Fifty-Three

Michael let himself in through the front door in an effort to avoid Miss Ettie and her all-knowing eye. He could hear her moving around in the kitchen, opening drawers and shutting them again. The low rumble of Lark’s voice was answered by her soft, lilting tone. Through the doorway connecting the kitchen to the dining room, he could see the Kotko boy sitting at the table, skinny legs dangling from the seat he perched on. At least he was sitting in an actual chair today.

The kid must’ve sensed him because he turned, pinning Michael with that dark vacant gaze of his. It lasted for less than a second, but he’d felt it. Connection. Recognition.

Michael looked away. Unwanted memories pushed at him from all sides. Things he’d tried his whole life to hide from.

You’re nothing but a coward after all.

No one knew just how true that really was.

“Miss Ettie is looking for her gardening shears.”

He looked toward the stairs to see Ben standing at the foot of them. He thought of the shears, of what he’d done with them. “I’ll buy her a new pair.”

Ben laughed, but the sound died as he cocked his head at a curious angle. “You okay?”

“What? Yeah. Fine.” He moved, squeezing past his partner to mount the steps to his room.

“I want to know what happened,” Ben said, catching his arm as he passed. For a second he thought he was pressing him for details about his night with Sabrina. Then he remembered what he’d been doing before that.

“Let me get cleaned up,” he said, forcing himself to look his partner full in the face. Ben did a quick appraisal before letting him go. As he’d hope, the kid had attributed the cut lip and swollen cheek he was sporting to his trip to Reyes’s warehouse last night.

“Make it quick,” Ben called over his shoulder on his way to the kitchen, leaving Michael alone.

He made his way to his room and let himself in, shedding his clothes immediately. Lifting his shirt above his head, he caught the smell of her on his skin. Felt the dizzying flash of heat as blood rushed from his head. For a moment he saw her. Felt the way she’d moved under his hands. Under his mouth.

The way she’d looked at him when he’d told her that he blamed her for his sister’s death.

He tossed the bloodstained shirt on the floor and worked the front of his pants open, kicking his boots off as he did. It was over. Done. He’d made the right choice. For once in his miserable life, he did the right thing. So why did he feel like shit?

He glanced at the window that faced her house, spotting the binocs that he’d handed to Ben before he’d left the night before, propped on the sill.

No wonder Ben hadn’t given him shit about his walk of shame or asked where he’d been all night. He knew because he’d probably watched the whole fucking thing. He took an angry swipe at the binocs, meaning to knock them off the ledge, but they somehow ended up in his hand. He raised them to his face and suddenly Sabrina was there in front of him, so close he felt like he could reach out and touch her.

She was sitting on the side of the bed, wearing a dark blue robe, hands in her lap. He could see the ugly red rings his fingers had left on her wrists. They were beginning to fade, but he could still see them, plain as day. He’d hurt her, in more ways than one.

None of it mattered. Not if he didn’t let it.

He yanked his pants off and headed for the bathroom. Starting the shower, he stepped under the rush of hot water, scrubbing furiously with the bar of soap until his skin felt like it was ready to peel off. He waited until the water started to cool before turning it off. He was wasting time he didn’t have, attempting to delay the inevitable.

He toweled off before dressing, pulling on a pair of cargos and the first shirt he found. Dialing his phone, he listened to it ring, ignoring the feeling that each tone built in the pit of his stomach. Under normal circumstances, calling Livingston Shaw was not something most people in his position would do. His circumstances were far from normal.

“Michael, is everything okay?” Shaw’s voice, alert and rested, was more curious than concerned.

“It depends on your definition of okay, Livingston,” he drawled. “If you ask me, the situation you’ve gotten yourself into is pretty fucking far from okay.”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.” The curiosity smoothed out, filling cracks. Hiding holes. But Michael could hear it; Shaw was worried.

“It’s over. Reyes called me last night. He told me everything. That you hired him to kidnap Leo Maddox. That the Cordova hit was ordered by him.”

He took Shaw’s silence as confirmation.

“He told me something else … ” He dropped his voice in to a mock whisper. “A secret.”

“Do tell.”

“Leo Maddox is dead.” He blended truth and lie perfectly until even he couldn’t distinguish one from the other. “And your perfect plan—whatever it was—has gone to hell.”