Chapter Forty-Six
Crisp red leaves mixed with yellow and brown ones, and Chelsea drank in the cool morning air.
Real fall was upon them, the kind in which Thanksgiving displays popped up before Halloween and frost glazed windshields across the parking lot every morning.
The weather was just right. She could get away with a pullover but wouldn’t mind a jacket.
Truthfully, after a few days of alternating between being in Liam’s arms, working on her book project, and monitoring the Nyman residence, Chelsea didn’t mind much, even with her semi-lack of employment.
She was living her best life. And as a bonus, she was living her best morning, enjoying a fall walk from her condo to the farmer’s market.
Chelsea stepped off the footpath across from her condo complex and crossed the street.
The shopping center had been transformed into a village of flower tents, fruit and veggie stalls, and rows upon rows of farm-fresh dairy products, baked goods, and heavenly treats.
Her stomach growled as she thought of homemade honey buns and iced cinnamon bread.
But her first stop was always the same fruit stand run by the same woman, who went by the simplest name—the Apple Lady.
Never in all the years Chelsea had bought her smoothie supplies did she wonder who the Apple Lady was when she left the market—until now.
She melted into the crowd and wondered if the kind woman’s gentleness was real or simply a role played to sell local fruit, and if her kind eyes and easy smile told of a life that Chelsea was certain smelled like nutmeg and sounded like laughter.
She wondered about everyone else too. Are there others nearby who lost their best friend?
Who are falling for wonderful men? She couldn’t tell simply by looking at the passing faces.
Even before she was trained, she had been smart enough to know folks weren’t always what they seemed.
They were made of sins and scars, love and luck, the darkest darks and the brightest lights.
People were decisions, choices, consequences, opportunities, risk, and reward.
They were so much more than she could comprehend, and the realization that everyone lived as complex lives as she did made her feel infinitely small and magnificently special.
Sidestepping a gaggle of weekend warriors who were sampling the Apple Lady’s apple cider, Chelsea waved hello. “Busy today.”
The woman held a large pink apple in one hand and a light-green one in the other. “These two beauties are the reason why.”
Chelsea smiled, certain that the Apple Lady’s house smelled like brown sugar too. “Why’s that?”
“They are everything that fall fruit should be. ”
That wasn’t really an answer, but it somehow fit Chelsea’s mood. “I should bring some home. Which one is sweeter? ”
She raised the pink apple. “Sweeter and softer. But don't discount this one's tart punch.”
Smiling again, Chelsea recalled almost the exact same conversation from the year before and the year before that—though then, Julia had been there too.
The cycle of fruit continued. The seasons brought change, and the years offered a repeat of the year before.
The more everything changed, the more it stayed the same. “I'll try them both.”
The Apple Lady beamed, then other customers at the far end of the fruit stall asked for help with cider. “Keep looking. I’ll be back in a few.”
Or more than a few. Chelsea regarded the small group, who seemed to have hit the mimosas a little hard that morning. “Take your time.”
They shared a knowing laugh, and Chelsea eyed a large bunch of plump grapes and stacks of pears.
“Ohhh.” A young girl had her eyes on the same fruits and reached out for them, bumping into Chelsea.
Chelsea grinned and gave the little girl more room as her mother, who had a baby tied to her chest, offered an apology then added, “Look with your eyes. Not your fingers. Please.”
It took another please before the girl pulled her hands back.
Chelsea tried not to melt from the cuteness as the little girl took her mother’s other hand.
It had been just seconds since the mother gave a semi-sweet scolding, and they’d locked hands as if the incident weren’t even a faint memory. What a night-and-day difference from how Chelsea had been raised. Just thinking about it made her stiffen.
Not that her mother would’ve taken her to something as frivolous as a farmer’s market, but if she had and Chelsea reached for a grape, the reprimand wouldn’t have been cutesy and ended with a handhold.
She watched the little girl chatter about pink apples and go over the moon when her mom produced a bright-yellow one.
Maybe, one day, Chelsea might be that type of heartening mother. Maybe she’d be a mom. Her pulse fluttered. A mom? She’d never thought about her future like that before, and an unhurried sigh made her feel as squishy as a toasted marshmallow.
And Liam… what kind of father would he be? That marshmallow-y feeling melted into an ooey-gooey delight she’d never experienced.
The girl pulled her mom away. Chelsea’s tranquil thoughts drifted as she turned back to the fruit and found a black calla lily.
Ice-cold awareness ripped through her. Chelsea twisted and jumped back, then, far, far too close, Chelsea was face to face with Zee Zee Mars.
Familiarity that she couldn’t explain slapped her senseless until Zee Zee’s smugness broke their trance.
She grabbed a pear with nonchalant coolness that couldn’t be faked.
Zee Zee tossed the fruit, caught it in her opposite hand, and took a bite.
Her pupils dilated, and a hint of a dare turned up the corners of her lips.
Never once did she blink. “Chelsea Kilpatrick, in the flesh.”
Chelsea’s mind raced. She had no backup, not even her purse, as she had a monthly tab with the Apple Lady. She didn’t even have so much as a bobby pin to MacGyver into a weapon.
Zee Zee smacked the pear juice from her lips. “I haven't seen you in a while. ”
“You haven’t.” She needed to buy time, needed to check her surroundings. “This is unexpected.”
“Is it?” Zee Zee studied the pear then held it close to her lips. “You know me better than that— Or maybe you don’t know me at all.”
Chelsea gaged how quickly she could nab Zee Zee. It wasn’t as if she could simply ask her to turn around and put her hands behind her back. What, then? Chelsea could ask the Apple Lady for the burlap garland that decorated the fruit stand to secure Zee Zee’s wrist.
Zee Zee would run. Won’t she? “Why are you here?” It made absolutely no sense.
“Those fucking calla lilies,” Zee Zee offered instead. “God, I hate those things.”
Chelsea did, too, but she wasn’t sure that commiserating over flowers would help her understand.
Zee Zee narrowed her eyes. “You do too.”
That wasn’t a question. Chelsea’s skin prickled.
“Did you ever stop to wonder if maybe I’ve studied you as much as you’ve studied me?”
“No.” Chelsea hoped she was feigning the same level of confidence that Zee Zee seemed to exude. “I assumed your time was spent on more sinister thoughts.”
“Sinister?” Zee Zee raised an eyebrow. “It’s just a game.”
A game. Explosion after explosion over the course of years, and it was just a sick, twisted hobby. “How about we end it now?”
Zee Zee pointed her pear toward their feet. A lone paper bag with its top neatly folded over and stapled rested along a parking space line. “You have two guesses as to what’s in there.”
Panic bottomed in Chelsea’s stomach. Still, she kept her face blank. “Honey buns?”
Zee Zee cocked her head and laughed. “I think we have the same sense of humor too.”
“What does that mean?” Chelsea asked.
“For everything you got, for every single opportunity you didn’t relish, you would think,” Zee Zee snarled, “that you’d have learned something.”
Chelsea swallowed over the knot in her throat. Why was the conversation so personal? “What I do know is that you’ve never targeted a farmer’s market, and I don’t think you’ll start today.”
Zee Zee bit into the pear again and chewed slowly. “Actually, that’s your choice.”
Chelsea skipped the semantics. Everything they knew about Zee Zee seemed to be wrong. “What do you want? ”
“You to look in the bag.”
“Do I need to?” she asked. “Either it’s there, or it’s not.”
The Apple Lady came over, smiled, then asked Zee Zee, “Can I help you?”
The woman on top of the US Marshal’s Most Wanted Fugitive List nailed a fake smile and saccharine sweetness. “The only one who can help me is Chelsea.”
“Oh.” Confusion crossed the soft lines on her forehead. “Then I’ll let you be.”
Chelsea wanted to scream, Run! The farmer’s market needed to be evacuated. “Let everyone leave. Then it’s just you and me.”
Zee Zee reached into her back pocket then dangled a dead man’s switch. “If you make one move to alert anyone…”
The switch hadn’t been activated. That was Chelsea’s only saving grace.
The little girl from earlier tore by, dragging a large cinnamon broom as her mother trailed behind her, laughing.
Chelsea wanted to weep for them and for everyone nearby. “Just you and me.”
Zee Zee lowered her hand but didn’t put away the switch. The device was a thumb flick away from detonating the bag at their feet. “Why weren’t you there?”
Blanking, Chelsea asked, “Where?”
“Kentucky.” Zee Zee arched a dark eyebrow as if to question Chelsea’s sanity.
“The rest of the world was there. ” Her best update had come from the news. The FBI, US Marshals, and every ding dang news organization on the planet had descended upon the smoldering bits like fruit flies to a peach.
Zee Zee sawed her teeth. “I don’t care about them.”
“Me?” She shook her head. “You don’t need me to terrorize—”
“Yes.” Zee Zee hissed and shook the switch. “I do.”
“Careful, please.” She held her hands by her side. “Let’s go somewhere else.”
Zee Zee snorted.
“Come on.” Chelsea tilted her head. “We’re not on the same page, and I think that’s important to you.”
“You think!” Zee Zee shouted.
A few people stared. No one knew what she had in her hand. Chelsea wanted to wave them away, but the blast zone would be too large for them to escape.
Their conversation conflicted with everything Chelsea had known for years—the bombings, the motives. What is the point if not some kind of activism? Chelsea erased her long-understood beliefs on Zee Zee Mars. “Tell me what I should know.”
An agreeable expression softened Zee Zee’s face, but she added, “It hurts.”
“What does?”
“That all this time, you really didn’t know.”
Cheese and crackers, know what? “What do I do to make it right?”
“Don’t use your education and fancy job to talk down to me,” Zee Zee snapped.
Her choices, her opportunities, her education—was this about her? “I’m sorry.”
Shock brightened in Zee Zee’s eyes. “You are?”
Carefully, Chelsea nodded.
“Is everything all right?” the Apple Lady asked at precisely the wrong second.
Zee Zee hardened again—and activated the dead man’s switch. “An apology won’t make up for it.”
“We’re fine,” Chelsea answered, praying that somehow, the Apple Lady could read between the invisible lines of the two words and clear the farmer’s market of people.
When that telepathy didn’t work and the Apple Lady walked away, Chelsea tried again.
“It’s time to leave. You and me. Or let me tell everyone else to go. ”
“The churches,” Zee Zee said. “The law firms.”
Chelsea didn’t know what to say. Zee Zee wasn’t making sense.
“The libraries. The schools.”
Zee Zee’s pitch had increased, and Chelsea tried to guess how many seconds it would take to transmit the detonation. Enough that I could save some lives? Should I simply scream, “RUN”?
“You had all that.” Zee Zee dropped her voice low and strained to hold back tears. “You had her. And you broke her heart.”
“Who?” Chelsea sputtered, terrified that she didn’t know if shouting or not would save lives. “How?”
Zee Zee’s face twisted. “You had everything and threw it away to become a federal agent?”
The words clanged loudly in Chelsea’s head. Zee Zee sounded like her mother.
Tears streamed down the woman’s face. “She should’ve kept me!”
Chelsea didn’t give herself time to process the words. She shot her arm out and clasped Zee Zee’s fist in hers. If her hand kept tight, the bomb could not explode.
“Run!” She struggled as Zee Zee fought to release her hand. “Everyone—” A fist snapped against her jaw. “Go!”
To hold a person by just their hand was impossible, but she couldn’t let go. Zee Zee screamed. She bit. Hands pulled at Chelsea’s back as though she needed to be pulled off Zee Zee.
“Bomb!” Chelsea cried, holding onto Zee Zee’s fist for dear life. “Run!”
Zee Zee dug her teeth into Chelsea’s shoulder, ripping back and forth like a rabid beast, and beat her head repeatedly.
Bright lights and clouds skewed Chelsea’s vision, and she hooked her unbalanced leg behind Zee Zee’s knees. They crashed to the asphalt. Zee Zee took the brunt of the fall and gasped as the air was knocked from her lungs.
Their arms were tangled between their stomachs. Chelsea couldn’t move her hands to strike, and her grip slipped as they rolled. Their knees jabbed. Zee Zee fisted Chelsea’s hair, tearing back as she bit into the soft flesh of her neck.
The brilliant slice of pain paralyzed Chelsea. She was going to die. Zee Zee would rip out her throat and sever her carotid artery, and the bomb would still explode.
Warm wetness slicked over them—her blood—and the same nausea from before roared back.
But she couldn’t fail. She’d worked too hard to catch Zee Zee.
It meant too much to Julia. Living for Liam meant a family one day, and God help her, she wanted to send a message to Mac that he could kiss her sugar plum tail.
Chelsea reared back, tearing free, and head-butted Zee Zee’s blood-smeared face.
Stars exploded in her eyes, and her stomach turned.
All her strength was gone as blackness ebbed.
Chelsea blinked hard, ignoring the threatening bile, and pulled the dead man’s switch into her hands as Zee Zee fell limp.