She leaned against the wall. “I was a rookie cadet. He wasn’t my direct supervising officer, but we were in the same office building. I thought he was handsome, charismatic.”
I nodded along, recognizing the beats of this story.
“There was another couple dating—in secret, technically, but also somewhat openly. It was causing a flurry of drama, people were worried about bad press again. I think he saw me as his next opportunity. He fired me and he fired the couple too, all three of us on the same day. All three of us were technically in violation of personnel policies…but in my instance, so was he.”
“Margaret,” I said, “he had me delete any evidence of our relationship, emails, text messages.”
“I did the same.” She tilted her head. “But I think we still have a chance. I know how hard it is to tell the story, over and over. How it takes a little piece of you every time.”
I swallowed hard at that.
“But I want to at least try and fight him, even if it’s painful. I need to at least try.”
I finally returned her tentative smile. Remembered Henry’s words from this morning: he only takes what I allow him to take. Hadn’t I just proven that my instincts were intact? That I could reach out, trust, be vulnerable? Mark hadn’t taken those things at all—he’d merely put them into hiding.
But I was a great detective. I’d recovered them. I’d raced through a dark hallway and taken out guards and protected my partner; had given myself up to hot limo-sex and beautiful intimacy and chocolate-chip pancakes with a man who made me happier than I’d ever thought possible. My instincts, my trust, my very being was still there, right where I’d left it.
“Will I be named in the paper, you think?”
“Not necessarily,” she said. “But if you decide to use your name, then yes.”
“Good,” I said. “I want him to know it was me.” I lifted my chin and Margaret squeezed my hand. “I’ll do it.”
“Thank you,” she whispered. “You have no idea what this means to me.”
“And to me,” I said, squeezing back.
49
Delilah
Freya found me in the hallway a few minutes after Margaret left.
“What happened?” she asked, noticing the look of shock on my face. But when I relayed what had happened—the strange, fateful meeting of two women who experienced the same crime—she merely took my hand and squeezed it, just like Margaret had.
She leaned against the wall and rested her shoulder against mine. Abe and Henry were perfectly framed for us in the distance—Henry talking animatedly over the glass case, Abe listening with mild bemusement.
“Are you upset?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “No, I feel absolutely wonderful.”
My heart was thudding against my chest the longer I watched Henry. I thought about all those tiny decisions that had led a five-hundred-year-old manuscript from its first printing, all the way back here.
Maybe there was another decision too—the real reason why I was standing here, watching Henry like a lovesick teenager.
“I have to tell you something,” I started, “and I’m not quite sure what the solution is yet.”
“You’re falling for Henry.”
I turned to her—she was looking at me with clever eyes. “Anyone ever tell you you’re too smart?”
“All the time.”
“You think Abe knows?”
“I doubt it,” she said. “He’s pretty dense when it comes to human relationships. And it’s not like the two of you are overly obvious. But I did always think it was interesting that Victoria Whitney thought you were newlyweds that night at the art gallery.”
I had forgotten all about that. What had she seen then that I was now discovering?
“I don’t think…I don’t think we can work together,” I said. “Abe would never allow it.”
Freya chewed on her bottom lip. “I think you’re right.”
I’d already come to this conclusion but hearing her confirm it still sent a bolt of disappointment through me.
“I’d do a lot of things for you, Delilah,” she said, “but I can’t keep this secret for you. And I can’t protect you from Abe.”
“I know. And I don’t want to pursue this in secret. That makes it wrong, dirty, like what Mark did to me. I’d like to…” I trailed off, watched Henry staring at a handful of buttons beneath glass—some piece of clothing from the past. He saw their value, he understood the stories carried in on the dirt, the lives touched by each tiny bit of metal. “I’d like to fall in love with Henry out in the open.”
Freya let out a long sigh at that. She looked…sad.
“I know,” I said. “Things are going to change.”
“I’m going to miss my partner,” she said softly.
“I won’t go far, promise,” I said. “Still friends.”
She beamed at that, tucking a strand of hair back into her bun. “I dig it. I guess I still need someone to eat donuts with every morning.”
“I’m your girl,” I winked.
But her eyes grew wider. “What are you going to do about it, though?”
“I have an idea,” I admitted. A dozen lightbulbs were flaring to life in my brain the longer I admired my formerly fake husband. “But I need to be sure. By tomorrow, something will have happened. Can you keep a secret just for tonight?”
“Yes, I can,” she said.
I watched her shove up her glasses with one finger. “Have you ever felt this strongly about another person before? Like it’s all you can ever think about?”
“Strongly like you and Henry?”
I nodded.
Her smile was half-formed. “Once, back at Quantico, before I left.”
Freya didn’t speak much about that time in her life. I only knew the basics: she’d been a rising star at the FBI training academy, poised for greatness, until she’d left. Abe had apparently first met Freya while teaching at Quantico and had been so impressed with her natural skill set, he’d thought of her immediately when he founded Codex.
“Was this person…a boyfriend? Girlfriend?”
“Ugh, worse,” she said. “He was my enemy.”
Her nostrils flared, jaw clenched hard. Freya wasn’t really the type of person who seemed to ever get angry—she was light-hearted, nerdy, funny. But as soon as she started speaking, her spine had gone rigid.
“Pushed your buttons that badly, huh?” I asked.
“In all kinds of ways.” She shook her head. “So it was different, because I hated him. But there’s a thin line between love and hate. I’ve been on the hate side, so I sort of get it. It changes you.”
Henry’s eyes caught mine easily in the crowd. I felt him calling to me, longing for me. Even in this crowded, public space, I could feel his craving.
I loved this job to the core of my being—but hadn’t I loved eating chocolate-chip pancakes with Henry in his sunny kitchen just this morning? Or maybe it was okay that I loved both of these things equally. If I didn’t, it wouldn’t be a sacrifice.