Chapter Thirty-one
Lake
Baxter opened his eyes when I brought the car to a stop, staring blankly out of the windscreen as if he didn’t recognize his surroundings.
“Hampstead Heath,” I announced. “I thought we could go for a walk and get some fresh air. Talk about stuff… maybe.”
Baxter was already halfway out of the car. I understood why when he staggered over to a bush and threw up. I took my time locking the car, giving him a moment to compose himself before I followed and offered him a tissue. He took it and wiped his mouth. “The coffee,” he said.
“Yeah,” I agreed. We both knew it wasn’t the coffee, but if that’s how he wanted to play it, I was happy to go along with it. People coped with shock in different ways.
Once Baxter had recovered enough, we took the path toward Kenwood House.
I doubted either of us was up for a visit, but it was as good a direction as any to take.
At least the path was open enough that no one could follow without us being aware of it.
There was currently one gray-haired old man walking a black Labrador.
I treated the man to a hard stare before concluding he really was on the wrong side of seventy rather than in disguise.
“So,” Baxter eventually said. “I have an evil twin.” He might have tried for humor, but his tone fell short.
It was hard to know what to say in response. Everything that came to mind either sounded trite or overly optimistic with no grounds to be so.
“You don’t need to say anything,” Baxter said. “You being here is enough.”
It was amazing how often I forgot he could read my mind. “I should have been better at your parents’ house. Asked more questions. Been more supportive.”
“You were perfect.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Perfect, hey?”
“Perfect,” Baxter repeated. “You didn’t get in the way, you didn’t rile them up, you didn’t harangue them about the coffee when I asked you not to, and you reined me in when I got close to going off the deep end. Perfect.”
The walk only lasted half an hour before we returned to the car, but it had put some color back into Baxter’s cheeks. I took the driver’s seat again, Baxter not objecting. And then we just sat there.
The harsh peal of Baxter’s ringtone made us both jump. “Calisto?” I asked hopefully. He shook his head, angling his phone so I could see the unknown number on the screen.
A tightness crept into my chest as his jaw set, his thumb hovering over the screen as if he were bracing for impact. “You shouldn’t answer it,” I said. “Or maybe you should. I don’t know. What did Ben say about the calls? Shouldn’t they be tracing them or something?”
Baxter was already answering. He put it on speaker and we both went still. Nothing but breathing. Just as Baxter had described before. Not rapid. Not ragged. Steady. Metronomic. Utterly calm, which somehow made it worse.
“I know who you are,” Baxter said eventually.
“You’re my—” He swallowed, the word sticking in his throat.
“You’re my twin brother. I didn’t know about you.
I want to make that clear. They never told me.
If they had, I would have looked for you.
So why don’t we talk, Owen? You want my attention, you’ve got it. ”
He waited.
Five seconds stretched to thirty, then to a minute.
The breathing never changed. Baxter using his name drew no response.
Baxter’s fingers tightened around the phone as he brought it closer to his mouth.
“What do you want from me? You wanted me dead. I get that. The knife in the back was a fairly big clue. And I understand you must be furious that after nineteen years I’m back.
” His voice hardened. “But what do you want now? You must want something more than me being dead again. If that was the goal, you could’ve done it before I even knew you existed. ”
He took a breath. “But you really messed up with Jamie. He’s told the police everything. They’re looking for you, and it’s only a matter of time before they find you.”
Still nothing.
“Hang up,” I mouthed. “He’s not going to talk.”
Baxter ended the call. He slumped back against the seat, his face deathly pale once more. “Why won’t he talk to me?”
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “You’re approaching this rationally. People who’ve done what he’s done are usually a long way from that.”
“What do you think happened to him?” Baxter asked. “To make him like that?” He sat up straighter, a new thought clearly taking hold. “We have the same genetics. What if I’m capable of monstrous things too?”
“How many people have you wanted to kill?”
“None. Not seriously, anyway.”
“There you go. It’s the nature versus nurture argument.” Which brought us right back to what might have happened to Owen in childhood to twist him so badly that he wanted his own twin dead. “Romulus and Remus,” I said.
Baxter turned to face me. “Enlighten me.”
I flushed, aware I was once again using history as a crutch.
I’d tried to explain to Verity many times that history wasn’t just a collection of facts, that it taught valuable lessons about past mistakes and successes.
So there was a method to my madness. “Romulus and Remus were twin brothers, born to the princess and priestess Rhea Silvia and the god Mars. They were abandoned as infants and nursed by a she-wolf.”
Baxter blinked. “I hope you’re not trying to pass this off as fact. There are already at least two elements there that make it hard to believe.”
“It’s a Roman myth about the founding of Rome. There may or may not have been real twins.”
“And a real she-wolf who suckled humans?”
I waved that away. “You’re missing the point.”
“Which is?”
“They planned to found a city together but argued over where and who should rule. In the end, Romulus killed Remus and founded Rome, naming it after himself.”
Baxter frowned. “Except we’re not founding a city, and he gains nothing by killing me.”
I started the engine and headed back to the hotel, Baxter offering no objection this time.
Later, we lay replete in bed, sex rushed but no less satisfying for it. The room was warm, sweat still drying on our bodies. Despite that, neither of us was in any rush for a shower.
Baxter’s head rested on my chest, his eyes drifting shut as I ran my fingers through his damp hair, the moisture making it curl even more than usual.
I was close to nodding off when he spoke. “We should go and stay with Calisto and Asher. It’ll be safer than a hotel.”
“Will it?”
“High walls. One way in. Security cameras.”
“I thought things didn’t go so well when you stayed there before.”
“I was bringing a lot of unsavory men home. I don’t plan to do that this time.”
“Glad to hear it. Call me fussy, but I enjoy having at least half a bed.”
Baxter laughed. The sound felt like a minor victory after everything he’d been through—even more so knowing I’d made it happen.
Writing books had nothing on that sense of achievement.
Not that much writing had happened recently.
One chapter, unread and unchecked, so it might not even make sense.
Other priorities had taken over. By which I meant Baxter.
Was I sad about that? Not in the slightest. My accountant would disagree.
“When this is over, we should,” I began, then hesitated.
Baxter lifted his head, a question in his eyes. “We should what?”
“It should have been a question, not an assumption.”
“What should?”
“It’s only been a few weeks. I keep forgetting that. It feels like I’ve known you longer.”
Baxter rolled his eyes. “Do you need to phrase it as a historical anecdote to get it out?”
“Gertrude Stein and Alice B Toklas.”
He blinked. “What?”
“Gertrude Stein was an American novelist, playwright, and poet.”
“Not French, then?”
“Alice B Toklas was American-born and part of the Parisian avant-garde.”
“Ah, there’s France.” He let his head drop back onto my chest. “I was joking, by the way.”
“They met on Toklas’ first day in Paris. 1907, I think. I’d have to check the month.”
“Please don’t. Let’s just say it’s one of twelve and leave it at that.”
“They formed an instant connection. Toklas later described Stein as a ‘golden presence.’”
“Sweet.”
“Anyway, they moved in together soon after, forming a deep and intellectual bond that lasted for four decades until Stein died.”
Baxter laughed, my chest vibrating with it. “All that just to suggest moving in together.”
“You could’ve just read my mind and saved me the trouble.”
“Oh no.” He propped himself up on one elbow.
“Don’t rely on that as your get-out clause to avoid communicating.
” He climbed out of bed, my eyes automatically devouring the lean lines of his body.
“Sometimes I’m tired. Sometimes I want a break.
Sometimes I want to pretend I’m like everyone else.
” He paused in the doorway. “Aren’t you going to ask me what my answer is? ”
“Yes… no… maybe.”
He turned fully, arms crossed. I held his gaze without letting it drop lower; it took an enormous amount of willpower. “My answer is… yes… no… maybe.”
I sighed. “I deserved that.”
“You did.”
He returned a few minutes later with a damp cloth. “I assume we’d move into your place?”
“I have a mortgage. It would make sense.”
He climbed back into bed, leaning against the headboard. “I like furniture. Beyond a sofa and a bed.”
“We’ll get some. I had some before Carl.”
“Your sister won’t like it.”
“My sister doesn’t have to live with you. She’ll come around. She’s only protective because of my past poor decisions.”
Baxter held my gaze. “How do you know asking me to live with you isn’t another one?”
“It isn’t,” I said without hesitation.
“How do you know?”
“I just do.”
He rolled his eyes. “What if I can’t tolerate historical stories from dawn to dusk?”
“You love them. You pretend you don’t, but you’re always the one asking for them. Don’t think I haven’t noticed that.”
“What if I don’t want all the decor based on the colors of the French flag?”
“That’s red, white, and blue. There’s nothing wrong with those colors.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“For how long?”
Baxter grew serious. “Maybe we should make sure there is a future first before we plan stuff. It’s no good me saying yes to living with you if Owen’s determined I won’t be around to live anywhere.”
It was a fair point that I couldn’t really argue with. Tomorrow, at least, we’d be safe behind those high walls.