Page 29 of The Tower

Chapter 16

Keane

"Where have you been all this time?"

The words come out before I can stop myself, and once I've said them out loud, there's no way back.

The question has been there all this time. Ever since I first touched her, first tasted her. She's so much more than I ever expected her to be.

Sex can be a lot of things—an outlet for stress, a game of power, an achievement.

But it has never been this to me.

Salvation.

Fucking Libby felt right, more than right. For the first time, I felt I was doing something I was supposed to do.

Something good. Something right.

No good will ever outweigh all the evil I've done. But this, right now, feels as close as I can ever get.

Seeing the blissful smile on Libby's face during and after her climax was everything I could ever ask for. She appeared overjoyed, tipsy, drunk on happiness, and so fucking grateful.

And I gave her that. I made her smile like that, and it cast a bright light on the prune that is my darkened heart.

I wish I could do it again and again.

Libby shifts next to me, and even in the dark, I know that her eyes are on me, most likely accompanied by a questioning look.

There's a flash of relief when she comes up with a pragmatic response, revealing that she missed the rhetorical aspect of my question.

"In Northern California," she says. "I'm studying at Humboldt State University... or I was."

She hesitates, taking a deep breath before she adds, "I finished my undergraduate this spring and was supposed to start my graduate program this fall, but..."

"But what?" I probe when she adds another heavy pause.

"Well, maybe I realized that college was just a way for me to stay as far away from my family as possible? Maybe I realized that studying isn't really my thing? I just applied because I can and because it will be paid for, no matter what. And because it gave me a reason to stay away."

I nod even though she can't see it in the dark.

Northern California. Of all places. What a weird coincidence to find out she's been hiding kind of close to the area I've chosen as my refuge. The West Coast but farther up north. I have an estate waiting for me close to Portland, Oregon. A secure house with high fences far away from the Covey.

That was the plan. Hide out here for a few days while things settle after a last successful mission, then fly out from Montreal, using my new passport. Everything was ready and set in stone.

Then she happened.

And now I learn she's spent a large portion of her young life in the same area to live a life far away from where she should call home.

Oh, the fucking irony.

"Why did you come back?" I ask.

A deep sigh leaves her lips before she whispers, "I don't know. I felt it was time. It's been so long since I was back here, almost seven years, actually. It was just supposed to be a short visit. An opportunity to kill the ghosts from the past."

"Seven years? You never returned after they sent you away as a pregnant teenager?"

"No," she replies matter-of-factly. "I've been in Northern California ever since. My uncle has a place up there in the redwood forest. His secret escape, he calls it. I stayed there, being watched after by a woman who was paid to be my guardian. I lost my child up there, I finished high school, and then I went to college in the neighboring town."

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