“What now,” she demanded hoarsely, mostly to herself.
“As in?”
“I have a feeling, even if I called the cops again right now, that you’d get away.”
He inclined his head. “I would.”
“So what are you going to do for the rest of your life? Run?”
“Evade death. Until it finds me and sends me to Hell. And both are going to happen.”
A chill went up her spine, tingling in the nape of her neck, making her hyper-aware of everything from the pine scent in the air to the coolness of the night to those lazy, traveling clouds overhead.
Matthias seemed sad to the point of agony. “Mels, I need you to know that I didn’t have a clue what to do. The amnesia was real, and when things started coming to me, I kept them from you because…that expression on your face in that hotel room this morning was something I never wanted to see—and I knew it was coming. I knew it was inevitable. The thing was, there was no good news in any of my memories—no goodness, either. But with you, I was different.” He dragged a hand through his hair and touched beside his eye, running his fingertips around the faded scars. “This I can’t explain. I just can’t—but it wasn’t makeup and contacts. And that is the God’s honest. The same’s true about the impotence. I didn’t lie about that.”
Shit. He struck her as so open, everything about him seemingly bared to her.
Except, wasn’t that what good liars did? They made themselves appear to be speaking the gospel—and they had a way of figuring out what would work with whoever was in front of them, what approach, what combination of affect and vocabulary would be successful.
Good liars were so much more than fib makers. They were selfish seducers with agendas.
“I can’t believe you,” she said roughly.
“And I don’t blame you. It is, however, the truth. My reckoning is coming for me—one way or the other the past is going to catch up with me, and I’m at peace with that. I was lucky—I got sent back to set things right, to give you what I did so you can expose the whole organization. That’s the only way I can make amends, and it’s also going to get you what you want—the story that can make an entire career. In the end, we’ll both have what we deserve.”
Funny, but her work had never seemed less important.
“You know what is still bothering me?” she said numbly. “I’ve never understood why I fell so hard for you—that’s bothered me all along. I just can’t find the reasoning, I mean, why a man I didn’t know, who didn’t even know himself? But you pursued me, didn’t you—and you get what you want. So be honest with me now, why did you do it? Why…me.”
“For the simplest reason there is.”
“And that is?”
He was quiet for so long, she thought he wasn’t going to answer her. Except then he said in a cracked voice, “I fell in love with you. I am a monster—it’s true. But I opened my eyes in that hospital and the second I saw you…everything changed. I went after you…because I am in love.”
Mels exhaled and closed her eyes, the pain in her chest taking her breath away. “Oh…God—”
“No!”
Her lids flew open as Matthias hollered, and then everything went into slow motion.
With a powerful shove from him, she went flying, her body cast aside as something whistled by her ear and pinged off the side of the garage.
A bullet.
Mels hit the pea gravel and slid along the drive. Scrambling to stop her momentum, she clawed at the loose ground cover as she rolled onto her back.
And saw everything.
Just as the moon broke free of the clouds, and silvery white light rained down on the night landscape, Matthias heaved his whole body up into the air, the trajectory putting him directly in front of Jim Heron.
Mels shouted out, but it was too late.
The illumination from the heavens spotlit him as he put his chest in the way of the second shot…that had clearly been meant for the other man.
She would never forget Matthias’s face.
As he was mortally struck, his eyes were not trained on the one who was firing or the one he was saving. They were looking to the light from above, and he was…at peace.
As if his final act put him at ease all the way to his soul.
Mels reached out, as if she could stop him, or catch him, or rewind time—but the end had come for him, and, God, it seemed like he had expected it.
Perhaps even welcomed it.
She screamed, the shrill sound peeling out of her throat. “Matthias…!”
His body landed in a heap, and the fact that he didn’t try to brace himself against the impact was testament to how badly he was struck.
Tears sprang to her eyes as she tried to crawl over to him—
But she was held in place by invisible hands.
53
Ultimately, it had been the moonlight that had shown the way.
As Matthias had stood and talked with Mels, he had kept his eyes steadily on her, because it was crucial that she believe him, and he knew he wasn’t getting another chance. Indeed, he had never spoken more truthful words, in spite of the fact that some of them sounded crazy, and in so many ways, his life would be complete only if by some miracle she could believe what he was saying.
And then he had had the chance to tell her he loved her. To her face.
It was more than he had hoped for or deserved.
Except as he did, the moon peeked through the clouds, throwing shadows onto the ground, shadows of trees, branches, cars…people.
Including the operative in black who had crept up to the edge of the forest.
And was lifting his gun and leveling it across the driveway.
Matthias’s first move was to get Mels out of the line of fire, and as she hit the fine gravel, he heard the first shot strike the garage. The second discharge was going to be deadly—but not to her.
Jim was standing unprotected by the rental car, as obvious a target as a goddamn dartboard.
Matthias reacted in an instant, throwing himself in the way of the second shot, becoming a human shield to protect the other man. Sailing through the air, he somehow timed the jump and the trajectory perfectly.
As he felt the bullet break into his sternum and strike his heart, he thought, Well…here it was.
His final moment on earth.
And it felt right, so right. He had done such ugliness, such evil, over the course of decades, but at least he was ending on a high note, a right note—giving Jim enough time to out his gun and pick off the assassin.