The Confession (15 page)

He lifted one of my hands to his mouth and kissed my bruised knuckles, never taking his eyes off mine. His tongue raked slowly across the ridges, and then he blew lightly on the swollen skin. I gasped. It was then that I saw the matching bruises on his hands. Small scabs had already risen there. He'd hurt himself when he'd attacked the bag last night.

“Tell yourself whatever you need to,” he said. “That you don't need me. That I'm not yours. But I told you that you'd be safe here, and I meant it. I'm not going to hurt you again.”

With that, he left, leaving me leaning against the refrigerator with my heart thudding in my chest.

J
ust after noon there was a knock at the door. I'd forgotten Alec had said someone would be coming by. I figured it was Matt, bringing by lunch again, but when I opened the door I was surprised to find he wasn't alone.

“Special delivery,” he said, stepping aside to reveal a platinum blond pixie in suspenders and black skinny jeans.

“Amy!” I didn't even have time to step out before Amy collided into me, arms so tight around my ribs I actually coughed.

“Alec put her on your approved visitors list,” Matt said. “Sorry I didn't check with you earlier.”

“No, it's fine,” I wheezed, finally dislodging Amy, who went back outside to grab her rolling suitcase. She jerked it over the doorframe and into the apartment.

“Thanks,” I told Matt as he descended down the stairs. I locked the door behind him, and beamed at my best friend. “How did you . . .”

“Alec,” she answered. “He called a couple days ago and said you needed a pick-me-up.”

“He did?” I chewed on my thumbnail. She looked me over, head to toe, touching my arms, patting my hair, as if to make sure I wasn't about to fall apart. When she'd finished her inspection she hugged me again.

“I would have come earlier, but I had to get a background check,” she said. “The FBI fingerprinted me and everything. And then Alec made me leave my car at the port authority when he picked me up.”

“Alec met you this morning?” I asked, as she pulled away. I checked the clock. He'd left over two hours ago.

“He brought me here,” she said. “After a scenic detour to make sure we weren't followed. I'd call him paranoid, but I think that only applies if someone hasn't already tried to kill you.”

“You and Alec were alone in a car.” They'd been together at the hospital, but those circumstances had been different. I couldn't imagine them being friendly after everything that had gone down three months ago on the bridge.

“He said you needed me.” It was that black-and-white for her, and I loved her for it.

She lifted her bag with her deceivingly slim arms and dropped it on the couch. “He said he had to run, otherwise he would have come in and said hi.”

I felt my lips purse. He did have to run. He and Janelle had a supposedly fake sleepover.

“Which,” she added, “makes me think you guys are fighting. Which makes me think that's the reason why he called in the reinforcements.”

One brow was quirked up beneath her bangs when she looked over.

“We're not exactly fighting,” I mumbled. Was that why Alec had called her? To pawn me off on someone else?

I motioned to her bag. “Are you spending the night?”

“Sadly, no.” she said with a pout. “That's just my day bag. Paisley's at Hot Mike's with Chloe and Iris, and I said I'd be back before bedtime.”

I'd forgotten that Amy and Paisley had been staying with Mike and his mom since my disappearance.

“Ah,” I said. “How's
that
going?”

She flopped onto the couch beside her bag. “If you mean, have we had hot sweaty sex yet, the answer is no.”

“How about a hot sweaty kiss?”

She bit her thumbnail. “He may or may not have kissed me.”

I squealed, and a moment later she squealed, and then melted onto the wooden floor dramatically. I bent over her, fists on my hips while she stared wistfully at the ceiling.

“Spill it,” I said. “Now. Details. All of them.”

She sat up. “Okay, but after you have to fill me in on everything—why all the secrecy, and why you're staying here, and why Mike said you showed up at Alec's wearing your pj's and then got mobbed by reporters. I'm sure that's all super important and everything, but honestly, it's probably not as mind-blowing as the fact that Mike grabbed my boob.”

“What?”
I sat on the floor beside her as she wriggled even more. Her joy made me feel light. I hadn't seen her this giddy in years.

“He played it off like it was an accident, but you know he was trying to cop a feel.”

“Amy!” I covered my eyes. “Start from the beginning.”

She sat up, sitting cross-legged just like me. “So we were doing dishes after the girls went to sleep, and I was drying a bowl and he reached for the soap and was like, ‘Oops.' Totally elbowed me in the boob.”

“That doesn't count.”

“It absolutely counts,” she argued. “I'm not Triple D Anna Rossi. I've barely got mosquito bites. You have to go out of your way to get to them.” She stuck out her chest to make a point.

“Mine are Cs, thank you very much,” I said. “And a boob grab only qualifies as a boob grab if he doesn't say ‘oops' afterward.”

She scrunched her lips to one side. “Point taken. But he did kiss me.”

“When?”

“After we left the hospital. That night. We'd put the girls down and he was showing me my room, which was actually
his
room because Iris is sleeping in the guest room in his cute little house. Anyway, I was arguing with him that it was fine that I sleep on the sofa and he was arguing that it wasn't going to happen, and then I said something about not wanting to impose and he called me stubborn and then
bam
. Kissed me.”

She'd been motioning with her hands, but when she stopped, they fell on her stomach, and she got that faraway look again.

“Was it good?” I asked.

“Anna.” She put her hand on my arm. “I would give up ice cream if it meant he would do it again.”

“Wow,” I said. “What happened after that?”

She winced. “After that I told him I thought I heard the girls in the hallway and sort of made a mad dash into the closet. I thought it was the bedroom door. I was a little disoriented.”

I clapped a hand over my mouth. “Oh. That's not good.”

“I'm well aware,” she said, with a frown. “He hasn't tried anything since.”

I put my hand on hers. “I'm sure he's still interested.”

She shrugged. “It's all right if he isn't. That kiss was worth it. I wouldn't know what to do next anyway.”

God, she made me so sad sometimes. She honestly believed she wouldn't get a happily ever after.

“Based on the fact that you have a child, I'm pretty sure you have some idea of what comes next.”

She kicked out her legs. “It's been a while since I've gone there. Like, an embarrassing amount of time.”

“How long is embarrassing?”

“A few months,” she said with a cough. “Or a year. Or two.”

My eyes widened. “Not since Danny?”

She crossed herself, as she always did when her ex's name was mentioned.

“It's not like I haven't been busy,” she said defensively. “I've got a kid.”

She was still lying on her back, and I lay down beside her, staring at the exposed beams in the ceiling. Doing the math wasn't hard. Her divorce had gone through around the time I'd moved to Tampa, less than a year ago. Which meant that she and Danny had still been married awhile without any intimacy. I wondered just how long things had been bad between them, or if they'd ever actually been good.

“Maybe Mike's trying to go slow.”

Alec's voice filled my mind.
We need to take this slow.

If that was what Mike was doing, I hoped Amy's experience was half as frustrating as mine.

Amy laughed dryly. “Did you know before he left, my ex told me part of the reason he didn't love me anymore was because I wasn't as attractive as I used to be. What a dick, right?”

I hated that guy.

“Total dick,” I agreed.

“Right.” She hesitated. “So is it true?”

I sat back up. “Are you kidding?”

“Scratch that.” She kicked off her silver ballet slippers. “I came here to take care of you and instead I'm turning it into the Amy Show. Sorry.”

“It's most definitely
not
true,” I said. “It's nowhere near true. I've known you since we were thirteen, and you've never been hotter.”

“Honestly?”

“I swear.”

She frowned. “Then why hasn't he carried me off to bed, caveman style, and fucked my brains out? Is it the mom thing? Do you think he's freaked out by stretch marks? Because mine are almost all faded. Well, except this one on my—”

“No,” I said. “
No.
You don't see the way he looks at you. He's probably waiting for you to make the next move.”

She considered this.

“So what am I supposed to do?”

I felt my shoulders hunch.

“I'm probably the wrong person to ask right now.”

She sat up and scooted back against the couch.

“Is it hard being here with him?” she asked, her voice softer now. “On the way over he was pretty tight-lipped about it. Where was he going anyway?”

I focused my gaze on my feet.

“Overnight with Janelle.”

“God,” she sputtered. “He's got the nerve to shove that in your face? I thought
my
ex was bad.”

Amy still thought Janelle and he were dating. Mike did, too, according to Alec. I looked at my friend, seeing the rage flash up in her green eyes, and wanted to tell her everything. About Janelle, and the pictures, and how it was breaking my heart that Alec didn't need my touch as much as I needed his.

But I couldn't tell her everything yet. The more she knew, the more potential danger we were all in. I couldn't risk her life again. It was bad enough that she was here with me at all.

“It's complicated,” I said. “But he's not a bad guy.”

She sighed. “Yeah. I know he's not.” She squeezed my hand. “If it's any consolation, he's still in love with you.”

The butterflies in my stomach woke up in a hurry to flutter their wings.

“What makes you say that?”

“Well, for starters how nice he's been to us. The security system at the apartment, offering to pay for therapy. And then, okay, this may be totally unrelated . . .” She leaned forward. “I got a check in the mail while you were . . . missing. From my ex. For
child support.
”

This came as a shock. Danny hadn't paid her a cent since he'd signed the divorce papers and skipped town. I didn't even think she knew where he lived.

“Really?” I asked.

“Back pay included,” she said. “It's enough for the down payment on a house. Not a huge house, but still.”

I knew Amy had wanted a house. Somewhere that had a yard where she could put up a swing set for Paisley. I beamed at her, but my smile faded.

“You think Alec has something to do with it?” I asked.

“I don't know,” she said. “I probably don't want to know. Either way, I couldn't bring myself to ask him about it today. Felt like I would jinx it or something.”

I remembered the picnic at the beginning of summer when it had been revealed that Amy's ex-husband had hit her. Alec has casually asked for his name, and though I hadn't given it, he'd seemed convinced he could find it anyway.

I felt a surge of affection for him, feeling, like Amy did, that Alec's good will and the timing of this check were oddly coincidental.

“He's a good man,” I said. “That doesn't mean he still loves me.”

She stood and walked to the punching bag, giving it a firm enough push that the chain creaked as it swung in a slow pendulum.

“When you were missing he refused to rest until you were found,” she said. “He and your dad practically headed the Find Anna Task Force. Mike said he took the breakup hard, too. Drinking a lot, refusing to see anybody. Well, anybody until Janelle.”

She glanced over her shoulder at me, as if searching for some response, and I tore my thoughts away from the empty bottles I'd seen in his apartment. When I said nothing, she continued.

“Plus, Mike told me he's been getting death threats. He kept telling the FBI to keep an eye on you, but they didn't have proof you'd be involved. I guess he thought they'd use you to hurt him.”

Hence Janelle becoming his fake public girlfriend. There was a tightness growing in my chest, but I didn't want her to stop. Alec was receiving death threats? From Maxim? I wanted to pull him right out of his Davis Island fortress and kick his ass. Just like I wanted to kick Alec's ass, and Amy's, too, for not telling me.

“Alec thinks your disappearance is connected to the trial. When the FBI wouldn't put you back in protective custody, he asked us to look out for you.”

I remembered the papers that had been sitting out on the coffee table when I'd first arrived here. My work schedule. Amy's and my father's phone numbers. Even Marcos had said Alec had called him and asked that he look out for me. I thought of all the dinner invitations from Mike and Amy, and my dad staying on my couch, and how I'd barely had a second alone up until the night of the fund-raiser.

“He asked you to babysit me?” Everything was becoming clear now. Alec had been there the whole time, watching me from a distance.

“Well, it wasn't like he had to twist our arms,” she said. “Your dad and I would have done it anyway.”

“My dad was in on this.”

My mind shifted to the phone calls he'd gotten from Terry Benitez. Had they actually been from Alec? My father should have been trying to convince me to head for the hills, but instead he'd left me in the care of the one man he'd once held completely responsible for the danger I'd been put in.

Amy nodded. “He asked your dad to look into the death threats in case there was a connection to you. Something separate from the FBI.”

His PI work. Was he in the Keys now looking into something for Alec?

Annoyance had me rising to my feet. “Why didn't you guys tell me?”

“Alec didn't . . .” She scrunched her tiny nose. “Alec wanted to respect your decision. He was trying to give you space, I think.”