“Don’t say it,” ordered Natasha suddenly.
“What?”
“Don’t say that you never meant to fall in love with me.”
I pumped my fist once in a gesture of victory and whispered to Wes, “I knew it. God, what a cliché.”
“Shh,” said Wes, bumping my shoulder.
“Fine, I won’t say it,” said Henry from downstairs. “But you know that it’s true.”
“You have been using me for twenty years.”
“Not quite,” disagreed Henry. “It’s true that when I first met you, I was digging for information. But not long after, the case flatlined. We’d had too many false leads. Too many mistakes had been made. The investigation was put on hold, and I took a step back from the Bureau.”
“Then how did you manage to find out about Nicole?”
“Even though the case was put on the back burner, something didn’t sit right with me,” said Henry. “And once I knew how involved you had been with BRS, I thought that it was simply a precaution to keep an eye on the goings-on at Waverly. Then, almost three years ago, I recognized a familiar name on the enrollment list.”
“Nicole Costello?”
“You got it. I thought maybe it was just a coincidence, but Nicole so blatantly resembled Anthony. There’s a little bit of you in her face too, no matter how vehemently you deny it. Not to mention, the timeline added up perfectly. I never told you that I knew about Nicole because you so obviously had never wanted me to know about her. Nevertheless, I couldn’t help but keep tabs on her.”
“This just keeps getting creepier and creepier,” mumbled Wes, resting his wet chin on my shoulder.
I envied his warmth. All I wanted was to take a hot shower, eat a homemade meal, and fall into bed, but Henry’s explanation continued on downstairs, and he was just getting to the good parts.
“For Nicole’s first year on campus, there was no trouble at all,” said Henry. I tensed, gripping the banister in order to hold on to something steady. Wes was right. It was a little unsettling to hear a complete stranger talk about your life. “Maybe it had all blown over, I thought. After all, she wasn’t you. Then George O’Connor disappeared. No explanation. I knew he had ties to the Raptors in the past—”
“How?” interrupted Natasha. “Where did all of your information come from?”
Henry didn’t answer immediately. Rather, he seemed to be trying to find the right way to phrase a response. After a minute or so, he finally said, “When Nicole enrolled at Waverly, I recruited someone who could look the part amongst the Raptors. I needed a source. This individual has been my eyes and ears on campus for the past few years.”
“Who is it?” asked my mother, voicing the question in my own head.
“I can’t divulge that information.”
“Of course not.”
“The individual is trustworthy and entirely on our side,” Henry assured her. “That’s all I can say. Anyway, after O’Connor disappeared, I started hearing more and more about Nicole from my source. She had begun investigating O’Connor’s disappearance. That’s how she discovered the Raptors. Your old rival, Catherine Flynn, was both ecstatic and devastated. Nicole was essentially a newer, updated version of her oldest rival. You, Natasha.”
“Consider me flattered,” replied my mother.
“You might chide me for this next part,” admitted Henry. “When Nicole began stirring up trouble, I thought it best to allow her to do so in order to lure the Raptors from their sanctuary.”
My mother scoffed. “You used her as bait.”
“And it worked. The Raptors, particularly Flynn and her cohorts, were getting sloppy in their desperation to contain Nicole. It became easy to discern who among the society was willing to put Nicole in the line of fire. Admittedly, I waited too long before I intervened. I underestimated Donovan Davenport, one of Flynn’s devout followers. It resulted in the string of events that occurred yesterday, which could have been avoided. Recognizing my mistake, I took action to extract Nicole and Wes from the situation. Their safety became my number one priority, and your faith in me moved to number two.”
Silence fell in the kitchen. I could picture Natasha and Henry gazing at each other across the countertop. They had both kept secrets. I couldn’t really relate. Wes and I had always told each other everything. Even during the past few months, with tensions running so high, the two of us had managed, for the most part, to keep one another informed. Lying to my significant other was a foreign concept to me, but Natasha and Henry’s entire relationship had been built on a bed of precarious untruths.
“Is that all of it?” asked Natasha.
“It’s been twenty-five years, my love,” said Henry tiredly. “I’m sure I left something out. But as much as I remember, yes, that’s all of it.”
“Then kindly go get Nicole and catch her up to speed.”
“Shit,” I hissed. I shoved Wes away, scrambling to my feet and attempting to disappear from the top of the steps. Henry’s footsteps echoed through the entryway.
“Nicole?”
I peeked over the banister. “Yes?”
“You can come down now.”
I glanced at Wes, who nodded. “Go ahead,” he said, still in his towel. “I’ll get dressed and be down in a minute.”
So I headed downstairs alone, following Henry back into the kitchen. Natasha stood at the kitchen sink, absentmindedly wringing the same worn-out dishtowel between her hands. Her eyes looked vacantly out of the window above the sink, as if she wasn’t really seeing the front yard.
Henry cleared his throat. “So, Nicole, I guess it’s only fair for us to fill you in.”
“Can I be honest?” I asked, leaning across the counter to commandeer the
