Chapter 48
REED
“Hello, Reed.”
She spits my name at me like a bullet. The fear that swept over her face when she first saw me recedes like a wave, leaving nothing but stone.
Blood seeps from her wrist and pools on the arm of the chair.
It looks like it hurts, but it’s nowhere close to the level of pain Officer Gunn will be in when he regains consciousness.
Officer Gunn, whose real name is Zane Jenson.
Zane Jenson, who’s the father of Sean Jenson, aka Officer Calvin Holston.
Sean who told me how to get here for this little reunion with my wife Avery Wilson, real name Bailey Nichols.
All of it lies. A happily ever after I should have known better than to ever think I could achieve.
Or deserve.
“I saw you die,” she says in a voice so low and cold, so full of hate, it feels like she thinks I’m the one who tried to kill her rather than the other way around.
“I’m sorry to disappoint you.”
“How are you still alive?”
“Does it matter? Your plan failed.”
“It wasn’t my plan.” Her gaze ticks left toward the kitchen. “It was his.”
Which I already know, Sean’s weakened voice scraping through my head in a slur. My dad said we couldn’t let you go. He said you’re … a liability.
I spent a few minutes considering my approach before I left the White property.
I could break into the cabin or cause some sort of distraction to draw Zane outside, but either option would put him on alert and lower my chance of taking him by surprise.
And then it came to me as I stared down at his son.
A third choice I hadn’t considered, and a simpler one.
After seeing me take three bullets to the back, Zane likely wouldn’t hesitate to open the door to someone dressed in the ghillie suit.
Sean and I were approximately the same height.
Zane would assume I was his son. It was an easy choice to make.
But this—sitting across from Bailey who is still Avery in my mind—is the single hardest moment of my life.
I recline in the chair, and it’s all I can do to mask the sudden flare of pain the motion unleashes. My entire back feels like a pane of shattered glass. “How did you find me?”
“I didn’t.”
“Who then?” I nod at Zane. “Him?”
“Yes. But you helped.” She glares at me and for a moment I don’t think she’s going to continue, but then she says, “Zane managed to work through your aliases. I don’t know how he did it, but he did, and he uncovered your real name.
He didn’t know where you were though, or who you’d become. You gave that to him yourself.”
“How?”
“Does it matter?” she says, spitting my line back at me.
“Yes. It does.”
She leans back in the chair, her eyes smoldering with hate. She’s trembling, but I know it’s not with fear. It’s with rage. “Your father.”
The statement is a fist to the gut. My father. I know immediately. “He had someone watching the prison, didn’t he?”
“Every day until you came.”
And then I led them right here.
I run a hand over my face in an attempt to keep it together. “Was any of it real?”
She smiles, and there’s something cruel in the shape, something sharp, like if I touched her lips they might cut. “What do you think?”
The words are concrete pouring over my heart. She’s shaking harder now, her entire body a clenched fist.
“You and I aren’t so different, you know,” I say.
Her nose wrinkles in disgust. She pulls back like I slapped her. “I’m nothing like you.”
“You’re exactly like me!” I say, leaning forward.
“I was your target, your mark. You studied me. You built a profile. You looked for a way in. You saw I was isolated and alone and in need of connection. And then you exploited those things to get what you wanted. It’s exactly what I would have done. ”
Her smile returns. “How does it feel?”
I wilt, the anger rushing out of me. I know what she wants me to say. That I’m gutted. Devastated. Ruined. Which I am. I’m absolutely cored right now. But she isn’t innocent in all of this, either. Not after what she’s done.
“My son’s name was Noah,” she says. “He loved superheroes and playing with toy trucks. When he turned three, I painted his ceiling in glow-in-the-dark stars. I hung planets. We’d lie on his bed, looking up at them, and he’d tell me that’s where he wanted to live someday—among the stars.
He wanted to be an astronaut. He wanted to be so many things.
And you stole them all.” Her eyes meet mine, and I want to tell her to stop, that I can’t handle this right now, not after everything I’ve been through the last two days.
But I can’t speak, can’t do anything other than listen.
“My husband’s name was Ethan,” she continues.
“He was an incredible father. You should have seen the way he poured himself into Noah. They went fishing on the weekends. He spent hours in the backyard teaching him how to hit a baseball. They were so happy together. I loved watching them. But what I miss most is the sound of their laughter.” Her voice thickens.
“Ethan was such a wonderful husband. He brought me flowers all the time. Lilies. They were my favorite. Anytime I needed to talk, he was there for me. Anytime I felt down, he’d find a way to cheer me up.
He was the most giving person I’ve ever known.
” She wipes her eyes. “I should have told him that more. I took him for granted.”
“Avery …” Her fake name sounds alien as it rolls off my tongue, but I can’t pull it back before she continues.
“Do you know what the last thing I said to him was?”
No. And I don’t want to know.
“I told him he was selfish.” A tear rolls down her cheek.
“Do you know how many times I’ve relived that moment?
How badly I want to take that back? All I want is to tell him I’m so sorry for not valuing him like I should have.
I want to tell him how much I love him just one more time.
But I can’t. I’ll never get to say that because of you. ”
Her words are arrows that punch into me so hot and deep I can barely breathe. “I never meant for any of that to happen to you.” The statement feels weak as it leaves my mouth—a spoonful of soup spit into a fire.
“No, you only meant to target certain women. But what you did to Evelyn destroyed my life!”
The memory hits with a rush: The intersection and the car beyond it.
The burning scorch of rubber as I fought for the brakes.
The impact, so brutal I felt it in the roots of my teeth.
The smoke and silence that followed. The blood in my mouth.
Gushing from my nose. The ringing in my ears.
Evelyn lying next to me in a broken tangle of limbs, looking like she’d been throttled at the hands of a giant.
“You framed a dead woman, Reed. A dead woman. You took everything from her. Exactly like you took everything from me! Everything! So, when you ask me if any of this”—she gestures at me wildly, then at herself—“was real, I want you to understand none of it was. Not a single fucking second.”
And then she leans forward and spits in my face.
I don’t bother to wipe it off, can’t wipe it off.
All I can do is sit here spinning in the wake of her anger as it drips from my chin and onto my lap, gasping for air beneath her waves.
Avery was supposed to be my chance at redemption.
My fresh start—a way to finally and forever leave my past behind.
But now I know I’ll never be able to do that because Avery never existed.
Only Bailey did. And that’s exactly what Bailey is: my past. One I was foolish to ever think I could escape.
I’m ruined. I can see that now. And so is she.
I know what I need to do. The only thing left for both of us.
I take the gun and stand.