by J. R. Ward
Shoving her hand in deep, she rooted around, found the damn phone, and took it out. The familiar, annoying beeping made her skin crawl, but that was the point. Anything more user-friendly and she worried she’d sleep through it.
After she shut things off, she glanced back over at the open door of the bathroom.
The waiting wore on her, and she checked her voicemail to pass the time. There were three messages when she got into the system—
“Hi, this is Dan over at Caldwell Auto. We’ve been looking at your car, and to be honest with you, it’s right on the edge of being totaled. A vehicle that age, with this kind of damage? We could fix it, but I can’t guarantee it wouldn’t lemon on you a week later. My advice is that you take the insurance money and buy something new. Give me a call….”
For some reason, the idea that her car had died made her tear up.
Man, she needed to pull it together.
Message number two was from her hair salon, reminding her that she had an appointment coming up with Pablo.
Message number three was…
“Hey, this is Tony’s friend? From over at the police department? Jason?” The guy’s inflection turned it all into questions, as if he weren’t sure of his own name. “Listen…I need to talk to you ASAP. That bullet you found? It’s a match—that round was discharged from the same weapon that was used in the shooting down at the Marriott”—a chill started at the back of her neck and spread all over her body—“and that means you need to come in and talk to us. It’s ten o’clock now and I need to get some sleep—but first thing tomorrow morning, I’ve got to disclose this and your…”
At that moment, the shower cut off in the bathroom.
Leaning to the side, she watched Matthias step out of the tub. He seemed so much bigger now, and as she looked down, she saw only faded scars on his lower body, nothing that would warrant self-consciousness. Or a limp.
Tony’s friend was still talking as Matthias turned away to get the towel he’d left on the back of the toilet—
Mels nearly dropped her phone.
Covering his back, from the tops of his shoulders to below his waist, was a massive black-and-white tattoo of the Grim Reaper standing in a field of grave markers—and underneath it were dozens and dozens of hatch marks in an orderly row.
It was precisely like the one that Eric had shown her—
Get. Out. Now.
Mels bolted for the door, but didn’t make it.
Just as she started to run, Matthias stepped out of the humid little room, right into her path.
* * *
Matthias had gone the shower route not because he particularly wanted to be clean, but because he’d had to scrub his aching head. He’d never been one for good-byes—although previously, that had been because he’d never really been emotionally involved with anybody.
Now, it was because the prospect of leaving Mels hurt like hell.
What did he say? How did he let her walk out the door?
Wrapping a towel around his waist, he walked out of the bathroom and—
Mels screeched to a halt in front of him, like she’d pulled short out of a dead run. Dressed in some of the clothes he’d gotten at the gift shop, she looked like she was being chased.
“Mels—”
“Get away from me.” She shoved a hand in her purse, and before she took it out, he knew she was going for her gun.
Sure enough, that muzzle trained directly at the center of his chest.
He put his hands up, palms forward. “What’s going on?”
“Nice tattoo—oh, and I just found out that you shot that man here in the hotel. The bullet matches.”
“What bullet?”
“The one that I found outside that garage—when I came to see you the first time. You remember, don’t you? Well, I gave the casing to someone who did a ballistics comparison—and your gun is the one that was used in that shooting.”
Matthias closed his eyes. Shit, that shell must have been from Jim’s gun, the one he’d taken, the one that, yeah, he’d used on the operative down in the basement hallway.
“Did you disappear the body from the morgue, too? I’m guessing that, given the ink you two share, you’re connected—but don’t bother giving me the details. I won’t trust anything you say.” Mels shook her head, disgust written not just in her face, but in her whole body. “It was lies, all of it—wasn’t it. The amnesia…the limp—those damn scars, your eye.” She cursed in a vile way. “Jesus Christ, it was a fucked-up contact lens, wasn’t it—with some makeup to get the old injuries to look worse. Oh, God…” Now, she cringed. “The impotence, too, right? Guess you decided getting laid was worth the risk of exposure. Or did you just get lazy with the upkeep?”
As he died right in front of her, Matthias could only cross his arms over his chest and take what she gave him. He didn’t blame her for the extrapolations: Miracles were inexplicable for a reason, and the conclusions she was jumping to, while they screwed him, would seem like the only possible explanations if he were in her shoes….
When she finally stopped talking, he opened his mouth; then shut it when he realized that he had nothing of value to add. He’d hated lying to her—but she wasn’t going to hear that.
Shit, she might as well have pulled that trigger. He sure as hell felt as if she’d mortally wounded him—but honestly, it was his own damn fault, all of this: Although patches of the past remained in a fog, he knew this was exactly the kind of reckoning that had been waiting for him with her.
And in the end, the only thing he could do was step aside and give her the way out—and maybe this was good. There was no way she was going to ever come looking for him now.
The instant he moved, Mels went for the door, all the while keeping that gun on him, and then just as she stepped into the hall, she glanced back.
In a dead voice, she whispered, “There’s only one thing I don’t understand. Why did you bother? What do I have that you want?”
Everything, he thought.
“So it was just a game, huh,” she bit out. “Well, not sure what you thought the prize was—but I am telling you right now to never contact me again under any circumstances. Oh, and I’m calling the police station this minute and telling them everything I know about you. Although I have to wonder exactly how much that is.”
And then she was gone, the door shutting automatically behind her.
Matthias closed his eyes and leaned back against the wall.
He’d known that leaving her was going to hurt—but like this? With her thinking he was a manipulator and a liar?
Then again, in his heart, he knew she was right. He’d always been a master liar.
A schemer.
A manipulator—
The headache came on hard and fast, and, as it turned out, it was the final one…not because he died, but because on that short-napped carpet of the hotel room, right at the foot of the door Mels had put to good use, everything came back to him—all of it.
From beginning to end, through all the evil in the middle, his memory returned with a roar, exploding the lid off of whatever had kept it down, filling the space between his ears, owning him.
It was ten thousand TVs in a room, all with the sound cranked up, the din so great it was a wonder people down on the street didn’t hear the noise.
It was a tsunami that swept onto the shore, wiping clean these last few days of relative innocence with Mels, ruining the landscape he had created for himself with her, revealing the foul earth beneath the feelings he had found with her.
It was, in many ways, worse than the nightmare of Hell.
Because after he saw what he was, up close and in detail, with no shadows to obscure the ugliness, he knew whatever game he was caught in was not going to end well.
His soul was rotten to the core.
And he’d already learned that what you sowed was what you reaped.
Chapter Forty-six
When Mels got home, she took the longest shower
of her life: After scrubbing her skin with a soapy washcloth, she stood under the spray until the hot water heater was empty and things got stone cold.
Stepping out and wrapping her flushed body in a towel, she thought she really shouldn’t have told Matthias she was going to call the police. No doubt he’d already pulled out of that hotel room—although knowing how paranoid he’d always been, he probably would have done that anyway now that the lie was over.
At least she’d done the right thing. She’d called Detective de la Cruz from the taxi—at his home, no less. And she’d told him everything, even though she felt like she had shamed her father with the way she’d behaved.
At least de la Cruz was on it, and doing his job well: Matthias’s room was going to get a visit imminently—probably already had—
Shoot. She really should have stayed put to make sure that Matthias met the police, but at the point when she’d left, she’d been focused on her personal safety.
Dear Lord, she felt dirty…absolutely filthy, and her emotions were another goddamn mess.
The irony, of course, was that the reporter in her was convinced she’d feel better if only she knew the why’s: Why her? Why now?
What the hell had he really wanted?
Then again, maybe that approach was no more illuminating than asking an out-of-control bus for its thinking behind which pedestrian it had “chosen” to run over.
Going into her bedroom, she took more care than usual as she got dressed, and she also delayed things an extra fifteen minutes to do her hair with a curling iron—which was unheard-of.
Last time she’d taken that thing out had been for a friend’s wedding, like, a year and a half ago.
Makeup seemed like a good idea, too, and she even threw some pumps on.
Bracing herself, she measured her reflection on the back of her closet door.
Shit. Still her.
Guess she’d been hoping to see someone else in the mirror, somebody who hadn’t spent the night before screwing a stranger she hadn’t known for more than a couple of days…who had turned out to be a violent criminal.
“Oh, God…”
Disgusted, she turned her back on herself, went downstairs, and started the coffee. She didn’t make it to the cups in the cupboard, however. Instead, she got stalled at her chair at the kitchen table, even as the percolating got louder on the counter as the cycle finished up.
In the oppressive quiet of the house, her mind seemed to be obsessed with replaying The Matthias Movie, everything from that moment of impact outside the cemetery to the visit in the hospital afterward…from her tracking him down at that garage to the two of them at the hotel…from the first night to last night….
She’d had inner doubts all along, and yup, look at how it had turned out.
“So stupid…so goddamn stupid.”
Putting her head in her hands, she rubbed her temples with her thumbs, wondering how long it was going to take before she didn’t blame herself for this mess.
Long time. Maybe forever.
Part of her just wanted to rewind time and return to that night when Dick had come to her desk and tap-danced through his prick routine. If only she had decided to leave before that, like at five o’clock with the other reporters, she could have avoided the letch-boss thing…and everything else that had followed.
If only…
As she sat in her mother’s cheery kitchen, the minutes drained away, the sun shifting its position from warming her back to bathing the side of her face and body. And as it moved, so did the close-exam thing, the introspection shifting from just Matthias to other areas of her life, like her career, and what it had been like to live in this house, and how the last few years since her father’s death had gone.
Looking at everything, it was clear she’d needed this wake-up call. She’d been so damned driven, and yet stuck in neutral: living at home, but not there for her mother; in mourning for her father—just not aware of it.
But seriously. If her life had required some recalibration, why couldn’t she have just changed her hairstyle or gotten a dog or done something less nuclear than having a disastrous affair?
That possibly had legal implications.
Dropping her hands, she sat back and stared at the seat her mother always used. All the sunlight streaming in through the window was heating up the wood, making it clear why the woman liked that place at the table.
Plus you could see every corner of the kitchen, in case there was something on the stove.
Frowning, Mels realized she’d chosen her father’s chair, the one to her mom’s left, the one that faced the hallway that led to the front door.
Growing up, she’d always been in the seat across from this one.
She’d stepped into her father’s shoes in a lot of ways, hadn’t she.
In fact…it might be possible that the real reason she’d quit her job down in Manhattan at the Post had been to come back here and be with her mom.
The more she thought about it, the more that felt like the truth. First, there had been her father’s last words, his dying worries about his wife. And then after the funeral, her mother had been so very alone, lost in so many ways. Like any good daughter, and as she imagined her father would want, Mels had stepped in to fill the void…but the sacrifice had driven her mad—and made her resentful of her mother, her job at the CCJ, her life here in Caldwell.
Best of intentions. But not so great—or necessary—an outcome. No one had asked her to do what she had. Not her father or her mother. And as she looked around the kitchen, and the dining room, and out through the sliding glass doors to the porch and the garden…everything was in order.
Not because she had arranged for the upkeep, however: Her mom had taken care of it all.
Shaking her head, she wondered how this pater familias transformation had happened without her knowing it. Then again, was she really asking herself that after the crap with Matthias? Clearly, interpersonal stuff was not her forte—
The sound of keys in a lock was followed by the front door opening, and as light flared in the hall, her mother’s diminutive form was spotlit from behind. She was carrying a yoga mat and talking on the phone as she shut herself in and came down the corridor.
“—oh, I know she did, and I really do believe the best of people—up until they prove me wrong. So, yes, I think you should cut this off and stop talking to her.” Her mother paused to wave hello and put her things down on the counter by the refrigerator. Then she frowned, as if sensing all was not well in Mels-land. “Listen, Maria, may I call you back? Okay, thanks. Talk to you soon.”
She ended the call and put the cell down next to her Go Organic! canvas bag. “Mels, what’s wrong?”
Mels eased back and thought of her father doing the same thing. The chair had always creaked under his weight, but with her, it was silent.
“Can I ask you something really bizarre?” she said to her mother. “And please know I don’t mean to offend you.”
Her mom slowly sat down beside her. “Sure.”
“Do you remember when Dad was still with us—how he used to sit here and pay bills?” Mels patted the surface of the wood in front of her. “With that checkbook open, the big one that had three checks a page? He’d sit here and write out the bills and put them in the envelopes and record everything in the registry.”
“Oh, yes,” her mother said sadly. “Every month. Like clockwork.”
“He had those reading glasses—they’d fall to the end of his nose, and they’d annoy the crap out of him. And the entire time, he’d squint like his toes were in a vise.”
“He hated the whole thing—he made sure it got done, though. Every month.”
Mels cleared her throat. “How do you…I mean, you pay the bills here now. But where? When? I’ve never seen you write a check.”
Her mother smiled a little. “Your father wanted to do everything by hand. He didn’t trust banks—I used to think that monthly ritual was a physical expression of his
suspicion of First National Bank and Trust. I’m not like that. I have everything from my car payment to the electric bill to my insurance on automatic deduction. My accounts are linked online—I look at them once a week and keep track of it all that way. Cuts down on stamps, paperwork, and visits to the mailbox. More efficient.”
Mels felt surprise ripple through her—but come on. Her mother wasn’t a child. “What about…like, the lawn care? Dad used to mow the grass, but who does it now?”
“Right after he died, I asked the neighbors how they handled it. Some have their husbands or their kids tackle the yard, and that obviously wasn’t an option for me. I gave it a go a couple of times, but it was so much work, I knew it was better to pay someone. I went with a professional service, because I don’t want to worry from week to week if it’s getting done—plus they do a cleanup in the fall and the spring. Mels, is there something you’re worried about?”
“Yeah, actually, there is.” She smoothed the table again, running her palm over the place where her father had taken care of things his way. “I—ah, I’m concerned that I’ve spent the last few years trying to be Dad for you, and not only hasn’t it worked—I haven’t been very supportive on any level. And you’ve managed to take care of yourself quite nicely.”
There was a long silence. “You know, I’ve wondered,” her mother murmured, “why you stayed. You’ve been so unhappy here—and it’s pretty clear you’ve resented me.”
“Which is not your doing—and a bad call on my part, all the way around.” Mels tapped the table. “I just…he would have wanted me to look after you. Or someone to.”
“That was his way.” She shook her head slowly. “He was always old-fashioned, a real man’s man with values that were very traditional. I loved him, so I let him love me the way he saw fit.”
“But you didn’t need it, did you.”
“I needed him. I was very happy with him.” A sad light came into her eyes. “He was the type of man who had to be in control, and I married him and had you when I was young. But I did grow up.”
“Were there…problems about that?” God, that seemed so personal.