Page 74 of Reckoning

“Do you remember how I said I’m always afraid?”

“Mm-hmm.” She nodded as she kissed me, unfolding her arms and sliding her hands up my back.

“Last night was both the most scared I’ve ever been—when I saw you go into the water—and the least, when I held you in my arms.”

Her fingers tightened in my shirt.

I had the sensation of standing on the threshold that could determine how the rest of my life would be. Now that she’d agreed not to fight me, was there a chance for us? Or would my family and the knowledge that both my sister and father wanted her dead always overshadow it? Even worse, they expected me to be the one to end her life. She probably thought that now she could convince me to take her away from here and start a new life in another state like her mother did. But I’d lose everything I’d ever worked for.

Everything except for her.

My phone buzzed in my pocket, and we broke apart. She was still avoiding eye contact, but I held one arm around her while fishing to look at my screen. There was just one sentence from Shawn: Turn on the news.

“What is it?” Madeline asked, and I realized I was frowning.

“Let’s get inside.”

Joshua already had the TV on, and what I saw stopped me dead in the doorway.

Blood and bodies blurred into anonymity on a dirt road. Breaking News flashed across the bottom of the screen with a death count that was climbing even as we watched. And in the background of all these bodies was a box of ammunition with Schaf Industries sprayed on the side.

It took me a minute to realize my phone was ringing in my hand. I looked down and saw Shawn’s name on caller ID.

“Hello?” My voice sounded distant, even to myself. This was bad. This was very bad. I finally released Maddie’s hand to run my own through my hair, wondering if any of this was real.

“I swear I didn’t know this was going to happen. I didn’t know it was them. I—”

“Wait a second.” I cut him off. “You know who did this?”

I looked over at Maddie, who was staring at the TV with her hands over her mouth. She was shaking. I snapped my fingers at Joshua, motioning for him to turn off the TV.

“Leave it on,” she yelled, her voice already hoarse with tears. Joshua actually stopped and stared at her before looking at me for confirmation. I turned around, and Maddie moved past me, dropping heavily into a chair without ever looking away from the screen.

“It was those guys who did the contract I told you about. The special one.”

“Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Meet me at the office in twenty. We need to get on this now.”

“I’m already on my way.”

I hung up without saying goodbye and walked toward my room without another glance at the TV. If this was true, if we had inadvertently supplied terrorists with weapons of war through a legal contract, the company was sunk. We would lose everything. It would take years to rebuild our reputation, if we ever could.

“What the hell is happening?” I turned around as I pulled on a wrinkled button-up shirt to find myself face to face with Maddie. She had followed me after all. “Did you do this?”

Her accusation shouldn’t have stung me as much as it did. “No, Maddie, I had nothing to do with this. Right now, we need to go downtown. I need to figure out how to fix this.”

“There is no way to fix this.”

“Well, get ahead of the fallout.”

She grabbed my arm. “Are you talking about the people dead in the streets or your company?”

I slowed as I fastened my final button, realizing the source of her distress. Her passion was the people lying dead on the street. She was itching to get to her office as much as I was mine.

“I’ve worked for most of my life to make this company successful. I’m one of the youngest executives in the country because of it. There are workers to worry about, jobs that will be lost if we go down because of this.”

“You get to go save your profits, but I have to sit here while people suffer? Jesus, Meyer, people are dying in the streets. Are you going to do nothing to help them?”

I sat on the bed and pulled her toward me. Even angry and distraught, she looked so beautiful. I had to resist the urge to press my fingers against her full lips. “Joshua has your laptop and phone. We’ll take them with us, and you can make some calls from my office.”

---