A Winter’s Tale by Carrie Elks (33)

If LA had different seasons, Adam would have sworn that spring was almost in the air. The weather was warm, even for the start of January, and the campus was full of students wearing jeans and T-shirts, with only the occasional jacket to be seen. The trees that lined their route to the library were verdant and leafy, casting dappled shadows on the footpath as the soft breeze made them dance.

There was a silence between them that didn’t feel at all awkward. She was walking close enough for him to reach out and place his hand in the gentle dip of her back, his fingers spread out to feel the warmth of her beneath her T-shirt.

She didn’t protest at this. He took it as a good sign.

It was strange being back on campus again. Hell, it was strange being back in LA again. His attorney had spoken to the LAPD to allow him back into the state, evidencing his regular attendance at therapy to show his commitment to change. And he had changed. He didn’t feel like that angry guy any more. Didn’t recognise the man who had trashed an office, didn’t even recognise the guy who had hit his brother on Christmas Day. Maybe because then he didn’t know what he had to lose.

The café was half empty when they walked inside. They bought their drinks – latte for Kitty and an Americano with room for him – and wandered over to a table in the corner, where Adam slid the tray onto the white plastic-coated table.

‘You sure you don’t want anything to eat?’ he asked Kitty.

She shook her head. ‘I’m not hungry.’

No, he wasn’t either. Hadn’t been for days. Strange how the body worked – the nutrition it so desperately needed had tasted like ashes in his mouth.

Then they were sitting opposite each other, and there was no more action to stand in the way of them talking. Adam stared at her for a moment. Here in LA she looked so much younger – she fitted in with the students that surrounded her in the lecture theatre. And yet there was a depth to her eyes that reminded him of who she was – and why he’d missed her so much. She wasn’t the unopened notebook, her pages had already been written on.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she blurted out, her hands cupped around the Styrofoam mug. ‘I should never have lied to you, and I know that’s what it was. A lie. I thought I was protecting you, but really I was protecting myself.’

His mouth was dry. He licked his lips to be able to form the words. ‘It wasn’t you, it was me.’ He wanted to laugh at the cliché, even though he saw little humour there. ‘I was a dick. I didn’t let you explain, I didn’t let you even talk. I just assumed the worst and ran away.’

She lifted the cup to her mouth, her lips forming an ‘o’ as she sipped from the hole in the lid. Her blue eyes gazed at him as she swallowed, as though she was thinking on his words.

‘I don’t blame you for reacting like that,’ she said, putting the cup back on the table. ‘I would have, too. You must have thought everybody was lying to you.’ She frowned, pulling her gaze from his. ‘I’m sorry that you’re hurting.’

But she was hurting, too. He could see that. And not because of some script that really meant nothing right then, but because of the way he’d treated her. As though she was expendable.

‘I want to tell you a little bit about Colombia. Is that OK?’ He’d gone through this in his mind a hundred times, when he tried to imagine how he’d explain himself to her. In the end it seemed simple – start at the beginning. Documentary-making 101, right?

She looked up, her eyes wide. ‘Really?’ Then she nodded quickly, as though afraid he would change his mind. ‘Of course, I’d be honoured to hear about it.’

He let out a mouthful of air. His chest felt tight, but not suffocatingly so. More of a reminder of a feeling he used to have. ‘I’m not sure how much you know about the documentary I was making over there. I’d been researching it for years. I wanted to show the human side of drug trafficking, concentrating on the kids that are used every day to smuggle drugs into the US. Some of them younger than ten. That’s how I started investigating the Garcia gang. It took a few months for us to find somebody who was ready to talk, but when we did, we knew we had a story.’

Kitty leaned her elbows on the table, resting her face in her palms. She was listening avidly, as though every word was pulling her in. ‘Who did you talk to?’

‘His name was Mat. Matias Hernandez.’ Adam shook his head. ‘He told us he was fifteen years old, though from the start he looked a little young for his age. It turned out he was actually twelve.’

Kitty looked shocked. ‘Twelve?’ she repeated.

He couldn’t help but share her distaste. ‘I didn’t know, but I should have. Looking back, I was so pleased to finally find somebody who would talk that I didn’t think about anything else. Didn’t think about the fact he was a kid, didn’t think about the fact talking to me would have repercussions. I was too busy looking for the truth to see the train wreck waiting to happen.’

She stirred her spoon in the empty cup. ‘And it did happen?’ she asked. ‘The train wreck, I mean.’

Adam slowly nodded his head. His stomach was clenching like a fist, tight then loose. ‘It was inevitable. Over there, if you squeal you get dealt with. The only things Mat had on his side was the fact he was a kid, and that his mom was related to Garcia. If it wasn’t for that he would be dead by now.’

Kitty leaned in closer still. ‘So he’s not dead?’

Adam sighed, closing his eyes to the light streaming through the windows. But behind his lids all he could see was that day. The windowless room lit only by the makeshift lamps he and his assistant had rigged up. The camera rolling. Garcia’s smug smile. ‘He’s OK.’ Adam’s voice was gruff. ‘But no thanks to me.’

Kitty slid her hand across the table, grabbing his. He could feel the warmth as she threaded her fingers between his. ‘What happened, Adam? What happened out there?’

He squeezed her hand as though nothing was more important than the connection between them. A few more words from him and she might pull away altogether. And who could blame her? After what he’d done, he could hardly bear to look at himself.

‘Garcia agreed to meet with us. I should have known right then that something was up. But I had protection over there, a couple of guys with guns who weren’t afraid to use them. I thought we were safe. So we arrived at this warehouse in the mountains and set up inside. Then Garcia arrived with his caravan of security, and sat down opposite me and told me to roll the camera.’ Adam swallowed the last of his coffee. ‘From the start, he was in charge. When I tried to ask my first question he told me to wait, that he had a gift for me. That’s when two of his guys dragged Mat inside, and made him come and stand next to me.’

‘He pulled a gun,’ Kitty whispered.

‘What?’

‘He pulled a gun on you. I saw it in the script.’ She was still holding his hand, her thumb resting on his palm. Somehow it felt as though she was grounding him.

‘Yeah, except it wasn’t me he pulled the gun on. It was Mat. He pulled out his pistol and shot Mat in both knees, then stood up and left the room. The kid was screaming – God only knew how painful it was. I was trying to stem the blood loss, shouting out for help, and in the end one of Garcia’s doctors came in and took Matty away. Then they made us leave – and confiscated all our equipment – telling us that if we carried on with the documentary then they’d make sure we’d all pay. Including Mat.’

‘They shot a twelve-year-old kid in the knees?’ She looked horrified. ‘Jesus, that’s awful. What happened to him after that?’

‘He recovered from the gunshot wounds, but he has a permanent limp. He spent the last few months hiding with his family somewhere near Bogota.’

‘You’ve seen him?’

Adam shrugged, though he still looked conflicted. ‘He’s here in LA.’

‘He is?’ She couldn’t hide her surprise. ‘What’s he doing here?’

Adam shrugged. ‘He’s been having some meetings with the doctors at County General, to see if there’s anything they can do to help.’

‘That’s good.’ Her voice was soft. ‘That he’s here, that is. It must be a weight off your mind.’

He nodded, but said no more. She frowned, as though a thousand questions rushed into her mind, but she couldn’t find a way to ask any of them. Slowly, she licked her lips. He watched as her tongue trailed along, his eyes following its progress.

He wondered if she understood. If she knew how he still had nightmares of Mat screaming as he held his bleeding legs. ‘It was the least I could do.’ He looked down, at their intertwined fingers. Hers were long, elegant, and his just big and strong.

There was silence for a moment, more awkward than the last one. She opened her mouth a couple of times to say something, then silenced herself. Adam wondered what she was thinking. He was desperate to know.

‘And Everett?’ she finally asked. ‘How did he get involved in this?’

‘With the movie?’

She nodded. ‘Yeah, that. I’m guessing that’s what led to your bust-up in LA.’ She squeezed his fingers.

He swallowed, his mouth drier than ever. ‘I discovered he’d had a script written. He gave it to me, asked me to be a consultant on the movie. I went crazy. At that time Mat was still missing, somewhere in Colombia. If Garcia had found out about it, there could have been huge repercussions.’

Kitty squeezed her eyes tight. ‘And now? Is he still making that movie? I saw the script at Christmas, didn’t I? Has he learned nothing?’

Adam licked his lips. The way she was looking at him made his chest feel tight as hell. It hurt and it soothed him. ‘We’ve talked about that.’ He knew she’d hate the way he sounded so guarded. ‘It’s under control.’

She raised her eyebrows. ‘I guess that’s your way of saying you don’t want to talk about it.’

He didn’t like the way her voice sounded. As though he’d wounded her again. ‘I can’t,’ he told her. ‘Not right now.’

‘I suppose I should go, then. I have classes this afternoon.’

He found himself tightening his grasp on her hand, as though to stop her. ‘We need to talk about that internship,’ he told her, finally catching her eye.

‘Oh, I thought that was just an excuse to talk,’ she said, frowning. ‘Honestly, you don’t need to help me. You don’t owe me anything.’

He wanted to laugh at her innocence. She thought he owed her nothing? Jesus, he owed her everything. He’d been a shell of a man when she met him, it was thanks to her that somehow he was coming back to life.

‘I saw your showreel,’ he told her. ‘Your supervisor sent me a copy. It’s damned good. You have talent, you know that, right?’

Her breath caught in her throat. All that time she’d been watching those YouTube videos, he’d been watching her work, too. She wondered if he’d been as obsessive as she was, if he’d watched it over and over again.

‘You really liked it?’

He nodded. ‘I did.’ His voice was soft. ‘It was unique, I could tell you were the one who made it.’

She licked her lips. They were suddenly dry, in spite of the coffee. ‘Well thank you. That means a lot.’

‘It means you deserve to get an internship. Let me help you.’

‘You can’t. Every time I have an interview I freeze. I might look good on celluloid, but in person I mess it up.’

His smile was sympathetic. ‘Then let your work speak for itself. Let me help you. There’s this project I know about, you’d be perfect for it.’

She shook her head. ‘I couldn’t work for you, it wouldn’t feel right.’

He tried not to show how much of a kick in the gut that was. ‘You wouldn’t be working with me. I wouldn’t ask that of you.’

‘Then who?’

‘Are you free tomorrow morning?’ he asked. ‘I’ll bring you over to meet him. He’s got a project ready to go. You’d be perfect for it.’

‘Are you sure it’s not you?’ She looked suspicious.

‘Would it be so terrible if it was?’

It was her turn to look down at their hands. When she looked back up at him she seemed confused. Her eyes were full of questions. ‘I can’t work for somebody who doesn’t trust me.’

Was she only talking about work? Adam wasn’t sure. ‘I trust you.’ His voice was resolute. ‘I don’t think there’s a single person in the world I trust more than you.’

She blinked, as though the light was blinding her eyes. ‘You do?’ She bit her bottom lip.

‘Yes, I do. So will you do me a favour and meet me tomorrow?’ Reluctantly, he released her hand and grabbed a card from his pocket, scribbling an address on there. ‘I’ll be here at eleven o’clock.’ He looked up at her. ‘I hope you will too.’

He slid the card across to her, and she scooped it up, lifting it to her eyes. She frowned again, reading his words. ‘But this is —’

‘I know.’ He stood up. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, I hope.’

And if she didn’t turn up, what then?

His heart ached as he watched her retreating back. He’d let her walk away from him once before. He wasn’t planning on making that same mistake twice.