That Same Day
Cyn: She’s at the cemetery.
Lodestar: Good.
Cyn: I don’t understand all the cloak and dagger shit.
Cyn: And Star, I’m a fucking spy too. Why the fuck couldn’t you just tell her you knew where her rapist was buried?
Lodestar: Because we don’t have that kind of relationship.
Lodestar: Plus, she’s smart, and she’d know that something was going on.
Cyn: That might be the first time you’ve ever complimented someone.
Lodestar: Yeah, what can I say? She’s a clever bitch.
Cyn: Should I be jealous?
Lodestar: Lol. Yes. You should.
Cyn: Charming. What’s with the pet cemetery anyway?
Lodestar: Her father-in-law buried his brother there.
Cyn: Huh. In a pet cemetery?
Lodestar: Yep. The fucker deserved an unmarked pit.
Cyn: Why?
Lodestar: Rapist.
Cyn: Bastard.
Lodestar: Exactly. From his notes, I don’t think her FIL knew his brother had raped her, but in his diary, he talked about some shit he’d done to his ex. He called him an animal.
Cyn: So he buried him in a pet cemetery?
Lodestar: Didn’t want him in the family plot.
Cyn: You say that like it makes sense.
Lodestar: Does to me. Animals belong together.
Cyn: People bury their beloved pets in graves. Isn’t he tainting the graveyard with his poison?
Lodestar: Shit.
Cyn: You don’t like it when I’m right, do you?
Lodestar: No.
Lodestar: You can stop making Laker’s life hard now.
Cyn: Did you need any of the information she gave us?
Lodestar: Nope. Kept you informed though, didn’t it?
Cyn: Anyone ever tell you you’re really bad at sharing?
Lodestar: I’m a typical only child.
Cyn: That you fucking are.
Lodestar: Anyway, thank you for your help.
Cyn: Any time. I’ll wait on your call. Don’t cut me out, Star. I’ll be pissed if you do.
I set my phone down on the desk as I stared at Conor’s rig.
It was a beauty.
The entire place was.
It’d be better if he were here, but that wasn’t to be, and being around his stuff felt right.
Homely.
And I hadn’t had a goddamn home since my mom’s murder.
I slipped the thumb drive onto the USB dock and transferred over the folder I’d stuffed full for Conor.
There were terabytes of information within that folder because that was how much shit Bear had collected over the years. And none of that was from the photos he’d used to store data in either.
The hacker behind that clever steganography I’d yet to find.
Regardless, for someone who was old school AF, how his mind had worked, how he’d gathered intel—impressive.
I was giving out compliments to more than just Rachel.
Because of Bear, I had access to more names, to different factions, knowledge about initiation practices.
There were banking details and breakdowns on the hierarchy within organizations like the ECD and something called the United Brotherhood—a Russian body of bankers. An elite Russian version of the Masons.
I’d also uncovered private information.
Like where Bear had buried his brother.
I couldn’t let Rachel live in fear. Not when I had the answer in my grasp. But giving her the runaround was imperative to keeping Hunter Lachlan on the downlow…
Conor’s rig beeped when the TBs of data had finished uploading. I transferred it into a folder called noxxioustar and tucked it within a couple random dozen subfolders on his desktop. I wanted him to have the information, just not be able to gain access to it yet.
Once that was complete, I delved into his security system and set up an alert that would trigger an email being sent to him with the video of my presence in his apartment.
Checking the calendar, I picked the date I could potentially die.
It was creepy, but necessary.
Anything could go wrong, everything could, in fact.
My loyalties were torn between the past and the future, but there was no way I could leave Conor out in the cold.
I picked up a pen, grabbed a piece of paper from the printer, and wrote:
I know you’ll be pissed at me for breaking in. I know you’ll be doubly pissed at me for fucking with your security system. I know you’ll be TRIPLY pissed at me for leaving, but no matter how pissed you are, I want you to know something:
You’ve brought joy to my life, Conor.
I don’t think you realize that.
I wish this didn’t have to be goodbye, and if I think that it is, it makes me want to cry.
The Japanese use ‘Sayonara’ to mean ‘Goodbye forever,’ or ‘Goodbye, I don’t know when I’ll see you again.’ It’s why they don’t use it often.
I don’t know when it’ll be, I don’t even know if we will meet again, I just hope that we do.
So, sayonara, Conor.
Yours,
Star
Ps. My dad’s band is always a good place to start looking for clues. You’ll never know what you’ll find with their name on it.
Call me crazy, but I picked up my phone and took a picture of it.
There were very few people that were worthy of a second thought from me, but I knew if I didn’t take a photo of my note, it’d haunt me. I’d second guess what I wrote and would think about it to the point of distraction.
Now I could regret what I wrote, knowing that I’d definitively written it, and I could cringe every time I reread it.
I peered at his security camera, folded the note in half, then tossed it in the trash, knowing that when he saw this video, when it arrived in his email, he’d look immediately in there.
He didn’t allow his housekeeper in his office, and from the dates on the couple newspapers in his trash can, I knew I was safe to put the note there. He could find it before the end of September, but I didn’t think so.
And if he never found it, then… It wasn’t meant to be.
It was harder than I’d like to let go, but it pushed me into standing once I’d collected my USB drive, and then, it hit me.
The misery.
The finality of everything.
Pressing my hand to the headrest on his desk chair, I sucked in a breath and closed my eyes—the air scented of him.
This was his space.
I could have given this USB drive and this note to him so easily. Could have visited and we could have shot the shit, but…
No.
I couldn’t do that.
If I did that, I’d stay.
And I couldn’t stay.
There was too much unfinished business to finally, finally bring to a conclusion.
I’d told Kat that I would be going away, and that she had to keep it a secret between us. Then I’d come here…
With the two people who owned my heart taken care of, I slipped into the shadows.
Well aware that I might never get out of them again.