Page 70 of Dangerous Secrets

She had to stand witness for Nick, let him leave this life under a loving gaze. She was his family. He had no parents and no siblings, just like her. They were each other’s family and this was the last thing she could do for him.

Fate had stopped her from bearing witness for her parents. She never saw them again after the night of the fire, not their bodies, not their coffins. She didn’t attend their funeral. By thetime she woke up from her coma, her parents had been in the ground for two weeks.

So she was determined that she would stand by Nick in the only way she could. If his spirit lingered anywhere near his broken, burned body, he would know that she stood steadfast by his side, no matter the cost to her.

She didn’t regret it, not once, though what she’d seen would, she knew, forever color her nightmares.

And until the end of time, on her death-bed, she would smell that terrible stench of charred bones and burnt flesh.

Her stomach quivered again and she swallowed heavily.

The car rolled slowly to a stop outside her house. She had visitors. Her heart beat slow and heavy in her chest.

Whoever was coming, they were not welcome.

In a token attempt at trying to stem her bottomless, dark grief, she’d switched on the living room lights. Unfortunately, they were visible from the street. She couldn’t even pretend nobody was home, as she had done for the past three days.

Her living room window framed the big black limo parked at the curb. She could see everything perfectly.

The driver, dressed in elegant black livery, came around the car and opened the back seat door, extending a hand to the man who emerged. The man’s deeply-lined face was sharply handsome. An expensive Borsalino covered his longish, greying blond hair. He was dressed for the cold—a heavy midnight-blue overcoat and thick leather gloves covering what she knew were scarred hands. One hand was clutching an ebony walking stick with a polished ivory knob.

He was making his limping way slowly up her walkway, leaning heavily on the arm of his driver, who held Vassily’s arm with one hand and a big black box with another.

Vassily.

He’d come out in the freezing cold, just for her.

Charity winced. Vassily coming out on a cold day was a big deal. A very big deal. He made no secret of the fact that he hated the cold, venturing out only when necessary in winter. Watching him make his slow, laborious way to her, it was painfully clear that this cost him sacrifice.

It was a magnificent gesture. Charity knew she should be grateful, even flattered. This was something Vassily would do for very few people in the world. Maybe she was the only person he’d do this for. But though she was touched, she was in no condition to receive him.

She wanted to be left alone and not have to gather her scattered, grieving self together enough to make conversation. There was no conversation in her, not enough energy left in her to deal with anyone.

But this had to be done. Vassily was an old man. He was a great man who had suffered great tragedy, and he was making an effort to come to offer her comfort in the hour of her own tragedy.

On any possible scale of suffering, Vassily’s suffering far far exceeded hers. He’d been to hell and back, and for five long years. He’d not only lost loved ones, he’d been injured, tortured, forced to work in mines in sub-zero temperatures, whipped and beaten.

No, her suffering was a paltry thing in comparison. Shame made her stiffen her spine. Somehow, she had to claw her way up out of the slippery, gory, deep, dark well of mourning she’d fallen into. For the next half hour or hour, or however long Vassily chose to stay, she had to somehow take her suffering and compress it, tuck it away somewhere, just long enough so she could function while he was here.

Afterwards, when he’d gone, when she was alone, she could let the grief unravel and swell to monstrous proportions again,until it occupied every cell of her body and mind, as it had for the past two days.

But for now, whatever it took, she had to cling to control.

Vassily’s slow walk up to her front porch allowed her to rush into the bathroom and dash some cold water on her face. She looked up into the mirror above the sink and shuddered, hardly recognizing herself.

Her eyes were red-rimmed and swollen, testimony to her sleepless nights and the endless tears. Dark bruises shadowed her eyes. She’d lost weight, in just these two days. Her cheekbones were sharper, the line of her jaw more pronounced. Her skin was paper-white, bloodless. She looked caved-in, beaten. She looked ready for the grave herself.

The grave . . . in a flash she was at the cemetery again. The dark gouge in the earth yawned at her feet, the heavy mahogany coffin’s gleaming brass handles starkly contrasting with the frozen black earth. The smell of unearthed sod rose in her nostrils, churning her stomach. The smell of death and . . .

She froze on the threshold of her bedroom.

Oh my God.

There was another smell in the room, lingering in the air. Musky, faintly citrusy. Familiar, unmistakeable.

Impossible.

Nick’s smell.

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