A sigh slid from him, and I waited for his praise, for him to tell me I’d done good. Because I knew he wished he was here with me, but he had the shakes that came with using his magic too much. He was the only abnormal I’d ever trusted, the only one I believed was worth trusting.
“I got something couriered right to my place,” he said, his voice carefully monotone. “I’m going to tell you right now, I think it’s bait. I don’t think it’s real. But I don’t hold back from you, and you don’t hold back from me.”
My hand clutched at the phone. “What is it?” Mind racing, I could come up with a dozen possibilities from body parts, to something less inconspicuous like a threatening note, or maybe some old jewelry of my mother’s to try and tempt me into a goose chase.
“It’s a picture,” Zee said, and I heard the crinkle of paper on the other end of the line, as if he were sliding it out of an envelope. “Of a boy who looks an awful lot like Bear.”
Whatever spit I had left in my mouth and throat dried up. I stood, concentrating on breathing for a moment. “It has to be a fake.”
“Of course it is, and it came from Romano, which only solidifies that it’s a fake. What that means, though, is he’s trying to draw you to him. He’s trying to get you to show yourself so he can kill you out in the open.”
I wanted to see the picture. My mind said it was so I could disprove the image, so I could point out all the things that would show it wasn’t my boy at all, and that it was just Romano fucking with me, yet again. But my heart screamed at me that it was possible the picture was my Bear, screamed that I needed to go, right now, and get to the boy who could be mine.
There was a chance he’d survived, wasn’t there? I’d been knocked out during the accident, and when I’d woken, I was in the hospital and Bear and Justin had been cremated already. The police were on the take, so why couldn’t the doctors be, too? It was possible. I knew it was. Romano’s money and reach were unreal when it came to getting what he wanted.
The thundering of my heart said Bear was somehow, impossibly, still alive despite the accident, despite the fact I’d buried his ashes alongside his father’s, despite my goodbyes. I wanted him to be alive, because if he was alive I could . . . I could what? Even if Bear was alive, I wouldn’t stop going after Romano now. If Bear was alive, me knowing would put him in danger because he would be used against me. I knew how Romano worked.
I shut down those lines of thought hard and wrapped them up in the instincts of a killer on the hunt for her prey.
“I agree, it will be a trap and nothing else. There are too many Photoshop tools out there for me to believe it’s really Bear. You saw his body, didn’t you?” I knew my voice was hollow, but it was the best I could do given what Zee had just told me. Bear had been a part of my soul, and losing him had emptied me in a way I could never have understood until he was gone. The slightest inkling he could be alive would derail me like nothing else if I didn’t get a hold on my emotions.
“Yes, I saw them both,” Zee said.
A body could be faked, you should know that. You’ve done it before. Luca helped you fake a body for one of your hits. I squeezed my eyes shut and focused on breathing normally.
“What’s he saying?” Dinah whispered loud enough that Zee heard her through the line.
“None of your damn business,” he snarled.
I put my head against the edge of the booth. “I’ve got to go. See if you can get any details from the picture. Age it, see if it’s an old one of one of my brothers, or even Romano himself. Bear had enough of their looks that something Photoshopped could be made to look just like him.” Like him, like my Bear.
“Kid is in a uniform, too, one with a dragon on the crest. I’ll track down the school. Don’t worry, Nix. Romano won’t get away with any of this shit. It’s a game to him, and we both know it,” Zee said. None of his words did anything to soothe my battered and wildly beating heart. The burst of hope was almost worse than no hope at all. The picture was not of my Bear. I’d seen my boy die. Romano knew hope for the impossible would hurt me worse than anything else, like the motherfucking piece of slimy shit bastard he was.
“I’ll check in once I get where I’m going,” I said. “Be careful, Zee. If they know where you are, they could send someone after you now, try to use you against me, too.”
He grunted. “Thought of that. I’ll take my cell phone with me and head out after I get someone to come in and take care of the horses.”
“I’m not coming back, Zee. I told you that.” I couldn’t even muster a real heat in my words. “I’m not walking out of this alive. I never thought I would.”
“You don’t know that, and those horses were a part of you finding yourself all those years ago.” He paused. “Don’t give up on living, Nix. Not yet.”
I nodded even though he couldn’t see me. “I gotta go.” I hung up. There was nothing left to say. Zee would do what he thought was best and there was nothing I could do about that picture or how Romano had manipulated it. I had to put it behind me to keep moving forward.
I headed to the diner and Abe stayed tightly to my leg. I moved on autopilot because I was still trying to put Bear from my mind. My fingers fumbled around in my coat pocket, closing on the small box with a worn tag I’d packed with me for the last five months. A gift from Bear I hadn’t found the strength to open yet.
Hope was a deadly disease in my world; it represented too many deaths. Hope, when twisted and used to control, could get you killed faster than a speeding bullet.
The door dinged as we stepped through and a few pairs of eyes looked up. Most were blurred with fatigue and too many hours of driving. I’d lay money the truckers didn’t look a whole lot different than me.
“You can’t have that dog in here,” a waitress said as she passed.
“Service dog,” I said softly.
She paused, looked me over, searching for my disability. “Yeah, sure. Fine. But if he makes a mess or shits on the floor, you’re cleaning it up.”
I didn’t argue with her, just made my way to an empty booth near the kitchen. Another waitress came by and took my order—two double cheeseburgers, fries, and a large soda. It wasn’t until after I ordered that I realized I’d picked food that Justin would have chosen. I snorted softly to myself. My boys were never far from my heart and mind. Even now, when I was on the hunt to destroy their killers, they were with me.
I pulled from my pocket the small box done up in Christmas paper. Biting the inside of my cheek hard enough to draw blood, I made my fingers slide through the paper, made them open the gift. I ignored the shaking in my fingers, in my hands, as the tiny black box appeared beneath the wrapping.
I drew another breath and pulled the lid off.
Inside the box was a note and I pried it out first.
Mama, you are my angel and that’s why I thought this was the perfect gift. Love, Bear.
Soft noises slipped from me as I fought to stem the tears, as I bit down on the emotions that swelled through me. Abe whined and bunted me with his nose, picking up on my distress. I folded the note and tucked it inside my bra. Then I looked into the box. Something silver glinted and I pulled it out. A single wing hung from a necklace chain as though . . . as though Bear had at some point known what was tattooed onto my back. There was no way, Zee had hidden my tattoo with his abilities, cloaking it so even Justin didn’t know it was there. I bowed my head and slid the necklace on, tucking it under my shirt and pressing my hand against it.