Epilogue
Three Months Later
Bennett
A newspaper looks up at me from the kitchen table in my New York apartment. Well, the apartment Cat and I share. We have a second apartment in Florida so that we can visit my mom and check on Jim’s newest business venture, and a third in Portland so we can visit her parents. Being under Jim’s employ has done wonders for my bank account.
So much so that I’ve already paid for Cat’s upcoming semester at a local community college.
Cat lies on the couch, stretched out with Shorty on her lap. She chews the tip of a pen as she studies a crossword puzzle. The cat jumps down and slinks under the couch as she sits up.
“What’s a six-letter word for a weapon of mass destruction?”
Sounds of mass destruction burble underneath the couch as the cat begins using his claws to remove the underpinning.
“Shorty,” I say.
“Ha. Ha.” Cat lies back again. “I’m serious.”
“So am I. That may not be a designer couch, but I worked hard to pay for it.”
Cat rolls her eyes. “You shoved a bottle rocket into a man’s ass and lit it on fire, then laughed as he bled out. I was there, remember? There wasn’t very much hard work going on.” Her eyes light up, and she presses the pen to the paper. “Rocket! That’s the word!”
“Have you seen the paper?” I lift it from the table and go to the couch. Cat raises her legs, and I scoot beneath them. “Look at the front page.”
She plucks the paper from my hand, reads the bold headline, and smiles. “The Confessor strikes again,” she says. “I’ll never get used to that.”
Doctor Whitlow was her most recent kill. We finally made that fucker pay for the little stunt he pulled, and we also discovered that Cat wasn’t so far off when she initially asked him what his sins were. As it turned out, he’d been abusing elderly men in his facility for years.
With him fully out of the picture, my mother’s safety is assured. Her health has steadily declined, and the time I have left with her is limited, but with Cat planning to become a hospice nurse, we’ll soon be able to bring her home.
My phone rings, and a woman’s name flashes on the screen. I hurry to push my phone into my pocket before Cat notices.
“Hey, I gotta take this call.”
She places the newspaper on the coffee table and resumes her crossword. “Who is it?”
I frown and shake my head. I hate lying to her, but she can’t know about this. “Just work.”
The phone stops ringing before I reach the bedroom, so I hurry and pull it from my pocket and return the call. The woman answers on the second ring.
“Hey, did you still want to meet today?” she asks.
I peer through the crack in the door to be sure Cat is still occupied. “Uh, yeah. Can we meet later tonight? I’m having friends over in a bit, and I didn’t want you and I to feel rushed.”
“Now would be better. My husband will be home around three, and he wants to know as little as possible about my little hobby. It pisses him off, but he says as long as he doesn’t have to be around it, it’s whatever.”
Yeah, I get it. I wouldn’t like it if this were Cat’s hobby, either. My skin crawls at the thought.
“I can be there in twenty,” I say. “Is the agreed amount the same?”
She confirms, and I end the call.
Back in the living room, Shorty has taken up his spot in her lap once more. He kneads her stomach, his eyes half closed as a beam of sunlight warms his stupid back.
“I’m heading to the store. Do you need anything?” I ask.
Cat nibbles the pen. “No, but don’t forget that everyone’s coming over around six. I called that wing place you like, but they don’t deliver. You’ll have to pick up the food.”
I brush the hair from her face and lean down to kiss her forehead. “I’ll get it taken care of.”
Then I leave the apartment to do something I know I’ll regret.
By the time everyone arrives, the apartment has never felt so small.
Maverick and Eve sit at the kitchen table. The two have become best friends since the winter retreat, and they’re even discussing moving in together. That’s if Eve stops setting him up on disaster dates with her straight friends.
Kindra, Ezra, and Jim crowd together on the tiny loveseat. Kindra and Ezra sat down first, and Jim just sort of did what Jim does and inserted himself into the situation. I’ve never seen Kindra look more uncomfortable.
Grim and Rose even showed up for a few minutes, but they made their excuses and left as abruptly as they arrived. No one knows where they’re headed, but no one ever does.
And then there’s Cat. She bustles around the apartment, refilling drinks and playing the part of hostess.
“Bennett, where are the wings? Didn’t you pick them up?” Cat rushes around the kitchen in search of the food she won’t find.
“Shit, sorry. I completely forgot.”
She nibbles her lip and looks around the kitchen once more. “Didn’t you go to the store this afternoon? Where’s the cake?”
A gasp comes from the living room, followed by Kindra nearly shouting, “You bought a what?”
Everyone heads into the living room.
“Who bought what?” Eve says. “I’m a nosy bitch, and inquiring minds want to know.”
“Jim bought a cruise ship,” Ezra says.
We all turn to look at the man beaming up at us with childlike enthusiasm.
Jim stands, puffing his chest as he walks to the head of the room. “We had so much fun with our vacations, so I thought, why stop here? Why not expand and have something for us to do year-round?”
“Maybe because some of us have jobs,” Kindra says.
“Or school,” Cat adds. “Plus, I get seasick.”
Maverick holds up his hands. “Hang on, let’s not shit on this just yet. I mean, a cruise ship does sound like a pretty nice vacation.”
“Murdering at sea could be fun,” Eve adds. “I’m in.”
Jim holds up a finger with a sparkle in his eye. “Oh, I can promise none of you will want to miss this. I have plans for certain . . . changes. It will be very interesting.”
“Just so long as there are no secret passages that everyone refuses to tell me about,” I say with a roll of my eyes. “I’m still pissed about that one in Alaska.”
Ezra laughs and shakes his head. “Wait, you still don’t know?”
“No, don’t ruin it now!” Cat shouts.
“There was no secret passage in the winter mansion,” Jim says. “Cat fabricated the entire story to vex you, and we all went with it.”
Cat folds her arms over her chest. “Damn. That was a good joke, and now it’s over.”
“Hang on. Back up to the cruise again. What about the Texas trip?” I say. “What happened to planning that? Our sister is still in the wind, and we want to find her, don’t we?”
Ezra shrugs. “We have no new leads, Bennett. We might have to accept that we will only ever have each other.”
I open my mouth to argue, but a crash in the bedroom interrupts me. More specifically, a crash in the closet, where the proof of my lies currently hides.
“What was that?” Cat asks. She starts toward the bedroom, but I grab her hand and pull her back.
“It’s probably just Shorty,” I say, but then the big black fucker hears his name and pokes his head from beneath the couch. When he realizes we still have guests, he hides again.
Cat looks at me and cocks her head. “What are you hiding?”
Fuck.
I blow out a breath. I didn’t want to do this right now, but I don’t have a choice.
“Just . . . stay here,” I say, not wanting the entirety of our friend group to enter our bedroom. I’m not sure we put away the sex swing last night.
Embarrassment colors my cheeks as I walk to the bedroom. An entire room full of people is about to witness a very dark moment for Bennett Carter, but I love Cat. I love her with every fiber of my being, even if it’s to my detriment.
When I return to the group, I hold a box toward Cat. It’s large enough that I have to wrap my arms around it to carry it, though what it holds isn’t that large. Yet.
“What is this?” Cat takes the box from my arms and lowers it to the floor. Her fingers grip the fancy ribbon and pull it away, and she removes the top and looks inside.
“When I left to go to the store, I was really going to pick this up,” I say. “That’s why I left the room earlier. The lady called while you were working on your crossword puzzle.”
Too stunned to speak, she reaches into the silk-lined box and lifts a fluffy silver ball of fur to her chest. A very expensive, extensively papered, and thoroughly adorable kitten, to be exact.
“Is that the one you wanted? Saharan?” I ask.
“Siberian,” Cat cries into the kitten’s fur. “Yes, this is the one. Oh my god, he’s so perfect, Bennett.”
Ezra steps closer to me, then speaks so that only I can hear him as everyone else oohs and ahhs over the kitten. “I thought you hated the damned things. What possessed you to buy a second one?”
I shake my head and shrug my shoulders. “I don’t fucking know.”
He pats my shoulder and smirks. “Yeah, you do.”
Cat looks up at me with tear-filled eyes, then struggles to stand with the adorable shit stain in her hands. But she manages. “I love you so much,” she says.
And yeah, I know the reason why I did it. It’s the reason we all make stupid decisions and do stupid things. It’s one hell of a sleigh ride, winding through trees and often feeling like we’re heading for a cliff, but we take it anyway.
I brush the hair from her forehead, not caring who’s here to see. And with a smirk, I bend down and kiss the woman I love.