Chapter 31
“Simon killed Gemma,” I say to Beau once we’re back inside the quiet of our house. I’m pacing, circling the doors that lead out to the pool deck. “We have to go tell Ardell. Someone has to arrest him.”
Beau snaps the lock on the sliding doors. “No one’s going to do anything in the middle of a hurricane. We have to be strategic.”
I almost stomp my foot, the frustration fizzing out of me faster than I can regulate. “Beau, Simon’s not waiting. He told me at the Ritz that he has—”
Beau’s head whips toward me. “I want to talk about how you ended up at his hotel.”
The look on his face cuts me to the quick. He thinks I betrayed him. After all these years, he still can’t understand why I’d show Simon an ounce of loyalty.
Outside, the storm picks up. Rain falls in a gauzy curtain, blurring the view outside.
“He’s been texting me, saying we need to talk.”
“Texting you? You went?” Beau looks torn between which betrayal hurts more—the Simon texts that went unmentioned or our meeting at a hotel—but the pain is etched in the frown lines of his face.
“It wasn’t like that. He’s going to frame you for this murder, Beau,” I say, waving my hands like the walls of our own house could close in on us both at any minute. “He can’t pin this hack thing on you, so he’s going to take you down some other way.”
“Why would Simon kill Gemma?”
“Why else would Simon be in Winter Park?”
“I told you, for years he’s been looking for proof that I was behind the Redwood hack. I don’t think he can let go of the fact that he lost—not just the company, but you.”
Of course. Redwood wasn’t the only thing Simon lost. He lost me.
God forbid Simon Avery ever be deprived of a possession.
Maybe it should feel satisfying, to hear that Simon might regret having let go of me so easily. But the suggestion only serves as fuel for the dread coursing through me. Simon doesn’t like to lose.
“If that’s true, he’s never going to let this go. What if he finds proof?” I voice the fear caught in my ribs.
“He can’t.” Beau shakes his head, his voice dropping into something warm. “He never will.”
“How can you be certain?”
He rubs at his jaw, looking me over as if appraising what else he can do to absolve himself. “Because I didn’t hack Redwood. And I didn’t plan the Redwood data breach. But I let it happen. That’s why Simon’s never been able to find anything.”
“What does that mean, Beau?”
“The day of the Redwood meeting, the Wi-Fi password to the guest network…” He takes a long breath, the anguish behind his eyes making it clear that this is the one piece of the story he wishes wasn’t true.
Not the hack. Maybe not even the part where I find out about his role in the hack.
But the part where I learn about my role in it.
The part where I handed him a scrap of paper and made it possible for him to walk straight into the Redwood network like it was his living room and start spotting weaknesses.
“Wait.” I put a hand up between us as the air leaves my lungs. “The password I gave you?”
“You didn’t do anything wrong. But Redwood’s security was—‘negligent’ is the first word that comes to mind. I mean, you saw the lawsuits.”
I had. Most of the Redwood team had moved on in their careers.
Even James had started his own agency. But not Simon’s chief technology officer or his head of network security.
They had both been unemployable since the class-action lawsuit showed they had left critical loopholes open in their system.
But they weren’t the ones who scheduled the meeting between Beau and Simon.
“That’s why I never told you,” he says. “After that meeting, I didn’t make it a secret, telling mentors and friends how vulnerable the system was. What he was building. I didn’t plan the breach, Este. But I wanted it to happen.”
All those days I spent obsessing over Reddit threads and court filings, trying to understand the final blow that brought Redwood down, I was living at ground zero.
After I handed him the keys to the front door, Beau started a whisper campaign that Redwood was primed for a security attack, and Simon was building something that would end privacy as we knew it.
It had only been a matter of time before some vigilante hacker snaked through the crack in Titan’s foundation.
“Now, can we talk about why you were meeting your ex-boyfriend at the Ritz-Carlton?”
I brush past him, heading toward our bedroom. “I need a second.”
But he follows me. The house groans as the storm presses in, rain drumming the roof above our heads.
I’m at my sink in the bathroom, thinking I should wash my face, when my eyes catch on my closet. There are suitcases. Passports.
Could I reinvent myself again?
Running would be the cleanest option. Everything is either collapsing or tearing apart.
But I can choose to stay. Maybe the bravest thing I can do is hold on to what’s left of the life I want.
The Buffalo Nickel on Beau’s wrist catches the light. The silver disc is rubbed smooth in places, burnished by years of being handled, and then wrapped around Beau’s wrist. I tried to explain it to Nora once, but even she seemed to misunderstand the meaning.
“Why that coin, though?” she had asked, like something as ordinary as pocket change couldn’t hold so much weight.
It’s a language only Beau and I speak.
Now, we don’t understand each other at all.
I turn toward him, leaning my hip on the side of the sink with tears threatening in my eyes.
He moves closer. “Can you forgive my secret? Let me make it up to you?”
“How can you make up for a secret like that, Beau?” I can’t tell if I’m asking in earnest or begging him to reverse what he’s done.
Tears blur my vision as he stands in front of me, waiting like an offering, like a promise.
“Look, we’re both exhausted. Let’s get some rest,” he whispers. “I’ll sleep in the guest bedroom tonight, and we can talk in the morning. The house is ready.”
He’s talking about the hurricane. That storm, we’re ready for. The hurricane windows are sealed, the generator is prepped, and the fridge is packed like we’re hunkering down for the end times.
Eagle Scouts never die.
He’s halfway down the hall when a gust of wind slams sideways against the side of the lake.
Our boat is in storage, but some of our smaller vessels are secured to the boathouse.
From the windows in the hallway, we watch as the gale knocks a kayak loose down by our dock, and the shell bounces up the yard with a hollow, thudding sound.
“Damn it.” Beau heaves a sigh from the other room, and then, shoulders tensing, he looks toward the dock. “I have to go tie that down before it blows through a window somewhere.”
“You’re not going out there,” I snap. “You’ll get struck by lightning.”
But he’s already headed toward the front of the house.
I can’t explain the panic that rises in my throat as he goes. Something inside me is screaming about wool socks and razors’ edges.
Am I worried I’ll lose him? Or worried he’s already gone?
I stare out the window, waiting for him to materialize in our yard. Within seconds, he’s soaked and swearing, dragging the kayak into place and fastening it to the boathouse again.
I hold my breath the entire time. Only when I hear the lock by the pool doors click behind him does the knot in my chest ease.
Beau comes back into the bedroom, dripping, hair plastered to his forehead.
“You’re insane,” I mutter, relief and fury tangled together.
“Kayak’s tied down,” he says, water pooling at his feet.
“Thanks,” I say, and it’s polite but remote.
He smells like rainwater and churned earth, and he tells me he’s going to shower off and go to bed. But he doesn’t shower in our room. Instead, he walks down the hall and closes himself behind the guest bedroom door.
When I hear the hiss of the shower, I climb into bed.
He’s safe. For tonight, at least. But I don’t know what we’ll do—or who we’ll be—come morning.