Page 44 of A Killing Cold

“You know, maybe we could find your birth parents,” Connor says. “I know you hit a dead end before, but you didn’t have the same resources that we do. I bet you anything Granddad has somebody who could—”

“Why are you pushing so hard on this?” I ask him. “For me? Or to make your grandparents happy?”

He taps a fingertip on the table, thinking over his next words. “My family is very rich, Theo. If we don’t look into you, someone else might. And my grandparents need to know that there isn’t anything to find that might damage the family. I know that it’s intrusive. But think of it from their perspective.”

He puts his hand on my thigh. He sits on the edge of his chair so he can lean in toward me.

“You have to help me out here,” he says. “You have to start telling me things.”

“I tell you the important things,” I say.

He shakes his head. “You’re so hard to read. Hell, you’re a blank book.”

I flinch back. He’s dug his fingers into a wound, a fear I always hold myself curled protectively around. Who am I? Maybe I’m no one and there’s nothing inside me except all the little pieces I’ve collected fromthe people I’ve wanted to love. Maybe I’m just a silver dollar hidden in a shoe, a pink shell, a polished piece of tiger’s eye, a knife.

“What’s so terrible that you can’t tell me?” he asks. “What’s so important to keep secret?”

Blood in my teeth. On my shirt. Blood that won’t stop. The cruiser’s lights flashing.

Yes, I’m keeping secrets, Connor. But I’m not the only one.

“The night we met, why did you come over and talk to me?” I ask. His head jerks up. Just a twitch, really. It could mean anything. It could mean nothing.

And then he smiles. “I need a reason to go talk to a pretty girl?” he asks. He rises, coming around the side of the table. He leans against it facing me so I have to crane my neck to look up at him.

“I’m not pretty,” I say, Trevor’s words an echo in my chest.

“Of course you are. You’re beautiful,” he says. They’re different things, I don’t tell him. “You looked intriguing. I wanted to know who you were. It turns out that was a harder proposition than I was expecting.” He says it like he’s teasing me, but also like it’s true.

“You looked familiar. But we’d never seen each other before,” I say. I’m leaving him the opening, the option. If he tells me, I’ll tell him everything, I think. But if he keeps his secrets, I have to keep mine.

“Maybe it was just a sign that we were fated for each other,” he says.

“You didn’t recognize me?” Trying not to sound like I’m pressing. That I know there’s anything to press about.

“I don’t think we’d ever run into each other before,” he says. “I wouldn’t have waited to talk to you.” He cups my chin in his hand, his thumb against my lower lip. He sighs. “I love you, Theo.”

Any other day, any other point in my life, it would be enough to undo me.

Today I only turn my head toward his palm to kiss the inside of his wrist, and I say nothing at all.

21

Connor lied to me about the night we met, but he isn’t the only one. Harper arranged that meeting, and she never told me. I want to know why.

My injured hand gets me out of family time at the lodge. I charge my phone for a few minutes, long enough for a few calls, and dress for the cold. Connor told me there’s signal down by the gate, so that’s where I’m heading.

The whole walk, I’m waiting for someone to stop me. But in the brightly lit lodge I can see people moving about, wandering past the giant windows; they’re all occupied with more important things than me.

I take my phone out as I approach the gate. Nothing. I have to haul myself over it and go another fifty feet down the road before my phone finally connects to the network. It offers up a scattering of alerts—emails, texts, nothing urgent. I dial Harper’s number. She answers immediately.

“Theo!” she says. “Thank god. I was starting to worry you’d been eaten by wolves. So how is it going? Do you have them all wrapped around your finger yet?”

Harper speaks with rapid cheer. She’s always like this. So much energy it’s constantly overflowing. She’s my oldest friend—the first person I met at UCLA when I showed up clutching a single ancient suitcase, with forty dollars to my name. It took her three seconds to decide to make a project out of me. She was fascinated by my upbringing. Protective. Warned me Brandon was bad news, for one thing, and nursed me through the aftermath of him without ever sayingI told you so.

It doesn’t make sense, Harper lying to me.

“Harper. Sorry to bother you,” I say, my voice strained. I’ve never had trouble talking to Harper before, but now I have to force the words out.

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