Page 118 of A Shade of Myself
Run. I flinched away from him, gripping my purse like a shield as I backed up into the foyer. “I just remembered that I promised Sadie to—” I glanced around, seeking inspiration because my mind was blank. I swallowed. “Shoes. Buy her shoes. I have to go.”
He stood up, saying something, but all I heard was the deadly growl of a wolf.
I shrank back into myself, ready to cloak and flee because otherwise he’d scent me out and tear the secret from me.
“Miriam!” Laurent clapped his hands and I snapped out of my trance. “Your heart is racing. What’s wrong? What did I say?” He held himself still, his eyebrows drawn together, and his eyes clouded with concern.
Laurent wasn’t the actor his aunt was. If he’d known what my parents had done when we first met, he would have told me to fuck off in no uncertain terms.
“Oh,” I said softly and rubbed my heart. He couldn’t find out. He’d want to tell Tatiana and I wasn’t sure I could. How was I supposed to look the woman in the eyes and tell her that my parents had almost killed her?
I didn’t think she’d blame me or retaliate against me or my family for what my parents had done, but seeing me would be this constant reminder. I wouldn’t want to be around someone like that if our positions were reversed.
And I wanted Tatiana in my life. Not only did I feel alive working these jobs for her, she challenged me. I finally felt like I’d landed somewhere, found my community, and the thought of losing any part of that opened a howling void inside me, threatening to send me to that dark and adrift place that I’d been stuck in for a long time after my parents’ deaths.
Call me chickenshit, but I didn’t want the reveal of our shared past negating any future we had.
That meant keeping this from Laurent. I wouldn’t force him to choose between Tatiana and me, because either way would be horrible for him.
Either way was going to be horrible for me.
“Do you want to come home with me?” he said. “Just to talk?”
I put out my hand to stop his approach. “I can’t. Shoes.”
“Right.” He bit his lower lip, his eyes narrowed, but didn’t call out my obvious lie.
I smothered a gasp. Did Tatiana already know? Had she hired me to keep her enemy close? She hadn’t killed my parents or McMurtry, I believed her about that, but did she know the truth behind her car accident?
“I have to go.” I spun around and sprinted for the door, almost colliding with Tatiana and Emmett, who’d come down the stairs.
My boss grabbed the railing to balance herself. “You’re leaving? I haven’t even given you the details of the trip. We have a follow-up job if we want it.”
“Sadie needs shoes. Did the painkiller kick in? How are your hips?” I searched her face for some key on whether she knew or not, but Tatiana truly was an excellent actor and all I saw was the normal confusion of someone when met with erratic behavior.
She shrugged. “I’d say don’t get old, but the alternative is worse.”
I gave a weak laugh.
“You look terrible. Go home and we’ll speak later.” Tatiana brushed past me, Emmett following with a weird look my way.
I’d championed the truth like some miracle cure-all to heal grief and right wrongs. But what was I supposed to do with this great revelation? My loving mother and father were willing to kill someone over a magic amplifier. Had I mourned an illusion of them all these years?
I got into my car, desperately trying to remember how Mom and Dad had acted before the assassin had shown up at our house and murdered them. But I didn’t remember anything being wrong. In fact, they’d seemed really happy. They hadn’t acted like people being blackmailed or being forced to hurt someone else, so did I want to find out why they’d done it?
I flinched. Was the fact that Tatiana survived the reason they’d been killed or had someone been tying up a loose end?
Even if I dropped my search, how would I convince Tatiana that I no longer had any interest in finding my parents’ killer? And how would I continue a friendship with Laurent if I kept this from him?
Time and time again, Tatiana had warned me about leaving things alone and I’d dismissed her as a cynic when the truth was that I’d been a fool.
I didn’t have justice and I didn’t have closure. All I had was an ugly secret ticking like a bomb in my hands, and for all my soapboxing about the importance of truth, I prayed this never ever came to light.
