She pretended not to hear him, examining the cars as they passed. He wasn’t going to be put off.
“Zee, there’s a great chance they know exactly where we’re headed. We can change the plan.” He pointed to the parking lot exit. “Put this town behind us. Get some distance. Lay it all out for the cops when we’re clear.”
She was so close she could taste it. A name ... one tiny little name. “I have to.”
“No, you don’t.”
“You don’t get it, Gid.”
“I do. I lost Aaron too. So did your parents. What about them?”
“They’ll understand.”
He fisted his hands on his hips. “They lost both their children when Aaron died.”
Mackenzie jerked. “What?”
“When he died, you might as well have too.”
She recoiled from the lack of emotion, the flat hopelessness in his tone. Anger flashed like a lit match. “Does that make you feel better? Judging me for how I’ve handled myself since my brother’s murder?”
“No, but it’s true. You stopped living your own life after the murder, and you rechanneled everything into revenge. It twisted and changed you. You don’t allow yourself to receive love or give it. You’re just living to destroy Bullseye, and that’s not really living, is it?”
“No one else can do it, Gideon. If they could, I wouldn’t be here.”
“Wouldn’t you? Kind of your identity now, isn’t it? Crusader? The only one who can get justice. Never mind the law enforcement departments who are designed for this. Only you, right?”
“I’m the best shot. And I’m almost to the finish line.”
“What if you fail? Or you don’t even get the chance to confront him? Are you going to spend the rest of whatever life you’ve been given hating yourself because you couldn’t do it?”
She hadn’t allowed herself to consider the stretch of road beyond her destination. “I don’t know.”
“What if it costs you everything to succeed? Your life. That’s worth the price? For you ... and your parents?”
Tears burned. At that moment, she despised Gideon, could hardly keep herself from lashing out at him withballed fists. “You don’t get to talk about my family, my choices, anything.”
“I don’t recognize you anymore, Zee.” He paused and added softly, “Do you?”
The comment took the breath from her.
“The Mackenzie I knew was a giggler, a crier, a dancer. When was the last time you did any of those things?”
“You’ve made your thoughts clear, Gideon. Just drop me at the edge of town, okay?”
Her reflection in the window glass as she stared at the Jeep was unrecognizable. She didn’t know the hard-eyed, gaunt face that looked back at her. She did not know herself. She only knew the ache of an empty space inside that threatened to gobble everything, her personality, her heart, her soul.
Was that the price for punishing her brother’s killer? To lose herself too?
And was she willing to pay it?
After an endless pause, he shook his head. “I’m going to call my brother. He—”
She grabbed his arm as a truck appeared on the road. Not Jerry and Al, she didn’t think, but not loaded down like the evacuees either.
Trouble or not, she couldn’t tell, but they hustled into the Jeep, and pulled out onto the road before weaving themselves into the line of traffic.
Two lanes allowed them to pass a station wagon and a four-door sedan. Mackenzie strained to get a look at the driver behind them in the truck.
