Page 117 of Wicked Intentions (Wicked Games 3)
In the port at Vis, I’m released by the FBI and told I’m free to go on my way, that they’ll contact me if necessary. I think they were just sick of dealing with me by then. I heard more than a few mutterings of “lunatic,” “head case,” and, “meltdown.” I meet up with the rest of the team from Metrix, who, as a unit, take one look at me and call Connor for support.
I can’t talk to him, though. All my words have dried up. I stand in a parking lot in the waning hours of the day, holding a phone to my ear, listening to my best friend speak, anguish roiling inside my belly like a nest of snakes.
For a moment, when he tells me there are satellite pictures of a tender leaving the yacht just before the explosion, hope floods back in a sweet, heady rush that leaves me trembling. But then he says video footage from security cameras at the port captured good quality images of everyone who got off that vessel, and Mariana wasn’t among them.
Neither was Moreno.
The implications of that…of what she might have gone through, of why he’d send the entire crew away to be alone with her…
I go numb then. Blank. Everything is put on pause, except the nasty little voice inside my head telling me if I’d only landed on the right yacht, everything would be different.
If I hadn’t failed, Mariana would still be alive.
Afternoon fades into evening, and still I stand on the docks, gazing west, watching smoke rise in the distance, hoping for someone to come and tell me there’s been a miracle, that it was all a mistake. That she wasn’t on that yacht, that she was found safe and sound with Larry Ellison and his family, or floating unharmed on a piece of flotsam, or had escaped Moreno and was waiting for me on the other end of the docks the entire time.
That moment never comes.
With every hour that passes, I die a thousand little deaths until there’s nothing of me left but my shadow.
* * *
Like a ghost, I haunt the port of Vis for weeks, mute and grieving, soaking up every nugget of information that comes in from the various authorities about the explosion—what’s been found, how the cleanup process is going, what they’re trying to do to contain the huge diesel spill from the engines. I stay there long after the news crews have left, long after the rest of the guys from Metrix have returned Stateside, long after logic tells me there’s no more reason to stay, until finally, the reality can no longer be denied.
Mariana’s gone.
Again.
Only this time, she’s gone for good.
Thirty-Six
Ryan
Two months later
“Tell me you’re eating, at least. Last time I saw you on Skype, you looked like a chemo patient.”
“Christ, Connor, you sound like my grandma. And that’s not a compliment, by the way. The woman was a giant pain in the ass.”
His answer over the line comes across gruff. “Brother, tell me you’re eating so I don’t have to ask my wife to hack into the traffic cams in Paris to get me photographic fucking evidence!”
My lips lift to the closest thing approximating a smile I’m now capable of. I practiced it in the mirror of my hotel bathroom just this morning, aware that people have started to cross the street in apprehension when they see me walking toward them.
I’m sure it’s the crazy look in my eyes, but it could be the wild hair and scraggly beard, too. I?
?m starting to look like Armin’s twin. All I need is a rug glued to my back, and I’ll be set.
“I’m eating. As we speak, which should make you happy.”
“I don’t believe you.”
I sigh, shaking my head. He’s worse than my grandmother.
“Here, listen.” I lean over the table and shove another big hunk of country bread smeared with duck confit into my mouth, chewing into the cell phone as loudly as humanly possible.
Cows are quieter eaters. Champion pie eaters are quieter. I sound like a blue-ribbon hog at the trough.
Several people at nearby tables turn to send me outraged stares, like I’ve offended their ancestors with my abominable chewing, but after four weeks in France, I’m used to that. I ignore them.
