“What happens if I don’t come?”
“Well, if the grand jury does in fact indict you tomorrow morning, then a warrant will be issued for your arrest. Field agents from Indianapolis will probably head down and pick you up in Cardinal Springs. Handcuffs and all.”
The kitchen suddenly feels very hot, and it’s like the walls are pressing in on me. It was bad enough when investigators showed up here in front of my friends and family last fall, looking to question me. The way people talked, I felt like a fucking criminal back then. But actually being stuffed into the back of a car, my hands cuffed behind me, some federal agent’s hand on the top of my head as I duck inside?
Carson would see that.
And fuckme—everyone would talk abouther.
I can’t do that to her.
“I can make the flight,” I say, determination in my voice but a pit in my stomach.
“Sounds good. Take a cab to our place when you get here. Jameson is going to make dinner,” Marcel says.
“Last supper?” I ask.
Marcel laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “Let’s try to stay positive.”
“Right. Positive,” I mutter. “Because that’s worked so well for me in the past.”
“When have you ever been positive?” Marcel cracks weakly.
For the last three fucking weeks.
I end the call and lean back on the counter, my head in my hands. I feel like I’m going to be sick. In the two years I’ve been living under this threat, I’ve thought a lot about what it might feel like for all my testimony and evidence to mean nothing up against the force of a multimillionaire’s lawyers. What it would mean to actually face a prison sentence.
None of those images live up to the terror I’m feeling right now about all the bad things that are about to happen. To me. To my family.
To Carson.
The front door crashes open, and Carson’s feet pound the floor as she sprints back into the kitchen. Her eyes are wild, her pigtails flying out behind her. “Forgot my water bottle!” she cries, snatching it off the counter. She’s already halfway out of the kitchen again when I grab her wrist and yank her back in, covering her lips with mine. I kiss her and wonder if this is the last time. Because if it turns out that I am going to be tried, I’m not going to make her stick around and wait for me. I won’t put her through that. Not when she’s finally getting her own life together. Not when she’s made so much progress.
And so I kiss her like I might never get another chance. Like I’ll need to remember this one for the rest of my life.
It won’t be hard.
She sinks into me, her hands pressed against my chest as she whimpers into my mouth. Her tongue tangles with mine, and I devour every sound, every sigh. I sketch them all onto my brain, permanent little tattoos disguised as memories.
She pulls back too soon, but then again, there will never be enough time with her.
“What was that for?” she asks with a grin.
“Just a little extra good luck for today,” I tell her, because I’m not going to unload on her, not when she’s about to do this thing she’s worked so hard for. I won’t fuck that up for her.
Her smile is wide as a sunrise over a cornfield. “Thank you,” she says, then steps out of my arms. I feel her absence like it has weight. “I gotta run. See you tonight?”
And then I do the worst thing I can possibly imagine.
I lie to her.
CHAPTER 36
DAN
The flight to New York is uneventful, unless you count the baby who cries from takeoff to landing. I think they call that foreshadowing.
I’m too miserable to care.
