Page 74 of The Blonde Who Came in from the Cold
She closed her eyes so tightly, it was like she was trying to weld the lids together, like she didn’t want to see anymore, and if she couldn’t see, then maybe she wouldn’t have to hear either. Like it was all too much—too quickly—or maybe like it wasn’t nearly enough.
“Why? Just... why?” Her voice broke.
He would have given anything not to tell her, “Because it made you smile.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Six Years Ago
London
King
The strange thing, in hindsight, wasn’t that King had never been to Merritt’s London flat before—it was that he was able to find it at all. Either he was getting better or she was getting worse, and King didn’t know whether or not that was better than the other option: that she’d outlived all her demons and there was no one left alive to chase her anymore.
When King spotted the camera in the lobby, he gave a little nod, so it was already too late to turn back by the time he climbed the stairs and stood, fist poised to knock, outside her dark blue door.
The conversation was going to be more embarrassing than scary, but somehow that was worse. He’d been having it off and on with an imaginary Merritt for six months, trying to change his own mind. But some words are like cancer—you have to cut them out to keep them from spreading.
So that was why he was still standing there, fist in the air, when Merritt threw open the door two minutes later.
She wasn’t dressed for company. There was no red lipstick, no red nails. She looked lovely and beautiful and sagely wise—still like the woman he knew, but somehow softer. Older. And not for the first time, Michael Kingsley wished he could invent something that would turn back time.
“Yay. You found me.” She wasn’t being sarcastic. She was almost... proud. Like she’d trained him well and he’d passed the test and now maybe she could walk away and know her legacy was intact.
“Tea?” She was already sweeping into the kitchen and taking an electric kettle off its base. Steam rose and turned the windows opaque. They looked like how his whole world felt—a life you could see right through and still have no idea what might be waiting on the other side.
“Well... are you going to make me guess?” She wasn’t talking about the tea. She knew it. He knew it. So King slid onto a stool and rested his elbows on the kitchen counter.
When he was a scared ten-year-old kid who’d eaten nothing but peanut butter and dry cereal for two weeks because his mother had been on her way to the store when it happened, Merritt was the only grown-up who’d noticed. She’d shown up one day and done the laundry and thrown away the funeral flowers and made his father get out of bed. She’d hired a housekeeper and found him a therapist and told him stories, late into the night, about what his grandfather had said when he saw his grandmother for the first time.
She’d talked about the Cold War and hot summers and a million little things no ten-year-old should ever have clearance to hear. She’d brought the past to life, and that had helped him forget his mother was dead, and so he owed Margaret Merritt. He’d owe her for the rest of his life, and yet...
“Why are you here, Michael?” It wasn’t a question. It was an order.
“I’m going to do you a favor. And then you’re going to do one for me.”
She put her tea down. There was no teasing note or playful twinkle in her eyes when she said, “Okay.”
King had been practicing what to say for days, but the words never did land right, and he’d learned a long time ago that if you can’t do something well, you should, at least, try to do it quickly.
“I’m not going to ask any questions about Amalfi and why we were doing an off-the-books-op with no— Don’t deny it, Merritt.” He watched her open her mouth to speak—the lies were alreadygathering behind her eyes because, like any great spy, she believed them. She needed lies like she needed the caffeine in that cup or maybe the air in her lungs. “I know you,” King told her. “And I know whatever that was in Amalfi wasn’t for anyonebutyou. But I trust you. Hell, Iloveyou. So I’m going to take Amalfi with me to my grave, but...”
“In exchange,” she prompted when the silence lasted a little too long.
“In exchange, I’m going to ask that”—this was the hard part—“younever do that again.”
“Okay.” She took a sip of tea and hid her smirk. “As you wish. No more off-the-books—”
“No.” He was shaking his head and wishing he’d stayed in bed—in Europe. In the womb. “No, you will never make me work with her again.”
In Merritt’s defense, she didn’t askwork with whom, but in his defense, she didn’t really have to. He’d only had one partner in Amalfi and besides...
Besides...
His father was still alive, but in so many ways, Merritt was the only family King had left, and he couldn’t look at her. He wished he could make her stop looking at him. Keep her from saying—
“You work well together, you know?” Hedidknow. “Your talents are very complementary.”
