Chapter 38 Marcus
MARCUS
Sabine wouldn’t have texted unless it was urgent.
She knew I’d set aside today for Iris. She was the one who hounded me, actually, and said if I let Iris walk away again, she’d drag me to therapy herself.
Her words, not mine. And she was persistent enough that I gave in, sat down, and stared at my reflection until I admitted it. I didn’t want space. I wanted Iris.
How would my life change if I could hold her warm body against me every morning? If her smile was the first thing I saw before the day took over? And if the night ended the same way it began, with her tangled in my sheets?
It would be fucking amazing.
And hell, if Zamora ever got to have her.
Iris and I haven’t done any of the normal things, like dates, lazy evenings on the couch, or falling asleep halfway through a bad movie with her on my lap. But nothing about us has ever been normal. What we have is intention. Choice. And the willingness to step forward without rehearsing it first.
I don’t need normal to commit to her. I just need her.
I told Iris I had a surprise for her later. It’s romantic, stupidly so, but still better than Eleven Madison Park. Try the top of Infinity 360 for nostalgia. And she can talk about intimacy all night long if she wishes. I’ve got all the answers for her.
It might bite back, but I trust her, and I trust myself that it’ll be to good effect.
Roses will be a must. Maybe even Blanket, if I can locate that scrappy mutt in time, though he will probably pee on the tablecloth and swipe the A5 Wagyu before the plates land.
I chuckle at the thought, then sigh. God, I’m becoming unrecognizable.
When I get to the clinic, Sabine is already waiting.
My guess? Someone is upset about their filler bruising or a crooked nose after a back-door job, and they’re hoping I’ll clean it up.
But it’s been months since I scrubbed in.
My patients at Avelis, along with the kids I treated quietly, are in the hands of my former protégé.
He outgrew my supervision some time ago, and there haven’t been any complaints.
Most of them think I’ve run off with Mary Peters and we’re now raising guinea pigs in Peru. So why I’m here now, I have no idea.
Sabine opens the door and heads briskly toward my consultation room. I follow.
“There’s something you need to see,” she says. “Someone left a box. This morning.”
“CCTV?”
She nods. “A man. Wearing all black, including his ski mask and gloves. He left it and walked away.”
My chest knots. I don’t like this.
I put on gloves. The box is on my desk, taped and ordinary-looking. I slice it open.
It takes me a second to understand what I’m seeing. Then I smell it. Sterile decay. Preserved.
It’s a tibia. It’s got to be human, but small. Maybe a child’s, or someone child-sized. Even I, with all my years in medicine, feel my stomach lurch.
“Dr. Lockwood?” Sabine’s voice is strained. “What the hell is that?”
“Sabine,” I say, staring at the pale curve of bone nested in the box. “Leave me.”
She doesn’t move. “Marcus…”
“Please,” I say, not looking up. “Close the door behind you.”
She obeys.
The lid remains open on my desk. At first glance, it looks real, but then the seams give it away. It’s a cast. Still, the smell is wrong, as if someone went to great lengths to make the lie convincing.
Something else rests beneath it.
I slide my fingers deeper into the packaging and pull out a photograph.
The size hits me first. It has the same dimensions as the missing space in the old photo album I found in Theo’s drawer.
Theo and Adriana stand in front of a porch at the house that was once theirs, long before I ever called it mine. They look so young, so certain. But they aren’t alone.
Beside them stands another couple, dressed more plainly.
The man is trying to smile, while the woman, holding a boy on her hip, looks like she wants to vanish.
Her son clutches her neck, claiming her with the kind of entitlement only the favored can afford.
Another boy sits at their feet in the dirt, fixated on a toy truck.
I flip the photo over.
The writing on the back is fresh, the strokes are neat, almost artistic but the firmness shows. It’s the opposite of the childish letter-cutout blackmail he sent me with the first bone.
Just a housekeeper and her poor husband.
Two boys, born almost together but never quite the same.
Not long after, he left her for another woman.
And soon, she was forced to choose.
“Son of a bitch!” I grit.
That man was my father? And the woman…was my mother?
I stare again. There is a resemblance in the eyes, maybe the chin. But it’s the boy on her hip who twists the knife.
He’s upright and dominant, and he leans into her as if he owns her. Even in stillness, his posture speaks volumes. That’s him. The counterfeit who now wants to be me.
Then I look at her again. My mother. Her eyes are somewhere else, and her face is plain and tired. But I hear her voice. “He walks like a monkey.”
The words snap through my skull like the strike of a match. That statement was said to the boy on the ground.
To the boy with the crooked leg, whose tibia bowed inward, forcing his weight to one side. Even sitting still, he’s compensating, an early accommodation to pain, to imbalance, and to being different.
I know that leg.
That boy is me.
I grab my phone and call Iris.
No answer.
I try again, but the line rings until it drops to voicemail.
“Iris,” I say, forcing a steadiness I don’t feel into my voice. “Tell me you’re okay. Tell me you’re still in your studio, starting something new and pretending…the world can wait.”
It sounds wrong the moment I hear it.
“Call me as soon as you get this,” I add.
Then I end the call and dial her security contact.
He picks up on the second ring. “Mr. Lockwood?”
“Where is she?” I demand.
There’s a pause, then he asks, “What do you mean?”
Cold spreads along the back of my neck. “Where is Miss Vaughn?” I ask again.
“Well, after that chase, you told me it was a surprise game,” he says carefully. “You said you’d find her. That I should disengage.”
I close my eyes, a raw sound tearing out of me. Maybe too much time has passed without incident. Maybe the instructions weren’t front of mind anymore. Do not defer to a visual identification of me or anyone claiming to act on my behalf.
But no security protocol accounts for this. Not for people who don’t know the truth. That there’s a man identical to Marcus Lockwood.
“Where were you last with her?” I question.
“Just before Storm King Art Center.”
“Go back to her studio,” I say. “And stay there. Don’t move.”
“Yes, sir.”
The call ends.
This is it.
I’m ending this. Now.