Take the Key and Lock Her Up (Embassy Row #3)(29)

“But …” Rosie starts.

She looks from Noah to Alexei, then to me.

“Gracie, what did you do?” Alexei asks again.

“I got you cleared,” I say, as if the details don’t really matter. They shouldn’t. But they do.

“Grace?” Now Megan’s sounding worried.

“I asked the prime minister, okay? When I turned myself in to the Society, I said that I had some conditions. Clearing your name was one of them.”

“And you didn’t think to tell me this?”

“I didn’t think it mattered! Or, well, I didn’t think they’d do it. I kind of ran out on them. Literally.”

“You bargained for my freedom?” Alexei says, as if it’s a bad thing.

“You didn’t do it, Alexei! You were the most wanted man in Europe for something you didn’t do.”

“And what of that man they arrested, Gracie?” Alexei points to the screen. “What did he do?”

“I’m sure he did something,” I blurt, but I’m far from certain.

“Most of the world was sure that I’d done something.”

“Maybe he really is the killer. We don’t know. We may never know. And now you … you can go home.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“You have to,” I snap. But when I look around, I know arguing is futile.

“You seem to think we’re giving you a choice,” Megan says.

She isn’t especially tall. She’s not obviously strong. But right now—in this moment—I know it would take half the NATO forces in Europe to drag her off this train. She isn’t just with me; she’s with me. And there’s nothing I can do to stop her.

“Fine.” Noah shrugs, then turns to me. “Where do we start?”

It’s a great question—really the only question. And for all the hours and miles that this truth has been chasing me, the finish line remains elusive. I honestly have no idea what to say. But when I look at Alexei I see a spark there. Well, not a spark, but something …

“What?” I ask.

Alexei runs a hand through his hair. It’s thick and black and too long at the moment. It ripples through his fingers like black waves.

“I was afraid you were going to say this, so …”

“So what?” I ask.

He eyes me. “So I didn’t come alone.”

Instantly, terror grips me.

“If Jamie and Dominic are in Europe, then—”

“Not your brother,” Alexei cuts me off, then reaches for the backpack he’s been carrying. There’s a duffel bag, too, which we picked up at the train station. I’d just assumed they held clothes, shoes. Weapons. But I was wrong. I know it as soon as Alexei clears off a table and upends the backpack over it, sending papers and Post-it notes, tiny leather-bound books and photographs scattering below.

“I’m confused,” Rosie says, hands on hips. “How is a bag full of junk going to help us?”

But I’m reaching for the pile. I run one finger along the glossy surface of a photograph as I say, “It’s my mother’s junk. She kept it in a secret room beneath her shop.”

I seem to have Rosie at “secret room” because she leans closer to the pile and mutters what I assume is the German equivalent of awesome.

“My mother collected all this. She collected it, and she kept it hidden.”

Megan meets my gaze, finishes my thought. “And you only hide the things that matter.”

She turns her attention to the pile. Noah, too. Soon, four sets of hands are shuffling and sorting. I stand a little apart. I hurt everything I touch, after all. I’m half-afraid that my fingers might make it catch fire.

“Grace.”

Megan’s voice brings me back.

I don’t know how long I’ve been standing, staring but seeing nothing.

“Grace, you need to look at this. Do you recognize it?”

The small book is a soft brown leather, and I can’t help but remember standing in a store with Jamie, running my hands along its cover, thinking I couldn’t wait until Christmas morning to give it to my mother.

“It’s a calendar,” I say without having to look.

“Do you want to … ?” Megan tries, but I’m already shaking my head.

“No.” I can’t read my mother’s careful notes, her perfect penmanship. I can’t look too closely because that’s one way to never see a thing. “You do it.”

Megan nods as if she understands.

The train keeps going, flying through the night. But inside the car, all is quiet as Megan scans the pages, speed-reading, taking it all in.

“When was it?” she asks, and I know exactly what she means.

“November,” I tell her. “Mom died the first week of November.”

She nods and flips through the pages until she sees something and makes a face, flips back, then forward again, as if something doesn’t quite make sense.

“Grace, what do you remember about … before? In the days leading up to the fire?” Megan says, and I’m grateful for it. I don’t think I could stand to hear her death or when she was shot. My nerves are like live wires. My insulation is all gone, and it doesn’t take much to make sparks.