Marcelline and Owen hadn’t seen each other in more than four years. The last time she saw him, she wasn’t convinced she’d survive the next time she did. And that had nearly been true, but in no way resembling what she’d lived in fear of all this time.
The sun lit up the sheen of his dark blue suit. She was bleeding, shaking, stunned motionless in the after-ring of gunshots. Two vehicles were on fire. And he looked as if he’d walked out of a magazine.
He surveyed the truck, measured the column of smoke rising skyward from it, then craned back to check the bend of the road in the distance where it turned toward them.
“We really do have to get out of here,” he said, picking it up like the next line of a casual conversation they’d never had.
It was the first thing he’d said to her since he’d told her to get some rest in his guest room. She hurt all over, but it was remote. She wanted to talk to him, wanted to know what he thought about what had just happened, and to know if he understood her part in this.
But the weight of the moment seemed lost on him. Maybe. She felt him not allowing their eyes to meet. He kept a step too far from moving the air around her. He walked past, stripping off his jacket. In Jonathan’s car, the flames were halfhearted, smoldering and belching smoke, not even scary compared to their big brothers bellowing in Roy’s truck. Owen beat the blaze down with his jacket, then grabbed up the garment bag from the back and pressed it against the seat to finish it off.
The fire snuffed out. The upholstery had holes through to the springs in places, and the dashboard was dusted in soot, but the damage was cosmetic. Owen started the car and smiled at her through the open passenger window.
He popped the trunk and was out again, charred box top in hand. He strode in a full graceful, giant bustle that didn’t get any less unreal as he went. How was he unrattled? What was he thinking? He skirted the red and beige glistening clutter in the grass by Jonathan’s head and dropped the cardboard next to it.
Marcelline looked for Carly at the edge of the clearing, but she hadn’t come back. They couldn’t let her see this. Owen walked over and plucked the shredded cheery wrapping paper out of the grass, crossed back, and tossed it into the waiting trunk.
Then he finally looked at her. Everything. He knew it all.
The trees tilted in Marcelline’s vision, the fire was above and beside and the sky was in the wrong place. A gray mist pulled the green and orange from the image, speeding in to swallow her.
Owen stepped under her arm to steady her. “Whoa. Whoa. Are you going to lose it?”
Marcelline was okay enough to shake her head. She sucked in a deep shuddering breath.
Owen was looking into her eyes, holding her. For a glinting instant, she wanted there to be more. More to ask. More to know. More time. But her want deflected off something in him, a wall. A cancellation. And her want was gone.
He steadied her. “Okay, good. We really have to get out of here. And we have to get that out of here.” He ticked his head at Jonathan. “Help me.” Owen walked over to the body and looked back, surprised not to find her at his shoulder. “Come on. You can hold his legs, if the rest of it bothers you.”
When Jonathan was packed away with the burned garment bag and Owen’s jacket, they covered the burned seat with the ruined tuxedo.
Owen bent the game box into a scoop and headed back to the red grass. Marcelline closed her eyes against knowing any more about what he raked from the trampled ground. He dashed back to Roy’s pyre, with a Monopoly box top full of gore. He tossed it in. Jonathan’s brain burning in the fire he’d started. Her legs made the case again for folding. She resisted.
Owen came back from a quick scan of the area. He seemed satisfied. “I can call someone in to take care of this, but I need you to drive the car to the airport. Just park it, leave the keys in the ignition, and get away fast. Text me the space number as soon as you can. Someone will be on standby to get in right after you. I’ll pick you up. And then you’re done. This is done.”
She could only look at Owen in wonder.
“Okay?” he said.
“What about Carly?”
“I’ll take her. She’s waiting for me. She needs to go home.”
“But I can’t just leave it like that. I have to talk to her. I have to help her with this.”
Owen ticked his head to the side. “I know that. What did you think I was going to do? Let you drive my car? Again?”
Owen being funny. Jonathan dead. The Flinck in her hands and then gone. The gray threatened at the edge of her vision again.
“Can you do this?”
“I’ve got it.” Marcelline rifled through her battered purse for her hotel key. “Go get Carly. Meet me at the Marriott across from the Y. Room 311.”
“She’ll be fine. I’ll talk to her. See you soon. Don’t get pulled over.”
Samantha would approve of Owen’s advice. She closed her eyes and felt the balance in her mind. Marcelline found her handhold on the last part of the story. “Let’s go.”