Chapter 13
GRAYSON
As the Los Angeles skyline recedes, the city lights dim and dawn breaks with a perfect orange sky.
I glance at Macy, who is staring out the window while her finger does a figure-eight pattern on the frosty glass.
The angst of her exchange with her parents vanished from her face within seconds of us pulling into a ma-and-pa diner at the halfway point of our travels.
Even the most preposterous task is less daunting when you have thousands of calories in your stomach.
That’s why I haven’t been so hard on myself for not putting any hours into Cameron’s case over the past seventy-two.
It isn’t that I’ve forgotten her. It is the knowledge that cases like the joint one Macy and I are working on, and the appeal Macy made on stage last night, are imperative in bringing women like Cameron home.
Each syndicate we take down brings me one step closer to achieving that. So guilt is there, but it’s not consuming me just yet, since it can’t push past the pride swelling in my chest.
Macy’s strength is undeniable, and watching her stand up for her beliefs made me even more convinced that she has grown into a capable and respected agent.
She’s grown since leaving the academy. She’s no longer the shy, timid woman who hides behind others and only speaks when spoken to.
The fire in her eyes announces she’s no longer finding her footing.
She’s figured out how to navigate the complexities of the bureau, and I couldn’t be prouder.
I take back everything I just said when Macy cranks her neck my way, and I spot the teasing smirk tugging at her lips.
It has popped up several times over the past six-plus hours, and it always arrives with a heap of sass.
“Come on, Malfoy. Would it kill you to go a little faster? You drive slower than my grandma.”
“Because I’d rather not step you through hemorrhoid treatment until after you’ve given birth.”
I clenched my ass together so often when Macy took over driving two hours into our trip so I could get some shuteye that I’m sure I will need to borrow the stool softeners I forced her to buy when it’s time for the food we gorged on to come out.
Her inability to follow basic road rules rewarded me with buns of steel and a sphincter that wasn’t appreciative of how many times I forced it to crawl back into itself instead of loosening my butt’s clench and diving for the wheel.
Macy laughs like she’s not panicked about my hemorrhoid comment. “It’s not like you’ll get a ticket. The golden boys never do.”
I chuckle. “Not all of us have a trust fund to fall back on, freckles.”
It is a low blow to bring up a sore point so soon after her run-in with her parents, but the playfulness in the air assures me it is the right time. If we let things get too stale, the freshness that forever fuels our exchanges may never return.
Macy rolls her eyes before leaning back in her seat. “No, you don’t. Well, I don’t think you do.” She winks at me playfully, maintaining the light mood while also further spreading the rumors that my bank account is as stacked as my cock.
I understand I am mistaken when she murmurs, “You just have the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation at your disposal.”
I scoff, the rattle of my tired breath coming out as a chuckle. “Why do you think I’m keeping it five below the designated speed limit? My father is a hard ass. If I were caught speeding by even a fraction, I wouldn’t just lose points from my license. I’d probably spend time behind bars.”
Macy laughs, assuming I am joking.
I’m not.
I appreciate the rarity of her shocked expression, then glance back at the road.
“My father made me pay for every mistake I ever made. He believes in tough love, and that’s why his rules have rules.
One time I was playing baseball with some friends, and I hit the ball through the neighbor’s window.
I had to work the entire summer to pay for the window repairs. I was ten. Ten!”
She laughs at the disgust on my face. “That doesn’t sound like tough love to me.
It sounds like he cares.” Before I can remind her whose side she’s meant to be on, she continues.
“But I get it. You’ve had the rebel in disguise flare in your eyes since the day we met. It’s not an easy glimmer to rein in.”
Hearing something in her tone she didn’t mean to display, I say, “Oh, do tell, Miss Goodie Two-Shoes.”
A smile plays at her lips for nearly thirty seconds before she coughs up the goods. “I told my parents I had spent my gap year building homes for humanity, when I had spent the entire twelve months in Brazil, having an illicit affair with my high school art teacher.”
My mouth falls open as a wheezy breath vibrates my lips. “You hussy.”
She slaps my chest before she practically drools. “Mr. Reynolds was divine, and he taught me everything I know.”
I’m jealous until she pulls out a small sketchbook from her handbag.
The sketchbook isn’t full of sex positions.
It houses charcoal drawings of anything you could imagine.
The logo of the diner we ate at, the butler’s wonky tie, and the floral arrangement on the tables at the gala.
There are also a handful of grins I recognize, even with them being almost nonexistent the past seventeen years.
If a bushy beard covered them, I could have mistaken them for Alex’s or our father’s, but since they’re on a hairless face, whom they belong to is undeniable.
When Macy realizes what has caught my attention, she snaps her sketchbook shut and coughs out her nerves.
“I draw from memory, and since your smile is one of the rare few I’ve seen in the past six months, it featured heavily while I was attempting to relieve my boredom…
” Her shoulders sag as her words trail off.
“I thought your cover on this assignment was a ruse.” I whistle, my admiration unhidden when I realize the drawings around her apartment are authentic. “I had no clue you’re a real-life motherfucking artist.”
“I’m not an artist.”
I cut her off with a scoff. “You have talent, freckles. Heaps of it.” Heat rises up her neck, prompting me to ask, “Is that what you were doing?” Confused, she peers up at me. “Before you joined the bureau? Were you an artist or working your way to becoming one?”
Her smile takes my breath away. “I sold a handful of sketches and was talking to a local gallery owner about a commission piece that would correspond with a three-month-long showing in his gallery.” Shyness blazes through her impressive eyes.
“They hadn’t featured a single artist from this century in over a decade. ”
Air whistles between my teeth, my praise soundless but undeniable. “Will you take it back up once Kendall is home?”
Her lips inch even higher now. “Depends.”
“On?” I ask, my attention more on her than the road.
I veer toward motorists traveling on the freeway with us when she sideswipes me better than any semi could. “If the person you’re looking for has been found as well.”
I almost give her the well-used I-have-no-clue-what-you’re-talking-about line, but since this is Macy, I nod my thanks for her support before redirecting my focus back to the road to ensure we don’t get in a wreck.
It takes three miles for my lungs to remember I’m not drowning on land, and another three for me to speak.
“Cameron was always a troublemaker… because it was easier to blame her than myself.” Macy acknowledges me with a brief nod but leaves the floor to me.
“She was a couple of weeks away from her eighteenth birthday when she was kidnapped. She will turn thirty-five next month.”
“Oh, Grayson… I’m so sorry.”
I wring the steering wheel, falsely portraying that my heart isn’t racing, but that is the beginning and end of my reply.
“Where was she taken from?” Macy asks when the silence becomes too confronting.
The hammering of my heart echoes in my reply. “Around a mile from St. Eugene’s. It is a private boarding school on—”
“The outskirts of New York City,” she interrupts with her nose screwed up in contemplation.
I’m not surprised that it only takes her a few seconds to do the math. She is extremely smart.
“Our antics that night aren’t how I’d usually spend my Friday nights.
” Even though I was underage, so my record was expunged when I became an adult, I can’t stop the truth from falling from my lips.
“Cameron arrived at our prearranged meeting spot in a borrowed car.” I say borrowed in a way she can’t misinterpret.
“The quarterback and she had been a thing previously, but we’d been dating for three months, so she responded to his suggestion that they hook up with an edginess not many girls at St. Eugene’s had.
” I pass a semi so fast that the windows rattle before I continue.
“He didn’t use words to make his suggestion. He attempted to sexually assault her.”
“So you drove his car through the football grounds until both the football field and his Mustang weren’t salvageable?”
See? I told you she is smart.
“Yeah…” I reply, ashamed. Not about what I did. But about how bogged the Mustang became. If it were still drivable by the time I had finished honoring Cameron’s revenge act, she wouldn’t have been walking home at that time of night. She could still be here if I hadn’t been so careless.
“Don’t do that.” I send a silent plea for her not to read me as easily as she can when she sees straight past the barriers I attempt to throw up. “Don’t blame yourself. The guilt will eat you alive.”