the stairs and stopped.
The skin on that lean face had been weathered to the point of cowhide, and there was a tooth missing on one side as he smiled like a serial killer.
His father was going to die, Matthias thought. Right here, right now.
However improbable that was, given the difference in their sizes, the man was going to hit the ground and be dead in a matter of moments—
Abruptly, Matthias could feel himself start talking, his lips forming sounds that didn’t register on him. They had an impact on his father, however.
That expression shifted, the smile dissipating, that dental gap disappearing as the thin mouth flattened. Rage narrowed those electric blue eyes, but it didn’t last. Shock was next. As if something that he had been confident about now seemed less than certain.
And all the while, Matthias kept talking, slow and consistently.
This was where it had all started, he thought to himself: this man, this evil man who he’d lived alone with for too long, this sick bastard who had “raised” him. Now was the time for reckoning, however, and his younger self felt nothing as he spoke the words he did, knowing full well that he was finally caging the monster.
His father’s hand grabbed onto the front of the overalls, right over his heart, crushing the material, the dirty, chipped nails digging in.
And still Matthias kept talking.
Down to the floor. His father went down on his knees, his free palm thrown out to the banister, his mouth cranking open so wide that the other missing teeth, the ones in the back, showed.
He had never expected to get caught. That was his killer.
Well…technically, the myocardial infarction was what did him in. But the proximal cause was the fact that their ugly secret was out.
Death took its own sweet time.
As his father flopped over on his back, his hand now shifting to his left armpit as if it hurt like a bitch, Matthias stood where he was and watched the dying process roll in and take over. Apparently, breathing was difficult, that chest chugging up and down without much effect: Beneath the tan, his father’s color was receding.
When the view switched back to the bedroom, Matthias realized that he had turned away and was walking, going over to the radio, sitting down, turning it on. He could still see his father struggling like a fly on a windowsill, limbs contracting this way and that, head arching back as if he thought maybe a different angle would help increase the oxygen flow.
But it wasn’t going to help. Even a fifteen-year-old farm boy knew that if your heart wasn’t pumping, your brain and vital organs were going to starve no matter how many deep breaths you took.
Out on the prairie, they got only five stations and three were religious. The other two played country and pop, and he twisted the dial, going back and forth between the pair. From time to time, just because he knew his father was going to meet his Maker sometime soon, he let a sermon ring out.
Matthias felt nothing other than frustration that he couldn’t get hard rock to play. Seemed like Van Halen was a better match to his father’s kicking it than Conway fucking Twitty or Phil fucking Collins.
Other than that, he was calm as a pond, level as concrete, set as a table leg.
Hell, he didn’t even care that the abuse was over. He’d just wanted to see if he could get rid of the old man, like the effort was a science project: he’d made the plan, gotten the pieces into place, and then woken up that morning and decided to set the first domino falling at school.
Thanks to his particularly malleable, softhearted, very religious homeroom teacher.
Standing out in the hall, he’d cried in front of her as he’d told her the hell he’d been living in, but that show of tears had just been to give her some extra motivation. In truth, the grand reveal was no more internalized than a change of clothes: As he’d manipulated her with the truth, he’d been cold as ice on the inside, taking neither satisfaction that the first part was done, nor excitement that it was finally happening.
Everything had gone down fast after that, and that had been the only thing that he hadn’t banked on: He’d been immediately sent to the school nurse, and then the police had come, and paperwork had been filled out, and off he went into the system.
They’d sent only women to work with him, as if that would make it easier on him. Especially during the “physical exam” part—which they’d expected him to get really upset by.
And who was he not to give them what they wanted?
He had not expected
to go into foster care within two hours, however.
The thing was, the only goal he’d really wanted was this part here, this endgame with his father on the floor—and he’d had to run away and hot-wire a car to make sure he got home before the police took his father to jail when the man came in from the cornfields. Everything was a waste if he blew the final act.
But it had worked out just fine.
In the last few moments of his father’s miserable life, Matthias twisted the radio knob over to one of the religious stations—and paused for a moment. The sermon was about Hell.
Seemed appropriate.
He watched as the final breath was taken and then the stillness came. So strange, a human being suddenly stepping over to the other side, that which had been animated becoming indistinguishable from a toaster oven or a throw rug or, shit, even a clock radio.
Matthias waited a little longer as the pallor in that face went completely gray. Then he got up, unplugged his radio, and tucked the thing under his arm.
His father’s eyes were open and staring up at the ceiling, much as Matthias’s had done at night over the years.
He didn’t flip the guy off, or spit on him, or give him a kick. He just walked past the body and went down the stairs. His final thought, as he left the house, was that it had been an interesting mental exercise…
And he wanted to see if he could do it again—
“Matthias?”
Letting out a shout, he jumped in his chair, the restaurant rushing back at him, those walls popping into place again, the ambient sounds of people eating and talking filtering into his brain once more.
As other diners looked over at him, Dee leaned in. “Are you okay?”
Her beautiful face was cast in perfect lines of compassion, her lips parted as if his distress was making it hard for her to breathe.
The removal he’d felt in his younger self slipped back into place over the center of his chest, as if the memory had recalibrated his internal hard wiring, tightening him up like a car that had had alignment problems: As he regarded the woman across from him, it was from a vital distance, a chilly objectivity putting space between them even though their chairs were no farther apart.
Emotions could be so easily faked, as he himself knew.
The smile he gave her felt different on his face—but also very familiar. “I’m perfectly fine.”
The waitress came over at that moment with his huge breakfast, and as she put it down, he could have sworn Dee sat back and smiled to herself in satisfaction.
* * *
Standing with the maître d’, Mels was through being StalkerGurl. Bad enough that she had come to the Marriott on the hunt, but to have found Matthias with that nurse? Now she had two reasons to feel like crap: She didn’t respect herself, and only a fool would compare anything but Sofia Vergara to that other woman.
As a plate the size of a countertop was put down in front of Matthias, he looked across at his eating companion with a sly smile, and—
His head turned for no good reason just as she pivoted away.
Their eyes met, and instantly, that cynical expression of his changed into something she couldn’t read—and told herself she didn’t care about.
Whatever. This was none of her business.
And she was certainly not going to bother with anything theatrical. Instead, she calmly headed for the lobby’s revolving doors—
“Mels!” came a hiss behind her.
There was no pretending he hadn’t come out after her, and no reason to ignore him.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt your breakfast,” she said as she halted and he came up to her. “And I’m on my way to a meeting. When you didn’t answer your phone, I figured I’d swing by.”
“Mels—”
“That story you asked me to check out was true. Except they spell the last name with an E. Child‘e’. The son died of an overdose, and the father was at the scene when it happened. The daughter is still alive—a defense attorney up in Boston. Father works for the government in various capacities. At least that’s what’s been in the papers. I can’t speak to things that aren’t in the public domain.” As he just stared at her, she kicked up her chin. “Well, what did you expect me to come back with?”
He rubbed his face like his head hurt. “I don’t know. I…When did the son die?”
“Not long ago. Two and a half years, maybe—”
“Your breakfast is getting cold.”
Mels glanced over at the nurse. The woman was focused solely on Matthias as she approached, like he wasn’t talking to anybody.
Okay, the female looked incredible in that dress, her body turning what was quintessentially demure into hot-dayum—
Abruptly, a flashback from the Seinfeld epi with Teri Hatcher shot through her head…yeah, those double-Ds were probably real and spectacular, too. Meanwhile, she herself relied on Wonderbra technology to push her into a C-cup range.
“I was just leaving anyway,” Mels said. “I’ll be late for my meeting otherwise.”
This got her a dismissive look from the nurse, those dark brown eyes not just hands-off, but fuck-off. “Come on, let’s go back to the table.”
Matthias just kept staring at Mels, to the point where she felt as if he were trying to tell her something. But he had cold eggs and hot legs to worry about, so his proverbial plate was full enough without her.
She threw them both a wave and fell into the foot traffic funneling out through those revolving doors.
On the far side, the sunshine was bright and cheerful as she headed for Tony’s car, and the sedan was warm inside. Settling into the driver’s seat, she gave herself a stiff lecture before starting the engine—except it didn’t do any good.
Not even the part about how a man who was mysterious and unavailable was likely to, given her reporter’s instinct, seem oh, so much more appealing than your average schlub—but that didn’t make him a good bet.
Maybe this was why she was still single. It hadn’t been for lack of dating invites. It was more likely the fact that the men who had asked her out had had steady jobs, and nice enough looks…and their memories.
No shadows, no excitement.
Nah, she was into someone with a possibly shady past and a breakfast companion who had Barbie’s body and TV-commercial hair.
Healthy, realllllly healthy.
Starting the car, she nudged into traffic, her rendezvous with Monty the Mouth set for a park about seven blocks from the hotel.
At least the timing of it all was in her favor: If she had to go back to the newsroom and pretend to be working while she stared at her computer screen, she was liable to lose it.
Goddamn men, she thought as she found another free meter, pulled a better parallel and got out.
Following the instructions she’d been given, the whole thing with Monty had shades of spy movies, with her going over to a bench under a specific maple tree. All she needed was a newspaper to hide behind and a secret word and they’d be in total shaken-not-stirred land.
Monty showed up ten minutes later, in plain clothes that marked him as a swinger type. He was in a good mood, the subterfuge clearly giving him the kind of drama injection he needed.
“Walk behind me,” he said in a low voice as he passed by.
Oh, for crissakes.
Mels shifted to the vertical when he got ten feet ahead of her, and she kept his meandering pace, wondering why the hell she was putting herself through this.
After a little stroll, they ended up down at the river’s edge, at the big Victorian boathouse where people launched their canoes and sailboats when the weather got warmer.
Stepping inside, her eyes took a moment to adjust to the dim interior, the diamond-paned windows not letting much of the sunlight in, the racks of rowboats and stacks of buoys and lineups of paddles and rolled-up sails making the place seem crowded. And it was loud in a sense, too—all around, the water clapped in and out of the docking cribs, the slapping noises echoing through
the empty slips—
With a sudden explosion, barn swallows shot out of their early nests, dive-bombing them both before escaping into the open air.
As her heart settled back into a normal rhythm, she said, “So what have you got?”
Monty took out a large, flat envelope and handed it over. “I printed these out at home this morning.”
Mels slipped a finger under the metal butterfly clip and freed its hold. “Who else knows about this?”
“At the moment, just you and me.”
One by one, she slid out three color photographs, all of which were of the victim: the first was a full-body with the shirt down, the second closer with the shirt up, the third tight on what appeared to be a series of runes.
Cecilia Barten.
That was the name that went through Mels’s head as she examined the images: Sissy had been another girl, younger, and far, far outside the kind of life where getting murdered was a job hazard. Her body had been found in a quarry just recently with the samekind of characters carved into her abdomen. She’d had her throat slit, too. And she’d been blond.
“You saw the pictures from the crime scene, right?” Monty asked.
“Yeah.” Mels refocused on the close-up. “The skin was red, but there was nothing like this on it. Wait, so tell me, off the record if you have to—how did this go down? You said you were a first responder—”
“The first responder. I went into the room with the manager, and promptly followed procedure. I cordoned off the door and called for backup.”
“Where was your partner?”
“She’d called in sick, so I was out alone—budget cuts, you know how it is. No replacements. Anywho, while I was waiting, I took the pictures.”
She hated people who used the word anywho. “You moved the shirt.”
“I was examining the body and the scene in my official capacity.”
Creep. “Why take the pictures at all though, if the official photographer was coming?”
“The real question is, Where did that lettering go.”