Beau laughs, but it’s uncomfortable. “You’ll think I’m certifiable.”
“Beau,” I say, turning on my stool to face her, leaning in. “Danny took me from a casino floor as an indemnity policy. He slapped my face within minutes of meeting me. I was supposed to bleed him for information and feed it back to my handler, a lovely man named Nox, who bought me from the man who took my baby and sold him on the black market. That man happened to be Danny’s uncle.” Her eyes widen with every unbelievable word I say. “I fell in love with the monster. If you’re certifiable, I’m right there with you.”
“Fucking hell,” she breathes.
“I know.” I drink more wine, frowning to myself. It sounds crazy. Utter madness. And yet it’s all true, and that’s not even the full picture. “So tell me. Or we could just carry on worrying about where our monsters are.” I cock my head, and she laughs.
“Okay, are you ready?”
“No, wait.” I take the bottle of wine and fill both our glasses to the rim. “Now I’m ready.” I settle in, giving Beau my full attention.
“In a nutshell?” she asks, and I nod. She takes a deep breath. “Three years ago, I had a mom, a fiancé, and an amazing career as a cop. I aced my Phase One FBI exam, had a lovely apartment with my fiancé, Ollie, also a cop, and things were looking pretty fucking great. Except for my dad. He’s a dick.”
I recoil, and Beau shakes her head.
“He left my mom for a younger model. Amber. She’s pretty unbearable. Anyway, my mom was an FBI agent. A great one. She took down many wanted criminals, but suddenly they started turning up dead.”
“As in murdered dead?”
“Yeah.”
A little piece clicks into place. “The Enigma,” I gasp, quickly slapping my hand over my mouth. “James,” I hiss.
“Yes. He was killing the most wanted men before my mom could get them behind bars, and it was driving her insane.”
“Jesus,” I whisper, sipping more wine, listening, both rapt and shocked. “And?”
“There’s a top man. They call him The Bear.”
“He’s responsible for James’s family’s death too?” I ask, remembering Danny mentioning that. But . . . “The Bear?”
She nods, joining me when I slurp more alcohol. I’m not sure one bottle will be enough. “No one knows who he is. But James thinks Mom knew.”
“Why would James think that?”
“Because she figured out who he was.”
“Fucking hell.” It’s like something out of a crime thriller. “I’m sorry I keep swearing.” I wave a hand for Beau to go on, blown away already, and I have a feeling I’ve heard nothing yet. It’s sickly satisfying. “I didn’t think two people could be more fucked up than Danny and I am.”
Beau laughs, but soon stops, and she looks horrified with herself. Whatever is coming next, it’s hitting her hard. My eyes fall to her scarred arm, which is covered with a sleeve. Always is.
“My uncle’s husband, another cop, Dexter, somehow got involved with The Bear. He ordered Dexter to get rid of Mom because she figured out Dexter was corrupt. I think she also knew The Bear’s true identity. I . . .” She stalls and clears her throat. “I went into a store to get some wine. We were painting her new apartment. It relaxed her.” Swallowing, she lifts her sleeve, and I get my first full hit of Beau’s scarred arm. “Mom was in the car. I wasn’t.”
“Oh Beau,” I breathe, inching my stool closer.
She glances up, her eyes watery, and she smiles the saddest smile I’ve ever seen on a woman. “The police closed the case. Said it was a freak accident.”
“What, a bomb?”
“They said Mom was smoking in her vehicle. She wasn’t. They said there was a fuel leak. There couldn’t have been because her vehicle was at the dealership a few weeks before. I kept fighting for justice, but I met a brick wall constantly. I know now Dexter manipulated all the evidence and destroyed the footage that proved it wasn’t an accident. I quit my job, left my fiancé at the altar, and went deep, deep into depression. I painted. It relaxed me and brought me closer to Mom. Then one day I got a call from someone. Wrong number, he said.”
“James.”
“James,” Beau counters. “He was just James then. A total fucking mystery, almost cold but, God, he stirred something inside, and it felt so much better than the constant hatred and bitterness. We got close. He said things that fucked with my head, but it all started slowly falling into place. Who he was. What he’d done. It was like he wanted me to know. He knew I was digging, and he knew it would have gotten me killed.”
“A knight in shining armor.”
“A desperate man.” She smiles, and it’s knowing. “He knew Mom knew who he was. He knew that if the police opened an internal investigation, his identity was at risk of being revealed.”
“How?”
“He saved me,” she whispers, turning her glass by the stem. “He tried to warn Mom that she was in danger, but he didn’t get to her in time. He managed to pull me away.” She lifts her arm, biting the corner of her lip, and my heart breaks for her. “Have you seen his back?” she asks, looking at me.
“His back?” I ask, confused.
She just smiles. “He was as broken as I was. And then we were fixed for a time,” she murmurs, looking across the kitchen blankly. My eyes instinctively fall to Beau’s stomach. “And now I feel like we’re more broken than we ever were.”
God help me, I must not cry on her. What do I say? What do I do? I have no idea, so I take the bottle and top up our glasses again. “Drink,” I order, pushing her glass to her lips as I sip some of mine.
“More of a dinosaur shell than a nutshell, huh?”
I’m trying so hard not to look stunned. I know I’m failing. I feel like both of us are completely shrouded in devastation. Darkness. I can’t allow us to just sit here dwelling on every tiny thing there is to dwell on, and there is a lot. “Right.” I place my glass down, feeling all assertive. “Let’s do something.”
“Like?”
“I don’t know. Tennis?”
Beau looks at her stomach, and I wince at my stupid suggestion. “I’m sorry,” I breathe, exasperated with myself.
“Please stop apologizing, Rose. I blame no one except one man, and James and Danny are about to kill him.”
“If they find out who he is.”
“They will,” she says, and it’s with one hundred percent certainty. “I definitely wouldn’t want to be him right now.”
I laugh, nervous. I can’t even think about it. And there’s the problem. Hanging around here, scratching around for things to do, it gives us too much time to think. “Okay,” I say, casting my wine aside. Walking into Danny’s office armed with alcohol isn’t going to do my cause any favors. “I’ll be back. Don’t move.” I leave her, repeating a silent, encouraging mantra as I go, and enter his office unannounced. I immediately regret it. I should have knocked. Shown some willingness to be considerate. I cringe. “Sorry,” I murmur, stepping back out and closing the door. I then knock and wait.