“This will cover her education,” Mick told the old man what he surely already knew. “It’ll let her own her own home. Give her the chance to start her own business, have a job, a career where she’s her own boss. It’ll let her travel if she wants. And yes, I know very clearly what it won’t do. It won’t make up for losing her mom—I know that. It won’t make up for her mother not being at her graduation, at her wedding, and when she someday has kids of her own... But even if all it does is make her life a tiny bit easier... That’s worth something, isn’t it? Please, Mr. Santana, take it. You don’t have to tell her it’s from me—and I promise I won’t tell her either. I already promised I’d stay away from her, so, you know, how would I? Tell her? Right? She’ll think this money came from her mom, which... it did. You know?”
Frank had said nothing so far, but he looked down at that check still pressed against the screen, and Mick held his breath, hoping...
Frank looked back up, into Mick’s eyes and then he unlocked the flimsy little door and opened it just a crack.
Mick tried not to burst into tears as he passed over the check. “Thank you—” he started, but Frank cut him off.
“Leave,” the old man said. “Now. And don’tevercome back.”
He had. And he hadn’t. Until... He had.
Just to check in on Emily. Just to make sure she was okay.
Yeah. Right.
Emily was still in the ladies’ room, and the rest of the wine in her glass was right there.
But the waiter swung past with the receipt for their dinner, slipping it onto the table in a little tray along with his credit card. So Mick focused on that, adding a hefty tip and signing the copy he was supposed to sign. He left it and the pen in the tray as he put his card back into his wallet.
He checked his phone—he’d had it on silent during dinner. Good thing because there was a missed call and a voicemail message from some southern California phone number—that was the last thing he needed right now. A pitch to go solar or to change his cell phone provider. He was on the verge of simply deleting it, without even listening, when...
“Hey, can we go for a walk?”
Mick looked up to find Emily, back from the ladies’ room, standing beside him. She didn’t even bother to sit back down.
“Yeah,” he said, quickly pocketing his phone as he stood up and somehow managed to smile. Marina Santana hadn’t known that it was the last time she’d left her father’s house through his front door. But he was pretty certain he’d just had his very last dinner with Emily.
Because he couldn’t do it.
He couldn’t lie to her forever.
“Yeah. Let’s walk,” he said.
Emily started the conversation. She just dove right in, headfirst. “Can we just forget what I said back in the hotel room? I was sitting there during dinner, thinking it’s just too soon and?—”
“But it’s not,” Mick said, pulling her out of the sidewalk’s steady stream of pedestrian traffic, into a courtyard with a little fountain in front of some kind of historical site, giving them a tiny piece of privacy. “I would love to marry you.”
“But...?” She said it for him, because it was right there, so clearly in his eyes.
He took a deep breath. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” he said. “A lot I haven’t told you.” He was silentthen, just looking over at the water, quietly burbling in the fountain.
“About your family,” Emily prompted, because this was clearly so hard for him to talk about. “I kind of already know that they suck, just from the way that you avoid talking about them.”
“Suckis an understatement,” Mick admitted. “Not my mother. She was... well, she was... weak. She cared more about having money than, well, me. No, you know, maybe it was a tie. She loved me, but not enough to leave my father—or really my father’s house. But in the end it didn’t matter because she died when I was still pretty young—cancer—and I would’ve had to go and live with him after that, so... It was what it was.”
“I’m so sorry,” she murmured.
He shook his head. “No, you shouldn’t be. I had her longer than you had yours and... Em, I changed my name when I was twenty-one. I went to court, went through the whole legal process, because my father was really horrible. He killed someone. And he framed me for it. I was just this angry, dumb kid whose mother had just died, and I was heavily into alcohol and drugs because they made everything hurt less, and I stupidly believed him—that I blacked out and killed her. I actually pleaded guilty, I thought I did it, and it wasn’t until I got out of prison?—”
Her eyes must’ve widened atprisonbecause he said, “Yeah, Em, I went to prison, but when I got out, I found all this evidence—so much absolutely irrefutable evidence—thathewas the one who killed her. He was driving the car, not me. I wasn’t even in town that night. I have proof that it wasn’t me. It was him. He hit her and drove away...”
Emily heard the words he was saying, but she’d stopped comprehending at his second use ofher. Killed her. Killedher. Her ears started roaring and she heard herself ask him, in a voice that sounded tiny and breathy and barely there. “What was your name? Before you changed it?”
He didn’t tell her. Not exactly. He just stood there, looking down at her. Tears brimming in his beautiful eyes as he nodded.Yes.
“Oh, my God,” she breathed, just frozen in place. Her life was flashing before her eyes—at least her recent life, with Mick, no wait, that wasn’t his name. It was all a lie. The laughter, the shared pleasure from the books, movies, music, food she’d enjoyed even more because they’d enjoyed it together, the pleasure of his company on a quiet night when she had work to do and he was content to sit and read, the joy she’d felt just this morning as they’d gone for a run, as she’d tried something new, the laughter as they’d explored the art museum, the way he'd smiled at her at the pool, and kissed her in the elevator. Thesex...
Oh, God, she’d had sex—lots and lots andlotsof sex—with the man who’d killed her mother.
