“Is your real name…is itEvelyn?”
Even though her pupils were almost indistinguishable from her irises, I saw them pulse, or maybe I sensed them pulse. For seconds that stretched into full minutes, she stared at me. Then her gaze moved off mine, settling on a spot beyond my shoulder. Her long lashes swooped down and skimmed her pallidcheeks.
I hadn’t wanted to believe Jeb; I still didn’t want to believe him. But her evasion… “Who’sGloria?”
The silence turned barbed. Slowly, she raised her lashes. Tears burned in her eyes as brightly as the stars blazing in the night sky behind her. The plate slid off my knees. It didn’t crack, but crumbs peppered the rug, and the remaining slices of turkey dropped like crumpledtissues.
She sat on the foot of the bed and linked her hands in her lap, her black hair falling around her loweredface.
“You’re Gloria, aren’t you?” I murmured at the same time as she said, “I amsorry.”
Heartache bloomed inside my chest. I hadn’t wanted my uncle to beright.
I blinked away the sudden blurriness. “Was it a coincidence wemet?”
She shook herhead.
I gripped thearmrests.
Her lips trembled behind the fence of bottle-black strands draped around her face. “It does not change the way I feel about you,Ness.”
I studied the perfect arc of light cast by my nightstand lamp on my white wall. “Just tell meeverything.”
Evelyn—no, not Evelyn—Gloriasat up straighter. “My nameused to beGloria. I changed it to Evelyn so my husband wouldn’t findme.”
I frowned.Husband?
“I was born in Mexico, but I moved to the U.S. as a child. To pay for college, I took up housekeeping jobs. That is how I met…him. I married him for papers, and he married me because his grandmother refused to give him access to his trust fund as long as he was abachelor.”
My gaze leaped off the wall and back ontoher.
“The romantic in me believed that maybe we would fall in love. He was handsome and well-educated, but he had a lot of secrets. Dark secrets. He would spend most of his days locked in his office, and when he left the house, he would lock the door. I became so terrified of him that I confronted him.” Her mouth set in a grim line. “He told me that if I ever questioned him again…if I ever went into his office, he would have me deported, so I stopped prying and kept my distance. Well, as much distance as you can put between two people sharing ahouse.
“One day he forgot to lock his office door. I feared it was a trap and almost did not go inside, but I was desperate to know what sort of man I was living with. What if he was a serial killer? Or aterrorist?
“Itwasa trap. He caught me before I could find anything, and then he blackmailed me. He said that if I wanted to stay in America, I had to do something for him.” She turned to look out the window. “He made me seduce a man. That man was FrankMcNamara.”
Shock pinned me in my seat. “Frank?” The memory of their encounter before the music festival flashed inside my mind. And then the kiss he’d placed on her cheekearlier…
“You’re from here?” Icroaked.
Without turning away from the window, she nodded. “I was so scared, Ness, that I did as my husband told me. Frank was a married man. Seducing him went against all of my beliefs.” She held a knuckle underneath her nose and drew in juddering breaths. “Frank fell for my act. But soon it was no longer an act.” She closed her eyes, and a tear slid down her pale cheek. “We fell in love, and I told Frank the truth. And it wasterrible.”
She bit her lip that had started totremble.
“After I told Frank the location of all the listening devices I had planted, he made me leave. I went back to the house I hated, to the man I detested. I only had months left to get my papers, but I could not stay so I packed my bags. My husband came home then. He already knew I had removed the surveillance equipment. I told him I was done. He said he would call the police, and I told him I no longer cared. I made the mistake of turning my back onhim.”
She stretched her bad leg in front ofher.
“He shot me. The bullet was meant for my heart, but a wolf attacked him, and he missed. And then Frank was beside me. I do not remember much, but I do remember something…something that did not make sense until a couple days ago. I remember seeing the wolf turn into a man. For years—decades—I thought it was a delusion brought on by loss ofblood.”
Her voice broke on a sob and then on another. For a long moment, shewept.
“I had deceived Frank, spied on him, and yet he savedme.”
Every fiber of my being urged me to go over to her, but my muscles had gelled withshock.
“He took me to a man who fixed my leg as best he could, and then he drove me out of Colorado and into Arizona. He had a great aunt who lived in Tucson. He asked her to take me in, and she agreed. She was such a kindlady.”
