Page 55 of Lost in the Moonlight

She ran a finger along the smooth granite island, rotating the barstool side to side as she swung her body back and forth. I tried not to take it personally when she didn’t immediately launch into the story. She had to be fighting years of being toldnotto speak the truth. I knew what it felt like to hold back secrets. I’d spent a lifetime keeping mine.

Maybe she simply needed proof I had as much to lose as her. Proof that I’d share my secrets as she shared hers.

After I poured the water over the strainers into the cups, I brought them to the island and sat next to her. “I was diagnosed with idiopathic insomnia when I was eight.”

She looked up from her tea, surprise in her eyes.

“No one really knows that except my immediate family,” and Felicity, but I didn’t let that thought derail me. “They thought I had ADHD or some other disorder because I couldn’t sleep. I went through a bunch of doctors and therapists before they realized it was child-onset insomnia. I was in my teens before they decided to try drugs.”

“Why are you…?” she started and then settled her gaze on me. “Thank you for trusting me.”

I ached to pull her to me again and made do with brushing a hand over her cheek before retreating and continuing my story. “Because of the drugs the doctors had me on, I wasn’t allowed to drive. So, it was my girlfriend, Sienna, who was in the driver’s seat on prom night. We’d left the limo and our friends behind at a party and headed to her grandparents’ cabin. On our way, a night shift road worker crossed the double yellow and wiped out the driver’s side of the car. My car. That she was driving because I was on too many drugs to get behind the wheel.”

“Lincoln...” The empathy, the pure sadness in Willow’s voice, didn’t make me cringe as it normally did when talking about that night.

As if talking about her had beckoned her from the beyond, Sienna appeared on the far side of the kitchen with a raised brow. I heard her voice in my head all over again, telling me how she’d wanted to drive, how it wouldn’t have mattered if I’d had the drugs in me or not.

I turned back to Willow, continuing the story I rarely discussed with anyone. “By that time, my dad had already made his fair share of enemies on the Hill, people who wanted to discredit him so he wouldn’t get reelected as senator and definitely wouldn’t make a run at the presidency, which everyone knew was his ultimate goal. So, someone dropped it to the press that I was drinking and driving and that my family was lying when they said I wasn’t at the wheel. Even though every single police report showed I couldn’t have survived if I’d been in the driver’s seat. But it was where I should have been.” I choked on the last couple of words. I shook my head, took a sip of tea, and tried to loosen the tightness in my shoulders that came whenever I talked about it.

I ignored Sienna as she shot me an annoyed glare.

Normally, the depth of the guilt eating at me when I thought or discussed that night would leave the taste of metal and blood in my mouth. But today, the scent of Willow, her sugary essence, was pushing it back. The load I carried seemed lighter, as if in unburdening it now so Willow would feel safe to share her own heavy weight made it less about me and more about theusI could almost visualize shimmering in our tomorrows.

I put my mug down, drew her hands into mine, and held tight. I met those gray eyes with honesty. “My point is, I know about secrets and keeping things hidden. I’ve lived my life as the son of a politician. We don’t share our dirty laundry no matter how angry or ugly things get with someone. You can talk to me. I need you to talk to me so I can figure out a way to help you. And, for what it’s worth, I think you need to talk about it. I think you need to give that secret to someone you can trust.”

Her eyes scoured my face in silence, assessing and debating, but I never looked away, not even when I saw Sienna fading away out of the corner of my eye. I let Willow see whatever she needed to in my gaze. My honesty. My desperate hope she’d open up and share her story.

“It’s not logical, but I do trust you,” she finally whispered.

My lips curved upward just enough to be considered a grin. “Yeah?”

She leaned in, brushing at the damn lock of hair forever falling into my face. While I normally cussed out that wayward strand, her fingertips coasting along my forehead had me suddenly grateful for it, relishing the way her skin skimmed over mine. I ached to have her. Not just physically—although that need was coursing through me with such power it was almost embarrassing. I ached to have her soul tucked up against mine. All her secrets. All her dreams. All her laughter and delight. No one had made mewantthis badly. Not even Sienna.

Willow pulled back, and I snagged her hands again. She stared at our tangled fingers for a moment before finally giving me a piece of her story. “I recognized the insomnia in you. My dad…he had fatal familial insomnia. Do you know what it is?”

That was the last thing I’d expected her to start with. I nodded, knowing what it was from the tests done on me as a child. My mouth went dry, and the tightness in my chest grew. Did that mean Willow had it as well?

As if reading my thoughts, she said, “We don’t know if I have it. My dad had barely been diagnosed with it, maybe eight months, before he was killed, and the only labs that can do the testing are in California. It was too expensive at first, and then, after everything went down, the Marshals said I couldn’t be tested because the defense knew my dad had it. So, if I was positive for the mutated gene, they’d be able to find me just by searching for people being treated for it.”

Dozens of questions popped into my mind about her, about FFI, and about her family, but the one I got out was the one that had the threat showing up on her doorstep. “You’re in witness protection because of something that happened to your dad?”

She nodded, pulling away, grabbing the mug, and sipping. “The disease had progressed far enough that he’d lost his job at the 9-1-1 center. He kept forgetting things mid-call, and he’d lost his cool a few times with callers. He was becoming angrier every day, but he was also terrified he might have passed the FFI to me. When the nights got too long, and the emotions heavy, he’d go for a walk.

“Mom worked nights as a neonatal nurse at the hospital. So, often, it was just Dad and me at home in the evenings. With the speed at which he was losing his memory, I was uncomfortable letting him go out alone, but Mom said to leave him be. It was one thing he still had a choice about when so many of his choiceshad been taken away. We always made sure he took his phone, and he had a cane we’d had our address engraved into, so if he couldn’t find his way on his own, someone could help him.

“One night, while out, he passed an alley where a woman was being attacked. Two men, both in ski masks…”

Willow swallowed, fear trembling through her as she looked in the direction of her house. I imagined her mind had gone right to where mine had when she’d mentioned the masks—to the man at her door in the video.

Damn.

“They had her on the ground… They’d…you know.” She blew out a breath. “From what we could tell, they didn’t hear Dad coming. Didn’t even know he was there until he’d smacked one of them on the head with his cane. Even with all he was going through, my dad was a big, strong guy, so the first one went down. But the second one pulled his gun before my dad could get close enough. First, he shot the woman…Mary. Her name was Mary.”

I squeezed her knee while she got ahold of herself.

“Dad ran. We don’t know if he forgot he had his phone or just didn’t remember he could call 9-1-1. The only thing we know for certain is that he ran home. He must have thought he’d lost them when he got to our street and they weren’t behind him. But he’d also dropped the cane back in the alley with our address carved right into it.”

Willow shook her head, pressed her hand to her chest, and then got up. She put her cup in the sink and stared out at the cemetery. I wasn’t sure what to do. Go to her. Stay. Let her finish. Make her stop.

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