I’m laughing when he kisses me this time, and I feel the imprint of his smile against my lips. His words are warm in the air between us as he kisses his way down my neck. “God, you don’t know how I dreamed about this. All those nights with that wall between us when all I wanted was to touch you.”
My face flushes, which is stupid. It’s stupid to get so embarrassed and trembly over a few little words. I hide my face against his shoulder.
He flops back against the pillows. “But it’s probably time to get serious again, huh?”
I burrow a little closer to him. “Probably.”
“So, what are we going to do?”
“We’ll stake out James’s and Marina’s houses,” I say. “If they’re not there now, they will be soon.”
“But finding them is the easy part, isn’t it?”
“Maybe I was wrong before.” I push myself up on my elbows. “Maybe we didn’t try hard enough to convince James to give up on Cassandra. He’s seen us now. If we could make him understand how bad things get—”
“We’ve already tried that,” he says gently. It was number one on the list, the very first thing that some previous version of Finn and I tried and failed at. “Besides, when have you ever seen James let something go?”
“Never.” I lie back down. “I know. You’re right.”
Finn sighs. “Maybe we give up. We weren’t up for it this time. Maybe the next version of us will be.”
“Do you think we’ve done that already? Do you think other versions of us have gotten the same note, come back here to kill him, and given up?”
“Maybe.” He runs his fingertips up my back and smiles. “We could drive down to Florida. Lie on a beach somewhere and get drinks with umbrellas in them while we wait for time to erase us.”
“Doesn’t sound like a bad way to go,” I say, picturing the scene, the sway of the surf and the sun beating down on us. I haven’t been warm since we came to this time. The cold has settled into my bones now, my marrow. But the vision fades. It’s replaced with a picture of Marina, who I’ve finally—finally—learned to love. My stomach turns. “Four years later and I’m still so selfish. I can’t kill James because of how badly it will make me feel, when so many other lives, even Marina’s, depend on it.”
“Hey.” Finn puts a hand on my face and makes me look at him. “You’re not selfish. You’re a loving person who wants to believe in the good in people, even after all you’ve been through. If you were selfish, it would have been easy to kill James.”
“Maybe.”
Finn sits up and looks at me seriously. “You talk about Marina like she’s a different person from you, Em. You are Marina. You are that same loyal, determined, infuriating girl. It’s time you started seeing how great you are, just like you wish Marina could see it. I mean, look at me. I think I’m fantastic.”
I smile. “You are fantastic.”
“I know!” He kisses me. “And so are you.”
“I’ll take your word for it.” I sigh and, with great effort, climb out of the soft, safe bed. “We’d better get moving.”
Twenty-Six
Marina
I must be really tired, because even with a noxious cocktail of anger, shame, and lingering arousal churning in my stomach, I’m out in minutes. A knock on the door wakes me, and I drag myself up through sleep to waking. Did I dream it? James kissing me, his hands on my bare skin, him running out with no explanation?
Finn’s standing in the doorway. “James just got a message from Richter. He’s going to meet him at a restaurant downtown in an hour, and he wants us to go with him.”
“What?” I push myself into a sitting position. My head is heavy and spinning. When did this all happen? How long was I asleep?
“He’s acting really weird, right? Even for James? It’s like he thinks—”
“There’s still something he can do that will make a difference?” I say.
“Yeah.” Finn sighs. “I can’t keep running along after him, waiting for the breakdown. I’ve barely been home in two days. Can you talk to him?”
I climb out of bed and straighten my clothes. “I’m sure as hell going to try.”
“Oh, and by the way,” he adds, “the family has descended, and Alice is pissed at us.”
“Great.”
I find James downstairs at the kitchen island, drinking a cup of coffee in big gulps. He’s showered and changed, but from his bloodshot eyes, it’s clear he hasn’t slept. Nancy Shaw-Brookline has arrived, and her three children are squabbling over crayons at the dining room table. Alice, who has probably never done a dish in her entire life, has unpacked the entire contents of the refrigerator and is scrubbing the inside with barely controlled mania, while Vivianne, who has her eyes closed and is rubbing her temple, is on the phone with what sounds like a catering company. I listen in confusion until I remember.
Of course. The wake.
“Who are you?” Alice says, turning from the refrigerator as I enter the kitchen.
James puts down his empty coffee cup and answers without looking at me. “That’s Marina, Alice. You’ve met her about a dozen times. She was at the hospital, remember?”
“Oh yes, the one who ran away from me like it was some kind of game we were playing.”
“What?” I say.
“Was she also with you when you disappeared last night?” Alice says as though I never spoke. “Poor Vivianne could have really used your support—”
James squeezes his head. “I said I’m sorry! There were things I needed to do!”
“I don’t know what could possibly be more important than being with your family at such a time. . . .” Alice’s words become muffled by the refrigerator as she sticks her head inside and continues scrubbing. James pours himself another cup of coffee and screws up his nose as he downs the first gulp of bitter liquid.
Vivianne hangs up with the caterers. She looks . . . blank. Like whatever used to animate her features is gone. She could be a glass-eyed doll.
“I wanted to go to city hall to get married, you know,” she says to no one in particular. “Nate’s the one who talked me into the big wedding.”
None of us can look at her.
“I’ll never be his family now,” she says, and then she picks up the phone to continue her calls. Nancy goes to put an arm around her, and even Alice pauses in her cleaning to pat her shoulder. James just stares at the floor and drinks his coffee.
I grab his wrist and pull him out onto the back patio, where two-day-old snow turns to slush beneath our feet.
“What has gotten into you?” I say. “You called Richter? You know getting yourself killed won’t bring Nate back, right?”
James puts his cup down on the railing. “So you’re done with the soft-touch approach, then?”
“Well, it hasn’t been working very well!” I say. “I don’t know what’s going on in that brilliant brain of yours, James, but you’re really starting to worry me. Finn too. Why on earth would you want to meet with Richter after what we found? What happened to going to Director Nolan?”
James crosses his arms and looks out over the frozen yard. “Things changed.”
“What things?” I have to stop myself from shaking him until he talks sense. When he doesn’t answer, I ask, “What did Dr. Feinberg say? Did he give Nate your notes?”
James hurls his coffee cup down at the icy flagstone, where it shatters. I yelp and jump back. “Dr. Feinberg didn’t answer his phone! He’s gone, Marina. No one’s seen him for two days.”
“M-maybe he went out of town—”
“No. It’s Richter.” James goes quiet, his rage disappearing as quickly as it bubbled up. “There’s no one else. He has to be the one who helps me.”
I blink back tears of frustration. “Helps you what?”
“Marina, please.” James approaches me, and I have to curl my toes into the ground to keep from backing away from him. He puts his hands on my face, and for one dizzy moment I think he’s going to kiss me again, but all he d
oes is look me in the eye. “Please. I have to talk to Richter, but I can’t do it alone. I need you with me.”
“But what if he’s dangerous?” I say. “What if he wants to hurt you?”
“He doesn’t.”
“How do you know that? Everything we’ve found points right at him—”
“I know Chris Richter didn’t have anything to do with the people who shot at me.” He runs the side of his thumb over my cheekbone. “Do you trust me?”
“Yes,” I whisper. What else can I say? James is the only person in the world who’s never let me down.
“Then please come.” He kisses me lightly on the lips. “You promised you wouldn’t leave me.”
My resolve, like a house without a solid foundation, begins to crumble. “Okay.”
“Let’s go,” he says. “If we’re quiet, no one will even notice us leaving.”
“We’re leaving now?” I say. “But what about Vivianne and your family? They need you here.”
James shrugs me off. “I can help them better this way.”
He takes me by the hand and leads me back through the kitchen, where no one so much as looks up at us, and into the foyer to collect our coats. Finn is sitting on the stairs, waiting for us.
“Going somewhere?” he says.
“To see Richter.”
Finn looks at me with hardness in his eyes. Like I failed him.
“Well, do what you want, I guess,” he says, “but I’m leaving.”
“What?” James says.
“Marina thinks she’s helping you by letting you run around in denial, but I can’t do it anymore.” He stands. “You need to be still for a minute and mourn your brother, man. And I need to go home.”
“You can’t,” James says. “I need you to come with me.”
“I’m sorry, Jimbo, but that’s not—”
“You don’t understand.” James grabs his shoulders. “I need you with me, Finn. You can’t leave me, not until this is over. You can’t!”
“Whoa!” Finn shakes James off. “What’s up with you?”
“I know it seems like I’m acting crazy right now, but please believe me when I say there are good reasons for everything I’m doing.” James says. “You can’t leave me now, Finn. Neither of you can. It’s important.”
“I have to get home,” Finn says, but the resolution in his voice has wavered.
“And you will soon, I promise,” James says. “I just need you to come with me this last time.”
Finn huffs out a sigh. “Fine. But this is it, and it’s only because I’m worried about you.”
“Thank you.”
“James!” Alice calls. “What are you doing in there?”
James pushes us toward the door. “Just go.”
I pull on my coat. “Shouldn’t you tell them—”
“It’s better this way,” he says, and he closes the door on Alice calling his name and sprints for the car.
Finn catches my sleeve and whispers, “What the hell is going on?”
“I don’t know, but . . .” I watch James’s back. “The last time James cracked, after his parents died, I didn’t see him for three weeks. I can’t let that happen again.”
“You’re not helping him by going along with his crazy.”
I pull my sleeve out of Finn’s grip and turn to follow James. “He’d be there for me.”
Em
The front door to the Shaw house opens, and the three teenagers climb back into the BMW.
“See?” Finn says, popping his seat into an upright position. “Told you we’d find them again.”
“You’re so smart.”
“You’re lucky to have me around.”
Finn cranks to life the gray Chevy we swapped for the Honda in the parking lot of the motel, and we follow them into the crowded streets of D.C. They drive downtown, to a leather-and-wood-paneled restaurant of the kind frequented by lobbyists and power players, and we find a parking spot at a meter across the street to wait. Each second seems to drag more than the last.
“I don’t like this,” I say after fifteen minutes have passed. “What are they doing in there? They get a craving for filet mignon?”
“Yeah, this is weird.”
I bite a thumbnail that’s already worn to the quick. “What if we really pushed James over the edge? What if all he took away from seeing us was that he succeeds in making that damned machine someday? With Nate gone now—”
“It’s all he’ll be able to think about.” Finn stares across the street at the restaurant. “How he’d be able to save him.”
“He won’t care about anything else we said. God, what if we only made things worse?” I curl in on myself, resting my forehead on my knees.
Finn strokes my hair. “This saving-the-world thing is pretty hard.”
“Yeah, and we suck at it.”
The weight of the future settles on me, threatening to cave in my chest with each breath. It’s too much for one tiny person. Marina will have to mop up my mess someday. She’ll find a note in the drainpipe of her prison cell and come back to this moment to try again to save a younger, more innocent version of us. Every single second of this time is a fresh new failure.
Finn’s hand on my hair stills. “Oh my God.”
I sit up so quickly that the blood rushes from my head and makes me dizzy. “What?”
Finn’s eyes roll back in his head, his bruised and unshaven jaw clenching and unclenching like he’s biting back scream after scream. I touch his face, but he doesn’t turn toward me, can’t see me anymore. He’s gone.
I look at the restaurant. A valet in a bright red vest is climbing into a silver car, and its owner is walking through the front doors. I only catch a glimpse of his profile before he disappears inside, but it’s enough.
It’s him. It’s the director.
Twenty-Seven
Marina
James drives us to The Hamilton on the corner of F and Fourteenth Street and hands the key over to a valet. The hostess shows us to a leather booth in the back corner, which has a reserved sign on it. Fifteen minutes later, she returns with Richter at her heels.
“Thanks, Sherry,” Richter says as he slides into the booth. “I’ll take a sparkling water when you get a chance. What would you kids like?”
“We’re fine,” James says. The three of us, me sandwiched between the boys, sit squashed on the side of the booth opposite him.
“My deepest condolences about your brother, Mr. Shaw,” Richter says once the hostess has left. “He was a great man.”
“Thank you,” James says, tossing away the words to move on to what really matters to him. “How’s the investigation coming?”
“We’re making progress. I’m sorry I can’t be more specific right now.” I glare at Richter with such heat, I think he must be able to feel it, but he keeps his level gaze on James. “Was there something in particular you wanted to speak with me about?”
“Actually, there was.” James pulls out the manila folder and drops it onto the table with a thwack. “This.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t—”
“I found it in my brother’s things,” James explains. “It contains an e-mail exchange between you and a colleague where you ask for information about me and then wonder if my brother will be a ‘problem.’ Nate was monitoring your e-mail as a part of his investigation into the SIA, the covert organization you work for, and somehow you were the one put in charge of his shooting?”
My breath catches painfully in my chest. What is James thinking, laying everything out like this? If Richter did kill Nate, a congressman, in a ballroom full of people and Secret Service agents, he won’t hesitate to kill us. This whole time I’ve been trying to keep James from cracking, but maybe he already has and I didn’t notice.
Richter flips open the folder and glances over the first page. “So, you think I had something to do with the congressman’s shooting?”
He asks it so matter-of-factly, in the same tone of voice he used t
o ask if we wanted something to drink, that I shiver. I swear the temperature in the restaurant has dropped.
Richter may be cool, but James is made of ice. “Someone had to help that shooter access the Mandarin ballroom. What had Nate done? Was he getting too close to something you wanted to keep hidden?”
Finn’s hand finds mine under the cover of the table, and he squeezes my fingers hard. I don’t have to look at him to know his face contains as much barely concealed terror as my own.
Richter’s eyes widen, and for the first time his face doesn’t look like a carefully cultivated mask. “Shit, James. Look, you know your brother was a bulldog when it came to intelligence, and you know how small the community is. It was inevitable that someone the congressman had investigated at some point would end up heading the investigation.”
“So you’re telling me it’s a coincidence?”
I have to stop this conversation before he gets us all killed. “James—”
But he doesn’t even look at me, and Richter cuts me off as though I hadn’t spoken. “That’s exactly what I’m saying. It’s true, your brother and I disagreed on things. To be honest, I thought he was a sanctimonious prick who was more interested in scoring political points than keeping the country safe.” James quivers with rage beside me. “But, Jesus, I wouldn’t shoot him over it! That’s how things work in our world; people disagree, and it isn’t personal. God knows I think worse of most politicians.”
He’s a liar. I feel the certainty of it pulsing through my veins, but he’s a smart liar. Give in a little rather than denying it all outright; I learned that with my parents years ago. Admit to skipping tennis practice so I’d seem more believable when I swore I hadn’t gone shopping on the credit card instead. Something is beyond wrong here.
“And me?” James leans forward. “What was your interest in me?”
A smile touches Richter’s lips, like he thinks he’s won something. “I was interested in the work you’re doing at Johns Hopkins. I still am. I thought you might like to come do it with us.”
“Why would I do that?” James’s voice is thrumming with more intensity than it had even when he asked about Nate’s death. I glance at Finn and see he’s frowning. What is James after? Who cares why Richter wanted to work with him?