Rapture

Chapter Forty-five

Mels woke up with a jerk, the darkness that surrounded her taking her back into the river and the water’s suffocation—

The instant she saw the glowing strip across the way at floor level, reality returned. The hotel room. Matthias…

Rolling over to face him, she found him deep asleep, his chest under the duvet rising and falling slowly. He was on his back, his arms on the outside of the covers, his hands down by his sides. He looked like he was ready to get out of bed on an instant’s notice.

Either that or as if he were lying in a coffin.

Happy thought.

God, what a night.

Thanks to her having made a quick trip down to the twenty-four-hour gift shop, the evening had passed the way their other one had, with episodes of erotic connection alternating with the kind of sleep that comes when you’re passed out cold.

Well, except for the fact that they’d been able to go so much farther this time.

Abruptly, his eyes opened. “You okay?”

“How did you know I was awake?”

He shrugged one bare shoulder. “I don’t really sleep.”

“I guess so.”

As Matthias shifted his eyes away and stared up at the ceiling, he was so still, it appeared as though he wasn’t breathing—and that was when she knew for sure that they had been together for the last time. But like all that aerobic exercise had changed his mind?

Then again, it had been so much more than just sex, she thought. At least on her side….

In the horrible silence that followed, she gave herself permission to feel the loss, and as if he knew exactly what she was thinking about, his hand found hers and squeezed.

“I’m going to take a quick shower,” he said.

He leaned over and gave her a kiss that lingered, but then he was up on his feet so fast, she recoiled.

Talk about turning over a new leaf. It was as if he’d never had the limp.

Especially as he stalked through the darkness into the bathroom.

A second later, a light came on and then so did the shower.

A quick check of the hour told her it was seven o’clock.

Time to head home, have her own shower, and get dressed. With any luck, this would be a Pilates morning for her mother, and they could both be spared the walk of shame—not that Mels regretted the night. She just wasn’t too happy this morning.

Except that was because things were over, not because she was sorry it happened.

Getting out of the warm bed, she went over and turned on the desk lamp—and remembered, joy of joys, that she had no underwear or real clothes.

God, that fall into the river seemed like it had happened to someone else—at least until she felt the aches in her ribs and her forearms from when she’d dragged herself out of the Hudson.

Glancing to the sound of the running water, she thought maybe she should join him—no, it might look like she was chicking out, trying to make a come-on in hopes of changing his mind.

She had her pride.

Although she was taking a pair of his boxers. No way she was going home in nothing but a raincoat.

Heading over to the bag Jim Heron had rifled through, she found two pairs of the things, and she took one, pulling them up her legs and onto her waist. They fit okay—and wait, there was another pair of warm-up pants in there, along with a couple of shirts.

She ended up having to roll the sweats over at the waistband, and the shirt swam on her, but everything was black, and as she slipped her shoes on and pulled the raincoat around her, she felt a lot less like a hooker.

Matthias was still in the shower.

It was tempting to sneak out and save them both the awkwardness, and, looking toward the door, she put her bag up on her shoulder. She could always write a note?

Nah. She refused to be a coward—

The muffled sound of her alarm went off in her purse.

Shoving her hand in deep, she rooted around, found the damn phone, and took it out. The familiar, annoying beeping made her skin crawl, but that was the point. Anything more user-friendly and she worried she’d sleep through it.

After she shut things off, she glanced back over at the open door of the bathroom.

The waiting wore on her, and she checked her voicemail to pass the time. There were three messages when she got into the system—

“Hi, this is Dan over at Caldwell Auto. We’ve been looking at your car, and to be honest with you, it’s right on the edge of being totaled. A vehicle that age, with this kind of damage? We could fix it, but I can’t guarantee it wouldn’t lemon on you a week later. My advice is that you take the insurance money and buy something new. Give me a call….”

For some reason, the idea that her car had died made her tear up.

Man, she needed to pull it together.

Message number two was from her hair salon, reminding her that she had an appointment coming up with Pablo.

Message number three was…

“Hey, this is Tony’s friend? From over at the police department? Jason?” The guy’s inflection turned it all into questions, as if he weren’t sure of his own name. “Listen…I need to talk to you ASAP. That bullet you found? It’s a match—that round was discharged from the same weapon that was used in the shooting down at the Marriott”—a chill started at the back of her neck and spread all over her body—“and that means you need to come in and talk to us. It’s ten o’clock now and I need to get some sleep—but first thing tomorrow morning, I’ve got to disclose this and your…”

At that moment, the shower cut off in the bathroom.

Leaning to the side, she watched Matthias step out of the tub. He seemed so much bigger now, and as she looked down, she saw only faded scars on his lower body, nothing that would warrant self-consciousness. Or a limp.

Tony’s friend was still talking as Matthias turned away to get the towel he’d left on the back of the toilet—

Mels nearly dropped her phone.

Covering his back, from the tops of his shoulders to below his waist, was a massive black-and-white tattoo of the Grim Reaper standing in a field of grave markers—and underneath it were dozens and dozens of hatch marks in an orderly row.

It was precisely like the one that Eric had shown her—

Get. Out. Now.

Mels bolted for the door, but didn’t make it.

Just as she started to run, Matthias stepped out of the humid little room, right into her path.

Matthias had gone the shower route not because he particularly wanted to be clean, but because he’d had to scrub his aching head. He’d never been one for good-byes—although previously, that had been because he’d never really been emotionally involved with anybody.

Now, it was because the prospect of leaving Mels hurt like hell.

What did he say? How did he let her walk out the door?

Wrapping a towel around his waist, he walked out of the bathroom and—

Mels screeched to a halt in front of him, like she’d pulled short out of a dead run. Dressed in some of the clothes he’d gotten at the gift shop, she looked like she was being chased.

“Mels—”

“Get away from me.” She shoved a hand in her purse, and before she took it out, he knew she was going for her gun.

Sure enough, that muzzle trained directly at the center of his chest.

He put his hands up, palms forward. “What’s going on?”

“Nice tattoo—oh, and I just found out that you shot that man here in the hotel. The bullet matches.”

“What bullet?”

“The one that I found outside that garage—when I came to see you the first time. You remember, don’t you? Well, I gave the casing to someone who did a ballistics comparison—and your gun is the one that was used in that shooting.”

Matthias closed his eyes. Shit, that shell must have been from Jim’s gun, the one he’d taken, the one that, yeah, he’d used on the operative down in the basement hallway.

“Did you disappear the body from the morgue, too? I’m guessing that, given the ink you two share, you’re connected—but don’t bother giving me the details. I won’t trust anything you say.” Mels shook her head, disgust written not just in her face, but in her whole body. “It was lies, all of it—wasn’t it. The amnesia…the limp—those damn scars, your eye.” She cursed in a vile way. “Jesus Christ, it was a fucked-up contact lens, wasn’t it—with some makeup to get the old injuries to look worse. Oh, God…” Now, she cringed. “The impotence, too, right? Guess you decided getting laid was worth the risk of exposure. Or did you just get lazy with the upkeep?”

As he died right in front of her, Matthias could only cross his arms over his chest and take what she gave him. He didn’t blame her for the extrapolations: Miracles were inexplicable for a reason, and the conclusions she was jumping to, while they screwed him, would seem like the only possible explanations if he were in her shoes….

When she finally stopped talking, he opened his mouth; then shut it when he realized that he had nothing of value to add. He’d hated lying to her—but she wasn’t going to hear that.

Shit, she might as well have pulled that trigger. He sure as hell felt as if she’d mortally wounded him—but honestly, it was his own damn fault, all of this: Although patches of the past remained in a fog, he knew this was exactly the kind of reckoning that had been waiting for him with her.

And in the end, the only thing he could do was step aside and give her the way out—and maybe this was good. There was no way she was going to ever come looking for him now.

The instant he moved, Mels went for the door, all the while keeping that gun on him, and then just as she stepped into the hall, she glanced back.

In a dead voice, she whispered, “There’s only one thing I don’t understand. Why did you bother? What do I have that you want?”

Everything, he thought.

“So it was just a game, huh,” she bit out. “Well, not sure what you thought the prize was—but I am telling you right now to never contact me again under any circumstances. Oh, and I’m calling the police station this minute and telling them everything I know about you. Although I have to wonder exactly how much that is.”

And then she was gone, the door shutting automatically behind her.

Matthias closed his eyes and leaned back against the wall.

He’d known that leaving her was going to hurt—but like this? With her thinking he was a manipulator and a liar?

Then again, in his heart, he knew she was right. He’d always been a master liar.

A schemer.

A manipulator—

The headache came on hard and fast, and, as it turned out, it was the final one…not because he died, but because on that short-napped carpet of the hotel room, right at the foot of the door Mels had put to good use, everything came back to him—all of it.

From beginning to end, through all the evil in the middle, his memory returned with a roar, exploding the lid off of whatever had kept it down, filling the space between his ears, owning him.

It was ten thousand TVs in a room, all with the sound cranked up, the din so great it was a wonder people down on the street didn’t hear the noise.

It was a tsunami that swept onto the shore, wiping clean these last few days of relative innocence with Mels, ruining the landscape he had created for himself with her, revealing the foul earth beneath the feelings he had found with her.

It was, in many ways, worse than the nightmare of Hell.

Because after he saw what he was, up close and in detail, with no shadows to obscure the ugliness, he knew whatever game he was caught in was not going to end well.

His soul was rotten to the core.

And he’d already learned that what you sowed was what you reaped.