Chapter 16 #3
And here’s what I do, because I am my father’s daughter and I have never once in my life left a wound alone.
I let the accent come back.
I let it roll all the way in, thick. Thick as it was in the kitchen with my mother’s hands in my hair, because there is nothing that unsettles Americans faster than being reminded that you are not one of them.
“Your entire country’s origin story is built on lies,” I tell her, syrupy, delighted.
“So what peace is it exactly that you’re keepin’? ”
Vesper sets down her water.
“Are you really implying your father was a representation of good, then?”
Except she says it in my native tongue. With a flawless accent.
Not a parody of it. Not a stab at it. The vowels sit down exactly where they belong, in a place they could not possibly belong for a woman raised anywhere within three thousand miles of this room.
I’m playing checkers. Vesper is playing chess.
She just didn’t want me to know I was outmatched.
I have been showing this woman a party trick.
She has an entire drawer of them, and she’s just let me see the handle.
I clear my throat and now my voice comes out flat and accent-less and small. “My father knew what he was.”
“Indeed.” Vesper picks the water back up. “And do you?”
I look at the fire instead of at her.
Here is what I am: transactional. I don’t give without getting in return. Love is currency, to be cashed in when it’s most convenient. I turned my heart off when it started aching too much. I am, in every way, weak, which is why I lie so much. The truth is unbearable.
But here I sit, more lost than ever, wearing my mother’s diamonds, being offered a home by a woman who makes me feel safe and unnerved at the exact same time.
I know exactly what I am. That’s never been the problem.
The problem is that I have started, very recently, to want to be something else.
I have no idea how a person goes about that, but I am beginning to suspect there is no route from here to there that doesn’t run straight through the truth.
And when Callen finds out the truth…he’ll never forgive me. He’ll never want to see me again.
So, I’ll take the long way. Around the truth. I have to. It’s the only way I can keep him.
The food arrives before I can think this through a moment longer.
Thank God for the food.
The waiter sets down a Mediterranean omelet for Vesper, which she regards politely.
And for me, a burger. But of course, this place wouldn’t just serve a burger.
It’s wagyu, topped with caramelized onions infused with the finest truffle oil.
Open-faced, with a sunny-side egg laid across the top like a crown, and the whole thing is beautiful, and I look at it and for some reason I picture a seventeen-year-old girl with a sweet smile watching from above, a troll reading a poem at her memorial.
I pull a piece of meat off the edge of the patty and put it in my mouth. I chew slowly, like I’m trying not to overwork my molars.
“How’s the quality?” Vesper asks. It’s an olive branch. She’s bad at them, which is somehow the most endearing thing about her.
“It’s wagyu.” I chew with more intention, then swallow. “It’s delicious.”
“Good.” She almost smiles. “Enjoy it. This is on me, of course.”
We sit here, the two of us, in a room full of women in creams and pinks, who have never buried anybody, let alone killed them. Something passes between us across that tablecloth that I would call respect.
I silently make a few resolves.
I am keeping my mother’s diamonds. I don’t care if Cricket wants them. I will fight a bitch, even if she is my sister.
Callen must never know the truth. I am to be the woman he wants, not the woman I am.
And finally, I will join PALADIN. “Prove it to me,” echoes in my mind. I look Vesper dead in the eyes, and she gently lifts her brows in question before I look away.
I am going to lie to this woman until one of us is dead. The words go around my skull like a coin in a drain. “Prove it to me and you have a home. Prove it to me and you have my protection.”
Prove it.
“Vesper.” I stare at my plate. “The case. The one that’s been all over the news.” I pick up my knife. “What was her name?”
“Why?”
“Curiosity.”
Vesper doesn’t answer right away.
“Brinley Cage,” she says. “She was seventeen years old. Dark hair. Fair. A truly lovely smile… She will be missed.”
“I’m sure she will.” And I mean it. I mean it so much the empathy surprises me. “But I meant the teacher.” I look up; Vesper’s looking into the fire. “What’s her name?”
The silence goes on a beat too long. When Vesper speaks, her voice has picked up an edge I have not heard from her before, and every instinct I own tells me she already knows exactly what she is handing me and is doing it anyway.
“Mabel. Mabel Edwards.”
I don’t respond.
I pick up the steak knife to my right and gently push the tip through the yolk. It opens, and it runs, down over the meat, into the toasted bread, pooling gold and thick against the white of the plate.
I can’t help but notice that egg runs slow. It’s heavier than you’d think…
Just like blood.