Chapter 12 #4
The repetitive motion nearly puts me to sleep.
I listen to his heartbeat.
“Ghost?”
“Hmm?”
“That was better than NULL.”
His chest moves with laughter beneath my cheek.
“Strong endorsement.”
“I had low expectations.”
“Liar.”
I smile.
His hand slides down my back.
My wedding ring rests against his ribs.
Above us, the stars haven't moved enough to notice.
I look up.
For a long time, neither of us speaks.
Then I point.
“There.”
Xavier follows my finger.
“What?”
“Cygnus.”
“You're sure?”
“Papa taught me.”
“You've never mentioned knowing constellations.”
“I know several.”
“I feel betrayed.”
“You'll recover.”
I find another.
“Cassiopeia.”
Then another.
The memories come easier now.
Papa beside me.
His finger moving from star to star.
Patterns.
Sequences.
He used to make me find them before he let me go inside.
Not because astronomy mattered.
Because pattern recognition did.
He made everything into a game.
Code.
Routes.
Shapes.
Stars.
My smile fades.
“Stars are code, ma puce”
I sit up.
Xavier's hand immediately catches my waist.
“What?”
I stare toward the cottage.
Nothing.
Just amber windows.
A dark roof.
The silhouette of the old pear tree.
“What did your father mean?”
I look at him.
“What?”
“You just changed.”
Naturally he noticed.
I pull the blanket around myself.
“He used to tell me stars were code.”
“I remember.”
“No.”
I shake my head.
“I mean constantly. Not only when we were looking at them.”
Something begins moving inside my memory.
Old.
Dusty.
A feeling more than an image.
Papa in his study.
The telescope.
Me underneath it because I was small enough to crawl between the tripod legs.
A tiny star scratched into—
I stop breathing.
Xavier sits up.
“Sabine.”
“The telescope.”
“What about it?”
I am already getting to my feet.
“Sabine.”
I grab my dress.
“My father's telescope.”
“Slow down.”
“I can't.”
I pull the dress over my head with absolutely no concern for dignity.
Xavier is standing now too, dragging on trousers.
“What did you remember?”
“There was a star.”
“Where?”
“I don't know.”
“That was helpful.”
“I was seven.”
I start toward the cottage barefoot.
He catches up almost instantly.
“Shoes.”
“No.”
“Sabine.”
“You married a feral woman. Adjust.”
Despite everything, I hear him laugh behind me.
Then we run.
Papa's study is dark when I push through the door.
Xavier turns on one lamp.
The telescope stands in the corner.
Old brass.
Wooden tripod.
Exactly where I remember it.
I approach slowly now.
The rush inside me becomes something else.
Fear.
Hope.
Grief.
All tangled.
My fingers touch the barrel.
Cold metal.
Papa's hands were always warm when he adjusted it.
I crouch.
Look beneath.
Nothing.
Turn it slightly.
There.
A tiny scratched star.
Barely larger than my fingernail.
My pulse explodes.
“Xavier.”
He crouches beside me.
“You recognize it?”
“I remember making fun of him for it.”
“For what?”
“I said it was crooked.”
My fingertips touch the symbol.
“He told me stars aren't supposed to be perfect.”
The center is slightly deeper than the points.
I press.
Nothing.
Xavier reaches toward it.
I slap his hand away.
He looks at me.
“My father.”
“Understood.”
I twist the brass ring beneath the engraving.
Nothing.
The other direction.
Click.
Both of us freeze.
A seam appears around the base.
My heartbeat becomes deafening.
Xavier's entire demeanor changes.
The husband from the field disappears.
Blackwell returns.
“Stop.”
I look at him.
“Why?”
“We don't know what's inside.”
“It's a telescope.”
“Your father worked on classified surveillance architecture and someone kidnapped you over a second key.”
Annoyingly reasonable.
He rises, crosses to his bag, and returns with gloves.
I stare.
“You brought gloves on our wedding night?”
“I bring gloves everywhere.”
“That is extremely unromantic.”
“You'll appreciate it when nothing explodes.”
I accept them.
Carefully, I turn the section.
The brass base releases.
Inside is a narrow cavity.
Sealed.
Something wrapped in waxed paper rests inside.
For several seconds, I can't move.
Papa put this here.
His fingers folded this paper.
His hands closed this compartment.
Maybe years before he died.
Maybe days.
Xavier's hand settles between my shoulder blades.
“Take your time.”
I don't want time.
I want my father.
But time is what I have.
I remove the package.
Small.
Light.
The waxed paper crackles beneath my fingers.
Inside is a black ceramic object smaller than my thumb.
Not a normal storage drive.
Not anything consumer.
Old custom hardware.
My stomach drops.
Xavier swears softly under his breath.
“You know it?”
“No.”
“That sounded like knowing.”
“I know what it isn't.”
Very Ghost answer.
Then I notice something still inside the compartment.
Paper.
Folded tiny.
My hands begin shaking before I touch it.
“Sabine.”
“I know.”
“No, you don't have to—”
“Yes.”
I need this.
I take the note.
Open it.
Papa's handwriting.
There is no mistaking the slant.
No mistaking the strange way he always crossed his sevens.
For a moment the room blurs so badly I cannot read.
Xavier's hand stays against my back.
Doesn't move.
Doesn't ask.
I blink until the words return.
Pour Sabine. Quand les étoiles cessent d'être s?res.
My breath leaves me.
“What?” Xavier asks softly.
I read it again.
“For Sabine.”
My throat closes.
“When the stars stop being safe.”
Silence.
The field.
The kidnappers.
The question repeated over and over.
Where is the second key?
I look at the black object resting in my palm.
“No.”
Xavier already knows.
I see it in his face.
“No,” I say again.
“The second key.”
“They knew.”
“They knew it existed.”
“But they didn't know where.”
“No.”
I stare at the telescope.
All those years.
All the systems.
All the hacking.
Every archive I stole.
Every Blackwell executive I chased.
Every encrypted dead end.
And the answer sat inside Papa's telescope in a field I refused to come home to.
I laugh once.
It breaks halfway out.
“That bastard.”
Xavier watches me.
“He knew.”
I wipe beneath my eyes.
“He knew I would look everywhere except here.”
“Because it hurt too much.”
“Yes.”
My voice cracks.
“He knew me.”
Xavier's fingers close around the back of my neck.
“He was your father.”
I stare at the note.
Then something else occurs to me.
My head lifts.
“Whoever killed him didn't find this.”
“No.”
“Whoever sent those men didn't find it either.”
“No.”
“They thought I had it.”
Xavier's eyes sharpen.
“Which means someone knew Beaumont created a second key but not where he put it.”
“Someone close enough to know his work.”
“Yes.”
“But not close enough to know him.”
Xavier goes still.
There.
That matters.
Papa told me stars were code.
Papa knew I would understand the clue.
Whoever came after him understood ARGUS.
They didn't understand Adrien Beaumont.
I look down at the ceramic key.
“Your father?”
Xavier doesn't flinch.
“I don't know.”
The answer hurts.
But it's honest.
“What if he knew?”
“Then we'll find out.”
“What if he was involved?”
His gaze holds mine.
Wedding ring against wedding ring as he closes his hand carefully around mine.
“Then nothing changes.”
I stare.
“How can you say that?”
“Because I meant my vows.”
My chest tightens.
“Xavier.”
“I said whatever name was attached.”
His thumb presses against my ring.
“I didn't exclude mine.”
I look at our hands.
Blackwell and Beaumont.
Married hours ago.
Holding a secret that may destroy one family, vindicate another, or do something neither of us has imagined yet.
Outside the open study window, the stars shine over the field.
Papa's scripts.
Still running.
I lean into Xavier.
His arm comes around me immediately.
“What do we do with it?”
“Nothing tonight.”
I look up.
“You're serious?”
“Yes.”
“You aren't dying to open it?”
“Obviously.”
“Then why wait?”
His gaze travels over my face.
Then my wild hair.
Then the wedding dress I threw back on badly enough that one strap is twisted.
His mouth almost smiles.
“Because it's our wedding night.”
My heart stutters.
“And?”
“And whatever is inside that key has waited years.”
He takes it gently from my palm, wraps it again, and closes it inside the compartment.
“It can wait until morning.”
I stare at him.
Xavier Blackwell.
The man who would dismantle a government network at three in the morning because a checksum looked wrong.
Putting the answer away.
For me.
“Come back outside,” he says.
“To the field?”
“Yes.”
“What about the key?”
“Secured.”
“What if someone comes?”
“No one gets within a kilometer without me knowing.”
“That sounds more like the Xavier I know.”
“Good.”
He reaches for my hand.
I take it.
Before leaving, I look once more at Papa's telescope.
At the tiny crooked star.
“When the stars stop being safe,” I whisper.
Xavier squeezes my hand.
“Are they?”
I look through the window.
At the field.
At our blanket beneath them.
At the man beside me.
For the first time since Papa died, the answer isn't immediate.
I lean my head against Xavier's shoulder.
“Tonight they are.”
He kisses my hair.
Then my husband takes me back beneath them.