Burn Down the Night (21 page)

I walked to Eric's apartment with my stomach in knots and my hands a sweaty mess. And I would have given just about anything to have Max beside me. Not that I would take back the words I said—no, I wouldn't do that.

But the need to say them. This situation we were in. I'd give anything to change that.

Stop. Stop wanting that. Stop wanting him. If he's smart—which you know he is—he's halfway to Tampa by now.

I knocked on the door and Eric answered right away. Looking sharp as hell in a suit jacket and a pair of dark jeans.

“Hi Joan,” he said.

“Eric.”

“Come on in.”

Fern was already there, sitting on the couch in a long black skirt and a tight black T-shirt with a red belt around her waist. She wore a pair of red espadrilles that tied half way up her calf. It was a killer look for her.

“Hey Fern,” I said.

“I hope it's all right I'm here,” she said.

“It's fine.” I wasn't completely surprised. They had something going and it had nothing to do with me. And, I won't lie, I was glad she was there.

After kicking Max off my team after that kiss, I felt surprisingly alone. Like I'd lost a weight I was used to and now I was all off balance and raw on one side. Which did absolutely nothing to change the fact that it was the right thing to do.

The only thing to do.

But that kiss…that fucking kiss…was screwing with my head.

Tell me it hurts. Tell me this mattered.

“Your aunt hasn't told me anything,” Eric said, glancing between us with his wide, solemn eyes, while Max's words echoed in my head. I couldn't shake them. “So why don't you have a seat and start at the beginning.” He gestured to the edge of his couch and then took a seat in the chair in front of his computer setup.

The beginning. Where exactly did the sad story of Jennifer and Olivia Matthews begin? I looked at Fern, and the way she looked back at me with her careful face told me Eric already knew about her family. The junkyard. The poverty and crime. The younger brother she left behind. The two girls she knew nothing about. The life she got away from as fast as she could.

She'd told him all that and for a minute, real and awkward, I was real glad. That she'd moved that rock off her chest. It gave me a foolish slice of hope that she and Eric might have a chance at whatever this thing was between them.

So the alternate beginning to the story.

“I had just gotten fired from a job at a diner off the highway outside of Raleigh…”

He took a lot of notes. Asked a lot of questions about locations and the names of people. When I got to the drugs part he didn't look surprised.

“Was anyone armed?” he asked.

“Not that I ever saw.”

I explained the pills and how after anyone left, the whole camp moved. No one ever moved while I'd been there. But that's what I was told. And when I went back to where the camp had been, it was gone. Only a few people were allowed to know the new locations. And only a few people were allowed to leave the compound.

When I was done, I sat back against the couch, letting go of a breath that sounded like relief.

“Is that all?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“And Max—”

“Not a part of this.”

“Lying isn't going to help you, Joan.”

“Neither is telling you about Max.”

“I know he had something to do with the explosions at the strip club—”

“That was me. Not the Skulls.”

“You?” Eric asked and sat back with his eyes wide, his military calm rattled. “You're going to need a lawyer.”

Right. With the three hundred bucks I had left from the five hundred Fern had given me.

“You want to ask Hugo?” Eric asked Fern.

“Or Dan.”

“Dan's a better choice,” Eric said, and I put my hand up.

“Look, I'm not…jail's not a problem.”

“Jail is a problem,” said Fern.

“Not if Jennifer is safe.”

The room was dark, lit only by a little light coming in through the shades and the glow of Eric's computer system, but I could not miss the expression on Fern's face.

I looked away, but it wasn't fast enough.

The pity. It burned.

“I have a friend in the FBI office out of Charlotte. I'll call him. Set something up. I imagine from what you're telling me that it will be sooner rather than later. How quick can you move?”

“Now,” I said, all but getting to my feet. “Tonight.”

“Tomorrow will probably do just fine,” Eric said with a kind smile in my direction. “I'm real glad you trusted me with this,” he said. “I know it wasn't easy.”

“I've done so many stupid things wrong.”

“You're fixing it now.”

That seemed like a very real benediction. A strange closing on this shitty part of my life. Yes, I prayed. I actually prayed. Yes, God, please let this be the end of it.

“So…tomorrow?” I asked, feeling quite suddenly like this might actually happen. This whole nightmare might come to an end.

Eric looked down at his watch. “Why don't you guys head to the cocktail party? See if you can find Dan. I'll call my contact and meet you down there with more information.”

Fern stood up, so I did, too.

Eric stood up, too, because he was a gentleman, and he walked us to the door.

“Thank you,” I said. “For listening. And believing…”

He nodded like he understood. And really, quite frankly, before I knew what I was doing, I'd put my arms over his shoulder and I was…yes, I was hugging him. And somehow, he made it not awkward by saying, “Thank you for trusting me enough to tell your story.”

I backed away and Eric opened the door. I stepped out into the hallway, but before Fern joined me, she leaned up and put her hand on Eric's chest and kissed him hard on the mouth.

The kind of kiss that said a whole bunch of things. Important things. I smiled and looked away.

“Well, now,” Eric said with a very masculine smile. A smile that looked like a man getting some. “Will you look at that?”

“See you soon,” Fern murmured, and then she was out in the hallway with me. I looked at her with my eyebrows raised and she blushed, hard.

“He's been really patient,” she said, running a hand over the belt at her waist.

“Well, then I figure he should be rewarded.”

Her lip twitched and it seemed somehow—for the moment, anyway—we'd stepped into a separate universe, a place where we'd become allies and maybe even friends.

“Let's go,” Fern said. “Before all the shrimp are gone.”

“Shrimp!” I said. “You didn't say anything about shrimp!”

And we took off smiling down the hallway.

The only thing missing was Jennifer.

And Max.

I stumbled, the weight of my grief and regret knocking me off balance.

“Are you okay?” Fern asked.

I was about to say no, but I couldn't. I was all out of lies.

“Hey,” Fern said, bringing me to a stop in the hallway. “You're doing the right thing.”

“I know.”

“Is Max meeting you there?” Fern asked.

“No,” I said, past the hard awful lump in my throat. “He's gone.”

“I'm sorry, Olivia.”

Finally, I shook my head, gathered myself, found a few more lies to keep me going.

“It doesn't matter,” I said. “Can you please just call me Joan?”

She didn't say anything more about it and that seemed enough like agreement to me.

Seriously. I wasn't expecting him. I wasn't holding out hope, or telling myself some kind of lie, thinking he wasn't going to be here, but then silently sending up prayers that he wouldn't listen to me and would be there anyway.

I wanted him to be gone because it was what was best for him.

But there he was.

Talking to Nancy with a beer in his hand.

He wore a pair of dark jeans and a white T-shirt that made the most of his tan now that his sunburn had faded. He'd trimmed his beard so he looked a little less lumberjack and more stylish thug. He had his jewelry on, too. I'd forgotten his big rings and the chains and leather he wore, like little bits of flash and glitter. The sunlight coming through the big plateglass windows caught the silver on his fingers and wrists. He looked like some kind of magpie king. A deadly assassin in some alternate universe.

And it made my heart stop.

“He didn't leave,” Fern said over my shoulder.

“I guess not.”

It took some serious work on my part to chain down my heart. It was already light and unpredictable from telling Eric all my sins, but the sight of Max clean and bright made it crazy. It pounded in my throat like it was trying to climb out of my body. Like it had some message to send to him.

“Hello, honey!” One of the women bearing gifts from the other day approached with a tray full of little punch glasses. “Would you like—?”

I grabbed one, tiny and ridiculous in my fingers. Not enough booze to douse the fire in my belly. It would only make things worse.

“Careful, it's real strong. Cecilia's—”

I downed it and then gasped as it burned. The woman, kind and wrinkled, smiled at me. “Family recipe. It's all bourbon and brandy, I'm afraid.”

“It's delicious,” I gasped.

She moved on with her tray and suddenly Max was there in front of me.

I'd thought he was hot before. At the club, surrounded by all that danger and all those walls, I'd been head over heels in lust with him. But here, in this sun-splashed lobby with his sunburn and his fragile smile, I was a mess from him. I was destroyed in secret and hidden places.

“The punch is brutal,” he said and handed me a cold beer.

I didn't take it.

That's how dangerous this felt.

“Joan,” he whispered, the beer still held out.

“I don't want you here.” There I said it. As true a thing as I had in my life. And also the most false. This truth was a knife I held in my hand so hard, I was cut and bleeding but there was no way to drop it or change it. It was simply a thing I had to get used to.

He nodded. “I get that,” he said. “I'll leave when I know you're going to be okay.”

“Oh, I'm going to be okay. I'm going to get a lawyer and cut the most ridiculous deal ever seen by a woman who set off bombs that hurt people. And you're going to be pulled in on that. You get that right? Me going to the cops and getting clear of all the shit I did so I can save Jennifer, it means you'll go down.”

He simply watched me, his blue eyes steady, turning up the heat on me until all my molecules bounced and scattered.

“You need to get away from me!” I yelled.

Please, I almost said. Please, don't let me hurt you. I can't keep hurting people. It's killing me. Tears were burning behind my eyes and I blinked hard to keep them from falling.

“Let me tell you what I'm going to do,” he said, stepping a little closer until I felt the heat of his chest against the bare skin of my arm and neck. My breath came out in one long, slow sigh. “I'm not going to go anywhere. I'm not leaving you to do this shit on your own. And I do not want you to worry about me.”

“I already worry about you,” I confessed. “And someone should. You deserve that.”

His hand cupped my waist, burned through the fabric of my shirt to the skin beneath until I felt branded by him. Oh, I was in pieces.

“You and me are so alike,” he said. “Everything is either-or. It's one or the other. Us or them. Sacrificing ourselves for our family because that's all we have to give up. But I'm not giving you up, Joan. Not yet. And you're not alone. That's my promise. You are not alone.”

Never in my life had I had this much support. This much help. A web of people standing around me helping me avert disaster. The impulse to fight it was not small. It was huge, in fact. It was nearly a tidal wave. I could smash Max's kindness with a few well-chosen words. I could kick Fern and Eric until they turned their faces away. I knew how to do it.

But forcing myself not to was not as hard as I thought. I took one breath, and then another, and then when Max tugged I followed and I stepped right up to that warm chest, wide and strong. Its dark tattoos hidden under his shirt. His bright heart hidden under his tattoos.

He put his arms around me, holding me—just…holding me and it was the best thing I'd felt in years.

And it did not occur to me to ask what he was giving up for me.

“And that kiss, babe,” he whispered. “A kiss like that, I want to see where that goes.”

I laughed against his chest, because I did, too.

Someone cleared their throat behind us, and I stepped back and turned to find Eric and Aunt Fern. Eric looked very pleased and I had to assume it wasn't because Max and I were hugging it out in the middle of the cocktail party.

“Sorry to interrupt,” he said. “But I have good news. The FBI have been aware of Lagan for the past year, they've got an informant on the inside of the compound.”

“They do? Who?” I asked, trying to think who was that brave. Gwen, maybe? Gwen was a tough cookie.

“They're not giving me that kind of information,” Eric said. “But they're eager to talk to you. They'd like to meet with you in Charlotte on Monday morning. Eight a.m.”

“Really?”

“They're taking this very seriously.”

“It's a good thing,” Fern said, to what must have been my stunned expression.

“Then why Monday?” I asked. “Why can't we go now? I'll tell them what I know and they can—”

“Because you need time to talk to a lawyer,” Max said, his arm still over my shoulder.

Right. A lawyer. For the deal-cutting.

Fern and Eric glanced at each other. “Yeah. I've made arrangements for you to meet with a guy I know in Tampa. He's good. The best really—”