Reckoning by Shana Figueroa (16)

Stacey tapped her foot and waited for Val at the Pothead coffee shop, excited and anxious to see her old friend for the first time in five years. When Val had responded immediately to Stacey’s text to meet, she took it as a good sign. From what she’d read in the tabloids, Val and Max had two kids now, and had apparently avoided major controversy since the whole Blue Serpent thing. She still wasn’t happy with Val for playing with her heart for most of their friendship, or for pretty much dumping her for a hot rich dude—oh yeah, and not telling her that she’d fucking died. But she had to admit Val had been through some seriously terrible shit. Even though her friend had rejected her support, she was still glad Val had ultimately gotten it from somewhere, and appeared to be happy now. At least one of them was happy. Stacey wasn’t so sure about herself anymore.

“Stacey?” Val’s voice said behind her.

Stacey’s head snapped up, and her eyes widened at the sight of her friend looking almost exactly the same as the last time she’d seen her—unkempt red hair, no makeup, casual clothes, and yet still somehow a classic beauty. When she stood, Val embraced her in a tight hug. She pat Val on the back, but couldn’t muster the same enthusiasm. Best to take things slow. Still, seeing Val after all these years brought home just how much she truly missed her old best friend.

“You look good,” Val said as they sat down.

“You, too.”

She scoffed. “Please. You’re a terrible liar.”

“Well, okay, I’ll be honest—I thought you’d be wearing everything Prada or Donna Karan or some other designer brand, now that you’re married to a rich guy.”

Val glanced down at her hoodie and worn jeans. “Money doesn’t give a person fashion sense. But it looks like you got some. Congrats.”

“Yeah, well…” Stacey plucked at the arm of her gray pantsuit, an outfit Kat had picked out for her, and couldn’t help cringing a little. The truth was she didn’t really like it, much preferring to wear a flowing tie-dye dress with a hemp sweater, but that wasn’t fashionable. She knew she looked better in the suit, and so she wore it, but it still felt as if she walked around in someone else’s skin. “So, how are things?”

Val gave her a bright, fake-looking smile. “Oh, you know.” Her smile fell away; turned out it was fake after all. “Not great.”

Stacey frowned. “What’s going on?”

Val drummed her fingers on the table. “Well, it’s just—”

Her words cut off as she stared hard at something behind Stacey’s head. Stacey turned and immediately recognized the problem. On the television attached to the wall, Delilah Barrister had appeared and was giving a speech at a press conference about how she vowed to help Seattle heal after the terrorist bombing of the Thornton Building. When Stacey looked at Val again, her face had darkened and she glared at the TV screen as if she might set it on fire with her eyes. Though Stacey hadn’t been keeping up with Washington State politics, Val’s expression said it all—her friend still had a major ax to grind with Delilah.

“I thought you would’ve taken care of her by now,” Stacey said. Val had five years to extract her revenge on Delilah, and yet for some reason she hadn’t. She wasn’t one to give up easily.

Val’s gaze cut back to Stacey, and she seemed to swallow back a knot of anger, forcing herself to relax. “She threatened my family, so I backed off.”

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry.”

Val shrugged, looking at a loss for words as storm clouds gathered behind her eyes.

Stacey cleared her throat and tried to steer the conversation to something more pleasant. “I heard you had kids. Congratulations! And here I thought you didn’t want children.”

“I didn’t. But they made it happen.”

Stacey’s smile fell. “They?”

“Northwalk. The people pulling Delilah Barrister’s strings.”

Stacey felt the color leave her cheeks. Northwalk forced Val to have children? Kat never said anything about that. What else had Kat left out by omission? Maybe Val was mistaken, or jumping to incorrect conclusions. Stacey’s mind began to race with possibilities, reevaluating their reason for being in Seattle. Were they really here for a succession ceremony, or did it have something to do with Val’s kids? And how did Val’s mom fit in? “Oh. That’s—shitty.”

Val shrugged. “It worked out in the end.” She grinned. “Honestly, now I can’t imagine life without my children. They’re my sun and my moon. And Max is my ocean.”

Of course he was. Life-long friendships could go to hell when true love came a-calling. She almost asked if Val was still fucking Sten on the side.

Knock it off, Stacey. She was the one who asked to meet with Val. Why immediately start shit? “What are their names?” she said instead of picking a fight.

“Simon and Lydia. They’re fraternal twins.”

“I’d love to meet them sometime.”

“You can meet them if you’re going to be around…How long are you going to be in the area anyway?”

Stacey let out an exasperated sigh. “Hopefully no more than a couple weeks—I mean, I say hopefully because…you know how my family can be.” For now, she’d pretend she was there to visit her family for the holidays. No way was she mentioning dating Kat or working for Northwalk. Given Val still had a lot of unresolved anger toward the mysterious organization, she didn’t expect her friend to understand the benign circumstances of Stacey’s connection to them. Maybe they could talk about it later, if things went well between them.

“I do. My mom’s in town and staying with us, if you can believe it.”

“No fucking way,” Stacey said, feigning surprise. Good thing Val brought it up so she didn’t have to try to coax it out of her friend without giving away the source of her info. She wasn’t a good liar.

“Way. She sent me a letter out of the blue, and I’m trying to figure out if she’s legit, or if this is another Northwalk plot.”

Stacey’s best-friend reflex kicked in, and she found herself wanting to support Val despite all the times her friend had burned her. “Well, what do you think about having your mom around?”

“Honestly, I don’t like it. Brings back shitty memories. But…I don’t know. The kids are already calling her Nana, and she’s been nice enough. Maybe it’ll be good. It’s something I wanted for long time, but now that it’s actually happening, it feels…not right.” Val let out a mirthless chuckle. “But I don’t know if it’s my instincts or my decades-long seething resentment.”

“I say trust your gut, and do what’s best for your family.”

“Those two things don’t always align.”

“So pick whichever one gets you the most free coffee.”

Val laughed, and Stacey felt their old friendship start to thaw.

“We’ll see. One day at a time, I guess.” After a pause, Val asked, “Where have you been?”

With a faint smile, Stacey said, “Everywhere. All the places I’ve always dreamed of going, in the nicest hotels.”

“How did you swing that?”

“I have a rich girlfriend—fiancée, actually.”

“Can I meet her?”

“She’s, uh, not with me now. She went to visit her own family this year.”

“Oh.” Instead of congratulating Stacey on her engagement, Val frowned. “You could have called. I thought maybe Northwalk got to you, and that they might have killed you.”

“Please,” Stacey snapped, and all her grievances poured out. “Who are you to talk? You started boning a rich guy and forgot I existed. And since when was I supposed to keep you in the loop on whether I was alive or dead? You certainly didn’t keep me in the loop when I fucking died.”

Stacey’s hands shook with the raw hurt she’d thrown on the table. She hadn’t wanted to start a fight, but there it was. At least it was all in the open now.

Val flinched at finally being called out on her decades-long secret. “I’m—I’m sorry. I should have told you a long time ago.”

“Yeah, you should have!” Stacey threw up her hands. “I’m not supposed to be here.”

“Yes, you are,” Val said, a hint of desperation in her voice.

“According to you. You took away my choice in the matter. It was my decision to make if I wanted to fight the universe, not yours.”

“You’re right.” Val’s eyes turned wet. “I was selfish, and I’m sorry. I couldn’t imagine a world without you. It’s been hard these last five years, not having you around.”

Stacey’s anger waned. Now that she thought about it, it’d been hard without Val, too. Sure, she had Kat, but they weren’t what she would call friends. Kat kept too many secrets for that.

“And—” Val took a deep breath, her eyes darting around the coffee shop as if she wanted to ensure no one could hear them. She leaned in close and whispered, “Max is like me, Stacey.”

“He…what?” She couldn’t mean what Stacey thought she meant.

“He’s like me. He can see things, too, the same way I do. That’s one reason why we’re drawn to one another. We understand each other. He said I could tell you, but I never got a chance before you left.”

Stacey closed her mouth after realizing her jaw was hanging open. Well, that explained a lot. Of course he was like her. Stacey knew Val wasn’t the only seer—what Northwalk called people like Val, Cassandra, Delilah, Lucien, and now Max. Though, per Kat, they were extremely rare, about fifty of them in the whole world that Northwalk knew of, and the organization tracked them very closely. Weirdly, they tended to clump up, which messed with Cassandra’s vision in some way Stacey didn’t understand. Too many possibilities or something. Seattle was one focal point; Hong Kong another, where a rival organization called Yongjai ruled. Stacey tried to stay out of Northwalk business as much as possible—she considered herself Kat’s fiancée above all—but she’d gleaned that much over the years. Why hadn’t she realized before that Max was one of them? Seemed like something Kat should have told her.

“So you found each other, like the one male and one female Alaskan wolves who managed to follow the other’s scent over thousands of miles.”

Val smiled. “Kinda like that. But I think we would have loved one another whether or not we had this shared ability.”

“Oh.” Stacey struggled for words as her worldview began to change in the span of a few seconds. Not what she was expecting from this meeting.

Val glanced at her watch. “I’m sorry, I gotta go,” she said as she stood. “I’m working a case, and I need to question a possible witness. I’m short on time.”

“You’re still working cases? I thought you’d retired.”

“I have, but this one’s special. It’s—well, I’ll tell you about it later, if you want to meet again while you’re here. I mean, I’d love to meet again, if you can find the time.”

“Yeah, I’d like that. I’ll call you.”

Val grinned. “Smell you later.”

“Not if I smell you first, hot bitch,” Stacey replied, and heard Val laugh on her way out the door.

Maybe they could be friends again, Stacey thought with a smile. But her mouth slipped into a frown when she considered their whole conversation. Everything her friend told her—assuming it was all true, and she couldn’t think of a reason Val would lie about it now—were important things Kat should have told her, but didn’t. Stacey always knew Kat could be slippery, and wasn’t always one hundred percent forthcoming for a variety of reasons, but she trusted Kat loved her enough to tell her the truth about things that were important, like Stacey’s previous death. As a result, she’d turned a blind eye to a lot of questionable shit, letting Kat run the show of their relationship and interactions with Northwalk.

And now it dawned on her—that had been a mistake. It was time for her to get her head out of the sand, starting with finding out what the hell Northwalk and Kat were really up to.