Andy zipped her bag closed. She and René would have to travel for almost two days by car to reach their destination. She didn’t want to fly. She couldn’t stand strangers around her at the moment.
Isabelle looked at her and smiled. There was no hint of worry in her eyes, almost as if she knew what was going to happen.
“Tell me,” Andy asked.
Isabelle tucked her hair behind her ears and closed her laptop. She was finishing her finite math paper.
“Tell you what, darling?”
Andy wished she would stop calling her all those sweet names reserved for lovers. They’d not touched or kissed since she’d left the hospital, yet Isabelle behaved like they were a couple.
She shook her head. “Never mind.”
Isabelle got up from the breakfast nook. She was wearing jeans and a T-shirt emphasizing her curves. And damn, did she have those in all the right places. Almost all of Andy’s dreams, induced by a raft of pain medication, were of that body. This woman. Their bed.
Heat and desire surged through Andy’s body so unexpectedly it took her breath away.
Isabelle came to sit next to her on the sofa. “You don’t want to know, so why tell you?”
“So that I can rage against the inevitability of it all.” Andy ran her hands through her hair. “Did you know that my mother would die? In the diner? Did you dream it?”
Isabelle didn’t flinch. “Yes.”
“But you didn’t save her.”
“I could only figure out how to save you.” Isabelle lifted her chin, her green eyes blazing. “And I stand by my decision.”
“And Kate?”
“Nobody could do anything for her and she knew it. She accepted it. She couldn’t chastise you over Victoria and then change her own destiny.”
Andy frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Your mother dreamed of her own death before she died. It was a rare dream. You know she’d largely stopped dreaming years ago already, when she started to run this place. She called me on the way to the diner to make me promise to keep you safe. To look after you after she was gone. I told her that I’d already interfered, with the knife.” Isabelle looked her straight in the eye. “She said it was good I did.”
Andy blinked back the sudden tears.
Isabelle stared at her bare feet. “She loved you very much. She just didn’t know how to say it, and face it, neither of you knew how to listen.” Isabelle looked at her, a swell of emotion on her face. “And you still don’t know how to listen.”
* * *
“This is the place.” René killed the engine.
Andy surveyed the quiet cabin on the edge of a small, dog-leg shaped lake. The Montana sky was clear. She knew the air would be crisp when she opened the window, just like Victoria James had always dreamed it would be.
Vic had always loved an endless view. She said she couldn’t breathe in the city. Funny thing for someone who’d grown up in Chicago with its brooding skies and constant bustle.
René looked at Andy. “Do you think she knows we’re here?”
“I imagine so.”
René pinched the bridge of her nose and wiped across her eyes. They had driven here through the night, only stopping for bathroom breaks and to swap driving duties.
Andy sat back, watching as the morning air swept gently across the surface of the water.
“I didn’t drive out here to look at a house, Bouchard,” René said after a while.
“Just wait.”
“Wait for what? You better not get cold feet on me again.”
Andy knew she wasn’t just talking about today, about Victoria. “I know,” she acknowledged. “I need to do better.”
“Much better. For the sake of everyone who loves you.”
Andy looked René in the eye. “I know. I’m sorry.”
René cleared her throat and parked her hand across her mouth, resting her elbow on the SUV’s windowsill.
“What are we wai—”
The house’s back door swung open. A woman appeared. She looked exactly like Andy remembered—medium height, slender, dressed in jeans and a sweater that showed off pert breasts. What Andy could recall ever better, even after all these years, was her eyes. The most enormous, beautiful deep brown eyes Andy had ever seen on a person. They would turn black as she came. And when she dreamed.
Victoria stood, watching them, hands on her hips.
René shifted uneasily in her seat. “I’ll stay here?”
“If you don’t mind.”
“I’ll take a nap on the back seat. Just don’t leave me here too long. I’m going to freeze my ass off in this lovely Montana weather.”
* * *
Andy approached Vic with a steady tread. She felt calmer than she thought she’d be. More in control. She came to a halt in front of Vic.
Vic squinted up at her. She’d gotten older. She must be in her late thirties by now. She looked content—happy even—despite the inevitable loneliness, the inability to explain her past to anyone. The turmoil, disappointment, and tension she’d carried in her shoulders and in the downturned corners of her mouth for so long were gone.
Kate had never liked Vic.
Vic was Andy’s first true love.
Andy had been Vic’s all-consuming obsession.
Andy reached out to hug her. Vic stepped back. “Did you bring her?”
“Who?”
“The redhead? Isa…dore?”
“Isabelle?”
Vic managed a half-smile. “I’m not as good as I used to be. Isabelle, yes.”
Andy knew dreamers sometimes dreamed wider than murder and violence. Sometimes the dreams were deeply personal—scary as hell to anyone near them, which meant they kept quiet about them. They carried them inside as a kind of mute, personal treasure.
“No. I thought it was better that I came alone,” Andy said.
There was disappointment in Vic’s waning smile, a sincere effort to keep it on her lips. Then she dropped it anyway.
“Is she beautiful?”
“Yes. And smart. Strong.”
“Does she love you?”
“I think so.” Who was she kidding? “Yes.”
“But you can’t let go.”
“No.”
Vic took her hand tentatively. “Of me?”
“Yes. And I’m…I’m…”
Andy couldn’t say the word.
“Scared?” Vic asked.
“Yes. Of losing someone again. And for what? To chase ghosts again? Fate? To be on the run again constantly. Hunting. Killing.”
“You killed someone recently?”
“Yes.”
“Come on.” Vic turned and walked around the house to a wooden deck. Sat in a chair overlooking the water. Andy sat down next to her.
“Does Isabelle know you’re here?”
“Yes.”
“Ah.”
Andy had a flash of Vic moaning below her, grinding her hips against Andy. Taking Andy in her mouth under a shower, running hot, entering her with her tongue, rendering her helpless in complete submission.
“What do you need from me, Andy? To know that I’m happy? That I release you? That I’m sorry for what I did?” Vic stilled. “That I want you back after you left me just like that?”
Andy thought about her answer. “I need to know that you’re okay.”
“So that you can move on?”
“Yes.” Andy held her breath. “All those people who died in the subway that day…I need to know that you’ve found some peace. And maybe I need to know that there is life after all of this.”
“I don’t know about peace. I still regret losing you.”
“You knew you were going to lose me, but you did it anyway.”
“Yes. Some people are worth it.”
“All those people who died…they were also worthy.”
“They were not my people. For once, I wanted to look after my people. My person. My interests.” Vic lifted her knees to her chin and wrapped her arms around her legs. “Don’t kid yourself, Andy. You’re not here for me. You’re here for you.” She stared at the water. “You want to make sure we’re all okay so you can run again, and you want me to give you permission.”
“No. That’s not…No more running.” Andy placed her left ankle on her right knee. She swore under her breath. Inhaled sharply. “Kate died.”
Vic looked at her in surprise. “How?”
“Shot. I was there.”
“I’m sorry.” Victoria reached for her hand, held it. “I didn’t know. I have no contact with anyone at Ma Soeur and there is no way I would have dreamed about Kate.” She looked over her shoulder, in the direction of the SUV. “Someone drops by now and then. Not because of me, but to make sure Ma Soeur’s secrets are safe.” She laughed sardonically.
Andy nodded. There was an entire squad dedicated to looking after the handful of women who’d left Ma Soeur of their own accord. Out of everyone at Ma Soeur, the people in that squad were the truly scary ones. The fanatics.
“Not that they have anything to worry about,” Vic said hurriedly. “I don’t really dream like that anymore, and if I do it’s as if I get trapped inside my mind.” She shrugged. “It’s better than it was, though. I couldn’t speak for a year after coming here. I could only sign or write. People thought I was crazy. A mad, old mountain woman.” She squeezed Andy’s hand. “But I’m better now. Every day is better. There is hope.”
“Do you miss it?”
“I miss you. But the life at Ma Soeur? No. I was never strong enough.”
Andy nodded and watched as the sun reflected off the restless surface of the lake, a million shards of yellow light blinding her momentarily.
Vic broke the lingering silence. “Your new dreamer is very powerful. She scares you.”
Andy didn’t ask how she knew. “Yes.”
“She loves you like I once loved you.”
“Yes.”
“With everything?”
“I fear so.”
Vic turned to look at her, resting her head against the back of the deck chair. “You also deserve that, you know? Everything. All of us do. Everything is a gift. An enormously unselfish gift. Don’t squander it. Don’t be so scared of disappointing her that you walk away from it.”
Vic turned her gaze back to the water. “Take everything for as long as it lasts. Trust me. It’s better than all the pale imitations you’ll find along the way. The only good love is the one that scares you to death.”
Andy reached for the words that had been stuck in her throat since they’d arrived here. “I don’t know if I can do everything again.”
Vic smiled. “I think you can. This woman is special and you know it. And you are capable of so much more by now. She’s pushed you somewhere close to the realm of human.” She shook her head and chuckled. There was a hint of surprise in her voice, satisfaction even. “Maybe that’s why you were terrified enough to come to my front door.”
Andy didn’t know what to say.
Vic wiped at her cheeks.
“I’m sorry,” Andy said. “For everything.”
“Me too,” Vic said. “But if I had to do it again, I’d make exactly the same decision. I’d choose you.”
“I know. And I’m grateful that I’m still alive.”
“Then you better not waste it. Don’t waste the loss of us.”
Vic got to her feet, wrapping her arms around her body, as if she was cold. “You better go. Say hi to René.”
Andy got up as well and leaned down to kiss Vic on the cheek. “Thank you. Very much. And I mean it.”
* * *
Jane looked at the note in her hand. Russo had given it to her earlier today, shaking his head as he’d done so.
“Got a tip-off here about Horace Gibson’s death. Two names.” He’d bitten into his meatball sandwich, a splash of marinara sauce landing on his striped tie. He’d wiped at it with a fistful of napkins.
She’d asked about the diet and gotten a dirty look. And now she was here, standing across from a known drug den in Queens, her hand on the butt of her gun, Russo covering the back of the two-story shithouse with the front door hanging off its hinges.
“Classy place,” she murmured, stuffing the note with the two names back into her pocket. She wondered again whether the redhead and Andy Bouchard had anything to do with this sudden breakthrough in the Gibson case.
“Russo, you ready?” she said into her radio.
“Let’s kick some butt,” he said.
She adjusted her bulletproof vest, nodded at the uniform to her left, ran up the stairs, and kicked in the door with immense satisfaction.