“What it lacks in originality it makes up for in accuracy.” Then, “Do you have any pictures of him?”
I scroll through my phone. You’re camera-shy, which I kind of liked about you. Of course, I understand it better now. There are two photos, compared to the hundreds of Jax and me, in all manner of misadventure—nightclubs, a weekend getaway to Miami, in the studio. Of you and I, Adam, there is a selfie of both of us you let me take on the Brooklyn Bridge. We’re cheek to cheek, smiling like idiots in love which, speaking strictly for me, we were. Another, I took of you outside my house. You stand on my stoop, tall and dark in a long black coat. I edited it to an artfully grainy black-and-white, your skin ghostly pale against the ink of your hair and eyes. Cutting the figure of a crow against the gray scale of the buildings, you look off into the middle distance, your hand on the railing. Looking at it now I think, I was always going to lose you. A clutch in my solar plexus.
Does true love forgive all?
My mother would have said yes. She believed in him, right up until the night he killed her and Jay, and would have killed me, too, if I hadn’t run from him.
I hand the phone to Bailey Kirk as my email alert pings.
The strange address of the internet fixer, the number and a server I don’t recognize. I open it eagerly, heart thumping in anticipation.
I’m sorry, it reads. Your friend. He does not exist; he’s covered his tracks very carefully. So carefully I’d say he was expert. Even the company is owned by a shell corporation with all accounts offshore, information inaccessible.
Bailey comes to look over my shoulder.
Just a thought. Are you sure this guy doesn’t work for the CIA? Not a single one of the names you gave me leads to anything authentic. Certainly not an address, or any way to find his actual location. No previous address attached to a credit card, parking ticket, nothing.
Disappointment is a weight on my chest.
I’m usually pretty good at following digital trails. But this one is cold. I’m keeping your deposit because I’ve basically been obsessed since you reached out, but keep the rest. I hate that I couldn’t find him. I feel like he won. I’ll loop back if anything surfaces.
“Who is this guy?” Bailey wants to know.
“He’s a guy who can create an online identity for you, basically construct a history in social media, so that people only find what you want them to find when they search your name out on the internet.”
“Because that’s the first thing people do now, is search you out on the web, visit your social media profiles.”
“That’s right. These days, your whole history lives on the internet—where you grew up, went to school, anything that’s ever written about you, any post you’re tagged in. You can create your whole persona online.”
“When did you do this?”
“After college. Jax knew someone. It was her idea. A way to make sure no one ever connected my past to my present.”
“You buried Robin Carson.”
“Again. Just not deep enough, I guess.”
“Pretty deep.”
He puts a hand on my shoulder and my whole body tingles. “Your secrets—they’re safe with me. You’re safe with me. I don’t want to blow up your life.”
His voice is low. I don’t turn to look at him.
“Maybe it needs blowing up. There’s a forgotten girl in my grave.”
“That’s your call,” he says. “But just know this. You deserved to move on back then, to have a good life after what happened to you. You did that. Not everyone could have.”
“I had help.” Miss Lovely, Jones and Maggie Cooper. They were the real fixers. They helped me stitch myself back together.
“That’s good,” he says, staying close. When I rise, he takes a step back, but puts a hand on my arm.
“I’m sorry,” he says, voice thick.
“For what?” I ask. He takes my hand and I don’t pull away, let him draw me in closer.
“For what you went through, for what you’re going through now. I’m sorry that this is how we met.”
His hand moves up my arm, comes to rest on the back of my neck where it’s strong and tender at the same time. I put my palm to his chest and feel his heat, the rise and fall of his breath. The draw to him is irresistible, and when he puts his lips on mine, the kiss lights a fire inside. What is gentle, inquiring at first, grows urgent, his arms tightening around me. His lips move down my neck, and when he whispers my name, I can hear the pitch of his desire.