Kate

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We stumble into my room, barely conscious. I’m bottoming out, with the last of my adrenaline gone, and Max—he looks horrible. The bags under his eyes are so big, so black, it looks like we both got the crap kicked out of us. And he’s ashen under his faint spring tan.

“You eaten at all?”

He groans. “Not since, uh...not since.... I don’t know. Breakfast? When was that?”

“Yesterday?” I’m in the same boat. There was nothing but celery and water backstage, and after the show, well, food was the last thing on my mind.

“We should get....” Max plops down on an ornate fainting couch. “What do you call...in a hotel...when you pick up the phone and they bring you, uh...?”

I laugh. “Sweet salvation?” The room service menu’s in the nightstand. I bypass it and go straight for the phone. “Bring us, ah...French toast, eggs Benedict, couple of those gruyère omelettes. For two. Two of everything. And coffee. All the coffee.”

Max is mouthing something.

I cover the receiver. “Hm?”

“Bacon. Need baaaaaa-con.” He holds out his arms like a zombie.

“And bacon. Just, like...a plate of bacon.” I hang up and flop on the bed, wincing as every part of my body twinges, throbs, or protests.

I hear clicking from the couch: Max checking his phone. “Anything interesting?”

“Nah, just....” He tucks his phone away, lips tight. “Kyle said he’d text if anything happened with Rachel. Guess we’re all good, so far. Or....”

Or. Right.

Max tilts his head back. “I shouldn’t be in your room.”

“You say that....” I force myself up on one elbow. “You say that, but you’re putting your feet up. Taking off your coat. Oh, yeah. Aaaaand...you’re loosening your tie.”

“Mm-hm.” His eyes roll and close. “I got bacon coming. Can’t sully the, uh...the bacon experience with a pinchy tie.” He kicks off his shoes and wiggles his toes. “Ugh. Can’t feel my toes.”

“Oh, cry me a river!” I stick out my own feet, still strapped into a pair of glittery white platforms.

“Torture devices.” He leans forward and unbuckles first one, then the other. His fingertips trail over my ankles and along my feet as he eases them off. The gentleness of his touch makes me want to—I don’t even know. Burst into tears. Grab him by the tie and pull him on top of me. Beg him to leave before I do either of the above.

My shoes hit the floor. Max leans back on the couch and sits up again almost immediately.

“This couch is less comfortable than a coffin.”

I arch a brow. My face pulls and aches. “Been in many coffins?”

“One. And let me tell you, that cushioning’s all for show.”

“When—? Actually, I don’t want to know. Or, I do—but first, come up here.” I gesture at the bed.

He scowls. “I don’t think—”

“Come on.” I sound drunk. I feel drunk. “What are you going to do, jump my bones? I look like an extra from The Walking Dead. And our food’ll be here any minute.”

“Good point.” Max crawls up the bed and faceplants in the pillows. “Mmph...soft.” He flips over on his back, staring at the ceiling. “So, the coffin—I met this woman out clubbing one night. Went to her place, and....” He laughs, low and exhausted. “It was a funeral home. She was a—a mortician. A funeral director. Whatever the polite term is. And she passed out, and I....”

“You didn’t.”

“I did.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I was leaving—I really was. But this coffin caught my eye, this empty coffin, just sitting there with the lid gaping open. And I got this morbid impulse, like...why not preview the coming attractions?”

A peal of laughter has me clutching my ribs. “Ow! Oh, God! Preview death? You...you got in your unconscious date’s coffin, to see what it’s like to be....” I’m howling. “You’re crazy. Certifiable.”

“I know.” He shifts, and his hand brushes mine. “You know what I found out afterward?”

“What?”

“Once you close those things, they lock. Forever. If I’d pulled that top down, I’d have suffocated in there.”

“I don’t think that’s true.” I’m still giggling—every time I think I’m done, another snicker breaks loose.

“Maybe not.”

“Definitely not.”

“I was drunk, too.” He swivels his head my way. “Thoroughly hammered.”

Well, duh. “So, how was it?”

“Huh?”

“Your preview of the great hereafter.”

His gaze cuts to the finger of sun stealing between the drapes. “Uncomfortable. Depressing. Cramped.” A stray tear runs down his cheek, catching the light. A tear of laughter, I think, but the sight of it makes me feel weird. Protective. “Don’t let them stick me in a box when I go. I want cremation. Burial at sea. Or that new thing, where they dissolve you into fertilizer. Make sure someone knows.”

As if I’d be in charge of that.... “You should put it in your will.”

“Mm.” He half-rises, as if to say something else, but he’s interrupted by a knock at the door. Our food. I’d almost forgotten.

Max brings in the cart. The food smells great, but when it comes time to eat it, neither of us has half the appetite we’d anticipated. He picks at the bacon; I poke at a piece of French toast. The sweetness sits heavy on my tongue, even after a swig of coffee.

I drop my fork and sink into the pillows. I’m made of sandbags. Too heavy to move.

Max sighs, and I feel my plate being taken away. Warmth settles over me: he’s folded me into the blanket. I murmur a protest—I’m not sleeping; I’m not—but it comes out as an incoherent moan.

Maybe five minutes. Then I’ll call Wes. It’ll be hard on him, all alone in London. It’s killing me, too—the guilt, mostly, not being there for him. Picturing him oceans away, no one to turn to. If it weren’t for Max, I’d be falling apart, myself.

I force my eyes open. Max is whistling under his breath, folding his jacket over the back of a chair. This should be uncomfortable, a ticking time bomb situation, but it feels...easy. Familiar. All that’s missing is his warm weight at my back, his fingers in my hair....

I could hold up the cover for him. Call him over. But maybe it’s only exhaustion holding back his anger, only the need for comfort.

My eyes drift shut. The sounds of the street are soothing, muted by distance and double glazing. So tired.

I hear a distant flump: Max taking over the couch. What I wouldn’t give for his arms around me—but he’s right. It’s a bad idea. I turn over on my side, away from the morning sun.

Five minutes....

“Wake up!”

What? I wasn’t—

Max is shaking me, none too gently. “Christ, Kate, get up!”

I’m sticky and sweaty—a little sick. The sun’s beating down, baking me in my blanket burrito. Must be almost noon. I wipe my face on the pillow. “What? I’m awake.”

“I’ll get you a cold washcloth.”

“What’s the matter?”

He’s already gone. I sit up slowly, cataloguing my aches and pains. My face hurts the most—no, my whole head. And my back’s one giant cramp. Must’ve wrenched it in the fall. My arms—

“Here.” Max thrusts a wet cloth into my hands. I wipe my face mechanically, wincing at the amount of makeup that comes off. I must look like a clown, after a morning of sweating into the pillow.

“What’s wrong?”

Max looks at me—through me—like he’s not seeing me at all. His pupils are blown, and he’s gone an unhealthy shade of gray. “Rachel. She’s—something’s going on. I don’t know. Here.” He flicks on the TV. We don’t even have to hunt for it: it’s right there. Headline news. We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming for this glimpse of hell.

“What—?”

A bright-faced anchor pops up, dazzling in her periwinkle blouse. “And we’re here in front of Congressman Kyle Abernathy’s DC residence, and as you can see, we’ve got paramedics on standby, and a significant police presence—oh! And more on the way.” Sirens wail, and she pauses to let them die down. “Neighbors report a single shot fired inside the home—that was around nine this morning, and it looks like the police are setting up for a hostage negotiation. We’ve got SWAT here, and communications equipment being set up, but so far—”

“She’s—she’s dead?”

Max silences me with a hand on my arm. “We don’t know that.”

A flustered-looking cop barges into the shot. “Gonna need you to make some room—that van can’t be blocking the road.”

The camera swings away from the confrontation, panning over a line of closed and curtained windows. A spot dances on the glass—laser light? A sniper?

“No. No....”

Max drops his phone on the bed. “Carson’s not picking up. You got anything?”

I scroll through my notifications: nothing. “This is Dev all over again.”

“Something’s happening.” Max’s hand finds mine. It’d be more reassuring if I couldn’t feel him trembling. I squeeze back anyway. Something is going on: one of the cops is nodding into his phone, hand held up for silence. When the camera swivels back to the house, there’s a couple of SWAT guys on the door, weapons drawn. Awaiting orders.

“This is—that’s a good sign.” Max swallows. “If they’re going in, it means.... It means they’re not just shooting. They’re probably—”

One of the men throws open the door. The other darts inside, and then they’re both out of sight. I hold my breath till it starts to burn in my chest. The anchor pops up again, and I flap my hand at the screen—out of the way!

“This is good. The quiet, it’s—”

“Oh, Rachel!” I drop Max’s hand. I can’t look, won’t look, don’t believe—I clap both palms over my eyes. But I can’t deny what I saw, what’s still there, no matter how I hide: Rachel’s sheet-draped body, being wheeled out past an actual white picket fence.

Max makes a sick grunting sound. I drop my hands into my lap. “Why? Rachel—fuck!”

“That’s not Rachel.” But there’s no relief in his voice. They’re showing Kyle’s official press photo—that’s him under the sheet?

“I don’t understand.”

The anchor’s saying something, but it’s going in one ear and out the other. I can’t make sense of what I’m hearing. A single gunshot wound to the head...what? Who would’ve—Rachel? The blackmailer? Was this her punishment?

A family portrait appears—Rachel and Kyle by the lake, swinging little Tom between them—and that’s over, now. Finished. They’ll never pose for another. Never bounce their grandkids on their knees.

Kyle’s gone? Really gone?

I realize I’m clinging to Max. He’s rocking me in his arms, eyes glued to the screen. I bury my face in his shirt, but I can’t block out the voices—all that information I don’t want, would’ve been happier without.

“Rachel’s all right.” Max clears his throat. “They’re bringing her out now. She....”

“What?”

“She’s in handcuffs.”

Rachel? It doesn’t seem possible. “That doesn’t mean she killed him. If she showed the cops the flash drives...they’d still arrest her, right? For—maybe there was something else on her list. Something criminal.”

“She wouldn’t do that. Rachel—she was desperate to keep the truth from her son. She’d never give up those drives.”

“Then you’re saying she killed him?”

Max shrugs helplessly. “We need to....” He trails off, like he’s run out of ideas.

“We need to fly out there. Talk to Rachel.” Find out if....

He’s nodding. “Might be too late, already. A dead congressman—cops’ll be all over that. But we have to try.”

Or we could let the truth come out. Our efforts to keep it under wraps have only brought us grief. I open my mouth to say so.

“We can’t come forward.”

“Why not?”

“We knew about the blackmail. About Dev—and there’s still Matt Danbury. We’re not innocent victims here.”

My head’s spinning. “We’re, what? Accessories?”

“Or criminally negligent. I don’t know.” He drags his palms down his cheeks. “Kyle was the one who knew the law. All I know is I feel guilty as hell, and if there’s any justice in the world, we’d deserve—they’d be able to stick us with something.”

“If we deserve it, maybe we should face up to it.”

He turns to me, lips drawn down in agony. “And what happens to Wes then? And Carson?”

I look away. I don’t know. “We need time.”

“There isn’t any.” Max stands up. Buttons his jacket. Maybe it’s the harsh noonday sun glaring in his face; maybe it’s the angle of his jaw—but there’s something hard and walled-off about him. He looks down at me, expressionless. “Pack an overnight bag. Meet me at JFK in two hours. If you’re coming.”

What choice do I have? “I’m coming.”

“Good. I’ll book our seats.” He nods at me, distant and impersonal. “Text when you’re on your way.”

“Right.” I reach for him, desperate for the reassurance of touch, but he’s already walking away.

Something’s changed. Everything’s changed. I should never have come. I should’ve run at the first sign of danger. How did I ever think Max and I might still...might find our way back to one another?

I pick myself up in a daze and stumble to the shower.

One catastrophe at a time.