Atone (Recovered Innocence #2)(14)

I wait for the guilt to come, and it doesn’t disappoint. It slips in between us and pushes us apart. I find myself pulling away from her, shoved back by my memories of Cassandra and the promises I made to her…the promises I didn’t keep. The image of Cassandra smiling up at me that final night overlaps Vera’s confused face as I back away. Needing the edge of the desk to steady me, I stand and move to the other side of the room. Pressing the heels of my hands into my eyes, I wish I could forget. It’s the first time I’ve ever had that thought, and it brings on a fresh surge of guilt.

I welcome it. With it comes perspective, which until a moment ago I’d lost. Vera is a client. She’s not my friend. She’s not my lover. And I’m not any of those things to her. When we find her sister she’ll go back to her life in Colorado and I’ll go back to lying on Cora’s couch, trying to figure out my shit. My fist makes a satisfying dent in the wall. The pain radiates up into my shoulder. This agony I understand. It has a start and an end. I know where it came from, and I know it will go away. Flattening my palms on the table, I bow my head and take a deep breath, then another. My knuckles burn. Little dots of blood begin to form and I can already feel the swelling.

Behind me, Vera is quiet. I’d give anything to know what she’s thinking. At the same time, I’m glad I don’t know.

I turn, but stay where I’m safe, across the room from her. “Who has Marie?”

“What?”

“You kept saying ‘He has her’ over and over.”

As I watch, she picks up her forgotten armor and begins putting it back in place chunk by chunk. Her mask—the final fragment—slides into place and I’m shut out. I’ll never know what she was thinking.

“You know who this Daddy guy is, don’t you?” I press.

Her gaze slinks away. She fidgets with the bag, shredding it into little pieces.

“Who is he?”

She doesn’t answer. Her hands shake as she tears the bag, but her shoulders are straight. She’s a contradiction of stress and determination.

And then it hits me. “Who is he to you?”

“He’s not anything to me.” She wants this to be true, but it’s not.

“Who was he, then?”

She takes a long time to decide how to answer. In the end, it comes down to whether or not she wants me to help her find her sister, and we both know it.

“You came here wanting our help,” I remind her. “I can’t help you if you withhold information from me.”

“Javier Abano.” Her voice is ugly and brutal, like it was the other night when she asked me if I wanted to f*ck her. “I was with him when I was fourteen until…I wasn’t anymore.”

Everything in me goes still as I try to process what she’s saying. My brain wants to fill in the gaps with what I read on Marie’s Tumblr. I picture a much younger Vera falling into this Javier’s manipulation the way Marie did and the things he might have done to her. It overlaps and blends with what happened to Cassandra. I sat in that courtroom during my trial, forced to listen to every vile, cruel thing that was done to her, each description flaying me open until I was a bloody, raw gaping wound.

I don’t know what to do or say. Vera’s bald statement tears at the old trauma and I’m left stunned motionless. My first reaction is to go to her and hold her, but the look on her face tells me I f*cked that up when I pushed her away.

She puts a hand up. “Don’t. Okay?”

I nod.

“I was hoping he wouldn’t go after her.” Looking at the mess she made with the bag in her lap, she makes a helpless gesture. It’s too close to defeat and I hate it.

I make myself move to hold out the trash can while she scoops up the pieces and throws them away. I understand a lot of things about her now, and her need for a new identity. It must have taken every ounce of strength she had to come back here to find her sister. She’s risking everything for Marie. Much like Cora did for me. She didn’t have to come back, but she did.

“I was also hoping we’d find her before he did,” she says. “But we’re too late.”

“Only death is too late,” I tell her gently. “We’ll find her and get her away from him.”

“It’s not going to be easy. She thinks she’s in love with him. And she barely knows me. She’s not going to choose me over him.”

“Maybe we don’t give her a choice.”

She agrees with a nod. “She’s going to hate me for a long time. She’ll fight. She might even try to run away.”

“You won’t let her.”

“You’re not asking me questions about him.”

“No, I’m not.”

“You never ask questions.”

“Is that what you want?”

She shakes her head.

“You’ll tell me if you want to. When you want to,” I add.

She doesn’t respond.

“You don’t ask me questions either. I like that about you.”

Her lips curve into a half smile. “Maybe I only want to know what you want me to know.”

“Maybe it’s a way for you to avoid opening yourself up to questions.”

“For you too.”

I can’t disagree. We both have things we want and need to avoid. I guess we’ll just keep stepping around them in this dance we do toward what I don’t know.