Reed poured himself another glass of wine as he eyed the closed door of Ellery’s bedroom. She had been in there a while now, longer than it should take to change for dinner, and he was starting to wonder if he’d been stood up inside his own hotel suite. Not that this is a date, he thought, sipping his Merlot. Definitely not. There were no candles or flowers on the table. The most he’d done was clear away the dusty folders and curved, fading photographs so that they didn’t have to eat dinner next to his mother’s murder. The weight of the evidence had grown as he’d carried it back and forth, ancient grime creeping under his fingernails, and he’d scrubbed until raw when the deed was done. The folders sat in shadow in the living room now, silent as the grave. Reed positioned himself at the table so he wouldn’t have to see them. Already the alcohol was loosening the tension in his shoulders and quieting the angry buzz he’d had in his head since this whole thing began. He took another long, bittersweet swallow.
Ellery’s door cracked open across the room, and Reed turned in his seat, a quip about her tardiness ready on his tongue, but it died there the instant he saw her standing rooted in her doorway.
“I bought a dress,” she announced, somewhat defiantly.
“I see that.”
She didn’t move from her spot. “It’s my first one. The first one I ever bought, I mean.”
“You should buy more,” he replied solemnly. “You seem to have a knack for it.”
“I don’t know about that,” she said with a sigh. She walked reluctantly across the room, and he saw she’d paired the fancy dress with plain plastic flip-flops. He grinned once but then reined it in quick before she noticed.
“Why not?” he asked as she pulled out her chair.
“I got the impression that the saleslady didn’t think I should be showing quite so much skin,” Ellery replied darkly, skimming her fingers down her bare arm.
He hadn’t even noticed the scars, but now he made himself look. In the low light, they were difficult to see, faded by time and by everything else he knew about her. He never looked at Ellery and saw her scars. Not anymore. “The dress is perfect for you,” he said, his gaze lingering, “and you are perfect in it.”
She narrowed her eyes at him, but he detected the beginning of a smile. “Smooth. Very smooth. I see how you got your reputation with the ladies, Agent Markham.”
“What reputation?” he asked as he poured her a glass of wine. “What ladies? I haven’t been on a date since…” He paused to consider. “Well, since that spectacular disaster with you in the middle of the blizzard.”
“You told me that wasn’t a date,” she said as she raised the glass to her lips.
“It wasn’t. Not until you made it one.”
“Mmm.” She tried the wine, and he watched her lick her lips. “‘Spectacular disaster,’ eh? I suppose it could have been worse.”
“It ended with your truck on fire,” he reminded her.
“Well, we’re in luck this time, then—I didn’t bring a truck.”
She eyed him with an intent that made his stomach flip over. He’d drunk either too much wine or not enough to make it through this dinner with her. Ellery was young and beautiful, quick thinking, and just a little bit dangerous. Half the time they were together, he’d ended up on the wrong side of a gun, an experience that sometimes made him sit up straight in bed at night, gasping for breath when he realized anew how close he’d come. Ellery, however, stalked death like it owed her something. Like they had unfinished business. Maybe that’s why the bullets came flying every time Reed got near her—he was always in the way.
“Dinner looks amazing,” Ellery said, interrupting his thoughts as she helped herself to some of the dates, which he’d stuffed with goat cheese and wrapped in the prosciutto. He had cumin-rubbed flank steak waiting in the kitchen, with pomegranate salsa, fiesta rice, and a large leafy salad with homemade vinaigrette dressing. “But you shouldn’t have gone to so much trouble.”
“It’s not trouble,” he tried to explain. Cooking grounded him. Certain aromas and flavors, like pork with apples roasting in the oven, took him back to his mother’s kitchen. The rainbow colors of the vegetables always pleased his eye. The rhythmic chop, chop of the knife would slow his pulse, calming him. Plus, cooking made sense. Do it the correct way and it always came out right. “I like making a meal and watching someone eat it. It—it helps me feel normal.”
“Normal,” she said, her smile faltering. “I wouldn’t know anything about that.”
“But eating,” he pointed out, “eating you’re great at.”
She raised her fork in his direction. “This is true.” After a few more bites, she regarded him with interest. “So what about you? Did you grow up watching cops-and-robbers shows on TV and decide to be an FBI agent?”
“No, we didn’t watch much television. Mama didn’t usually allow it. Later, when I got married, I discovered that Sarit loved the crime shows. I had to explain that reality is nothing like what you see on the screen. She was extremely disappointed when I told her I did not have a private jet on standby, waiting to whisk me off to each new crime scene.”
“No plane?” Ellery made a show of pouting. “And here I was thinking we could go for a ride later.”
Reed swallowed back his baser reply as he rose from his seat to fetch the next course. “Actually, I was leaning toward political science for a time,” he told her. “Maybe law. At one point when I was young I thought I might follow my father into politics.”
“Really,” she remarked with some surprise.
“I know. I’m not the sort for it, am I? I just liked the way people looked up to him, the way he made them happy. He encouraged me, too, and back then we kids would say almost anything to get his attention. He and I were surrounded by women at home, and he liked to joke about it. ‘We Markham men have to stick together,’ he’d tell me. I tried to convince myself we were totally alike. It didn’t matter if I’d been born to some other father—we were the same where it counted.”
“Oh,” Ellery said quietly.
Reed set the platter of meat on the table between them. “Then I got older, and I had to admit we aren’t anything alike. My father loves a crowd. I can’t stand them. He loves generating all sorts of new ideas but leaves the details to others, while I love seeing things through. We both liked the idea of helping people, but my father is willing to lie to them in order to do it—you know, telling people what they want to hear until he can figure out a way to get them maybe half of what they’re asking for. He thinks that’s just part of the job.”
“Whereas your job is about finding the truth,” Ellery finished for him.
They ate in silence for a minute, until Ellery abruptly set down her fork.
“Reed … I know you’re angry, and I know he lied to you. But brutally murdering Camilla like that … do you really think he’s capable of such a thing?”
“He says he didn’t do it,” Reed answered, choosing his words carefully. “The problem is that I can no longer be sure if he’s telling the truth.”
Reed knew the alcohol had worked its miracle when his world shrank to the sofa, a deck of cards, and Ellery’s shoulder pressed up against his. He held a red deck in his hands, while her cards were blue, but both of them aimed at the same target: the small chrome trash can sitting ten feet away. Ellery flipped one of her cards through the air, sending it sailing into the can. Indeed, nearly all of her cards had gone into the can. Meanwhile, a litter of red cards lay on the carpet at odd angles, surrounding the can but not inside it. He frowned and leaned forward, narrowing his eyes and lining up the shot. With a flick of his wrist, he pitched the king of hearts high into the air and landed him facedown somewhere near the balcony. “I don’t know my own strength,” he said, sinking back into the sofa.
“Your aim is terrifying. The FBI lets you carry a gun?”
“They positively insist on it,” Reed replied, with a touch of dismay. He regarded her with hazy eyes and waved a hand between them. “That’s going to be a problem with your new dress, you know—everyone will see your package. You’re packing,” he corrected himself quickly, but Ellery was already chortling.
“You’re hammered,” she said.
“I’m mellow,” he informed her loftily as he stretched his arms out along the back of the couch. He felt like he just might melt into the cushions. Maybe he could just stay here, not forever but long enough to feel human again. Ellery flipped several more cards into the can, one by one, while he admired the athletic grace of her toned arms and the slight bounce of her breasts inside that magnificent dress. It had a narrow red zipper down the front that he imagined leaning over and taking between his teeth.
Ellery nudged him with her elbow, rousing him from his fantasy. “It’s your turn.”
He sat up with a grumble. “I think you have an unfair advantage,” he said as he missed again. “The dress has no sleeves. It gives you a better range of motion.”
Amusement flashed in her eyes. “That’s your excuse? If you like, we can swap outfits. You can take the dress and I’ll take your getup as the wannabe European underwear model.”
Reed gave his blue cashmere sweater a clumsy pat at the middle as he assessed his clothing with some confusion: button-down shirt with the tails untucked, sweater, jeans, and loafers. “I’m fully dressed,” he protested. “Not modeling underwear.”
“Yeah, they always start out that way,” Ellery agreed as she flipped her last card into the can. “But by the end of the catalog, they’re standing around in some itty-bitty black briefs.”
He wasn’t going to ask why she was looking at menswear catalogs. “You know nothing about my underwear.”
“Not true. I’ve seen you model it in my living room.” She gave him a cheeky smile as she reached for her own wineglass, which was still half-full. “That’s how I know: it’s European.”
“You couldn’t possibly know that.” When she’d walked in on him that time, he’d been standing all the way across the room. It’s not like she could read a label at that distance.
“You’re saying I’m wrong?”
“I’m saying you lack concrete proof. As a trained investigator, I know insufficient evidence when I see it. Eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable.”
Ellery paused and then deliberately set her glass aside. She leaned closer into his space, where he could see the shadowy hollow of her cleavage and smell the shower gel on her skin: ginger and citrus, now mixed with a hint of Merlot. All of a sudden he was thirsty again. “Agent Markham,” she said in a low voice, “are you inviting me to investigate your underwear?”
God, was he? Maybe he was. His heart started thumping against his ribs like those nightclub girls in their cages, rocking to the beat. “I, uh…”
She shifted so they touched, thigh to thigh, and he could feel the heat of her through his clothes. “I bet they’re French,” she said, looking him over speculatively. “Right?”
Wrong. Although he knew better than to say that. “You like French?” he asked, trying to sound normal over the rush of the blood coursing through his ears. “I mean France?”
“Don’t know,” she said with a little shrug. “I’ve never been.” She said it like France might as well have been Mars, and Reed was struck anew at how wide his world had been. He’d had his first passport by the time he was a year old.
“Maybe we can go someday.”
Ellery shifted away and regarded him with a measured gaze. “Sure. Right. We’ll travel the world in eighty days, just like the book says. Maybe we can take that neon balloon down the road and float away.”
She said it with sarcasm, with impossibility, but he’d done so many impossible things with her already that he couldn’t imagine what might happen next. He’d lived his whole life doing exactly what everyone expected of him, right up until he’d met Ellery. He felt dizzy, his tongue loosened by wine and the late hour. “Why is it,” he murmured, stretching a hand toward her, “whenever I go looking for something, I always seem to find you?”
He took her hand and she let him. He pressed a lingering kiss to her knuckles. Ellery had beautiful hands, with fine bones and tapered fingers and soft, tender palms. They had been Coben’s obsession, the reason he’d picked her, and so he’d left her hands untouched—smooth and unmarked by scars. Reed reluctantly broke contact, letting her go, but Ellery didn’t move her hand away. She touched her fingertips to his mouth experimentally, reading him, and he forced himself to sit still under her exploration as she cataloged his lips and chin and cheeks. She stroked the curve of his face with her thumb and he set his jaw, rigid and barely controlled.
They were so far from home now, in this anonymous city that practically dared to you to become someone else. Someone you could leave behind at the end. Reed had been forced out of its border long ago, with no choice in the matter. The way he saw it, Las Vegas owed him one.
He turned his face to her palm and opened his mouth, and she gasped as his hot breath exhaled over her skin. She was warm and salty. He moved from her palm to her fingers to the inside of her wrist, where her pulse fluttered against his lips. When he looked up at her again, her gray eyes had turned dark. Slowly, giving her time to object, he moved his hand to the side of her head and leaned in to kiss her mouth.
She inhaled sharply at first contact but did not pull away. He kissed her gently, over and over, until gradually her body relaxed its rigid posture. She tilted slightly so their mouths could meet more fully, kissing him for real now as warmth started to spread across his face. The room faded away and there was nothing but the feel of his hands on her body and his lips moving against hers. Her palm slipped down the front of his shirt, and she opened for him, inviting the touch of his tongue.
Wait, he reminded his burning, alcohol-fueled brain. You shouldn’t. But Ellery was soft and sweet and everywhere at once, her mouth moving on his, her hair a curtain that hid his flaming face. He felt himself cracking open, like ice across a pond, a slow shatter that might pull him under at any moment. He grabbed on to her for purchase, urging her closer until she was almost in his lap, her skirt crimped up around her thighs. They kissed like two kids in the backseat out after curfew, desperate and a little awkward with the groping.
His hands slid under her skirt to find the edge of her underwear, which he traced back and forth with one eager finger.
She arched to give him better access and he broke the kiss. “Tell me,” he muttered against her throat. “What do you like?” He wasn’t so far gone that he didn’t care. He wanted it to be good for her.
She held his head with both hands as he pressed fevered kisses along her collarbone. He could feel the live-wire hum of the blood coursing through her veins. “This,” she breathed, drawing him up again for more kisses. “You.” She said the word against his mouth.
“What else? What else?” He skimmed his hands along the outside of her thighs. He had to find out soon before he lost all rational thought.
“I don’t know,” she said in a rush, kissing him again.
It took a second for the words to penetrate his muzzy brain, which was lost in a fog of arousal. “What?” he said, drawing back to look at her, his breathing unsteady.
Her lips were wet and shining from their kisses, her long hair tangled and mussed, and it hurt him physically to look at her, he wanted her that much. “I don’t know,” she repeated, faltering. “I mean … I’ve never been able to find out.”
She leaned in to kiss him again, but he stopped her, his hands gentle on her shoulders, holding her just above the scars. He’d wanted to forget, to lose himself in her, but she’d reminded him of who he really was. Reminded him of who she was and what they were together. He ran his hands over her bare arms, savoring the feel of her one last time as he tried to find the right apology. His tongue felt thick and dumb in his mouth; he had no words for this.
Ellery froze under his touch, feeling his regret, and she pulled away with a sharp jerk. “That was the wrong answer, wasn’t it?”
“No, Ellery, wait.” The room turned cold as she climbed off his lap. “I can explain.”
“No need. I get it. I know what I am to you. What I’ll always be.”
She grabbed up her flip-flops in her hands and started heading for the door. He half-rolled off the couch, clumsy with wine and residual desire. “You’re wonderful,” he said, desperate to stop her. “It’s just—”
“It’s just you remembered what he did to me,” she finished hotly as she yanked open the front door. “Don’t bother to deny it, because I can read it on your face.”
The door slammed behind her, reverberating through the suite, and Reed stood alone in his stocking feet, staring at the space she used to be. He could almost feel the alcoholic high evaporating from his brain. The temperature was close to freezing outside, he realized, and she’d left without her jacket. He retrieved it and his loafers before heading out into the hall. He rode down in the elevator hoping that he’d find the right words to make her come back inside, but he hadn’t had a lot of success in that area. Whatever he suggested, Ellery usually did the opposite. This, he told himself darkly, was the whole damn reason he’d needed instructions from her in the first place.
Downstairs, he circled the gleaming hotel lobby but found no trace of her. “Excuse me,” he asked the doorman, who tipped his black cap in reply, “did you see a woman leave here a few minutes ago? She was wearing a red dress.”
“Yes, she was,” the man replied with hearty agreement, his smile a flash of white against his otherwise dark face.
“She left without her jacket.” Reed held it up to support his case. “Did you see which way she went?”
The doorman rubbed his chin with one hand. “She was going away from here in a hurry. Maybe she left you and that jacket on purpose, eh? Give her some time. She’ll come back.” He winked at Reed. “They always do, after a while.”
“Thanks,” Reed said flatly, and then ignored this piece of free advice. He took the jacket and jogged toward the parking garage, feeling in his pocket for the car keys. He fished them out and pressed the button, listening for the answering chirp, which echoed around the concrete walls. “Finally,” he muttered to himself when the SUV came into view at the end of the row. As he got closer, though, he noticed it appeared off—lopsided somehow and smaller than he remembered.
He rounded the bend and stopped short when he saw the damage. Someone had slashed the tires. Someone who might still be watching. Reed turned frantically in place, searching for the perpetrator in the shadowy garage. No one was around. He recalled too well that Camilla Flores had her tires slashed—a warning, apparently, that she’d failed to heed, because a few days later someone carved her up with a kitchen knife. “Ellery,” Reed said aloud as fresh terror seized him. He forgot all about the car as he began to run.