“I would have gotten a weapon . . . made my move whenever the opening presented itself. I would have run and never looked back. I would have done whatever it took.”
“And that’s just what I did,” I say. “Whatever it took.”
It’s there, the hint at more, and then the goose bumps prickle across her skin, telling me I’m digging in exactly where I need to.
I’ve played this out in my head a hundred times on the plane ride over, in the hotel room bathroom, on the drive to the prison. I had a script of how it’d go, and she’s playing her part. Now we’re at the moment.
Don’t falter now, Nora. Home stretch, then home. Back to them.
Please let me get back to them.
“What’s the most important thing, Abby?” I let my voice go high. I ask the question whose answer she drilled into me with each different name and hairstyle and personality. I mimic her right to her face, wearing her damn face, and those goose bumps across her skin spread down to her neck.
“Always have leverage,” she whispers.
I smile. It is cruel this time, because I have reached the moment when I have to be.
“What did you do?” she asks, and I am finally ready to tell. The secret I’ve kept so close, for so long.
“Alongside the hard drives in his safe, there was a thumb drive. It was encrypted differently than the others. I handed the big stuff over to the FBI so they could put him away and I’d get the protection I needed. They didn’t need to know about the thumb drive.”
“You kept it.”
I push forward. “It took me years to learn enough to break through the encryption. But I did. And what I found . . .” I just smile then. What I found is nothing to smile about—it’s fucking wretched, a sick treasure trove of sordid secrets and dirty deeds—but it’s also the reason I’m going to win.
How I’m going to protect everyone.
“He really did deal in the dirtiest kind of information, didn’t he? Kindred spirits, the two of you.” I stare her down and I resist throwing in a hair twirl, because I’m afraid she’ll lunge at me.
She’s never put her hands on me—never needed to. There was always a bigger threat to sacrifice some part of me—my self, my body, my innocence, my safety—to them . . . her marks and the love of her life who turned her into one instead.
But it’s just us now. No marks. No Raymond.
There’s nothing but the truth between us, and it’s never been this way before. It’s always been lies and slippery dodges. But she can’t hide anymore.
And I’ve chosen not to.
“You have his blackmail file?”
“It was a mess when I got it open. Barely organized. But I took care of that. Color-coded it. You know, red for politicians, blue for dirty cops, green for drug dealers, et cetera.”
“Natalie . . .” she says, and there is warning in her voice. There is a shred of motherly concern that I can’t be sure is fact or fiction, because at this point, what of her is fact and what is fiction? “You need to run. Far and fast.”
“No.”
“Baby, he is up for an appeal next year. It’s an uphill battle, but he’s got the best lawyers.”
“And you’re cheering him on,” I say, and she can’t look at me. She’s got six years left on her sentence, and if he’s free by the time she’s out, that’ll make things even sweeter for her. They’ll fight and they’ll fuck and scream and throw things and make up, all in the span of twenty-four hours, and the cycle will turn and turn until one day, something breaks it and I won’t be there to tilt the ground to save her anymore. He’ll kill her. That’s the only way it ends. She knows it. I know it. But she can’t stop. And I had to let go.
I’ve known about the appeal since the start of the summer. Lee and I had a fight about it. She’d wanted to run then and there. I wanted to wait and see. No. That’s not exactly true. I want to wait and fight. That’s who I’ve become.
That’s who loving and losing and then making Wes family has made me. That’s who loving and keeping Iris has made me. Maybe not hopeful, but determined.
“Natalie, he will kill you.”
“And you’ll help him, won’t you?” I ask, looking at her dead-on, wishing it was different. “When it comes down to it, you’ll do whatever he asks.”
She looks away. Her shrunken chest rises and falls in deep breaths. I can see her collarbone jutting out from under the khaki scrubs. She’s thinner in here. And not in the cultivated gym-rat way she’d been when I was a kid. In a the food’s shit, sleep’s shit, everything’s shit kind of way.