Emma paused here in her story, not sure if she could or wanted to go on. Pete quirked a brief smile. “You think I’m judging you, O’Neill? I can’t, and I won’t. We’re human. We love, and we screw, and we mess up, and we pick ourselves up and start over. If we’re lucky, we do some good in the world along the way.”
“Well, when you put it like that,” Emma said. Then she told him the rest—up to a point. The whys of what she did, as best as she understood it. She didn’t always understand the things she felt. She just felt them and tried to move forward.
“We closed up, and I walked out to the parking lot with Aaron,” she said. “I kissed him, and he kissed me.” She shook her head and f ixed her gaze on the mountains. “I should have known better. I did know better. I should have driven back to my apartment and curled up on the couch.”
“You went home with him,” Pete said, and Emma nodded, eyes still safely on the Sandia peaks.
“I . . . it felt easier to just give up, you know? Tell myself that Charlie was dead. After all this time, I mean. Or if he wasn’t then, why the hell not? He was the one who walked away f irst. Anyway, I’d move on soon, right? That’s what I always had to do.”
She paused, a lump forming in her throat, tears stinging her eyes. But she’d gone this far, so she might as well go all the way.
Four weeks later, just after New Year’s Day, Emma realized she was pregnant.
Outside, the world kept turning. There was a light coating of frost on the ground and heavier snow on the mountaintop. Aaron Tinsley had just moved to Santa Fe for an internship with one of the state senators.
Emma carried her secret around for another two months, hiding it and cradling it like all the rest of her secrets, noticing with detached fear and awe the subtle changes in her belly and breasts. She imagined it was Charlie’s baby. A boy, she decided. He would be dark-haired, with tawny skin and when he got older, the high, etched cheekbones of his Calusa ancestors. Emma would tell him Frank Ryan’s stories. She would make him giggle and teach him to say, “es verdad,” because of all the ironies, this was true.
“I was such an idiot,” she said, and Pete shook his head.
“Not by half.”
“I knew it was Aaron’s, of course. I mean he was the only . . . oh hell, Pete. You know what I thought? I f igured I’d already made up so much of my life as I’d been going along, why not this?”
Already she was pondering contingency plans. Because how to explain things when the child was seventeen, and so was she?
But it seemed a miracle somehow. A thing to conquer the emptiness. A person to love.
Until the miracle was gone.
She told him the rest: Ten weeks into her pregnancy, the living thing inside her simply was reabsorbed into her body. She felt it rather than knew, but an eventual visit to the doctor proved her correct. There was no baby. No sign that there ever had been one. Her stomach f lattened; her breasts went back to normal. She was the same Emma O’Neill again—the same one she’d been and would always be.
That particular def ining truth had never hurt so much as that cold March day, when she left the clinic in Albuquerque.
“I’m positive, miss,” the doctor said on her way out. “The sonogram shows nothing. Is there a parent I can call to take you home?” He was matter-of-fact, cheerful, even. She realized he assumed she was young enough to be relieved.
There were many prices for her specif ic brand of immortality, and this was one of them. For the f irst time in all the years she had been alive, she wondered if Glen Walters and his followers were right in wanting to destroy her.
And now a new thought rose from deep inside Emma, dark and sad, one that changed her.
It was this: if any tiny particle of what kept her alive could bring back the baby that no longer curled inside her, she would gladly die to let it live.
She drove herself home from the doctor’s off ice, alone as always. She cried a little, watching the sea of university students milling on Central, winding in and out of stores and restaurants—all young and vibrant, all smiling and laughing.
Everyone wanted to live forever. Everyone was sure they would.
“They have no idea,” Emma said to Pete when she was all f inished. “What it’s really like. To live forever.”
“Most people don’t,” Pete gently agreed.
Emma rubbed her hands together, feeling the warmth of the friction. “I keep thinking I should want to be done. But I never am. I’ve stopped trying to understand that part of it. I mean, how self ish is that? To want to stay in the world all these years? Even if I never f ind Charlie. Even when it’s painful. Even if I never get things right.”
Pete shrugged. “It’s human nature. We’re survivalists above all.”
It had not occurred to her.
Emma leaned back in her chair and smiled sadly at him. “Maybe I am just like everyone else.”
It was the most honest thing she’d said in a very long time—before or since.
Chapter Fifteen
Dallas, Texas
Present
The building management allowed Emma back into the apartment to get some clothes and whatever else she needed for the short term. Everything smelled vaguely like burned toast. Including her. The f ire had started in the kitchen of a recently vacated unit down the hall, so it was very lucky that someone—Emma had yet to learn who—had smelled the smoke. It could have been a lot worse.
Management also informed the residents that it would be best if everyone found somewhere else to stay for the night until the smoke and water damage could be dealt with.
“Nice digs, by the way,” Pete remarked. He elbowed open the glass doors in the lobby after collecting Emma’s things. “Other than the barbecue vibe.”
Emma harrumphed at him. It was a nice place. If you were here for eternity, you might as well be comfortable.
Pete didn’t know, but she’d kept her promise to her father in those last days and looked into the trust fund he’d set up through his lawyer, Abner Dunn. And although it had taken Emma a while to give in, eventually the practicality of eating and living had gotten the better of her. Besides, Abner Dunn was the model of discretion. As had been the lawyers who had taken over his practice upon his retirement, and the lawyers who’d taken over after their retirement—generations of quiet, plainspoken, intelligent men and women, all of a type. Lawyers who believed she was her own daughter and then her own granddaughter and on like that. The current one was named Thatcher Elliott. He’d asked Emma to call him Thatch.
Human beings were survivalists. Es verdad.
And along the way, the sheer act of survival had woken in Emma an ingenuity she never could have imagined back in St. Augustine. It had also hardened her and made her a girl that the old Emma would have barely recognized, appearances aside.
This was the Emma O’Neill who hoisted herself into Pete’s black Tundra. The survivalist. Now, with another hour gone and Coral still missing, Pete cranked the engine. The Tundra was a noisy beast. Outside, the clouds had returned, and the temperature had plummeted. Emma shivered. The air smelled like snow.
“I’m going to feed you,” Pete said. “Because I can tell you haven’t eaten. And you’re going to f ill me in. Pancakes okay with you?”
Emma thought of arguing, then thought better of it. Uptown Pancakes—its neon sign, a short stack with butter—sat a mile away on Lemmon. Even from inside Pete’s ridiculously oversized truck, Emma imagined she could smell the bacon frying, mixing with the smoky odor of her hair in a not entirely unpleasant way. Her stomach growled.
Pancakes always reminded her of Charlie. Specif ically: the f irst time that Maura O’Neill acknowledged that her daughter and Frank Ryan’s son were more than good friends who’d grown up together. Not out loud. Like the immortality, it was a subject no one talked about, except to hint at. Certainly her pa
rents had more important things to worry about than if their daughter had fallen in love. By that point, they had all been frozen in time together for going on two years.
But one Sunday morning, out of the blue, Emma’s mother had invited Charlie to have breakfast with them. Emma knew why; Maura O’Neill had begun a f ierce campaign of pretending that everything was normal. Asking Emma’s “young man” to eat with them, formally, was part of it. Later, while they did the dishes, her mother whispered, “Charlie loves my pancakes.”
Emma remembered her face f lushing. Her mother’s approval still meant something to her. And so she memorized the pancake recipe, a simple combination of f lour and eggs, butter and milk. She remembered imagining the future: she would make pancakes for Charlie when they were married. And not just on Sundays. Every day if he wanted them.
Of course the future doesn’t always work out the way you plan. Emma tried not to take this out on her love of pancakes.
Pete climbed out of the truck and started across the lot. “O’Neill,” he began, his voice quiet even though she trailed several feet behind, “how long did you think it would take me to f igure out that these dead girls who keep popping up all look a lot like you? Including your friend Coral?”
Emma froze. She kept her eyes on the restaurant. Inside would be pancakes and bacon and a steaming cup of coffee. She really wanted a cup of coffee.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he demanded.
“You could have said something before taunting me with pancakes,” she muttered. “They make this sourdough batter one here that is seriously—”
“What else, Emma?” Using her name punched through her defenses; he rarely used her f irst name. Pete shot a wary glance around the parking lot and lowered his voice even more. “And remember that most likely, someone just tried to burn you alive. In case you hadn’t noticed.”
He had a point. She stepped forward, then paused again on the little walkway outside the glass door. “I . . . I needed to protect you. I couldn’t . . . There’s just a lot to it.” She glanced around the parking lot now, too, gloomy under the dark clouds.
As if on cue, it started to rain—hard, stinging drops.
Pete made a disgruntled sound in the back of his throat. He ran his hand through his scruffy graying hair. Emma noted that he could use a haircut but thought better of saying so at this particular moment.
“Protect me?” he cried, his voice rising. He strode back to the truck, leaving her no choice but to follow. Then he gestured sharply. She followed him back into the truck, angry now, too, and also wet from the rain.
“Yeah,” Emma said, climbing in and slamming the door behind her. Pete had no right to question her judgment. He wasn’t her. He hadn’t lived what she had. And then she thought, Coral is missing. I need to f ind her. I need a lot of things, but right now, that’s the most important one.
The rain smacked the windshield, and Emma shook the water from her smoky hair.
“I didn’t ask you to come to the rescue,” she said. “You’re not my . . .” Father, she had been about to say before she bit back the word.
Emma hated when she f igured herself out. It made her feel small and cranky. But the truth was still the truth: being friends with her was dangerous. She hadn’t meant for Coral to become a friend. It was enough balancing Pete. Enough keeping herself alive and in the game. It would be so easy, she knew, to just run and hide. Not just from those who wished her gone, but from everything and everyone. Go someplace and just be. She could do that, couldn’t she? Why the hell not?
Was that what Charlie had done? Was that the real reason she hadn’t found him?
Maybe he was just better than she was at not being found. Of course he was.
Or she was just a shitty detective, which was also possible.
In her head, Charlie Ryan was still the Charlie Ryan she remembered, the Charlie from 1916. But why did she cling to that stupid lie? Over the years, she’d imagined different possibilities: Charlie would like football but maybe not soccer. He would enjoy texting but not phone calls. He would like thin-crust pizza, New York style, with sausage, and he’d fold his slice over and shovel it into his mouth. He would have owned the sleekest of automobiles over the years: A Dodge Charger because yes, Charlie would like muscle cars. Or maybe a Mustang. She wasn’t sure what year. A Carmen Ghia. A 1957 Thunderbird.
And he would have learned to f ly. She had dug into war records once and found various Charlie Ryans with service records, some who were pilots, but tracking them down always led to dead ends. She supposed he’d used aliases. Certainly she had, although she’d gotten sloppy about that lately, and look how that had turned out.
Because for one wrongheaded second she had thought she could have a real friend. Be a normal person.
And so people were dead. Again. And Coral was missing.
“From the beginning,” Pete said, and Emma refocused. “Whatever you’ve been holding back.” Then more quietly, “I can’t help you if I don’t know. So enough with the thick-headedness.”
Her brows furrowed. “I am not—”
“O’Neill.”
Emma’s eyes stung now and not from the smoke. “I have to f ind her,” she said. “Jesus, Pete. I don’t know—”
“From the beginning,” he repeated and touched a hand to her shoulder. “Repeat yourself. I don’t give a shit. I have all the time in the world. Bad joke. But bear with me. I need you to f ill in the dots.” He shimmied out of his jacket. “And put this on before you freeze to death.”
Emma almost smiled. “Don’t think that’s possible,” she said. “But thanks.”
She let him drape his jacket over her. The weight felt comforting. It reminded her of being tucked into bed. Or maybe it didn’t remind her. Could she remember that feeling as viscerally as she believed she remembered, a century later? There was so much she didn’t know. But Pete Mondragon, this strange protector, deserved to know as much as she did.
So she told him.
She told him what the Church of Light wanted, or what she believed they wanted: to f ind and destroy her and Charlie.
She did not say Charlie might already be dead. She would never say that.
“Or they want what I am,” Emma clarif ied. “At this point, it’s a toss-up. I mean it started as a witch hunt, you know that. But over time, well, things change. It’s like you and I have talked about before. Everyone thinks they want to live forever. Until they do.” She laughed sadly. “Not that any of them f igured that part out yet. At least, I don’t think so. Except for Kingsley Lloyd. If he’s still alive, he’s somehow the key to this whole thing, even if he doesn’t know it. It’s about power. Maybe they got to him. Maybe not.”
“What else?” Pete pressed.
Emma told him everything else she could think of, everything about the death of Elodie Callahan and her visit to Dallas Fellowship and Pastor Meehan, laying it all out.
“I don’t think Meehan’s connected,” she f inished. “But I’ve been wrong before.” Too many times, she thought.
By the time Emma f inished talking, the rain had turned to soft f lakes of snow. She’d never seen snow in Dallas before, although she knew it snowed here. There were still f irsts, even after 120 years. She waited for Pete to tell her that she was wrong for waiting so long to bring him fully into the case, in trying to protect him, to keep him distanced.
But he said only, “And I know that you think Charlie is still out there, too.”
She nodded.
“You know this is still all hard for me to believe, right?” Pete asked. He tapped his f ingers on the steering wheel. “If you didn’t look the way you look . . .”
“I know,” Emma said, her eyes on the rain. “But I do look the way I look. And you don’t. You look like you’ve aged since I last saw you, four years ago. You’re grayer. The bags under your eyes are darker.”
“Guess you don’t learn manners living forever, either,” he grumbled. He cleared his throat. “So you think this Church of Light—whoever’s in charge at this point—is killing off girls to either f ind you or lure you out.”
“Yes,” Emma said. “I’ve studied the autopsy reports. That’s why it’s been poison, because poison can’t affect me. When they start to show symptoms, then the Church of Light knows it’s not me, so they get killed. The Church of Light can’t let them live.”
Pete nodded. “So she might be dead, then?” He hesitated. “Your friend Coral?”
Something f ierce lit inside her. “She’s not,” Emma said. “I’d know if she was. This time they know they’re close. She’s bait.”
“So you’re psychic now, too?” His tone was half sarcasm, half possibility.
That was the cop in him, she knew. You needed to be a cynic to survive in his line of work. She got that.
“Sorry,” Pete said. “But let’s be clear. You think that the others weren’t just the work of some random serial killer bastard. You think that the Church took them because they f it a pattern that might have been you. Orphans. Foster children. Girls who had come suddenly to live with relatives. All matching your general physical prof ile and generally eternal age. Something that I missed or just didn’t want to see? Do I have this now?”
Emma took a deep breath and nodded. “But not Coral,” she clarif ied, although she could tell Pete got it. He was methodical like that. Needed to make sure he had all the pieces exactly so. She looked out at the swiftly falling snowf lakes. A dozen images of Charlie Ryan f illed her head, because this was all about him, too, wasn’t it? Maybe she wasn’t a bad detective. Maybe she hadn’t found him because they’d gotten to him long ago—like they’d now gotten to Coral.
She turned to look at Pete. “They took her to send a message: that they know I’m here. So they have to keep her alive. Because the only reason they’d take the wrong girl is to make the right girl surface. And that would be me.”