Chapter 33
THIRTY-THREE
Karl Dekker is dead.
The man who had killed Mira, killed Ray Castillo, torn Maren and Juni’s lives apart and started this whole nightmare, was dead.
Maren thought that should make her feel triumphant, maybe, like in the movies. Or just satisfaction. Relief at the very least.
Instead, she felt hollowed out and too full at the same time.
They used the safehouse meant for Lynn to clean themselves up before they got on the plane for Colorado.
Minding the speed limit, Colin took a winding route there from the parking garage.
The house blended in with the others on the block, many of them short-term rentals, so that it wasn’t unusual to see strangers pull up and key themselves in.
If anyone had looked closely, they would have seen a woman whose hair glittered in the sun, whose clothes were covered in dark stains, and a man who looked at the world as if it were coming at them from all directions and he was ready to defend her to the death.
Once inside, Colin pulled Maren into his arms.
“All this broken glass. You’re going to cut yourself,” she said.
“I don’t care.”
“Well, I do.” Not that it stopped her from laying her cheek against his chest, and she certainly didn’t step out of his arms.
Colin’s chest rumbled with deep laughter. “Of course you do. You’re you. You would rather be in pain than hurt anyone around you.”
“I wanted to hurt Lynn.”
“True. But you saved her instead.”
“And I wanted to kill Dekker.”
She felt Colin stiffen in her arms. “I wish you didn’t have to see me do that.”
Maren gazed into his eyes. “What I saw was a man fulfilling a promise to a little girl who adores him. Now, when do we go home?”
Colin had to look away. Maren felt his chest heave just once.
“Let’s get that glass out of your hair,” he told her when he could speak again.
The master bath was bigger than she’d expected. Double sink, a mirror running the length of the vanity, a frosted window over the tub that let in diffused light. Colin opened drawers until he found what he wanted—a fine-tooth comb, still in its packaging, and a soft-bristled brush.
“Kneel on that, babe,” he said, nodding at the padded stool tucked under the vanity.
Maren pulled it to the sink and knelt on it. In the mirror she caught a glimpse of herself—pale, hollow-eyed, hair glinting in the overhead light in ways that had nothing to do with the sun—and looked away. She leaned forward over the basin. The porcelain was cool against her forearms.
“Don’t get cut,” she said.
“I won’t get cut,” he said softly, the barest of smiles in his voice.
She felt him section her hair with his fingers, working carefully from the crown.
“Shake your head.”
Maren shook her head gently and heard the faint, crystalline sound of glass hitting porcelain. Going section by section, unhurried, she shook her head until the ringing stopped. Then came the brush. Long strokes from the root down, slow and even, and Maren felt her shoulders drop on the first pass.
She hadn’t realized she was holding them up.
Colin worked methodically—the way he’d scanned the garage levels, the way he’d moved through the parked cars, the way he’d pressed the torn fabric into her hands and told her press harder.
The same man who had killed Karl Dekker in a parking garage was now counting brush strokes through her hair, making sure he missed nothing, checking to see that she was all right.
I love him. I love all of him.
The brush moved through her hair again and again. The rhythm of it settled into her like a warm blanket. She stopped listening for sirens. Stopped running the sequence in her head—gunshots, Lynn’s blood, Santiago Rivera—and just felt the pull of the bristles, even and sure, all the way to the ends.
Colin is taking care of you, she thought distantly. Let him. Maybe it was Mira’s voice, but she didn’t think so. Anything her sister had left to say to her was waiting in an envelope sitting on the bed.
Pretty soon she wasn’t thinking about anything except how good it felt.
When he was satisfied, Colin turned on the tap and guided her head under the stream, fingers moving through her hair one final time, slow and thorough. After a few minutes, he turned it off and grabbed a towel. He used it to carefully squeeze out the water, then wrapped it around her head.
“Done,” he said.
Maren straightened and looked at herself in the mirror. Her face was still pale, and there was a smudge along her jaw she hadn’t noticed before. Colin wetted down a washcloth and wiped it away.
She caught his eyes in the mirror. He looked back at her steadily.
“Shower,” he said.
“Yes.”
They didn’t speak while they undressed. He reached for her first, his hands finding the hem of her ruined shirt and lifting it over her head.
He unhooked her bra, set it aside, crouched to help her step out of her jeans and her shoes.
She worked his tee shirt off his shoulders, then his belt and his cargos.
She undid the towel and set it on the counter.
Their clothes went into the plastic lawn bag Colin had set by the door—that bag would not be coming back to Colorado with them, probably destined for an incinerator somewhere.
Colin turned the shower on then held out his hand and she took it. The water was hot, quickly turning the room white with steam and driving every bad thing out. Maren stood under it with her eyes closed and felt the day begin to loosen its grip.
Colin’s hands moved into her hair, working the shampoo through with the same slow deliberateness he’d used with the brush. She pressed her palms flat against the shower wall and breathed in like she’d been underwater a long time.
We’re here, she thought. We’re both still here.
His hands moved to her shoulders, her back, tracing the length of her spine.
He turned her in his arms until she was facing him.
She tipped her face up and found his mouth with hers.
The kiss started soft and turned urgent in the space of a breath—not desperate or frantic, but necessary, grounding her to this moment and the fact that they were both standing upright with their hearts still beating.
He pressed her back against the tile and she pulled him with her, and what passed between them was less about desire than it was about proof of survival. Proof that Dekker was gone and Maren was whole and Colin was here and they had done it, they had actually done it, and they were going home.
His mouth moved down her throat and she tipped her head back against the tile and let the sensation take her over.
His hands were everywhere—her waist, her hips, the curve of her breast—deliberate and thorough, the same unhurried attention he’d given every brush stroke.
Touching every inch of her like he needed to confirm with his own hands that she was alive.
And entirely his.
“Colin.” His name came out breathless.
“I’ve got you.” His voice vibrated low against her skin. “I’ve got you, baby.”
She believed him. She had believed him since the first moment she’d understood what kind of man he was, and she believed him now with the steam rising around them and his hand sliding up her inner thigh with devastating patience.
She gasped as her fingers curled into his shoulders when he found her clit and rubbed with the same focused attention he brought to everything that mattered to him.
She felt her orgasm building under his hands, warm and inevitable, until she was trembling against the tile with his name on her lips and her forehead pressed to his chest.
“Colin,” she gasped.
“Let go, baby. Give it to me.”
He held her through it then let her breathe before his mouth found hers again. He kissed her deep and slowly, his hardness pressing against her belly. She loved feeling how much he wanted her and pulled him closer, rubbing her belly against him until he groaned.
When he lifted her, she wrapped her legs around him and he pressed her back against the tile, one hand braced against the wall, the other cradling her like she was precious treasure.
“Ready?” he breathed.
“God yes. I need you inside me, Colin.”
He reached between them and lined up his cock. He pressed slowly into her then moved with her, his face buried in the curve of her neck.
“Maren,” he said, rough and quiet, and it was the way he said her name—like it was the only word he needed—that undid her.
She held on with both hands and let herself feel everything she’d been holding at arm’s length since the parking garage—the terror and the grief and the relief and the love, all of it crashing through her at once until she released it with her second orgasm.
He followed a moment later, shuddering against her, then stilling.
They stayed like that while the water ran over them and the steam enveloped them and the whole terrible day finally, finally receded to somewhere neither of them had to look at directly.
He set her down gently. She kept her arms around him.
“I love you,” she said. The simplest possible sentence. The only one that covered all of it and still didn’t touch how she felt about him.
“I love you.” He pressed his lips to her forehead, then her cheek, then the corner of her mouth. “God, I love you, Maren.”
They stood under the water until it started to cool. Then Colin turned it off and they got out, dried off, and stepped into the bedroom. They had a few hours before they needed to set out for John Wayne Airport an hour and a half north for a red-eye flight back to Denver.
The white envelope stood out against the navy blue comforter.
Maren set it, unopened, on the bedside table.
Colin pulled back the covers and she crawled in. He set an alarm on his phone and curled himself around her. Maren didn’t think she’d be able to drift off until she woke from a dead sleep to the sound of Colin’s alarm a few hours later.