Chapter 33
CHAPTER
THIRTY-THREE
Boulogne-sur-Mer would be charming if I wasn’t carrying a knife coated in the blood of a high school sweetheart.
After arriving at the pub nearby the hotel, I made two calls—one for a taxi, the second to the local police.
“It was terrifying,” I wailed in French, hunched in the shadows facing away from the pub’s security cameras.
“At the barn down the road from the Chateau De Cocove, come quick before they kill someone!”
Graham had watched me from the camera’s blind spot with some level of admiration. “Perhaps I was wrong about your French after all,” he said as I brushed past him.
Blue lights wailed by the pub right before the cab rolled into the lot.
Petyr might’ve murdered Kat, but leaving his body there to rot didn’t sit right with me either. Perhaps that’s the dividing line between me and them.
We drive through inland Boulogne-sur-Mer, an impressive mixture of 13th-century medieval ramparts and the pastel facades of post-war reconstruction—according to Graham’s narration—and straight to the port.
It’s a massive, urban area, with fishing boats lining the quay and towering apartment buildings overlooking the harbor.
We slam the doors shut and the cab driver speeds away, eager to make the drive back to Calais. The street is quiet but the docks are alive with movement.
Graham irons the front of his sweater with his hands and sighs. “Our best bet is bribing one of the fishermen.”
I glance over my shoulder at the dark, unoccupied row of sailboats bobbing in the water.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you want to be chased by the Coast Guard,” he says with a half-smile, reading my partially-formed thoughts.
“It wouldn’t be my first rodeo.”
“Of course not.”
Graham leads me down the opposite direction, where the quay opens up into a massive port that’s more cement than sea.
I’m eager to hang back and let him take the lead for a while—especially given his advanced people skills.
We make a good team, I’m thinking as we stride toward the wharf, where lines of commercial fishing boats sit in the water.
A ferry would’ve been preferable.
Thanks to Kat, though, I know to avoid anything requiring my identification. But that’s a problem for future Sloane. Right now, hitching a ride on one of these boats is the safest, most discreet option. Although stealing a sailboat would’ve been fun.
Am I really that much different than a common thief?
I’m staring at Graham’s back, watching the muscles under his sweater shift as he slips his hands in his pockets, and wondering why he didn’t cut-and-run when all I’ve been is a self-righteous idiot.
There’s a possibility. Something that runs deeper than a simple partnership—something that sends a wave of warmth across my chest and up my neck.
Except that I’m his walking counterpoint.
Not too long ago, I represented everything he hated. I was naive, willing to kill and die for an agency that’s rotten at the center. An agency that ripped his family apart.
What good is there in me to love?
“Darling?”
I blink. We’re standing in front of a massive fishing boat with The Selkie emblazoned on the side. A man with a long, salt-and-pepper beard and silver hair glances between us, wooden pipe bouncing from the corner of his mouth.
“Captain Byrne asked you how our honeymoon has been faring,” Graham continues.
A few beats pass as my brain catches up.
I sway a little and let Graham catch me into his side. Pulling on a dazed half-smile, I peer up at the Captain through my lashes and give an embarrassed laugh. “I’m so sorry, it’s been such a long few days,” I sigh. “Sometimes I’m sure I’d lose my head if it wasn’t attached.”
And that wasn’t even a lie.
Captain Byrne heaves a roaring laugh. “Don’t I know it, girl,” he replies in a heavy Northern Irish accent.
“We haven’t been able to sleep since the airline lost our luggage,” Graham says. True enough—it was too dangerous to retrieve it from our motel room in Calais. “Neither of us have our ID’s, wallets, or a change of clothes. At this point, all we want is to get home to England,” he continues.
Home. I don’t have one of those anymore, I realize, although I’m not positive I ever truly did.
As if it was intentional, my body decides it’s time to yawn. “My apologies,” I add, wiping my eyes and peeking up at Graham like he means the world.
“Well—” Captain Byrne pauses to exhale a puff of pipe smoke. “—it won’t be a glamorous ride, certainly not fit for two lovebirds such as yourselves.”
“We’d really appreciate any help we can get,” I say honestly.
He rubs his beard, plucks his pipe from his lips, and points it at us.
“Aye, I’ll make an exception this one time for you two—my wife’ll be in a state if she hears I didn’t.
” Captain Byrne motions for us to follow.
Graham and I share a quick look before he grabs my hand in his and tugs me along.
“Most of the crew’s in bed or at the pub, seein’ as we ship out to Boscastle in the morning,” he explains as we ascend the gangway.
A mildly fishy putrid stench lingers, although the deck’s been cleaned and scrubbed.
There should be a part of me that’s on edge, checking around every corner and analyzing everything Captain Byrne says and does.
Maybe it’s the exhaustion, the hunger, or the events of the past few days—but I can’t bring myself to care at the moment.
Graham casts me a sidelong smile while he holds the door to the bridge open, and my heart gives a thud and a lurch in response.
“Conor and Eoghan’ll be out ‘til the wee hours, so you two can grab their bunks and take a kip in the meantime,” Captain Byrd announces. Opening a narrow door, he starts down the metal stairs and smacks the beam on the ceiling. “Watch yer head, it’s nearly done me in on a number of occasions.”
Metallic scrapes sound in tandem as we carefully descend onto the lower deck.
Bunks line a walkway that’s hardly wide enough for Graham’s shoulders, and if I reached up, my fingers could trace the ceiling.
At the end of the hall, there’s a galley with butter-yellow linoleum and a rickety dining table with four chairs.
A thin door swings open to our right.
We all watch as a scrawny teenager stumbles out, entirely unaware of his audience as he finishes buckling his belt and turns to flush the toilet. When he finally glances up, his jaw hinges open, revealing two rows of braces.
Captain Byrne steps forward and lightly swats the back of his neck. “You eejit,” he scolds, “we have guests.” Turning to us, the Captain claps his hand on the boy’s shoulder, mouth cracking into a wide smile. “This is my grandson, Tadhg, my pride ‘n joy when he’s not acting the maggot.”
“A pleasure,” Graham greets.
Tadhg meets my eyes and immediately glances away, cheeks coloring red. “I’m headed to bed, Granda.”
“Right so,” Captain Byrne replies with a thwack to his grandson’s back. “I’ve got the best deckhand around. Did’ya see how the old girl was sparklin’?” he asks us.
“Very clean,” I concur.
“Indeed,” Graham adds.
We awkwardly shuffle into the galley to let Tadhg roll onto his bunk in the hallway and slide the curtain shut. Captain Byrne pops open the small fridge, stoops down, and returns with a stainless steel stockpot that looks small in his hands.
“Figured you two’d be frightfully hungry,” he explains, setting it onto the counter. “My wife makes a mean Colcannon.”
Graham and I share a glance when the Captain is turned.
“Your wife is here?” I ask. It’s far from typical on a commercial fishing boat.
Captain Byrne ladles a helping into a smaller pot and places it on the stove. “Aye, but she’ll already be to bed in the Captain’s Quart?—”
The door at the top of the stairs swings open.
“James?” a woman calls. “James, is that you? If I find out ye’ve been sneaking out to smoke…
” The voice fades as she arrives at the bottom of the stairs and catches sight of us in the galley with her husband.
She places one hand on a plump hip and arches a grey brow at James.
“And who’s this, now? Did you pick up strays again? ”
She pointedly inspects me when she thinks I’m not looking. I hastily reach for Graham’s hand and wrap his arm around my shoulders.
“They’re on their honeymoon,” Captain Byrne croons, patting us both on our backs.
Her other eyebrow lifts. “A fishing boat’s quite the choice for a honeymoon, aye?”
“We lost our wallets and all our luggage,” Graham offers helpfully. “The Captain graciously offered to bring us home to England.”
Her face softens and her gaze drifts to her husband.
“Oh, James.” She shuffles closer, but not before wrenching Tadhg’s curtain open and smacking a kiss on his cheek.
He shoos her away with a half-conscious groan.
“The name’s Orla,” she says, stealing our hands and eagerly shaking them.
“Sorry to hear you two are in such a bind. And on your honeymoon, too!”
None of us have a chance to speak when her icy blue eyes slide to the stove, and her mouth falls open in a gasp. “James! You need to stir that, or it’ll burn!” Orla scoots by us and wrests a wooden spoon from the drawer.
Captain Byrne leans a hip on the counter and replies, “My apologies, dear one, I found myself suddenly distracted.” He finishes with a wink and a tap on her backside.
Orla swats him on the chest. “Get them settled, love. They look as if they haven’t had a rest in days.”
How astute.
James pulls out a chair for me, and Graham flops into the one next to me with a ragged sigh.
We stare at each other side by side for a few moments, dazed smiles curling on our lips, and my shoulders seem to finally relax.
All I know is that the bunk mattress could be made out of sticks and rocks, and I’d happily sleep through the night.
“Pardon my manners,” Orla says when she sets a steaming bowl of soup in front of me. My mouth instantly salivates. “What did you two say your names were?” She sits nimbly into a chair across the table, sipping on a tea she’d brewed herself.
Captain Byrne claims the chair beside her and points. “That one’s Graham,” he says, “although I’m not sure I caught your wife’s name.”
Suddenly, there’s three sets of eyes on me.
Graham’s fingers lace with mine under the table. He squeezes. I watch the steam twist and coil from the soup into the air, flummoxed that such a simple question would cause my pulse to skip like I’m being chased by someone with a gun.
I’m not an appendage of the ISA anymore. I’m not a soulless tool or a blunt instrument for someone else to wield.
I don’t have a home. My family is long gone.
Which only leaves the question I’ve been running from since I learned to kill: who am I?
Graham nudges my leg with our hands and offers a reassuring smile. My heart flutters again, but not the delicious life-or-death kind. The terrifying, world-tilting kind.
I let out a breath, leaning into the warmth blossoming around my ribcage for the first time ever.
“My name is Sloane,” I reply.