“You poisoned D’Augie?”
She giggled, as if laughing in her sleep. “D’Augie said Red Drink was to die for!” She drifted off again.
I pinched her nostrils shut till she started to choke. I shouted her name, and she gagged and shook her head. “Leave me alone!” she said, while trying to slap me away.
“Who was he?”
“Huh?”
“Who was D’Augie?”
“Huh? Oh. I dunno.”
“Why did he want to kill me?”
“I dunnooo.”
“Did he tell you anything about himself?”
“Huh?”
I shook her again and repeated the question. She tried to swat me with her hand.
“I’m serious, Rachel. Tell me what he said.”
“Just that he was named after his father and his father’s best friend.”
“His father’s name was Augie?”
“No. Augustus.”
I felt as though someone had drilled a hole in my chest.
“Dunno what the D was for,” she murmured.
The room seemed to swirl around me. I tucked Rachel in again and let her sleep. I didn’t have to ask her anything else. I knew exactly who the kid was, though I’d never known of his existence before that moment. D’Augie was named after his father, Augustus, and his father’s best friend, Donovan Creed.
Donovan and Augustus: D’Augie.
Augustus Quinn had been my best friend for more than fifteen years. We’d killed together, worked together, and defended our country. He was a monster of a man, born with a rare disease that misshaped his head and facial features. About four years ago Augustus had fallen in love with a young con artist named Alison, whom I’d recruited to work for my agency at Homeland. Around that time I had a medical issue that put me in a coma for three years. When I recovered, I learned that Augustus had kidnapped Alison and was keeping her in a concrete cell in his warehouse in Philadelphia. It’s a long story, but in order to rescue Alison I had to kill my best friend.
Fuck.
Augustus never told me he had a son.
Life’s crazy sometimes, you know?
Wow.
Ah well, fuck it.
I mean, there’s nothing I can do about it now, right?
Nothing to do but close that chapter of my life and move on.
Chapter 28
THE LAND AROUND the little church was flat, the lot surrounded by pines. The church was two stories high, made entirely of flagstone, except for the corrugated red metal roofing, the wooden door, and the windows. There was a slate floor standing area in front of the church that was maybe twenty feet wide and twelve feet deep. To the right of the church were two flagstone columns that stood about fifteen feet high. The columns were connected at the top by a limestone cap. A few inches below the cap an old, cast-iron bell hung from a wooden beam. The rope for the bell clapper was long enough to reach the ground, but was tied off to a cleat so children couldn’t reach it.
We parked Beth’s car in the gravel area on the left side, and from that angle I could see a wooden balcony that extended from a small gable. Before exiting the car, Beth put her hand on my wrist, very gently. I looked down at it, and then raised my eyes to her face. She held my gaze a moment, then closed her eyes. I leaned over and lightly kissed her lips. She didn’t kiss me back.
I kissed her again, and this time she opened her eyes and returned the kiss. I started moving closer, eager for more, but she said, “It’s not our time yet.”
“Are you sure?” I said. “Because to me, it really feels like it’s our time.”
She smiled and lifted her hand from my wrist, and placed it to my face. I’d never felt so much energy from a person’s touch before, not even Kathleen Chapman, who I almost married.
“We’re meant to be, and it will happen, but it’s not our time yet.”
“Can I have just fifteen minutes of it now with you, across the street, on the beach?”
She did that adorable pouty thing she sometimes did with her mouth, then sighed and said, “I’m not ready yet, and you’re not ready. But when it’s our time, you won’t be disappointed. I promise.”
“A rain check then.”
“Let’s call it a heart check,” she said, placing her palm on my heart.
I looked past her, through her window, thinking of that gorgeous, deserted beach a scant two minutes away. “How about a quick ten minutes now, and when we’re both ready, we can deduct it from eternity?”
