EPILOGUE

Mia Ripley didn’t know how long she’d been sitting on this damn kerosene barrel. Time slipped by in an excruciating crawl, seconds into minutes into hours, marked only by the slow march of shadows across oil-stained concrete and the occasional skitter of unseen vermin in the walls.

She”d picked the lock on this freakshow storage unit in the wee hours, high on heartbreak and sleep deprivation. Traded the cold comfort of her car for the dank confines of this corrugated metal box, all on a wild hunch and a masochistic need to know. To ferret out the truth, no matter how buck-toothed and ugly it might be.

But with each hour that ticked by with no sign of Martin, doubt crept in like damp rot. Maybe she”d jumped the gun, like always. Stuck her nose where it didn”t belong and ripped the scab off something better left to fester.

It was enough to make a saner woman cut and run. To pack it in, wash her hands of this whole sordid mess and never look back. But Mia had never been accused of being particularly sane. Or smart, when it came to matters of the heart. No, she was a glutton for punishment, a masochist of the highest order. She”d see this through to the bitter end, even if it killed her.

So she waited. Leaning against the cold metal wall, eyes gritty and head pounding. Sleep crept up on her in fits and starts, teasing her with oblivion only to dance away again. For years she’d been telling anyone who’d listen that she was getting too old for this crap. All-nighters and stakeouts, running on fumes and nerves frayed raw as dollar store carpets. Time was, she could go days without sleep - just her, her instincts, and a stomach loaded with bad coffee.

But that was then. A lifetime ago, when the job was all she had, the only thing tethering her to the world. Before she”d gone soft, let herself hope for something more than a tin star and a ticket to oblivion.

Before Martin.

Mia pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes until starbursts painted the backs of her lids. Sucked in a slow lungful of kerosene and dust, mildew and misery so thick she could almost chew the air.

She should go. Cut her losses, chalk this up to another lesson carved in scar tissue, and walk away while she still could. There was no coming back from this, no matter what her traitor heart wanted to believe.

Then, in a flash of gut-punch clarity, a soft scuff outside the unit. Rubber soles on oil-slick pavement.

Mia went statue-still, not daring to breathe. Her fingertips tingled, curling instinctively around the absence of her service Glock, still nestled uselessly in the glove box, left behind in a moment of weakness or perhaps level-headedness. A desperate attempt to keep this from turning into a bloodbath. Because she knew, deep in her bones, that if she had it on her now, things could very well go sideways. So she”d played it safe. Left the gun behind, traded cold steel for colder logic. Tried to convince herself that she could handle this with her head.

But for a reason only her subconscious knew, she was starting to regret that decision.

She waited for the jangle of keys, the snick of the lock disengaging. The creak of hinges as the door swung open to reveal her fate, her future, her whole damn world teetering on the edge of a knife.

But nothing happened. The door stayed closed, the silence stretching like a noose. And Mia knew with an excruciating certainty that settled in her guts like lead, that Martin was out there.

She felt it like an itch between her shoulder blades. A sixth sense honed by a hundred hunts, a thousand close calls in the jaws of a beast.

And worse yet, Martin – the stranger on the other side of the door – knew she was in here. Knew she was waiting, wanting.

They were trapped in a standoff. Two serpents coiled in their den, waiting to see who would strike first. Who would break, who would shatter the illusion of civility, of love, that they”d built between them like a house of cards.

Ripley broke first. She always did, in the end.

‘Martin,’ she said. ‘Get in here. Please.’

The word felt jagged in her throat. Ripley couldn”t remember the last time she”d said please, the last time she”d asked instead of demanded.

But with him, she was always baring her belly. A dog crawling for scraps, so starved for connection, she”d debase herself just to feel the heat of his hand.

Ripley held her breath, counting the seconds, the heartbeats. Waiting for the world to end, for her life to crumble to ash and dust.

And then, with a groan of protesting metal, the door inched open. Martin”s silhouette filled the gap, backlit by the sallow light of the moon.

Mia’s heart seized in her chest. Because there he was. Martin. A black cut-out, featureless. But she”d know him anywhere – the angle of his jaw, the slope of his shoulders. The hands she”d kissed, the arms she”d twined herself in like climbing ivy. Her north star, her fixed point in a mad world. He stood there with shadows in his eyes and secrets on his tongue, regarding her like she was a stranger.

He didn”t move. Didn”t cross the threshold, didn”t come to her like he had a thousand times before. Just stood there guarding the gates of her own personal hell.

‘Was it you?’ The words clawed their way out of Ripley”s throat. ‘Nash, Carter, Trevor. Was it you?’

The silence stretched. Ripley could hear her own heart pounding, could feel the rush of blood in her ears like a distant ocean. And then, so soft she almost missed it.

‘No.’

Just that. Flat, cold. Definitive as a bullet to the brainpan.

And God help her, but some tiny, treacherous part of her wanted to believe it. To wrap herself in the worn comfort of that word, let it lull her back into the cozy fantasy of the past few months. The illusion of peace, of partnership, of a callused palm cupped around her jaded heart.

But Ripley was a hound to the bone.

She slid off the barrel, legs gone to jelly. Stumbled a step closer, fighting the urge to recoil, to retreat. The urge to lunge at him, to bury her face in the crook of his neck and just breathe him in.

She couldn”t trust her eyes, not now. Couldn”t let herself fall into old patterns, old weaknesses. So she looked down instead, zeroed in on his hands. His thumbs.

The one infallible tell, the one chink in any liar”s armor. You could school your face, your eyes, modulate your voice into a perfect mask. But the body had its own language, its own raw and brutal truth.

And with one glance – even in the wake of such a brief comment, even as the denial fell from his lips like poison – Mia knew that it was a lie.

‘I have to go,’ he said. Monotone, a dial tone droning. A stranger wearing her lover”s skin.

And just like that, he was backing away. Fading into the dark like he”d never been, a ghost, a revenant slipping its chains.

Ripley”s arm shot out on pure animal instinct. To catch him, to claw him back, to do something more than stand here shaking as the world tilted.

But her feet were rooted, her limbs calcified.

And so, in that moment of weakness, of soul-crushing doubt...Mia let him go.

Ripley sagged back against the wall, knees giving out in a rush. She slid to the floor. The world swam before her eyes, blurred with tears she couldn”t shed, wouldn”t let fall.

An engine fired up somewhere outside. Revs followed, and a car sped off into the night.

Some things were worth burning for, Mia thought, because some stories could only ever end in flames.