Chapter Eleven
I gasped for breath when my bedroom came back into focus. That last image of Colin—how did I not know? How had I not guessed? How could Mack not know? Ice hardened my veins, and I kicked the sweat-dampened sheets from my legs.
He knew. All of the subtleties, the things I thought he’d been trying to say—
I pushed myself to a seated position and ran my fingers through my hair. Every drift played back, and the pieces slowly fell into place. Mack had rescued me that night, Mack had taken me to Houston, Mack had married me.
Mack had killed James.
The room spun as if the world had tilted off axis, and the ice that had frozen my blood became brittle and cracked. Betrayal lanced my heart, and I screamed with frustration. How could he? How could he not tell me? I shot out of bed, pausing long enough to put a thick cable knit sweater over my camisole and pajama shorts.
“Hey,” Gracie said as she peeked into my room. “Are you okay?” Her hair, as black as mine was blonde, was in tangles around her shoulders.
“I didn’t mean to wake you.” I grabbed my boots and slipped them on, not bothering with socks or laces.
“Are you going somewhere?” She straightened and blinked to better focus on what I was doing.
“Nowhere far. Go back to sleep.” I slipped past her and stomped into the living room. I was on fire, and Mack was about to feel the heat.
Gracie followed close at my heels. “Listen, I wanted to tell you I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said what I did about James without knowing the whole story.”
So many things had happened that at first I had no idea what she was talking about. I turned with my hand on the door and looked at her with confusion.
“Xander came by earlier, mad as hell.” I could see the guilt on her face. “Seems that James called him and told him you’d found out about the assault charges.”
Now I remembered. “It doesn’t matter. James explained everything.” I unlocked the door, ready to confront Mack.
“I didn’t know about his mother—about the way she died,” Gracie said as I stepped outside.
I turned back to her and shook my head. “Can we talk about this later? I have something I need to take care of.”
“Where? It’s the middle of the night,” Gracie argued, but I wasn’t listening. I marched across the hall, hardly feeling the cold air that greeted me.
I balled my fist and pounded on Mack’s door. Anger simmered, and when he didn’t answer, I kicked my boot-clad foot into the base of the door.
“Mack, open up,” I yelled.
“Abby, what’re you doing?” Gracie asked from behind me, but her words barely registered under my bristling fury.
“Open the door, Mack,” I said, this time louder.
“You’re acting crazy. We have neighbors.” Gracie was at my side in an instant.
I grit my teeth and faced her. “Don’t ever call me crazy.” Her eyes widened. “You above all should know that.”
We were staring at each other when the door opened. Mack stood shirtless in the entry, still groggy from waking up. I didn’t bother to wait for an invitation. Instead, I pushed around him and kicked the door closed behind me.
“That was some entrance. You going to tell me what’s going on?” He looked at me from head to toe, staring at my unlaced boots and bare legs. I knew I should feel embarrassed, but there wasn’t enough room for another emotion. Red was all I could see.
“I don’t know, Mack, why don’t you tell me.” My voice was polite and cordial, but there was a bite to the words that put him on the defensive.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” He gave his head a slight shake and ran his fingers through his hair. Colin’s hair. An image of him standing in the sun in front of the Rice Hotel merged over his passive face.
“A funny thing happened to me tonight,” I said when he remained quiet.
Mack raised a brow and looked at my bare legs. “You left your pants at home?” He smiled, but it only increased my fury.
“I had a drift.”
Mack’s eyes narrowed. “Is James at your apartment?” He moved toward the door. “After everything I’ve told you, you still won’t listen. Unbelievable.”
“James isn’t there.” Mack stopped and turned back to me. “This happened all on its own, and it happened after spending an entire day with you.”
He rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. “I’m sorry.” And after a deep breath: “Tell me what happened.”
I smiled, but it didn’t feel nice. It felt wicked. “I don’t know, Mack. What do you think could’ve happened that would have me banging on your door at”—I looked at the clock hanging on the wall—“two thirty-seven in the morning?”
He shifted on his feet and crossed his arms over his bare chest. “I don’t have a clue, but I’m curious.”
“I bet you are. I saw his face.” I didn’t elaborate, and for several moments Mack didn’t react. It wasn’t until I raised my eyebrows that his features relaxed and he looked away from my accusatory stare. “What’s your first name Agent McCormack?”
Mack recovered and lifted his shoulders, but he didn’t speak.
“Tell me your name,” I said again.
He closed his lips and clenched his jaw. My gaze flicked to the kitchen counter where I saw his badge and wallet. Grabbing it before he could reach it, I pulled his license from the protective sleeve and stared at the card.
“When were you planning to tell me?”
“Listen, you need to understand that—”
“I want to hear you say it. I want to hear you say your name…Colin.” I spat the word and tossed the ID in his direction. He watched it fall to the floor. “How long have you known?”
Mack shook his head and picked his ID from the floor. Long seconds passed while he tucked it into his wallet. Instead of looking at me, he braced his hands against the counter top and dropped his head between his arms.
“Answer me,” I demanded.
I watched the way his shoulder blades widened and his ribs expanded with an exaggerated breath before falling in a noisy exhale. “There has never been a time I haven’t known.”
It felt like the air had been knocked from my lungs. I was breathless in disbelief. Mack pushed away from the counter and faced me.
“Were you ever going to tell me?”
“What do you want me to say?”
“That you knew about my drift. That you knew you were a part of it, and from what I’ve seen, a pretty big part of it.” Furious tears balled in the base of my lids. “You murdered him. You murdered James.”
Mack shook his head and advanced on me. “No, that’s where you have it wrong. I didn’t murder anyone.”
“You did! I know you did!” I jabbed my finger into his chest, and Mack stepped back.
“I didn’t kill James, Abby. You can’t put that on me. I’m not that person. Not anymore.”
“Don’t turn this around. You lied to me then just like you’re lying to me now.”
Mack spread his arms out wide. “Lying to you? How?”
“By not telling me. God,” I breathed. I looked around the room, my anger giving away to sadness. All this time, I had no idea. “And you—you’ve played the caring friend. The one who’s only out to protect me. I feel so stupid.”
He leaned forward, his face inches from mine. “Don’t think for a minute that I’ve been playing anything. I may not have told you the entire truth, but I had my reasons, and it was all for you. For your safety. For your protection.”
His eyes were ablaze. I turned my back and fought the instinct to run while my gaze flicked wildly over the room. I was caught somewhere between anger and tears, but when I tried to nail down exactly how I was feeling, more questions arose.
I needed answers.
I turned to face Mack. “Tell me how it works for you. Do you drift like me? Or is it something else, like James.”
“I drift.” He fidgeted with his hands, staring at his knuckles before looking back at me. “It’s the reason I was recruited to the FBI, actually. They needed someone like me to understand people like us. Most people who drift never meet their counterparts. Believe me, I never expected to meet you, and then, there you were.”
A shiver wound its way up from my toes. There was a question lurking, but it wasn’t one I was sure I wanted the answer to. We stared at each other until it became too big to ignore. “When was that? How long ago?”
“Does it matter?”
“I don’t know. I guess it depends on the answer.”
Mack rolled his shoulders back. “It was a long time ago.”
“When, Mack?”
He licked his lips and looked toward the ceiling before stepping toward me. “Just know that seeing you changed everything for me. It was like nothing I’d ever experienced. You know? Seeing you was like finding something—someone—I didn’t know I’d lost.”
I knew that feeling. I’d had it when I first saw James. “Is that why you decided to move in across the hall from me?”
Mack shook his head and his lips pressed together. “No.”
“Then why?”
Mack walked to the bookshelf that stood in his living room. From a box, he pulled out a folded paper. He handed it to me, and I recognized the glossy advertisement immediately. “I happened to be in that coffee shop next door to the Reed Street gallery several weeks before I moved in. These flyers were on the counter, and I recognized you immediately. I told you, you’d have never known me if James hadn’t painted that picture.”
I stared down at my portrait and focused on the necklace around my neck. “Did you find out about the necklace, about Roselli, after you saw this?”
“No. I knew more about the necklace than most because I’d seen it.”
My head tilted in question. “You’d seen it?”
“In my drift, of course. Never in real life.”
I nodded and chewed my lower lip while trying to make sense of all that he’d revealed. “Does your boss know? That your drift is about me?”
Mack leaned against the wall and braced his hands behind him for support. He shook his head. “He can’t know. He’d take me off your case, and I can’t do that. I can’t leave you to deal with someone like Roselli alone.”
“I wouldn’t be alone. I mean, there are other people that do what you do, right?”
Mack pushed off the wall and moved toward me. “Is that what you want?”
I didn’t know what I wanted. “I hate that you didn’t tell me. Is there anything else I should know?”
Mack’s lips pursed together, his eyes sad. “No. There’s nothing else.”
The soft glow of light accentuated his muscular frame, making him look less like the FBI agent who lied and more like the Colin I knew from my drift. Kind. Understanding.
“Abby?” Mack asked.
I looked into his eyes and my vision blurred. Just before it went black, he took a step forward and extended his hand, reaching for mine.
There was a light knock at my bedroom door, and before it creaked open, I closed my hands over the necklace and buried it in the folds of my skirt.
“What’re you doing in here?” Colin asked while waiting for permission to enter my room.
“I’m just thinking,” I said, my voice strong even though I felt weak.
“About my request?”
I hadn’t actually been thinking about that at all, but I nodded all the same. “Of course.”
“May I come in?” he asked.
I nodded and squeezed my skirt where the diamond was hidden underneath.
Colin approached slowly, and after gesturing to the space next to me, he sat and folded his hands in his lap. His signature smell of tobacco and mint swirled around me. “It’s been two years.” He didn’t elaborate, but he didn’t need to. Today marked the two-year anniversary of James’s death and our escape from Galveston. Two years since I left my old life behind to begin anew.
“It has,” I agreed, but I made no move to elaborate.
He took a deep breath and reached into his jacket pocket, pulling from it a small black box. My heart fell from my chest as he turned it over in his hands. When the box was right side up, he stopped and placed one hand over the lid.
“I was serious when I asked you to marry me.”
“Colin, at this point, marriage would only be a formality.” Since the first day at the Rice Hotel, we had been Mr. and Ms. Faust. I wasn’t sure I’d even turn at the sound of my former name after all this time.
“I know everyone already thinks we’re husband and wife. I know that we’ve been pretending at marriage for so long that sometimes it does feel real. But late at night, when you’re in here and I’m in there, I think about you.” He swallowed hard. “About how much I love you.”
Shock widened my eyes and parted my lips, but he wasn’t perturbed by my obvious surprise.
“I don’t know when it happened, but it has, and whatever horrible circumstance brought us together doesn’t matter. I want to be with you as your husband, and you as my wife.” He pulled at the lid, and the box opened. Inside was a glittering diamond the size of a pea. He lifted the ring from the velvet setting and held it out to me. The band was simple and twisted like braided rope. It was perfect, and a pang of guilt ached in my chest.
“Colin,” I breathed leaning away from his fingers. “I—”
“Don’t say you can’t. Just consider it.”
The diamond caught the light and sparkled. “I have. Believe me.” I’d not spoken of James since the night I left him bleeding in that alleyway. I couldn’t. It was too painful, and over the last two years, Colin and I had both avoided bringing up the circumstance that brought us together. “It’s just that—” I stood and backed away from where Colin sat, but in my haste, I’d forgotten about the necklace, realizing it only when I heard it clatter against the wood floor at my feet.
He looked down at the same time I leapt to pick it up. I held it between my palms, but it was too late.
“What is that, Abigail?” he asked. His voice, while quiet, shouted in the silence.
I shook my head. “Nothing, it’s nothing. Just something I picked up.” I turned to my dresser and placed the necklace into James’s handkerchief.
“It doesn’t look like nothing.” I folded the edges of the cloth, one over the other, and when it was tucked inside, I ran my fingers over the embroidered initial B.
“Something you purchased?”
I faced Colin, but I couldn’t lie to him. “No. It’s old. Something I’ve had.” I picked up the cloth containing the necklace and moved to my wardrobe.
“May I see it?”
I stopped and turned cold. He was never supposed to see it. He was never supposed to know about it. But now that he knew, I couldn’t very well hide it from him. I extended my hand and he took the bundle from me. Carefully, he unfolded each corner until he revealed the sparkling necklace.
“It’s beautiful,” Colin said as he lifted it by the chain.
“I know.” The yellow stone threw fragments of light around the room. “Though it’s probably nothing valuable.”
Colin turned the necklace and shook his head. “On the contrary. This,” he said, staring at the pendant, “is a yellow diamond. A rare color. I’d imagine it’s quite valuable. Why haven’t you shown me this before?”
Just seeing it out on display made my chest compress. I took in a labored breath and blinked back my tears. “I don’t know. I just couldn’t.”
Colin looked at me with tortured eyes while the necklace dangled from his fingers. “This is the reason I found you in that alley.” He didn’t ask a question, but I answered all the same when I pursed my lips together and nodded my head.
He palmed the diamond and closed his fingers around it. “How did you get it?”
I coughed to clear my throat and took a few steadying breaths to calm my nerves. “James must’ve—I found it in my handbag that night.”
He lifted the yellow diamond closer to his eye and turned it over in his hand, examining it from both sides. I knew he’d see James’s blood still crusted in the corners of the prongs. So many times I’d thought to wash it off, but in the end, this was why he died, and a part of him, no matter how small, still clung to this hideously beautiful necklace. As long as it was there, I could hold a piece of him.
“This is beautiful. Priceless, really. Where’ve you been hiding it?”
I looked to my wardrobe. “There’s a loose floorboard there. I couldn’t risk anyone finding it. It was the reason he was killed. It’s the reason I’ll be killed, and I don’t want you to die because of it, too.”
Colin winced and placed the necklace back in the handkerchief. He folded the edges with the same care I had used moments ago and handed it back to me.
“I’m sorry I never told you before. I didn’t know how. That night, my life ended. Those men took my future. My dreams. And for what? This?” I held up the bundle. “Was James’s life really worth less than this?”
Colin’s forehead wrinkled with sympathy. “People kill for a lot less.”
“Evidently. Another man was killed that night. I saw him shot down like a rabid dog.”
“You knew him?”
“No, not me personally. It was James’s brother, Thomas. He gave James this necklace. I’m sure of it.”
“Did he say anything? Anything about who he was running from?”
“No, but he told James to tell her he was sorry.”
“Who? Tell who he was sorry?”
The memory of that night had never faded. Every smell, sight, and sound was a living memory that haunted my days and shattered my nights.
“I don’t know.”
Colin took a deep breath, his chest expanding as he looked toward the ceiling. Emotion surged and tears spilled from my eyes. All I could see was James’s blood. All I could hear were my own screams. Colin pulled me into his arms, his lips pressed against the crown of my head.
“I’m so sorry, Abigail. If I could take it back I would.”
“Don’t be. You didn’t do it, and you can’t change what somebody else did.”
His arms tightened around me. “Marry me, Abigail. Let me make this right.”
Enveloped in his arms, I felt safe. I didn’t feel love, at least not the kind I felt for James, but I felt protected and even cherished. I didn’t doubt his sincerity, and our life together these last two years had been comfortable. Given the circumstances, there wasn’t another place I could imagine being. Realizing this, I nodded into his chest, answering his question without words.
Colin stooped to look me in the eyes. “You’ll marry me?”
“Yes.” It was a whisper of a word, but it was enough. Colin nodded, lifted my left hand, and slid the diamond ring onto my finger. It was a perfect fit.
The room came into slow focus. Mack stood in front of me, his hand still outstretched. I looked at his fingers, across his bare chest, and finally to eyes. There was an apology there, as if he knew what I’d seen.
“Abby, talk to me. The silence is killing me.”
I started to speak several times. I even muttered a few “I”s and “You”s, but I couldn’t get any words to follow.
“You tricked me. You tricked me into marrying you.”
Mack dropped his hand and cleared his throat, taking the time to look away and shove his hands into the pockets of his pajama bottoms.
“I didn’t trick you. You knew who I was.”
“I didn’t know you were a murderer. I didn’t know you were the one that killed Thomas and chased us into that alley. I didn’t know you murdered James.”
“Please, stop confusing my past life with my present. It wasn’t me. I didn’t do that.” His voice rose with every word.
“How could you do that to me?” I was beginning to sound hysterical. “How could you marry me? Tell me you loved me, when you knew you did the one thing that destroyed me?”
“Abby,” Mack’s voice held a warning, but I paid no heed, and soon we were speaking over one another.
“Why, Mack?”
“I told you why.”
“I mean—how could you?”
“Because I love you.” The words blurted from his mouth, and his hands went to his hair before running down his face. Whatever I’d been about to say froze in my throat, and I stood in shock. “Because I loved you,” he amended, and when he spoke again, his voice held a forced kind of calm. “That night, I risked everything for you when I came back. Don’t you see that?”
I stepped away from him and toward the door. My head spun, and my heart pounded. I grabbed the door handle and looked back at Mack. “Our relationship, our life together back then was based on lies, not love.” Mack’s jaw clenched in response. “I guess some things never change.”