Not a week ago Kingsley had wished to see a world without Nora Sutherlin in it. Had that stray, bitter whim brought this upon them? He was no fool. A world without Nora Sutherlin was a world without Søren. If the priest lost his Little One, especially if her death happened because of something Søren had done, no matter how inadvertently, it would mean his destruction. Søren couldn’t live in a world without Nora. Kingsley couldn’t live in a world without Søren. Her death would be like the sinking of a great ship. She would take them all down with her.
Marie-Laure... Kingsley sat on the edge of his desk, his forehead in his hand. Ma soeur, what have you done? And what had they done, he and Søren, as boys? How much guilt did he bear for this crime? He knew Søren had told Marie-Laure their marriage would be one in name only. It would be for the money and nothing else. But Marie-Laure, vain and mad with love, refused to accept that.
Did he say he loved you?
Non...but he should. He must. He’s my husband.
He told you why he married you. He did it for us, Marie-Laure, to help us.
I don’t want his money. I want him.
You can’t have him.
Why not?
And to that question—pourquoi pas?—Kingsley had no answer. No, he did have an answer but one he couldn’t tell her, wouldn’t tell her. Because he’s mine, not yours, he could have said. Because he loves me, not you, he wanted to say. Because I’d rather see you dead than let him touch you the way he touches me.
That final treacherous thought was the one that haunted Kingsley for the past thirty years. He never uttered it, only in his mind, his heart, and yet he still carried the guilt of how much he’d meant the words at the time. Sitting on the edge of his desk, staring out onto the midnight city, he conjured that horrible memory of his sister’s body in the snow on the ground. His targets were all demons back in his days as a Jack-of-all-deadly-trades for the French government. The world slept better when Kingsley put a bullet in those chests. He aimed for the heart and left easily identifiable corpses. They might be demons but they came from somewhere and he knew someone would want a body to bury in an open casket. He could at least give them that. After all, the body he’d seen at his feet the day he thought Marie-Laure had died...nothing before or since, not even seeing his parents in urns, had turned his stomach like that. The rock had shattered her face. Nothing but gray matter oozed from the broken skull. The body, too, was broken, nothing but a bag of bones. Only her left hand had survived the fall. The wedding band on the ring finger had shone clean and bright and golden in the sunlight. Not dented, not scraped, not bloodied. That’s how he should have known the ring had been planted on the dead girl’s hand.
And the dead girl...who was she? Kingsley had barely glanced at the newspaper article Søren had uncovered. A young runaway from Quebec coming to America for a better life. What did she run from? An abusive father? A broken heart? Poverty? Or was she running to something, or someone? Whatever reason, she deserved better than to die like that, her body so torn up by the rock that had killed her they’d had to carry her away in two bags. It seemed too convenient to imagine the girl had been the victim of a simple accident, falling from the cliff to her death. He and Søren had had to abandon the hermitage where they’d had their assignations. Perhaps the girl had taken refuge there in the winter and Marie-Laure had met her on one of her long walks. Had his sister befriended the girl? Had they shared confidences? Did Marie-Laure tell the girl all about her marital troubles? The husband who wouldn’t touch her? Did Marie-Laure lure her to the edge of the cliff and push her to her death? Her shock at seeing him and Søren kissing seemed genuine at the time. Kingsley had wanted her to see them together, had timed his confrontation with Søren in the hopes Marie-Laure would discover them in some state of passion or undress. Then she would know the truth without either of them having to tell her. Then she could see how much Søren loved Kingsley, not her. Then she would understand the truth and move on.
Foolish boys they were. Children playing dangerous games after dark, as Søren had said. So foolishly wrapped up in lust for each other they never even noticed that Marie-Laure was playing her own dangerous game with them.
Now Nora could end up like that runaway on the snowy ground. And that left Kingsley with no choice but to do now what he merely fantasized about thirty years ago.
He would see his sister dead.
The phone rang and Kingsley answered it in an instant.
“Report.”
“I miss you, monsieur,” came a rich, honeyed voice on the other end of the line. “How is that for a report?”
Kingsley sighed as he felt tension releasing from his body like air from a popped balloon.
“Jules, you’re breaking the rules,” he teased. Hearing her voice, her laugh, was everything he needed and the last thing he wanted.
“You can punish me for it when I come home. I know you told me not to call until you said I could, but I had to hear your voice. It’s been a week.”
“A very long week, my Jewel. And it’s only getting longer.”
Kingsley ran a hand through his hair and wished it was Juliette’s hand on him. Søren had destroyed him during their night together. He needed Juliette’s touch to restore him again. But that would have to wait.
“Let me come home. Let me take care of you. It’s my place.”
“You have to take care of yourself now. It’s not safe here.” He wanted to say more, to tell her the truth of what had happened. The risk was too great, however. No woman in the world submitted more beautifully in the bedroom and acted so independently outside of it. If she knew how bad it had gotten, she’d be on the next flight back to the city, his orders be damned. “You can come home when it is safe. No sooner.”