Page 24 of The Fallen One

“Do you remember . . .?” was all I managed out, clinging to her, to the calming feeling her holding me seemed to be providing.

“I would love to say I don’t remember my embarrassing comment to you that day, but I do,” she confessed, her tone soft. “Surprised you do, though.”

“I seem to remember everything when it comes to you,” I admitted, unsure why. That little revelation was best left studied at a later date. Or better yet, buried entirely.

“What are you two doing up here?” someone called out.

Diana startled against me, and I realized my arm was wrapped around a woman who wasn’t my wife. A woman I shouldn’t be seeking comfort in while I mourned another. We untangled ourselves from the hug and I dropped my hand to the concrete, prepared to push upright, but I couldn’t get myself to move. Not yet.

“I slipped on the ice, and he accidentally went down with me,” Diana said, covering for me. For my tears. Assuming a man like me wouldn’t want the world to know he was capable of crying.

Maybe I didn’t. Maybe I wanted the world to think I really was the devil. How else would I find Rebecca’s killer if I didn’t strike fear into the heart of my enemies? Revenge called for other emotions, or none at all.

“Let’s get you up, Carter.” I finally recognized the voice as belonging to Diana’s mother, but I wasn’t about to let her help me to my feet.

I stood myself and peered at a woman who, over the years, had become like a second mother to my wife. “Did you know? She thought you were coming to our place the night she . . .”

Susan drew the lapels of her coat together as a breeze knocked snow around us. “Know what?”

“She said she had things to tell me, and she couldn’t do it over the phone.” My mind was finally working again. “I don’t think the home invasion was random. I think we were targeted. I just need to know if they were after me—or her.”

Susan glanced at Diana and tipped her head toward the door. “Can you give us a second, sweetheart?”

Diana focused on me, seeking my permission to leave for some reason. Acting on instinct, I nodded my OK, hoping Susan could fill in a few holes when it came to the mystery that was my wife.

Once we were alone, knowing and not even caring that my eyes were bloodshot after her daughter had somehow managed to pull the emotions from me in the form of tears, I ground out, “What is it? What do you know?”

“When she stepped down at work and sold off most of her family’s businesses, I asked her why. Rebecca normally told me everything, but she wouldn’t answer me when I pressed. I have no clue what was going on in her life before she died. She was being very secretive.”

I wasn’t so sure I could believe her. “Was there anyone new in her life? Anyone I should check out?” I could normally read people well. It was my job. But I was so out of it I could hardly understand the words coming from my own mouth.

“No,” she said, her lips barely opening to deliver the answer.

I cocked my head and dipped in closer, unable to stop myself. “You’re sure?” The warning cut through my voice—the “don’t lie to me or else” loud and clear.

“Of course. If I knew something that’d help, I would’ve told the police and FBI when we spoke last week.”

“If I find out you’re lying to me?—”

“You won’t.”

I stepped back before I yelled at a woman. “Do you blame me for her death like everyone else does?” My voice broke again, the dam open and the emotions no longer held in check. “This had to have happened because of my job.” A smuggler or trafficker that somehow found out my identity.

“Rebecca wouldn’t want you embarrassing her memory or the Barclay legacy by going down the path I fear you plan to go,” she said instead.

“And what path might that be?”

“Revenge,” she mouthed.

Locking eyes with her, I rasped, “You’re wrong. It’s everything Rebecca would want.” That much I knew about her. That fucking much. “She’d never want me to stop until I killed every last person who did this to her.”

10

CARTER

EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND – OCTOBER 2019

Griffin lowered his Sig and shook his head, eyes flying over my attire before he moved his attention back to the dead bodies in the room. “Killing in a kilt. This has to be a new low for us.”

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