Chapter 28
CHAPTER
TWENTY-EIGHT
Maybe I’m spoiled from our suite in Paris and the cottage in étretat, but I’m positive the dingy motel we snagged is infested with something.
I slept on top of the covers of the double bed closest to the door, arms crossed, waking at the sounds of scratching and skittering and noises from our neighbors that I’ve chosen not to dwell on.
Graham and I hardly spoke when he finally returned to the pub—processing almost being murdered by someone I’ve known for over a decade, y’know—and the man revived his lawnmower impression the moment his head hit a pillow.
I’m not saying I’m jealous. But I wouldn’t mind the uncanny ability to sleep on cue.
Just as he did for me the day before, I was determined to allow him to sleep for as long as I could.
But when the clock reaches early afternoon, my stomach’s well past the point of hunger pains, I’ve watched a mind-numbing amount of Friends re-runs dubbed in French, and Graham’s showing no signs of ever regaining consciousness on his own.
My pillow lands on his face. Hard. He groans, sputters, and keeps snoring.
Well, at least it’s muffled now.
Maybe I could shoot him in the leg? No, no—excessive, probably. I quietly laugh at myself and consider shooting the dead roach in the corner for target practice.
I really should’ve tried harder to sleep.
Graham stirs and mumbles something unintelligible into the pillow.
“Can’t hear you, sweetheart,” I say flatly.
He wrenches the pillow off. “I said, ‘Who’s making you laugh?’”
Rolling my eyes, I reach blindly and throw another pillow, watching with pleasure as it meets its target. “That’s what woke you up? Not the pillow to your face?”
“My subconscious knows what I don’t want to miss.”
Heat flares across my cheeks and I play it off by pretending to search for the TV remote.
In my peripheral, Graham sits up, hair disheveled and askew and exactly how I’ve decided I like it.
Not that it matters how I like his hair.
He’s a thief and I’m a… well, not a thief, and once this is over we’ll be going our separate ways.
Graham Baudelaire is a solo act. He’s made that clear in no uncertain terms.
So, what’s that stabby sensation between my ribs again? Did I roll over onto my knife?
We’re eating dinner—or rather, breakfast, lunch, and dinner—at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant by the marina.
Now there’s food in me, I’ve finally divulged all the events of last night: Kat sneaking up on me, narrowly escaping my own murder, and the inconvenient fact that Poppy Ashcroft is burned.
I skirt around how, exactly, I managed to convince Kat to walk away.
“So, what took you so long last night?” I sit back and wipe my mouth with a napkin. “I’m not sure it takes that many hours to sell a ring, although I’m not as experienced as you.”
“A spot of research,” he replies.
“Mysterious.”
Graham polishes off his second basket of frites. “Does Poppy’s death make me a widower?”
“You’re ridiculous,” I mutter into my Orangina.
“Did she have life insurance? Perhaps I can retire to the countryside.”
“Leave it to you to turn everything into a joke.”
He flashes me a crooked and overwhelmingly charming smile. “Trust me, dear wife, there’s plenty that I’m serious about.”
“We’re not married anymore,” I quip.
“Then what are we?”
Absentmindedly gathering the crumbs on my second plate, I stare at the peeling, faded wallpaper beside us. “Fugitives,” I decide.
“Oui,” Graham replies, voice dipping into a flawless French accent. “Comme Bonnie et Clyde.”
My cheeks flame. The notorious criminal lovers. He obviously didn’t mean it that way, though. “More like a partnership of convenience,” I manage.
“Bonnie and Clyde died in the end, didn't they?” He’s back to that infuriatingly posh English accent. “We can’t have that.”
I can see he’s waiting for me to respond—to engage in the back-and-forth he seems to love—but I’m distracted by what he’s said.
Comme Bonnie et Clyde. At the beginning of this assignment, I’d come to the reluctant acceptance that it was doomed.
I was going to die. As a spy, you kind of have to accept the possibility, even if it’s the only thing that haunts you.
Now I’m… whatever I am. A void, maybe. Unbound for the first time since I was a kid.
Both?
Whoever I am, I’m quite sure she’s not accepted the possibility of dying. That’s like a light shining at the exit to an underwater cave and being shut off right as you’ve begun to turn the right way.
Fearing death is human. It creeps up when the adrenaline’s already coursing through your veins, when you’re staring it in the face, when you need something to keep you sane.
It’s an antidote to the poison we experience rather than an everyday occurrence.
Mastering it—asserting control and gripping the wheel—that’s the key, not turning it off entirely.
Fearing the loss of something invaluable is an entirely different beast. It’s in the wild colors of a garden, the smell of brine in a warm breeze, a pair of strong hands used to comfort rather than harm. You can’t outrun the things you’ll miss once you discover they exist.
Which means it permeates everything, to a degree that I have no idea how to control. And fear makes as many mistakes as anger does.
“Where’d you go?” Graham says.
I shrug. “Nowhere.”
“Bollocks.” Our eyes lock across the table. “You don’t need to do that anymore.”
“What?”
“Hide.”
An indignant laugh scrapes outward from deep in my chest. “Of all the things you could accuse me of, it’s hiding?”
“You can call it what you like, Sloane, but I see it for what it is. You continue to stiff-arm me because you’re too scared of what happens if you don’t.”
Scared. There’s that word again.
“I’m not scared of anything,” I scoff.
He shakes his head. “I thought we agreed to no more lies.”
“You agreed,” I correct, but I’m aware that it sounds unbelievably childish.
“Ah—” Graham holds up a finger. “—but didn’t you recently call this a… partnership of convenience? The paramount word being, ‘partnership’?”
“What’s your point?” I grumble.
I know what his point is. And I don’t like it.
He sucks his teeth. “Tricky word, that. Typically there’s some sort of give-and-take.” Leaning forward on his elbows, he’s too close for comfort as he says, “I’m not asking for all of you, or even a piece. I only want to peek in and see how you tick.”
“Why?” The word comes out in a whisper.
For whatever reason, my heart’s pounding more than it did when Kat said she wanted to kill me.
Graham observes me for a sweltering moment before reclining back into his chair. “Call it professional curiosity,” he replies. “So, what do you make of this Kat situation? Can we trust that she’ll really leave you alone?”
I let out a long breath in a way that seems like a bored sigh. “Trust? No. But for whatever reason, I believe her for the time being.”
His brows pull together with a question, but I’m too preoccupied mulling over the look Kat gave me right before she left.
Resigned to her barriers sliding in place, as if she was an animal with a broken spirit being prodded back into her cage.
For a split-second, I thought I’d seen something relatively close to regret.
Torn between freedom and being with the man she loves.
“There.” Graham points at me. “Where’d you go?”
My jaw clenches shut. Frankly, I’m too tired for a verbal game of cat-and-mouse. Or maybe I’m tired of playing it in general.
“I was… thinking,” I start slowly. My tongue feels clumsy and heavy, like it’s never been asked to do this before and it’s not sure how to proceed. “About Kat. I can’t shake the feeling that she didn’t really want to go back.”
He leans forward again. This time, that glint of fervor burns in his eyes, and I’m electrified under the beam. “Were you two close?”
“No.” A humorless laugh bubbles out. “We were co-workers. Commiserators, if we’d ever been honest. No matter how familiar we became with each other, she always felt… distant.”
Graham gives me a silent look that says, I know a bit how that feels.
I ignore him.
“And I…” My fingers trace the seam of my jeans, all of my thoughts suddenly jostling for attention. “I guess I—er, felt bad?”
“You sound like an alien that’s just discovered the human emotion of empathy,” he teases.
I swat his forearm. “Shut up.”
“Sorry, sorry.” Graham holds his hands up in surrender, lips curling into a smile. “Although I do quite like when you tell me to shut up.” His terrible attempt at an American accent almost makes me laugh.
Again, I ignore him, now because I might erupt in flames if I don’t.
“You know—” He starts but cuts himself off. “Nevermind.”
“What?”
“I was only wondering… wouldn’t it be rather helpful to have someone else on our side?” Graham pauses for me to reply but continues when I don’t. “Unless arresting Klaus involves lifting a painting, I can’t do much to keep you—” He stammers and clears his throat. “—us safe.”
My stomach flips. Why hadn’t I thought of that? If I managed to convince her to disobey orders, would it be so hard to sway her to our side?
Graham leans even closer across the tiny bistro table and my brain comes to a sputtering halt. “Sloane, let me in,” he breathes.
I study him with feigned disinterest.
He absolutely, categorically, cannot know what’s going on in my head.
So I sit up straighter and pull on a grin. “For the first time in your life, you may be right.”