“The plunge?”
Kincaid glanced over at her as they made their way through the small lobby. “We read those letters, and you went immediately into action. Bam.” She opened her fist like a firework exploding. “No hesitation.”
“No I didn’t. I went outside and drunkenly made out with a guy.” Liv pressed the button for the elevator, and the doors slid opened. “It’s an old bad habit of mine. Not a plan of action.”
Kincaid gave her a sly look as she stepped inside and turned to Liv. “That’s not what I saw. You said you wanted to date passionate guys. I think that was a helluva good start. That’s why I invited him to breakfast. You should try it sober with him.”
Liv cringed. A good start? With Finn? Yeah, right. She got in the elevator and hit the button for the third floor. “I appreciate the gesture. But there are no starts with Finn. What you saw—that was just wrapping up unfinished business. The period on the end of a run-on sentence.”
Kincaid was quiet until the elevator dinged and the doors whirred open. She stepped out, her shoes dangling from her fingertips and a knowing smirk on her face. “Hmm, I don’t know, sweetie. That didn’t look like a period to me. That looked like a big ol’ dot-dot-dot.”
“A what?”
But Kincaid was already strolling down the hallway and wiggling her fingers in a backward goodbye. “’Night, Peaches.”
Liv stared after her. A dot-dot-dot. A to be continued.
“An ellipsis,” Liv said finally, but Kincaid’s door was already closing. “It’s called an ellipsis.”
But it didn’t matter what the hell it was called because Kincaid was wrong. Finn wasn’t going to come to breakfast. There was no start. Tomorrow, Liv would go back home to her job and apartment in Austin. He’d go wherever he lived now. And this would just be another memory filed away. Closure.
Tonight had been her falling into her old, dangerous ways. Feel sad, stressed, anxious? Find a lot of alcohol and a cute guy to forget with. But Finn wasn’t just any cute guy, and sleeping with him would risk a lot more than an awkward goodbye in the morning. They weren’t strangers. They were worse than that. They had guilt between them, and regrets. Ugly stuff. You could hook up with a stranger and walk away with a dose of shame but not much further thought. Something like this could inflict wounds. She didn’t need any more of those.
She grabbed her key card out of her pocket and headed to her room, trying to push away the knowledge that one of these doors she was passing was Finn’s, that soon he’d be inside, undressing for the night, sliding beneath the covers. Pent-up. Alone.
Stop.
She let herself into her room and shut the door behind her, trying to block out the rogue thoughts. Even if things with Finn weren’t so complicated, she was in no place to be with anyone tonight. Alcohol and stress were stirring up all these crazy urges. Her brain was seeking oblivion, no matter the type. She’d been down that road before. No más.
She flicked on the light and winced. A tequila headache was pulsing at her temples, and at the sight of the bed, what little energy she had left drained out of her. She dragged herself to the bathroom, stripping out of her clothes along the way, and put on a comfy T-shirt before brushing her teeth. One more night, and she’d be back to her normal life.
The thought didn’t soothe her as much as it should. Goddamned time capsule. A few days ago, she would’ve told anyone who asked that she was content. She lived in a great city. Had a decent apartment. A job that supported her. Even though she worked a lot of hours, she was good at what she did and made more money than she ever would’ve from photography. She had a few friends and a couple of guys she saw casually when she had the interest or time. If she got lonely for family, her dad and older brothers weren’t too far away.
From the outside looking in, everything was in place. Nice and neat and stable. Her former therapist would’ve been proud. Her mother would’ve called her a success. But after tonight and hearing all the declarations in the letters, her life suddenly seemed enormously mundane.
Teen Liv would be disappointed in her. All those big dreams she’d whispered to Finn had been neatly filed away and dismissed, the stories ending before they began. No photos. No travel. No passionate affairs. She’d survived when so many others at Long Acre hadn’t gotten that luxury, and this was what she was doing with her life. Doing a job she sort of liked, living in an apartment she’d never decorated, and just…marking time.
The thoughts were like a growing itch, a restlessness moving through her. She couldn’t get the notion out of her head that they were winning. Those pathetic cowards who’d taken so many lives were succeeding at messing with her life—still. She sighed and stared at herself in the reflection above the sink. The circles under her eyes told her she was tired, but the fine lines at the corners told her more. Time was passing. Not in minutes. But years. Twelve years since she’d walked away from the school. And what did she have to show for it? She’d moved away from things. She was a pro at that. But what was she moving toward?
She was still living like a college student—just with less booze and fewer one-night stands. Living in a state of perpetual waiting. But waiting for what?
Her mother had died at forty-three. What if Liv only had thirteen years left? Would she look back and be happy with what she’d done in life? Proud? Satisfied?
The thought made her stomach churn.
She grabbed her phone from where she’d left it on the bathroom counter, ignoring the crushing number of unread work emails, and lifted it, putting it in camera mode. She stared back at her image, making sure to catch the light just right, the shadows slanting across her face, wanting to capture herself exactly as she was in the moment, and clicked.
She lowered the phone, and the picture filled the screen. It was the same woman she saw in the mirror, but the camera always captured that other thing. The thing mirrors or the naked eye never seemed to catch. Cameras could tell a thousand lies, or they could tell the bald-faced truth. It was what she loved about them most. And staring back at her was the truth.
She was lost.
She didn’t know who she was anymore. Liv Arias—that terrified, passionate girl from Long Acre. Or Olivia Moreno—the put-together web designer who, as far as anyone in Austin knew, had a typical past where nothing of note had happened.
The latter was the role she’d played for almost eight years now. The person both her parents would be proud of.
The former was the person who’d gotten drunk and kissed Finn Dorsey. The former was the one who’d run out with a panic attack today. The former could lead her back down the road to a ten-car pileup of problems.
Maybe Olivia Moreno was boring. But at least she was stable.
If her mother were still around, she’d tell her to be Olivia 2.0. Before her mom had gotten sick, they’d clashed regularly over Liv’s rebellious nature. Why did she have to fight everything? Why couldn’t she be more like her two older brothers who were practical to the core? Why did she have to make everything so hard on herself and everyone around her?
Both her parents had grown up with less than nothing, and they’d seen her attitude as a consequence of being spoiled. Not that they’d been well off. Far from it. But they could pay the rent on their house and had a car and food on the table, which was more than either of her parents had growing up. So Liv wanting to do impractical things like taking off a year before college to travel or becoming a photographer had seemed ludicrous to them.
Her mom had told her in those last quiet weeks that all she wished for Olivia was to find contentment in the simple things. A good job, a safe place to live, and the love of a good man. That’s all you need. That’s my wish for you. Please don’t break your papá’s heart. I’ll break it enough when I leave.
Liv sat on the edge of the bed with a sigh and rubbed her hands over her face. Instead of listening, she’d gone off the deep
end after her mother passed. She had broken her dad’s heart. She could still remember his face when she’d had to call him from county lockup to bail her out after she’d gotten picked up from a party and caught with pills. He’d paid the money—money he probably hadn’t had to spare—and then had looked at her with her smeared makeup, purple hair, and party clothes and told her with sad eyes, “You’re not the daughter your mamá raised.”
He’d left her there without a ride, and they’d stopped speaking for almost a year. If nothing else, it’d been a wake-up call. She’d agreed to get back into therapy as part of her probation, and that had helped her get her shit together. The next Christmas, she’d gone home and mended fences with her dad. Now he smiled when she came to visit. Now he looked proud when she told him how well she was doing at work.
She imagined what he’d say if she told him what she’d been feeling tonight, the things that were tempting her. Her dad would be terrified of her trying to recapture that girl she once was.
She should be terrified.
She groaned and rolled her shoulders, trying to chase the tension out of them. She needed to get out of this place. It was seeping into her skin and making her think crazy thoughts. The tequila wasn’t helping either.
She couldn’t trust herself right now.
She needed to sleep and sober up. She’d deal with the rest in the morning.
She climbed into bed, turned off the light, and gave into exhaustion, hoping for the oblivion of dreamless sleep.
* * *
Finn flipped the folded rectangle of paper in his hand, the loose-leaf brittle beneath his fingertips, as if it’d been dipped in water and dried in the sun. He’d found it on the deck on his way back into the restaurant and had brought it up to his room. Liv’s name was in scrawly letters on the outside.
He shouldn’t open it. He knew that much. He could guess what it was. But he found himself unfolding the page carefully in the lamplight of his room anyway, the investigator in him too curious to resist. The words on the page were faded but still easy enough to read.
On this day, August first, I, Olivia Arias, promise to the Class of 2005…
He scanned the page, hearing Liv’s voice in his head as he read each word, taking them in.
I will turn art into my job. I won’t play it safe. I won’t be practical. I’ll live a passionate life and date passionate guys and see the world so I can take pictures of it. I promise, Class of 2005, to live the life that scares me.
He let out a long breath, his brain snagging on the word passionate. That had always been the word he’d associated with Liv back in high school. Unlike him, who’d been going through life without much thought beyond the next day, Liv had dialed into things deeply. Her photography. Her views on life. The music she chose. Her future plans. They all had layers of meaning for her. She’d had big thoughts and big dreams. When he’d told her what bands he liked, she’d wanted to know why he liked them. What did their songs make him feel? He’d never thought about it before her.
Being around someone like that had been heady, had made him start thinking about things in a different way. He’d wanted to find that passionate part of himself, too. He’d wanted to be like she was—brave and bold and paving her own way—instead of following the prescribed path his parents had laid out for him. And he’d never had any doubt that Liv would do exactly what she set out to do.
But Liv had said tonight that they’d read the letters and that she hadn’t lived up to her plans. Knowing that these things hadn’t happened for her, that the night in the closet had stolen those dreams from her, made his chest ache.
He couldn’t help but wonder if things would’ve turned out differently if he’d stayed with her that night. If she’d never had to face down Joseph’s gun. If they’d had each other to lean on afterward.
Would they have saved each other?
His cell phone buzzed on the bedside table, breaking him from his morose thoughts. He set the letter aside to grab the call. “Hello.”
“It’s Billings. You in a place you can talk?”
Finn tipped his head back against the headboard, not up for a call with his boss but knowing he didn’t have a choice. When Billings wanted to talk to you, you talked to him. “I’m good.”
Even though he’d known it was overkill, he’d swept the room for bugs when he’d arrived out of habit and had booked the room under a different name.
“Where are you? Wallace said after your psych eval, you didn’t show up to get the key for the apartment we set up for you in Richmond.”
Finn sighed. “I made my own arrangements for my break. I don’t want to be in Virginia. Plus, I need to take care of some personal things. I have a place to lie low.”
“You mean you don’t want to be where all the resources to help you transition back are.”
Finn didn’t respond. His boss already knew the answer. They’d set up a “support network” for Finn after he’d taken what they considered too big a risk on the last job. He’d taken out the second-in-command in Dragonfly, which had been a victory, but he’d done it without approval and in a way that had nearly gotten him killed. Now they were worried the assignment had messed too badly with his head. Finn wanted to tell the powers that be that it had little to do with that and much more to do with the fact that he believed certain things were worth risking to rid the earth of scum like that. Dragonfly hadn’t been the organization that sold Joseph Miller the guns for the Long Acre shooting—something Finn had believed when he’d sought out the assignment—but it could’ve been. They would’ve—and had—put weapons in kids’ hands without blinking an eye. Finn had made sure that wouldn’t happen again.
But now he was paying the price. And the thought of weekly appointments with the shrink, and everyone he worked with eyeballing him to make sure he wasn’t screwed up after being undercover so long, made him want to punch things.
Billings grunted. “This line’s secure. Where are you?”
Finn squeezed his temples. “Near my hometown. I’ve rented a lake house from an old friend. No one from Dragonfly ever made the connection to my identity, and they all think I’m dead anyway, so I’m good here. All I plan to do is rest, fish, and work on some projects. That’s what I need to recuperate, not a bunch of therapy appointments. I need to be in my own space for a while.”
Billings was quiet for a long moment. “I get that. And I’m not going to stop you. You’ve earned your break. But you’ve been under for two years. The transition from that can be a hell of a jolt. I want you checking in with Doc Robson at least weekly by phone. That’s not a request.”
Finn closed his eyes. “Got it. But I’m all right. I know the difference between me and Axel. I’m not going to do anything crazy. I just need some breathing room. I’ll be ready for my next assignment by the end of summer.”
Billings sniffed. “We’ll see. I know you’re champing at the bit to go back out, but don’t get cocky. Pretending to be a criminal for that long leaves a mark. It can alter you in ways you don’t realize until you’re knee deep in shit. Believe me. I’ve been there. So if you’re home, spend some time with your family, your friends, people who know you and can remind you of who you really are.”
“Right.”
“I’m serious, Dorsey. You’re one of my best agents, and I know these missions are personal for you, but I can see that this last one took a toll on you. I don’t need you pulling some hermit bullshit and getting unhinged when all the crap you’ve seen and done in the last few years starts sinking in. I’ve lost agents who’ve taken the aftereffects too lightly. Don’t be one.”
“I understand, sir.”
Billings let out an annoyed sigh. “Sure you do. I’ll be checking in with you and the doc. And I want proof.”
“Proof?”
“If you want back on the job, you need to send me a weekly update. Pretend I’m your great
-aunt Mildred who’s just dying to see what you’re up to. I want notes and pictures of you doing the things you say you’re doing.”
Finn tapped the back of his head against the headboard. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
“I don’t kid, son. If I think you’re not taking care of yourself, I’ll send someone down there to get you. Or worse, I’ll send Murray down there to babysit you.”
Oh, hell no. Jason Murray had been in training with him, and he was the chattiest son of a bitch Finn had ever met. Good guy, but Finn might flee the country if he had to share his vacation with the dude. “Got it. Pictures. Active, social Finn.”
“You better convince me, Dorsey.”
Finn rubbed his brow where a headache was brewing. “Yes, sir. And keep me up to date on the case. I’m on leave, but I need to see this thing through.”
“Of course. I’ll keep you in the loop.”
Finn ended the call with his boss and scrubbed a hand over his face. Part of him wished he was back in Virginia, working, going through the mountain of evidence he’d collected with the team. The operation had been his baby. He wanted to see those bastards who ran Dragonfly rot in jail. He wanted to look them in the face, knowing all the horrific crimes they’d committed, and tell them, “Gotcha, assholes.”
But he’d known what would be awaiting him back there. He’d already gone through all the therapy and shit after high school. He couldn’t face another round.
He could bury the ghost of Axel here. Be Finn again. Even though that persona felt like a ghost these days as well. Only when he’d kissed Liv had he felt a thread of that guy he used to be.
Liv.
His fingers flexed as his thoughts shifted from work back to what had happened on the deck. The way Liv had melted into him. The sounds she’d made. Had they not been interrupted, he could have her here in his room right now, drawing those needy noises out of her, tasting her skin…
No.
He needed to stop thinking about the woman. His mind and his quickly stiffening dick couldn’t take it. He and Liv had made the right decision. The smart one. With a grunt, he pushed himself off the bed, tossed his phone onto the nightstand, and stripped down to his boxers, ignoring the half-hard state of his cock. He’d become a pro at taking care of things on his own, but he knew his hand wouldn’t satisfy him tonight. It would just torture him more, remind him of what he didn’t have.