Naked (16 page)

“Yeah,” Ed said faintly. “You gotta be nuts.”

Chad's face whitened. He threw his hand up on his head. “Oh, God. I didn't mean it like that, dude. I'm sorry—”

“It's okay,” Ed interrupted. He turned back toward the door and pushed it open with his crutch.

“I just didn't think you'd really do it,” Chad insisted, pleading with him. “I mean. . . I didn't think she'd really ask you to do it. I mean, just so she could have the stupid bedroom—”

The door swung shut, cutting Chad off in mid-sentence.
The silence was sweet, welcome relief.
But the nightmare wasn't over. Far from it. Because once again Ed found himself face-to-face with Heather in the little foyer. Right back where he started. She looked at him with a desperate, almost crazed glint in her eye. And now, at last, he understood why.

“Hi,” he said politely.

Heather smiled, but this time the veneer was just too thin. It couldn't mask the lies, the self-absorbed panic. “Hi. I just wanted to make sure everything was okay. What's going on?”

“We were just talking,” Ed said. “It wasn't—”

The door crashed open behind him, slamming into his back and nearly sending him toppling to the floor. He fell against Heather, who somehow managed to support his weight. After a few grunts he regained his balance. She held on to his arm, but he shook free of
her loose grip. Her hand fell away. Chad stood there, breathing heavily. He glanced at her.

“What were you talking about?” Heather murmured.

Ed just shook his head. He couldn't even bear to look at her anymore. It wasn't that he blamed her. He knew very well that she didn't deserve his blame. Not all of it, anyway. The bottom line remained the same: the accident was
his
fault. After all, he had agreed to go along with the stupid dare when he could have put his foot down. He could have said no. What was the worst that could have happened?
He would look like a wimp to a bunch of stuck-up brats?
They had already labeled him. No stunt, no matter how crazy or stupid, would have changed their opinion. It
didn't.
To them, he was still just a “skater dude.”

But he couldn't forgive two years of deception. He couldn't forgive the fact that Heather had kept this terrible secret from him all this time, when he deserved her honesty. He deserved the raw, unadulterated truth. No matter how much it hurt. Because he couldn't love her if he didn't trust her. He couldn't even
like
her. Trust and love were inextricably bound together. One couldn't exist without the other. They were like water and oxygen. Without them, a relationship would die. Period.

“What were you talking about?” Heather repeated. The question was barely a whisper.

“About the fact that you had to have the master bedroom,” Ed said.

Heather swallowed. Her eyes began to well with tears. “You know, I figured Chad would say something to you. And I wanted to stop him. . . I wanted to stop him so badly.” Her voice broke. “But I think, on some level, I also wanted you to hear the truth, so I let him go in there—”

“Shhh.” Ed placed his finger over his lips. She didn't seem to be able to move. She blinked. Tears fell from her cheeks.
There was no more to be said.
Ed hobbled toward the stairs, then paused and glanced over his shoulder at the two of them. “Just so you know, for the record, I hate khakis,” he announced. “No matter what may happen to me in this life, I will never again, for as long as I live, wear a pair of khakis. Thank you.”

With that, Ed forced his way up the steps and walked out of Sarabeth's. He wondered what he'd do first in his life without Heather. It was very sunny out.

The mere sight of the man standing before her had the exact same effect as being thrown into the middle of deadly combat. Without warning.

GAIA SAT ON THE DEEP WINDOWSILL,
her arms wrapped tightly around her knees, staring from Mary's bedroom down at the Manhattan night. With the overload of thoughts in her head, she'd somehow missed the moment when it turned from day to night. In the daylight Central Park had looked like a vibrant green forest in the middle of the gray city.
Now it looked more like a gaping black hole in the center of civilization.
How appropriate.

Shut Up, Move On

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Huh?” Gaia turned and saw Paul standing in the doorway. She hadn't even noticed he was there. For all she knew, he could have been standing there for hours, just looking at her. “I. . . ,” she began, but then she bowed her head. A deep sigh flowed from her lungs.

Did she want to talk about it?

Actually, no. She didn't. Not now, not ever. Her honest hope was never to talk about Sam Moon again. In fact, she was aiming for something deeper and more profound than that. Her ultimate goal was never to
think
about Sam Moon again. Wouldn't that just be a dream come true?
Sam who? Sam Moon? Oh, yeah, you mean that beautiful guy I went out with for about a day? Man, didn't he turn out to be a complete asshole? I can barely remember him!

That was the plan. To forget him altogether.

Unfortunately, however, Gaia had a photographic memory. She could remember what she had for breakfast on October 10, 1992—the last of the strawberry Pop-Tarts in the box. Her father had eaten one and put the open pouch back in. She hated that. So, okay, forgetting Sam (or her father, too, for that matter) was pretty much out of the question.

But she could control her thoughts. She certainly wouldn't think about him. Because if she did, she might start to consider what they had gone through to be together—only to end up with this.
Meaning nothing.
She might start to think about the first day they met at the chess tables. Or that love letter, that stupid love letter. She'd do anything in the world to destroy that right now. What was worse than leaving all that naive vulnerability in his hands for eternity?

There was no point in asking that question, though. Because she wasn't thinking about him.

“No,” she said suddenly, surprising herself. “I don't want to talk about it.”

Paul walked into the room and sat at the foot of the bed. “Come on. Let me do something to help.” He offered a tentative smile—that crooked grin that reminded Gaia so much of Mary. “Aren't we supposed to do something completely spontaneous and random now?”

Gaia laughed miserably. She turned again toward the dark window, looking past her ghostly reflection. “I think that plan has backfired,” she mumbled.

“I'm sorry,” Paul breathed.

“For what?” Gaia asked.

“For pissing Sam off,” he said.

Gaia shook her head and glanced at him. “It has nothing to do with you. That's what I can't figure out. Something happened to him. I can't explain it. It was like. . . he lost something. Like his spirit or his soul or whatever got sucked out of him—not that I believe in any of that bullshit, but. . . you know, why am I talking about him? Shut up, Gaia. Move on, Gaia.” She smiled grimly. “That's my new motto, Paul: Shut up, Gaia. Move on, Gaia. What do you think?”

Paul stared down at his shoes. “I think it's depressing,” he whispered.

“Now you're catching on,” Gaia said. She meant the comment to be wry,
but it came out as nothing more than bitterly sarcastic.
She bit her lip. She didn't want to torture Paul with her problems. But somehow she didn't think she'd be able to help herself. Not tonight.

“Maybe a good family dinner will help,” Paul said.

Gaia nodded. “Dinner would be great,” she said in a faraway voice. She knew she didn't sound sincere, but she was. At least she had a safe place to lick her wounds. The thought of having to go back to that empty apartment on Mercer Street or to George Niven's house on Perry Street. . . that was far too dark. Blacker than Central Park at night. Too dark even for Gaia Moore. No, she was not
going to take this place for granted. This was her sanctuary.

“I think Olga's making goulash tonight,” Paul said. “It's really good—”

The doorbell rang.

Paul frowned. “I wonder who that is.”

“Is Brendan coming home tonight?” Gaia asked.

He shook his head, then stood up from the bed and headed out to the hall. “I don't think so....”

Gaia bowed her head again. Maybe controlling her thoughts was easier said than done. Because she found herself wishing that the person ringing that doorbell was Sam. She slipped off the windowsill and stepped into the bathroom, where she splashed some cool water on her face.
“This will never work,”
he'd said, with barely a hint of emotion on his face. Screw him. Gaia pounded her fists down on the sink.
Shut up, Gaia. Move on, Gaia.
She flipped off the faucet and dried her face, trying to make herself presentable for dinner. The better she looked, the fewer questions they'd ask. One nice family dinner. At least an hour of peace—

“Gaia?” Mrs. Moss called from the front hall. “You have a guest.”

Her heart plummeted.

Sam.
She stared back at her own shocked face. Her wish had come true. Her awful, twisted wish. . . she hated him with all her heart. She never wanted to see him again. But she knew that if he said something true this time, if he managed to remind them both of who
they were when all this started. . . she would forgive him. It was that simple. She wasn't that strong.

Squelching her strong impulse to run, she forced herself to walk—very slowly and deliberately. Her footsteps were soft on the hall carpet. She kept her head down, her face expressionless. She didn't even look up until she reached the living room.

And then she froze.

At that moment she felt like her bloodstream had been connected to an electric generator.
Every part of her body tensed with its current.
The mere sight of the man standing before her had the exact same effect as being thrown into the middle of deadly combat. Without warning. There was no fear as she took in his dark eyes, his slightly graying hair, his impeccably tailored and pressed suit. Of course not. There was no fear. . . only readiness. And wonder. And rage.

“You never told us you had an uncle,” Mrs. Moss said, smiling at her.

THE MESSENGER WAS ALMOST TOO LATE.

Failed Operation

Tom had already cleared customs at Frankfurt International Airport; his bags were checked through to New York.
The flight was due to board at any minute. He was sitting at the bar near the gate, trying to relax with a glass of red wine, when the woman appeared at his side.

“I think you dropped your cell phone, sir,” she murmured.

Tom didn't make eye contact with her. He didn't want to see her face. He simply nodded as she placed the slender black phone on the bar next to his glass, dread consuming him.

“Thank you,” he said.

And then she was gone.

He was certain he wouldn't make it on that plane. Of course not. He clenched his teeth as he paid for his drink and hurried toward the rest room. It wasn't a secure location, but it would have to do. The phone rang even before he managed to push open the door.

“Yes?” he answered, scanning the stalls for any potential eavesdroppers. The room was empty. He was alone.

“Three, zulu, alpha, four, seven,” an unrecognizable voice replied. It was the code for a failed operation.

Tom's pulse quickened. “Advise,” he breathed.

“The toy store was a decoy. Loki has slipped his tail. Flight is canceled. Come to the restaurant.”

For a moment Tom couldn't speak. The impact of the news was almost too overwhelming. The “toy
store” was an illegal weapons factory deep in the Sudanese desert—specifically, one that manufactured anthrax. All intelligence seemed to indicate that Loki's latest venture involved the selling of biological weapons, particularly when the informant had mentioned DNA. But if Loki had led the agency on a wild-goose chase, if the anthrax was a decoy. . . then Tom and everybody else was completely in the dark about Loki's true intentions. He'd pulled the hardest trick possible in their deadly business. He'd managed a surprise.

“Come to the restaurant,” the voice repeated.

“Understood,” Tom forced himself to respond. His voice trembled. He clicked off the phone and dropped it into the garbage, then hurried from the rest room.

Until this very moment, Tom had never considered that Gaia might actually play a role in whatever Loki had planned. He'd simply assumed that Loki wanted Gaia for himself—to serve him for whatever vile purposes, to exploit her many talents. But now he wasn't so sure. He wasn't so sure at all. The informant had said something about her, right before he mentioned the DNA....

That wasn't what terrified him the most, though. What terrified him the most was that Loki had managed to shake his surveillance.

He could be anywhere at this moment. Anywhere.

“HELLO, GAIA,” OLIVER SAID.

Victim

He was standing between Mr. and Mrs. Moss and Paul. Near enough to touch them. Gaia clenched her fists at her sides. Here she was, face-to-face with the man who'd killed her mother. But she knew he wouldn't try to harm her. Or them. If he had wanted the Mosses out of the picture, they'd already be dead. Of that she was certain.

“What do you want?” Gaia whispered, fighting to control her voice.

Oliver laughed. The Mosses exchanged uncomfortable smiles. “I'm sorry to barge in on you like this, without calling first,” he apologized. “But I'm just about to leave the country, and I just wanted to say good-bye.”

Gaia nodded. “Fine. Good-bye.”