The Devil's Elixir (6 page)

Traffic was sparse, and as I drove on, my mind was skittering all over the place. Michelle’s revelation was no less than a life-changer. There would be a whole host of ripples I’d need to deal with. Of those, none would be more delicate to navigate than the one that had hogged my thoughts the whole way down—the same one, in fact, that was now rousing my BlackBerry as I took the off-ramp toward the terminal.

For a moment, I debated whether or not to pick up, but I knew I couldn’t duck the call.

“Hey.”

“Hey, handsome,” Tess’s voice boomed. “How’s the bachelor weekend going? The Shermans haven’t had to call the cops out, have they?”

Her voice was like a balm to my battered senses. “They threatened to, but we’re cool.”

“How’d you manage that?”

“I invited them over and offered them one of our bongs. The thing is, now I can’t get rid of them. Those kids can party.”

I heard her chuckle as she probably pictured the seventy-something-year-old couple next door in full frat-house mode—not an attractive sight, trust me—and I grabbed the moment.

“Hey, I can’t talk right now. I’m about to jump on a plane.”

“Oh, baby,” she teased, “you can’t wait till next weekend, huh?”

I managed a small chortle. “Not exactly.”

Tess dropped the playful tone. “Yeah, I kind of figured. What’s going on? Where are you flying?”

“San Diego.” I hesitated, then added, “Something’s come up. I need to be there.”

“Anything I should be worried about?”

“No.” I was hating the lie, even though it was more of a lie of omission—not that anyone ever bought that line, least of all me right now. But I couldn’t tell her, not now, not over a car speakerphone.

“But it’s enough to have you jumping on a plane at the drop of a hat?”

I hesitated again, feeling too uncomfortable with the lie. I just had to cut the call short. “It’s nothing serious. Look, I’m at the airport, I’ve got to go. I’ll call you from there, okay?”

She went silent for a moment, then said, “Sure. Okay. Just—Sean?”

She didn’t have to say it. The worry was coming through loud and clear. She always said it, even after all the time we’d spent together and all the close shaves we’d been through.

“I know,” I told her.

“Call me.”

“I will.”

I hung up, feeling awful about having her worry unnecessarily, and feeling a lot worse about not telling her the truth.

The fact was, I didn’t know how I was going to break the news to her. No matter how I prefaced it or framed it or sugarcoated it, it was going to hurt.

We’d tried, and failed, to have a baby for a couple of years. Who really knows why that happens. The doctors will run all kinds of tests and explain why they think it’s happening, but ultimately, I think it was just our bad luck. As far as the specialists were concerned, the likely cause lay with Tess’s age and her being on the pill for so many years, but whatever it was, and despite trying the very best IVF treatments on offer, it just wouldn’t happen for us. The grueling process had turned into a drawn-out ordeal, with each failed attempt causing more emotional trauma. Tess, in particular, had grown more and more depressed with feelings of inadequacy, something that seemed insane to me—she was the most capable and giving woman I’d ever met. But she knew how much I had wanted to be a dad myself, and not just a stepdad to Kim, and although I’d done my best to play down the disappointment I felt deep down and no matter what I said, I guess I just hadn’t been able to hide it convincingly enough. She started finding it harder and harder to be around me and ended up flying off to Jordan, using the excuse that she needed to do some research for a Templar novel she was prepping. It was only recently, and by fluke—a near-death one, at that, after Tess had been kidnapped by some whackjob Iranian operative while she was in Petra—that we’d gotten back together again.

And now this.

It was definitely going to hurt.

It was also the kind of wedge that could drive a couple apart, and that was a prospect I was desperate to avoid. I mean, Tess was my life. But I knew that the sudden reemergence of an ex-girlfriend with my young child in tow would be, at best, a source of recurrent friction and, at worst, a complication that could wreck us. It wouldn’t help that Michelle Martinez was smart, funny, seriously hot, and—the deal breaker—someone I’d never mentioned to Tess. I’d blanked out that whole episode of my life. And no matter how attractive Tess was herself—which she was, in spades, the word
luminous
springing to mind whenever I try to describe her—and despite the fact that I was nuts about her and that she knew it, I had a strong feeling she’d inevitably feel threatened by my blast from the past. Anyone would. I get that. Hell, I would, too, no question. And, again, I’d probably end up having a hard time convincing her that she had nothing to worry about. Which she didn’t. Michelle had been a serious flame for me, but Tess, without a doubt, was the full bonfire.

Definitely not a conversation I was looking forward to, though it was already playing itself out in my mind. And as I drove into the parking lot worrying about Tess, far darker thoughts intruded and took center stage again, thoughts of Michelle and a little boy I’d never met and the dangers lurking around them.

I was starting to have a sinking feeling that maybe I should have grabbed a jet.

 

A
s the door swung open, my heart froze.

Not in a bad way. It froze in an oh-my-god, paralyzed-from-sensory-overload kind of way. The good kind of sensory overload.

She still had it. The smooth, honey-hued skin. The delicate dusting of freckles across her thin nose and sculpted cheeks. The dazzling blue eyes, windows into the cauldron of intelligence and mischief within. The body, curvy and taut, that could make Hugh Hefner’s head spin. It was all just as I remembered it.

But that wasn’t what froze my heart.

What did it was the four-year-old boy standing quietly by her side, holding onto her hand tightly and staring up at me.

The sight of him made me forget to breathe.

When Michelle had said that Alex was four, I hadn’t quite realized just how tiny a four-year-old was. How tiny, and how fragile. I just hadn’t been around many kids of that age. I didn’t have any nieces or nephews, Kim was around ten when I first hooked up with Tess, and, aside from Aparo, I wasn’t socially close to any of the people I worked with, some of whom had young kids. Hence the shock and awe rolling through me. And right there and then, standing in that bland and uninspiring hotel hallway, my heart soared as it never had before. I just knew that Alex was mine.

“You gonna just stand there like a
burro
, or you gonna give me a hug?” Michelle asked.

I dragged my eyes away from Alex and up to hers. Despite the apparent bravado, there was a smoldering fear in her eyes. It was subtle, barely there, and not everyone would have spotted it, but I did. I smiled, took her by the shoulders and pulled her closer, and gave her a kiss, a slightly awkward one that wasn’t quite on the lips but wasn’t on the cheeks either. Her arms slid up and she hugged me, tight, burying her head in the crook of my neck.

I’m not gonna lie to you, and don’t hate me for saying it, but right there and then, it felt great. Awkward, yes—but great.

Then I felt the shivering and any notion of “great” vaporized.

We stood there for a long moment, breathing each other in, a riptide of confusing emotions tugging at us, an unfinished past colliding with a brutal present, standing there in silence, stretching out the enjoyable part of our encounter, knowing the real reason for us being there, together again, would soon take over. Then we pulled back, holding each other’s eyes in a silent commemoration of what we’d once had until Michelle turned and, palms out, game show hostess–like, gestured at her son.

“So . . . this is Alex,” she said, her face a mix of pride, unease, and pain.

I glanced back down at the boy, who was staring at me uncertainly, and something twisted inside me. Alex’s eyes were wide with what I suddenly realized was more than just uncertainty. It was fear. I bent down to say hi to him, but as I did, Alex shrunk back and tucked himself in behind his mother’s thigh, hugging it tightly while burying his head into it.

“No,” he pleaded in a small voice.

Michelle swiveled her head around to him.

“Alex, what’s wrong?”

The kid didn’t say anything. He was still cowering behind her leg, not looking out.

I looked a question at Michelle. She turned and crouched down and pulled Alex out from behind her, but he resisted and screamed, “No,” again.

“Alex, stop it.” Her tone was even, but firm.

“No, Mommy, no,” the boy whimpered.

“Meesh, it’s okay,” I offered.

Michelle ignored my plea. “Alex, stop,” she insisted, firmer now, but still calm. “This is my friend, Sean. Now would you please stop being silly and say hi to him. He’s here to help us.”

The boy glanced up at me, then ducked back out of sight and tucked himself away even more. He was trembling visibly.

“It’s all right,” I told her, raising my hands in a calming motion. “He’s been through a hell of a lot today.”

Michelle studied Alex for a second, then hugged him against her and nodded. “I know, but . . . I don’t know what’s got into him. He’s usually really friendly, and I thought that, at least, with you here . . .” She let the words drift off, clearly flustered and frustrated.

“Given what you’ve both been through today . . . Maybe it’s not a bad thing for him to be wary of strangers.”

“I guess,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s just that . . . He’s been having nightmares and, well, it’s . . . complicated.” She looked up at me with real hurt in her eyes, and I suspected that, despite everything she’d been through today, she probably felt awful about my first get-together with Alex turning out this way. “God, I’m really sorry. It’s nothing to do with you, you know that, right?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

I got down on one knee so my face was almost level with his, and extended a hand. “Hey, Alex. It’s really great to meet you.”

After a long second, the kid peeked nervously at me, then shut his eyes tight and shrank back behind his mother.

I glanced at Michelle. She was watching intently, and the heaviness in her heart was clear. She gave me a look of exasperation and apology. I gave her a soft nod. At least Alex and I had now met, even in these circumstances. It was only a minuscule step, but it was still a major one, for all three of us. There was still a long and, I’m sure, bumpy trail to travel, a lot of lost time to make up—and a lot of tough decisions to make.

“You’d better come on in,” she told me.

I stepped in and saw her glance warily down both ends of the hall before locking the door behind me.

W
e talked out on the balcony, with Alex inside, watching TV. He was big on
Ben 10
, which was—I’d just learned—a hugely popular TV show. He had all the gear: the small figurines of Ben and a whole bunch of weird-looking aliens, the sneakers, even a big, cool-looking gizmo around his wrist that—I also just learned—was called the Omnitrix and that any true
Ben 10
fan just had to have. It was the device that gave Ben the ability to turn into any of ten alien characters, which he used to defeat his enemies. And right now, I was glad he had it. Given what he’d been through, Alex needed all the superpowers he could summon up.

It had taken a little while for Michelle to calm him down, but somehow she’d managed it while I stayed out of sight and took in the view. The room was on the third floor of the low-rise hotel, facing the marina and the ocean beyond. Across the street, people strolled and jogged along the water’s edge, watching the sailboats slip in and out of the harbor’s mouth while, overhead, planes were gliding in, low and slow, on final approach. The whole world seemed to be out and about, enjoying the end of a glorious day by the ocean, talking and laughing and basking in the setting sun’s balmy embrace, oblivious to the horrorfest that had crashed into Michelle’s life that morning.

The sliding door was half open, but there wasn’t much risk that Alex would overhear us, not with the TV on. Still, we kept our voices down. Four-year-olds, Michelle told me, had a way of surprising you with what they caught on the fly and brought up when you least expected it. Both guns—my Browning Hi-Power, and the silenced Glock 22 she’d grabbed off one of the guys who’d attacked them—were laid out on the flimsy white balcony table, along with a couple of Coke cans we’d liberated from the room’s minibar.

I was having trouble making sense of what had happened, but at least, with Michelle there, I could start filling in the blanks. The ones in my mind as well as the ones plaguing her, starting with the one that, I knew, mattered the most.