Aftershocks (19 page)

“How long?” The question was low, raw, and pulled her out of her head and back into the lush room.

“They took me just after my twelfth birthday and I escaped just after my thirteenth.” Memories began to reel out ahead of her, surrounding her, so that she could almost smell the rags that made up her bed and hear Freddie’s cold laughter. She had to get through this faster. “During that time they had kind of a gang. They were after something important to them. These…totems. One of their people tried to get out of it, but they grabbed his little brother and cut off his earlobe.”

“Grant’s earlobe.”

She nodded, unsurprised. Even though Grant kept his hair long enough to hide the damage, it wasn’t completely invisible. And Kell was a smart guy. He’d probably made all kinds of connections already.

“He lived a town over from me. We’d never met until that night, and then only for a few minutes before they showed Jordie what they’d do.” She told him that Jordie somehow got the totems, and the horrors of the celebration that night.

“I couldn’t stay there anymore, but I was scared to try to leave. I’d tried a few times in the beginning, and they always caught me.” Her arm twitched, the skin burning as if the rough ropes they’d bound her with had materialized. They’d kept them tight for weeks, until finally, when they gradually loosened them to give her a little freedom of movement, to use the toilet and wash up and eat her own food, she stopped trying to get away.

“The next day, we went to a rail yard where they were going to meet someone who had a key of some kind, something to do with the totems. They left me in a room with the totems in a bag. They thought I was woozy from the drugs they gave me whenever we moved. But Pat loved action-adventure movies. I’d watched a ton of them over the year, and read a lot of adventure novels too. There was nothing else for me to do, and they didn’t care because it kept me quiet, when Freddie wasn’t indulging her twisted idea of motherhood.” She suppressed a shudder and hoped Kell didn’t ask. Describing the ways Freddie twisted normal things like hair-brushing and breakfast-making wouldn’t do it justice. She’d never been able to articulate the awful feelings in the pit of her stomach, the absolute wrongness that went beyond the falsity.

“The movies and books gave me ideas. About how to pretend I was taking pills without taking them. About hidden exits and how to hide. So I sucked up all the courage I could and found an access door behind some file cabinets. I managed to squeeze through, tossed the totems into an open rail car, and hopped on another one on a different train that was just getting ready to move. A few hours later, I found a police officer in a town, and blah blah blah.” She stopped and faced him, bracing for his questions. But instead of asking them right away, he stood and reached for her. Without thinking about it, she jerked back. Hurt flashed through his eyes.

“I’m sorry! It was—”

“No, it’s okay.” He sat back down. “This is hard for you, sharing something you kept secret for so long.”

Was that a dig? He had to be hurt and angry that she’d lied to him, and had every right to be. But she knew they’d get to that and simply nodded.

“Why did they take you specifically? Do you know?”

Her lips twitched. He was starting with the lawerly questions. “Freddie—the ‘wife’—was kind of obsessive about being a mother.” She swallowed hard. “She home schooled me. Kind of. Pretended she was teaching me. They were pretty messed-up people. Are.
Are
messed-up people.” She folded her arms and paced again, more slowly. “We figured out that they had plans with the totems that required—well, a sacrifice. I think I was supposed to be for that.”

“God, Zoe.” He sat forward and rubbed his hands over his face. “Why didn’t you ever tell me about this? It’s been two years. We’re
engaged
.”

“Because it was past!” She tossed up her hands and sat back down on the chair next to the love seat. “I worked very hard to get through it, to make sure it didn’t ruin my whole life. I was afraid it would change us, when it had nothing to do with what we have.”

Kell raised his head. “And neither did Grant?”

She flushed, but forced herself to meet his gaze. “No.”

“But you left me and went to him.”

She’d known it would come to that, as soon as she’d seen him at the airport, but hadn’t thought he’d go there so fast. “That’s not the way it is.” But of course she thought of the kiss, of the way Grant had touched her and talked to her and stayed near her, maintaining a kind of casual intimacy, ever since. And she was sure Kell could see some of that on her face. She owed him the truth, or at least as much of it as she understood.

“You were engaged to him.”

She explained about their summers, how they’d helped each other through the aftermath and fell in love. And that it just didn’t work out.

“That was then,” he pointed out. “I can see what’s happening now, Zoe.”

She shook her head. “It’s not like that. I mean…”
Truth, Zoe
. “Okay, yes, there’s still some attraction between us, and the history will always be there. But it doesn’t mean anything. It’s pretty clear we live in different worlds.”

Kell’s brow furrowed. “I don’t know, you seem to fit together okay.”

She drew in a short breath, stunned by how that felt like a little needle to her heart. “Are you saying I don’t fit in our world?”

“Of course not. I don’t even know what you mean by that. I’m just saying you seem comfortable together.”

“Oh.” She shrugged and looked back at the floor. “Time out of time, and all that. This isn’t my real life.” So why did her voice lack conviction?

“Is anything?” He shifted toward the end of the love seat, closer to her, and let his wrists dangle off his knees so his fingers were a scant inch from her tightly folded hands. “Our life wasn’t real. Your work life wasn’t. Did you know—” He cut himself off and shook his head. “You can’t break yourself into parts like that and have what you share be complete.”

A week ago, she wouldn’t have agreed. She’d have said she’d done it quite successfully. But now that she’d seen what happened when those compartment walls came down, she couldn’t deny the truth of it.

Complete
. The word felt foreign in her brain, but the melting she’d started when she began her story whispered to her that it wasn’t impossible. She could find it, maybe. It wasn’t too late.

But it was a faint hope, one that couldn’t grow under the weight of what she still had to do. However Kell reacted to all this, nothing could be repaired until she got Pat and Freddie out of her life once and for all.

He let the silence roll for a moment, then asked, “Why did you leave me? Why didn’t you trust me?”

Another crack in her heart. She managed to explain, through a throat that kept tightening with tears she refused to release. She told him about the stories behind the totems, hinted at the rituals she suspected they had planned with her at the center. Disgust carved itself into his face, and she quickly moved on, explaining the messages she kept getting from Freddie as well as the photos and the threats that didn’t sound like threats, trying to make her do what they wanted.

“So you’re doing it anyway. What they want.”

“No!” She turned at a knock on the door. “I’m trying to finish it.” She saw Grant through the peephole and released the chain and bar lock so he could come in. “Pat and Freddie want me to lead them to the totems. They have awful intentions.” Her throat tightened as she let Grant lock the door behind himself and went back to stand near Kell.
Tell him about Olivia.
But her brain balked, and instead she said, “They could bring attention to me, to us, and the attention, the scandal…”

“You can’t be that stupid.”

Zoe reeled. Kell stood, his fists clenched. He didn’t even nod at Grant, who hovered in the small foyer.

“What did you just say?” But the protest was so weak it squeaked. Inside, everything was red, frantic, fluttering at the edges, obliterating any hopes she’d had that she could go back to her life. As soon as she told him Olivia was a target, and that she’d kept it to herself, it would be over. He’d walk, and he’d never forgive her.

So she just kept being stupid.

Kell came around the coffee table and stalked to her. “You don’t honestly think I’d rather lose you than have people
talk
about us.”

“It would be more than that!”

“Like what?” he scoffed.

“Like losing clients at your law firm. Maybe losing your job. Being in the papers. Your parents shunned at the club.”

“That’s not what you really think,” he said in a softer tone. “You know none of that would happen, and that I couldn’t care less about reputation. That isn’t the real reason you left me.” His eyes flicked to Grant and back to her, clearly expecting her former fianc
é
to be the reason.

“No, that’s not—”

“Your inability to trust me isn’t important right now.” The softness was gone. His blue eyes were so dark, so intense, and pinned her so hard her restless legs went still. “I know you’re keeping something else from me.”

She tried to swallow, and her dry throat spasmed. Why hadn’t Grant left? Why did he have to witness this? Her hand shook when she pushed back her hair, and that was enough to piss her off. All of her mistakes were crystal clear now, but cowering was not acceptable.

She lifted her chin and rested a hand on one hip. “I left you because I was afraid they’d do something to you. I left Boston because I was afraid they’d do something to Olivia.”

All the air seemed to go out of Kell at once. He braced a hand on the back of a chair and stared at her. “My sister?”

Zoe blinked back the tears that stung her eyes. “She’s the age I was. The age they think is ideal for the ritual.”

“Oh, God.” His face had gone white. “They can get her. They could have her right now. I have to—”

“She’s okay.” Grant stepped forward, his hand out. “I checked right before I came in here. Your parents hired a security service, and I have a team watching all of them, too. And for what it’s worth, I think Zoe’s plan will work. Just hear her out.”

“Zoe’s plan?” Kell straightened, and red flared into his cheekbones. His eyes seemed to flash as he stared at Grant. “Her plan where she thinks it’s safer
not
to tell me my sister’s a target of a group of freaks? The plan where I do
nothing
to protect the most important person in my life?”

Zoe clamped down on the stab of pain she had no right to. She rushed into the silence, “I know. It’s unforgivable. I told your mother so they could take precautions. I just…couldn’t face telling you,” she admitted in a whisper. Before Kell could respond, she hurried on. “As long as Pat thinks I’m doing what he wants, that I’m going to bring the totems to him, he won’t do anything. And once I find them, I’ll destroy them, and then he won’t have reason to want Olivia.”

“
Or
Zoe,” Grant added, and Zoe frowned at him. She didn’t matter. Not in the big picture, and not to Kell. Not after what she’d done.

It was obvious in the way Kell refused to look at her, at the rigidity of his expression as he glared at Grant. And that was fine. She deserved nothing less, and there was no time to dwell on personal pain.

Apparently, Kell agreed. He faced in her general direction and folded his arms. “Do you know where the totems are?”

“No, but we’re working on finding them.”

“And the fact that you’re using your credit card means you want them to know that. You want to be visible.”

“That’s the whole idea.” That must be how he’d found her, too. He had access to a dozen private detectives through the law firm, and she bet there were a few who could access her financial records.

“In order to keep me safe.”

She frowned. “You and everyone—”

“He’s talking about the airport,” Grant broke in. He pushed away from the wall and walked into the room, dropping onto the end of one of the beds. “Whoever threw that thing at him had a different goal.”

Zoe said, “At him?”

Grant nodded. “Yes, at him. It was luck that he bent to get his bag and it missed him. I don’t know why he was targeted, but it definitely was him and not us.”

“Why would someone try to hit me?” Kell asked. “Why wouldn’t they go for you first? You’re clearly the stronger threat. Taking out the biggest obstacle is SOP.”

Grant looked at her. “He knows his stuff.”

“He’s a lawyer,” she grumbled. And apparently was going to leap whole hog into this mess. Now he was analyzing and stuff. Instead of leaving, storming out and going back to Boston to protect Olivia, he was talking to Grant like they were old friends. No, war buddies.

“They might not have tactical training,” Grant said. “Where’d you get yours?”

Kell grinned, and Zoe’s stomach swirled. There was a fierce glee there, covering the anger and pain.

“Courtroom. Different kind of battlefield.”

Grant nodded. “So maybe this person didn’t have tactical training, or they could have judged you as a multi-faceted threat. I look like a street fighter, and the kind of guy who’d take on an attacker. You look equally likely to call security or use martial arts, or even to have bodyguards nearby.”