10

THE BOMBSHELL

(Present Day)

To the outside world, it looks like I’m meeting my friends at the steps of Bethesda Terrace for a picnic. A real picnic this time, with a basket full of actual food, a blanket to sit on, and a Frisbee to toss around, should the urge arise. The sky is bright and sunny—one of those days that finds New Yorkers gladly taking refuge behind dark sunglasses—and there’s even a class of schoolchildren out on a field trip. They ooh and aah over the fountain they’ve probably seen eighty times already.

Anyone paying attention, however, would notice how unnaturally still I am, lounging next to Jordan and Oz, waiting for Riker to arrive. Whereas other people get twitchy and restless when they’re nervous, I turn to stone. It’s another side effect of the job. We wouldn’t want me thumping around every time I start to feel qualms about my life choices.

I’m feeling them right now. Grant got home from his trip a few days ago, fully intact and with no explanation for his absence. The necklace is still in the safe, mocking me with its proximity. No attempt has been made to retrieve or move it—either by Riker or the FBI. And Grant won’t stop looking at me when he thinks I’m not paying attention.

It’d be one thing if his gaze followed me with love or desire—hatred would even make sense—but I mostly feel like a lab rat dropped into a maze. He watched me throughout the movie we saw last night, his scrutiny so intense, I couldn’t tell you what the film was about. He watched me this morning at breakfast, his eyes following the movement of the spoon to my mouth like a starving man. And he watched me as I packed up this picnic a few hours ago, offering to help with the sandwiches or run to the store to pick up additional supplies.

It’s weird. It’s weird and it’s not like him and it’s seriously freaking me out. Only this promised meeting with Riker saved me from doing something rash.

“Hey, guys.” Riker appears from around the corner, his mouth in a moment of rare balance. Neither smiling nor scowling, his lips form a perfectly straight line. In all the years I’ve known him, I’m not sure I’ve seen that line before, and I don’t like it. “Thanks for meeting me. Are we clear to talk?”

Oz flashes him a thumbs-up while I fight the urge to stand up and yell at him for making this so much more difficult than it needs to be.

“What’s the matter with you?” I hiss instead, finding the susurration almost as soothing as a good scream. “Do you have any idea how worried we’ve been? How confused? Why couldn’t you pick up a phone and let us know what’s going on?”

No glimmer of contrition crosses his face as he turns toward me. “I wanted to be sure before I said anything.”

“Sure about what?” I demand and then don’t bother waiting for an answer. “Did you follow Grant out of town? Where did he go? What’s he up to? What are his plans for the necklace?”

Riker only pays attention to the last question. “As far as I can tell, he doesn’t have any plans for the necklace. He didn’t do anything or go anywhere to indicate he cared about it. You could take it tomorrow, and I doubt he’d notice. In fact, I think that’s exactly what we should do. Open the safe and make a break for it. You in?”

There’s an expectancy about the request, a weight that feels uncomfortable in the current circumstances.

“What are you talking about?” I ask.

“You and me, Pen,” he says. “Oz and Jordan. Two million dollars. I told you before, the best course of action is to take the necklace and run. Nothing has happened to change that.”

“But…” I search his face, looking for clues. What’s the big news? The mysterious truth? What’s he been doing with himself for the past week? To look at him, you’d think he’d just asked if I want cream in my coffee.

“But nothing. I’m giving you one last chance. Let’s grab it and go, leave all this mess behind.”

Ultimatums have never set well with me. “You know I can’t just take the necklace,” I say irritably. I swear, it’s like he’s willfully misunderstanding the delicacy of this situation. Grant is my husband, not some random mark. I can’t walk away from him like that. “We’re talking about two million dollars Grant is personally responsible for. He won’t just blink and let us go.”

“That’s what you think. What’s two million dollars compared to love?”

My heart expands to twice its size before clamping down on itself. “What does love have to do with it?”

“More than you think. It took me a few days, but I discovered a little something about that dear husband of yours. Something that puts a definite kink in your lovelorn refusal to cross him.”

“I told you already,” I say. “I’m not lovelorn. I’m being cautious.”

“Good.” Riker’s expression lifts, a smile settling in place of that uncanny line. “Then you won’t be upset when I tell you that the reason Mr. Romance has been acting so strange lately is because he’s having an affair.”

* * *

“Under no circumstances are you coming in with me.” I block the doorway with my arms crossed and my legs shoulder-width apart, refusing to let Riker past. “Go back to the train station and gloat with Oz and Jordan. I can handle this on my own.”

“I’m not gloating,” Riker gloats.

“He’s not having an affair.”

“Says you.”

“It’s probably just a work colleague.”

“In snakeskin pants?”

“Maybe she’s undercover.” Even as I stand here at the door to the house I share with my supposed beloved, defending him against Riker’s slurs, I realize how ridiculous I sound. So what if Grant is stepping out on me? Our marriage is hardly a conventional one. We’re more like cat-and-mouse lovers than anything else. When Judgment Day comes and we’re asked to stack up our sins for comparative analysis, infidelity isn’t likely to stand out above any of the others.

Or so I keep telling myself. The spike ripping open my throat seems to indicate otherwise. The delicate gold chain of the infinity necklace isn’t nearly strong enough to hold it closed.

“Pen, you know you can’t do this by yourself.” Riker falls into a rare moment of concern, all those angles of his face less jagged, less likely to cut. “If you spy on him and end up seeing what I saw, you’ll get emotional and blow everything.”

“I won’t get emotional. I’m a calm, levelheaded businesswoman making calm, levelheaded plans for the future.”

His look of disbelief is worth a thousand words. “This is a good thing. Now we can start building a legitimate foundation for divorce. We’ll hire a private detective, set it up so you look like a woman scorned, and make it so even the FBI can’t question your motives. Hell, you might even manage to score alimony out of the deal. That’ll annoy him.”

He reaches for my hand in a show of solidarity. It’s been so long since we touched for any reason other than absolute necessity that I almost don’t remember what it’s like. There’s unquestionable strength in those long fingers. A thief’s strength. A thief’s hands.

He squeezes. “I think it’s time we pull out from the project, with or without the goddamned necklace. Don’t you?”

I glance at our hands and back up at his face, sure I’m imagining things. This has to be the first time I’ve heard Riker willingly offer to walk away from money. He loves to act like this whole situation with Grant is my doing, my obsession, my fault, but that’s not fair. He never complained when I used my position to lure Grant away from the crime scene, never asked twice when Grant let something slip about his investigation into my dad’s disappearance. As long as the funds and information flowed freely, he was happy to turn his scowl the other way.

Which is why I’m so floored now. “Without the necklace? You’d really do that?”

“Absofuckinglutely. Let’s make this a clean break, Pen. Let’s end this. Let’s go back to the way it was before.”

Before. It’s hard to tell what he means by that. Before, as in before I made contact with Grant? Before, as in our youthful attempt to be more than friends? Before, as in those hand-to-mouth days when our meals were never guaranteed?

In the end, it doesn’t matter what he means, because I can’t do it. There’s nothing clean about this scenario—in fact, I feel dirtier now than I have for all the other parts of this arrangement. Grant and I might exist on opposite ends of the law, and our marriage might have been doomed from the start, but I’ve never once considered sleeping with another man the entire time we’ve been together.

Call me sentimental, but that means something.

“I’m sorry, Riker.” His hand stiffens, and even though I know he can tell what’s coming next, I say it anyway. “I can’t just let it go. This isn’t how things are supposed to end. We use him, remember? We uncover the truth. We win.”

“There’s still time. We’ll find another way to win.”

No. That’s not how this works. I’ve never been less triumphant in my life. I feel like I’ve collapsed just a few feet shy of the finish line, and I won’t ever get up and walk again.

“It’s no good,” I say, my voice cracking. “I have to see this through. He doesn’t get to make me feel like this.”

He doesn’t get to break my heart.

Riker’s arms are around me before I know what’s happening. It’s familiar here, wrapped up in his solid embrace, my head fitting perfectly in the crook of his neck. I almost forgot what he’s like in his softer moods, how much I like him when he’s able to turn off the demons of his past and let himself connect with another human being.

Our problem is that we could never sustain this kind of connection for very long. It’s only a matter of time before he remembers how much he owes his bookie or I say something flippant about his hair. I wish I could make him the love of my life—how much easier everything would be then—but some relationships are simply never meant to be. We’re too explosive, too volatile, to be anything but a mistake.

“If it makes you feel any better, she’s not nearly as pretty as you are,” Riker says.

I release a watery laugh. “That doesn’t help.”

“She’s older, too. Thirty, at the very least.”

“That’s not older.” I pull away and slug him in the arm. “That’s a woman in the prime of her life.”

“What are you going to do?”

The fact that he’s even asking shows how much he cares. “I’m not going to confront him, if that’s what you’re afraid of. I’m not going to steal the necklace and skip town with you either, so you can wipe that excited smile off your face.”

“What’s keeping us, Pen? I mean, really keeping us? In an entire year, we’ve discovered nothing about your dad we couldn’t have found out somewhere else, made no real progress toward any of our goals. What are we waiting for?”

I don’t have an easy answer. Part of me wants to do exactly what Riker says, to draw up the divorce papers and put this whole mess behind us. Another part wants to march inside, take the necklace, and damn the consequences. But the last part—an admittedly large one—wants something else, something so elusive, I’m not sure what it is anymore.

“I’ll handle Grant,” is all I say.

It’s clearly not the answer he’s looking for, and our moment of affinity is gone as quickly as it came. “So that’s it? You’ll get tested for STDs and turn the other cheek? Keep pretending you love that man for the sake of a few solid leads? What kind of plan is that? What kind of life?”

I recoil against the chilly anger in his voice, drawing into the warmth of my house instead. “My life, Riker. That’s what kind it is.”

“Is it? Is it really? Because from where I stand, there are three other people whose lives you affect by hanging on like this. Keep it up, and we’ll all come crashing down together.”

It’s all I can do not to slam the door in his face. I know that. I know I owe him and Jordan and Oz so much more than I’ll ever be able to repay. My entire life has been a burden other people are forced to carry. My dad didn’t have time for me. My stepmom didn’t want me. My friends have to put up with me. And Grant…

I bite my lip so hard, I can taste the metallic tang of blood rushing into my mouth.

Grant is worse than all the rest. He thinks I have something he wants, but the second he finds out I’m as clueless about the whereabouts of my dad’s fortune as he is, it’s obvious he’ll have no problems moving on.

Oh, Penelope Blue, what are you going to do?

“If this is about the money, I’ll buy your share out,” I say coldly, knowing—and hoping—the words will send him running. I’m not sure how much more of this day I can take. “I have lots saved up from the last few jobs we pulled. Tell Oz and Jordan, too. I’ll make sure everyone gets a fair cut before you leave.”

“Fuck you, Pen,” he says, pulling away. “This isn’t about the money at all. If you ask me, you and Mr. Infidelity deserve each other.”