He ghosted closer, wanting to breathe in her scent. And there it was: a mingling of sweat and sawdust and whatever it was she put into her hair. She’d stripped off her flannel shirt. Underneath, she wore one of those old-fashioned ribbed undershirts that exposed her muscular arms and capable hands. Sweat glistened on her face, dampened her hair, and ran into the hollow of her throat. When the saw stopped, he heard her humming the tune of some old blues song under her breath.
It was like all of his other senses were conspiring to taunt him with what he could never, ever touch. His own palms sweated inside his gloves. His heart thumped painfully, high in his throat.
That’s what happens when you let a little hope leak in, Jonah thought. It’s even harder when you have to come down.
And then she saw him, and the humming stopped abruptly. She crossed the room in three long strides, grabbing up a wicked-looking knife along the way. She held it, point down, close to her side.
Her eyes roamed over Jonah, from his gloved hands, to his lips, to his leather jacket and his jeans. Her reaction to him—the mingling of fear and fascination—was familiar. She knew.
“So,” Jonah said. “Who told you about my...condition? Natalie?”
She shook her head. “Gabriel.” She paused. “You should have told me yourself.”
“I should have told you a lot of things,” Jonah said. “But I was brought up to keep secrets.” Swinging the guitar case up, he set it on the workbench between them. “I want to return this.”
Emma looked from Jonah to the guitar and back again. “Where did you get that?”
“I took it from your basement, the night your father was killed.”
Emma rocked back on her heels. “Are you here to confess? If so, you’re a little late.”
“I’m here to tell the truth,” Jonah said, “as far as I know it.”
Emma brushed sawdust from her hair and stripped off the safety glasses, dropping them onto the workbench. “It’s a waste of time. I don’t want to hear anything you have to say.”
“I understand you’re leaving,” Jonah said. “I’m hoping you’ll change your mind.”
“You’re the reason I’m leaving,” Emma said. “So I guess you’re not exactly the person to persuade me to stay.”
“Give me ten minutes,” Jonah said, allowing a bit of enchantment to honey his voice. “Then I’ll go.”
She straightened, resting her free hand on the workbench. “Clock is running.”
“Don’t stay because I ask you to,” Jonah said. “Do it for selfish reasons.”
“Such as—?”
“If you stay, you’ll have a place to live and to work, and you can graduate from high school. You can keep building guitars and save up money so you can open your own shop.”
“I have a place to stay,” Emma blurted out, then pressed her lips together like she was sorry she’d said it.
“Where?”
“I’d rather you didn’t know,” Emma said. “Please do take it personally.”
“What about school? You know the program here has worked well for you.” He paused. “Everyone here wants you to succeed. Are you planning to quit, or do you want to go through the same old, same old over again?”
That hit a nerve. Jonah felt Emma’s anger drain away, displaced by a rush of despair.
She had a comeback though. “All those other schools have a big advantage—you’re not there. Maybe I can’t prove what you did, but I’m not going to look at you every day and wonder what you’re gonna do next.”
“Then I’ll leave,” Jonah said. “I’ll leave school and move out of Oxbow. Tomorrow.”
“Right,” Emma said, snorting. “You know you can’t leave Kenzie. And you can’t take him with you.”
“I won’t go far,” Jonah said. “I’ll see Kenzie every day. But you’ll never see me, I promise.”
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” Emma snapped.
“You can always leave if I break that promise.”
“Do you think that makes me feel safe, the idea you’ll be creeping around campus, that you might be right around the next corner?”
“I can’t leave Kenzie,” Jonah said. “My point is, do what’s in your best interest. That’s all I’m saying.”
“How do you know that leaving isn’t in my best interest?”
“I can’t predict the future, but I’m guessing it’s not. I’ll do whatever I can to make it work for you.”
“You’ve made your point,” Emma said. Her tears spilled over, leaving tracks through the dust on her face. “Now, I’m really busy here.” Her voice trembled.
“Don’t you want to ask me any questions?” Jonah said.
“I do,” Emma said. “Why are you still here?”
“You say you hate a liar,” Jonah said. “I’m here to tell the truth. It’s a limited-time offer. Once it’s over, I go straight back to lying.”
Their eyes met across the workbench, emotion reverberating between them as if they were connected by a steel-wound string tuned to a high pitch.
Finally, Emma gave in, curiosity overwhelming bitterness. Leaning forward a little, hands fisted, she asked, “Fine. We’ll start with an easy one. Did you kill my father?”
“Maybe. I don’t really know. It was a melee, everyone fighting with each other.”
“Who’s everyone?”
“Me, Tyler, you, a half dozen wizards.”
“Why were you there?”
“I hoped your father might know something about Thorn Hill—who was behind it, what kind of poison was used.”
“Tyler?” Once the dam broke, the questions came, one after another. “Why would Tyler know about that?”
“I don’t know that he did,” Jonah said. “We were looking for people who were at Thorn Hill but who left before the massacre, and we found Tyler. See, the problem is, everyone there died, except for the kids, and we were too young to know what was going on. Gabriel thinks it must’ve been sorcerers who made the poison, since wizards are no good at that kind of thing.”
Emma flinched a little at that, shifting her eyes away.
She feels guilty for some reason, Jonah thought. Why? Does she know something I don’t?
“Gabriel’s always said that if we knew exactly what was used, we might be able to help the savant survivors.”
“So Gabriel sent you?”
“No. It was me. Just me.”
“How did you find Tyler after all these years?”
“Should I start from the beginning?” Pushing his luck, he eased himself onto a stool.
“I think you’d better.” Emma leaned back against the workbench, still holding the knife, as if Jonah might attack at any moment. As if a knife would do any good. “All I remember is bits and pieces.”
Which bits? Which pieces? Jonah wondered. “We did some research online,” he said.
“Who’s we?”
Jonah didn’t want to implicate Kenzie in any of this, especially since Kenzie and Emma were friends. “Me,” he repeated. “Just me.”
“You mean you and Kenzie. I thought you were going to tell me the truth.”
Jonah sighed. “Me and Kenzie. But it was my idea. And he didn’t know what I was going to do with the information. We searched some work records from Thorn Hill, and found out that Tyler had been there not long before the massacre, but didn’t show up on any survivor or casualty lists.”
“He came there to take me home,” Emma said, her voice low and tight. “That’s why he came and went so quick.”
“Well,” Jonah said. “Anyway. We had him as Greenwood, and that’s how we were able to tie him to Sonny Lee. Once we found out that his business had relocated to this area, we—”
Emma held up a hand to stop him. “How did you find that out?”
“Um.” Jonah st
ruggled to remember. It had been a late night, and Kenzie had done most of the heavy lifting. “We found a Web page. We assumed it was Tyler’s business, since Sonny Lee was dead. I sent an e-mail.”
Emma’s eyes widened in horror. “That was my Web site. Tyler stayed safe for all these years until I led you right to him.” Her shoulders slumped. “Probably the wizards, too. It was all my fault.” Now her guilt washed over Jonah in waves.
This was going all wrong. This was supposed to be Jonah’s confession. Not Emma’s. “It’s not your fault,” he said sharply. “Why would you think somebody would be looking for Tyler?”
“Tyler told me,” Emma said. “He seemed worried that somebody would track me up there. He told me that Sonny Lee didn’t want any contact between us, that it would be too dangerous. Maybe it was just an excuse for why he hadn’t visited, but I believed him. I had put up the Web page before all this happened, but I didn’t have an address on it or anything...” She blotted at her eyes with the backs of her hands. “But then, when I got that e-mail...”
Jonah recalled Tyler’s high-tech security system, the fact that he kept a gun at hand, even in his own home. “Maybe Tyler was worried for reasons that had nothing to do with Thorn Hill,” he said gently. “There are lots of ways to make enemies.”
Emma’s face was gray as ash. She wasn’t buying it.
She’s got secrets of her own, Jonah thought. Maybe he could distract her by continuing his litany of sins. “Since he’d changed his name and all, I was pretty sure he wouldn’t talk to me willingly. So I broke into your house through a basement window. I was wearing a ski mask, because I didn’t want to have to kill anyone. I found you in your workshop and tied you up.” He paused. “Does any of this sound familiar?”
She shook her head. “Keep talking.”
“I went upstairs. Tyler never heard me—he was practicing. Making a lot of noise. When he saw me, he pulled a gun. He was marching me into the conservatory when the wizards broke in.”
Jonah told the story matter-of-factly, trying hard not to sell anything to Emma.
Emma seemed to be struggling to focus back on the conversation. “You didn’t come to kill the wizards? Or Tyler?”
“No. I...ah...was there for information.”
“So...what did the wizards want?”
“Same as me,” Jonah said. “They seemed to think that Tyler might know something about how Thorn Hill went down, what poison was used. He said he was just a musician, that he didn’t know anything about that.”
“He was a musician,” Emma said. “Why would he know anything? So this whole thing was a case of mistaken identity.”
“Maybe. Anyway. They began...they tried to force us to talk.” Emma didn’t need to know they’d tortured Tyler. “When that didn’t work, they called Rowan DeVries. They planned to take us somewhere else to question us more thoroughly.”
“Who’s ‘they’? Who was there?”
“Do you remember the night we first met? Club Catastrophe? The pool-playing wizards? It was mostly them. Including Rowan’s sister. Rachel DeVries. Eight wizards in all.”
“Why did they care what poison was used?”
Jonah shrugged. “You’ll have to ask them.”
“They’re dead.”
“Ask DeVries.”
“He’s nearly dead.”
Jonah had nothing to say to that, so he didn’t try. “Anyway, that’s when you showed up with the gun.”
Emma frowned. “Me?”
“I guess I hadn’t done that good of a job tying you up.” Jonah rubbed his chin. “You told them to let Tyler go or you’d shoot them. The wizards stalled, knowing help was on the way. Tyler knew it, too, so he made a break for it, trying to give you a chance to escape. You shot one of the wizards.”
“Rowan said one of the wizards had been shot,” Emma whispered. “I did that?”
Jonah nodded. “Then it was chaos. You fell and hit your head. The fight went on, and...and at the end, the only people alive were you and me.”
“And Tyler...how did he...?”
“There was a big gash in his thigh, and he’d lost a lot of blood. I don’t know if that killed him, or it was me or one of the wizards. The important part was he died trying to save you.” Jonah didn’t have many gifts to give, but he could offer that at least.
“What about Rowan’s sister? How did she die?”
“I killed her,” Jonah said. “With a sword.”
“You came to question my father with a sword.” The storm clouds began gathering again.
“He had a gun,” Jonah pointed out.
“He was in his own damn house,” Emma said. “Anyway, who brings a sword to a gunfight?”
It was Jonah’s turn to flinch. He saw so much of Tyler in Emma, even though they apparently hadn’t spent much time together. “Tyler asked me that same question.”
“So, if we were both alive at the end of the fight, then how did I end up at Rowan’s?”
Jonah felt the blood rush into his face. Honesty was a lot harder than he’d thought. “I—uh—I thought you were dead. I didn’t have time to make sure, because DeVries arrived. So I left. I didn’t realize you’d survived until Natalie told me.”
“You didn’t take the time to see if I was alive, but you took the time to steal my guitar.”
“I thought you were dead,” Jonah repeated, a little desperately. “After I heard you play, I—I just took it. I can’t explain it. I’d never heard music like that. It’s magic. You have no idea how it...anyway. That’s no excuse. I’m not a thief. I’m so sorry.”
Emma was still frowning, going over some kind of mental file. “Wasn’t there something else? When I fell in the gazebo and you came to help, it brought back a memory. It wasn’t the wizards or the fight or the gun. It was you. Unless it was a dream....”
She seemed determined to rip every secret out of him.
“There was something else,” Jonah said, swallowing hard. “After the fight, you were still alive. Groggy. Semiconscious. I picked you up to carry you out of the house. And then...we kissed.” Anguish came up in his throat like bile. “You were the only survivor, and I killed you. Or so I thought.”
Emma’s head came up, her eyes narrowed. “You kissed me? Or I kissed you?”
Jonah avoided her eyes. “Does it matter? It happened.”
“Yes,” Emma said, “it matters. And you said you would tell me the truth.” She sliced off each word precisely, as she might a piece of wood.
“You kissed me,” Jonah said, licking his lips like he could recapture the taste.
“I thought so,” Emma said, a muscle working in her jaw.
“But it wasn’t your fault. I should have anticipated that it might happen. The last thing I wanted to do was hurt you.”
“You’re talking about your sister,” Emma said.
Jonah felt a stab of betrayal. “Gabriel told you that, too?”
“Guess he had to, since you didn’t.”
“It happened a long time ago. Anyway, it’s not something I like to talk about.”
“The things you don’t want to talk about would fill a library.”
“That’s the kind of life I’ve had, all right?”
“Really? Well, I had a pretty good life, up to when Sonny Lee died.” Suspicion clouded her face. “You said you connected Tyler to Sonny Lee. Are you sure you didn’t go to Memphis first? Are you sure you didn’t go see Sonny Lee in his shop last summer?”
Jonah shook his head. “I told you. I’ve never been to Memphis. By the time we started looking into this, Sonny Lee was already dead. In fact, it was his obituary that made us realize that Tyler was his son. Only it said Tyler had predeceased him.”
“That’s what Sonny Lee always told everyone. That when Tyler died, I came to live with him.” She closed her eyes, and tears leaked
out at the corners. “Can you see why I can’t stand a lie? People have been lying to me all my life. Even the people I loved most in the world.”
“Sometimes people lie for good reasons,” Jonah said. “To keep you safe, or to avoid breaking your heart, or to make it possible for you to go on living.”
“And sometimes they lie to protect themselves,” Emma snapped.
“I know.” He paused. “Do you have any other questions for me?”
“Are you the one killing mainliners?”
“No,” Jonah said.
“What about the night of the Halloween party?”
“I didn’t murder anyone that night,” Jonah said, with as much confidence as he could muster. “Someone is trying to make it look like savants are responsible.”
“Who? Who would do that?”
That was a question Jonah didn’t want to answer. It would be like falling into a well that he couldn’t climb back out of.
See, we’re fighting an army of the undead. They want us to join them in a war on mainliners.
So he just shrugged. “Whoever’s been killing mainliners all along. If you use a knife or a sword, the prohibition against attack magic in the Sanctuary is no protection.”
To his relief, she didn’t press him on it.
When no more questions came, he said, “Well? Will you stay?”
Emma seemed to be debating at least, which was better than before. “Do you promise to always tell me the truth after this?”
“I can’t promise that,” Jonah said. “Remember what I said—limited-time offer.” He bit back the temptation to ask her to keep his secrets.
Emma mulled this over, the muscle in her jaw working. She sighed. Then said, “Self-interest, huh?”
“Self-interest,” Jonah said.
“Here’s what I’ll do, if Gabriel will go along with it. I’m not living in the same building with you. I’ll still move to Trinity, but I’ll stay in school here at the Anchorage and drive back and forth. I don’t think I can deal with changing schools again.”
“What about the band?” Jonah knew he was being greedy, but he couldn’t help himself. Of all the drugs to be addicted to, why did it have to be Emma’s music? And why would she ever agree to this?
The Sorcerer Heir (Heir Chronicles) Page 10