“I have to. It’s part of the plan. The plan to make everything right.”
I inch inside the room and shut the door behind me. I need to do this just right. To say what I need to say just right.
“So you just blindly follow whatever he tells you to do, and you believe everything he tells you no matter what? I’ll be right in the middle of a confrontation between him and Vega and Mateo and you really think I’m walking out of there alive? Excuse me if I think that’s the stupidest shit ever.”
“The only reason I’m going along with this plan is because he promised me that this is the only way to keep you alive.” He drops his hand and looks toward his bag. “You have no idea how much I hate that I had any part of drawing you back into this with the journal and flowers.”
“Why did you do that? You knew I would think it was Thomas the way you signed it. You knew there was a good chance the suits would find out about it. What were you thinking?”
“When Thomas came home with the journal, he threw it on the table and said, ‘I guess you did make an impression on her after all. She feels bad for leaving you behind in Florida.’ I know it was wrong but I wanted to read what you wrote.” He finally looks up at me and says, “I missed you.”
“So you and Thomas both read it,” I say it more as a statement than a question.
“Yes. I read it. And then I felt terrible. I’d been checking in on you after you left Florida.” He holds his hands up when he realizes how bad that sounds. “Not in a creepy way. Everything looked fine on the outside. I had no idea how it was for you, or how bad things really were. That’s when I decided you needed it back. I could tell how important it was to you.”
I don’t say anything so he keeps talking, swaying back and forth. “The note was a mistake, I know that now. But at the time, I just wanted to tell you in some way that I hoped things were better for you. That I hoped the nightmares were gone. I know I couldn’t sign it with my name and even if it was left unsigned, you’d assume it was from him. In some way, leaving it with just aTmeant it was possible you might think of me. I know that sounds stupid.”
“But why the flowers?” I ask.
He gives me a crooked little smile and says, “Because they’re your favorite.”
I can’t look at him without my stomach turning. Something is so very wrong with him that he can’t see this for what it really is. But I truly believe he is the only reason I am still alive.
“If you leave, there won’t be anyone here to make sure I survive what’s happening this afternoon. He plans on killing me. And my family.”
This gets his attention.
“No. He promised me you would be safe and he promised he would let you go when it’s over.”
“I think there’s a lot about this plan that you don’t know. I was on the balcony early this morning when you brought Thomas the phone. There was a man, hiding in the shadows. Then Thomas sent you away.”
The pair of jeans he’s holding fall back to the pile of clothes he just picked them up from.
“He sent you away so you wouldn’t see who he was meeting with. It was the assassin, Mateo. The one ‘after us.’ The same man who shot Ethan in the arm. The one Thomas is supposedly trying to kill. He was here and they weren’t acting like enemies. Not at all.”
He’s shaking his head, looking confused. “No. That’s not possible. All this that we’ve done is to stop him from killing us. And you. He wouldn’t lie to me.” He storms toward me, grabbing me by my upper arms, lifting me off the ground. “You’re just saying this to turn me against him. But you can’t. We’re all we have. We only have each other.”
“Is that what he told you? Is that how he talked you into going along with such horrible things?”
He drops me to the ground and I fall on my butt. He returns to his packing just like before.
“Tyler, listen to me. I heard him talking to the other man. Did you know he put a tracker on us?” I pull the small round device out of my pocket and hold it out in my hand for him to see.
He glances over but is still quiet.
“He told Mateo that you were pathetic for keeping the same number just in case I called. He said you were stupid for freaking out like a five-year-old girl when the crowd formed at the convent. He said he was getting you out of town before any of this starts just in case I get caught in a little cross fire. Maybe if I got killed, it would toughen you up.”
His eyes pop to mine and I know I nailed it. He’s heard this before.
“And I’m not the only innocent person who will get hurt by all this. He said they would go after Teeny and Ethan when this was over. Clean up the loose ends. Did you know that? And Hammond isn’t the mole. Thomas is setting him up. Do you know who the real mole is?” I ease down on the bed next to him. “Tyler, you’re better than this. Help me. Be on my side.”
He drops his head in his hands and starts crying. It’s so incredibly awkward, I’m not sure what to do, so I put an arm around his shoulder and give him a there, there, kind of pat on the back.
He sits up abruptly, wiping his eyes quickly. “We need to get back to Ursuline. There’s something there I want to see.”
He grabs a dark hoodie and baseball cap out of his bag and throws it at me. “Put this on.”
There’s no car or ducking in the backseat this time. No, this time we’re on foot as we slip out a side door that puts us in a narrow alley that dumps out on a narrow street.
