The Devil's Elixir

4

I had just enough time for a quick swoop on the house I shared with Tess and Kim, where I threw a few things into a backpack and holstered up before hopping on the I-95 and riding it all the way down to Newark.

My fastest option, as per my call to my partner, was an early afternoon United flight that connected via Denver. I’d lose an hour on the ground there, but there was no way around that. Not unless I was prepared to try to bullshit my way into getting a Bureau jet to fly me out there and, assuming that worked, end up facing an OPR investigation that would most likely get me fired. I’d been down that route before. I’d narrowly avoided a run-in with the open-minded sweethearts from the Bureau’s Office of Professional Responsibility a few years ago, after I’d followed Tess onto a flight to Istanbul without clearing it with my boss first. Problem was, I couldn’t be open about why I needed a jet this time, not without spilling the beans on what was going on with Michelle. Aparo and I had argued about the merits of gaining an hour versus the extra risks Michelle could face if her whereabouts were more widely known, and I had grudgingly agreed with him that an hour’s delay in getting to her was worth risking if it meant she got to stay dark till I got there.

Traffic was sparse, and as I drove on, my mind was skittering all over the place. Michelle’s revelation was no less than a life-changer. There would be a whole host of ripples I’d need to deal with. Of those, none would be more delicate to navigate than the one that had hogged my thoughts the whole way down—the same one, in fact, that was now rousing my BlackBerry as I took the off-ramp toward the terminal.

For a moment, I debated whether or not to pick up, but I knew I couldn’t duck the call.

“Hey.”

“Hey, handsome,” Tess’s voice boomed. “How’s the bachelor weekend going? The Shermans haven’t had to call the cops out, have they?”

Her voice was like a balm to my battered senses. “They threatened to, but we’re cool.”

“How’d you manage that?”

“I invited them over and offered them one of our bongs. The thing is, now I can’t get rid of them. Those kids can party.”

I heard her chuckle as she probably pictured the seventy-something-year-old couple next door in full frat-house mode—not an attractive sight, trust me—and I grabbed the moment.

“Hey, I can’t talk right now. I’m about to jump on a plane.”

“Oh, baby,” she teased, “you can’t wait till next weekend, huh?”

I managed a small chortle. “Not exactly.”

Tess dropped the playful tone. “Yeah, I kind of figured. What’s going on? Where are you flying?”

“San Diego.” I hesitated, then added, “Something’s come up. I need to be there.”

“Anything I should be worried about?”

“No.” I was hating the lie, even though it was more of a lie of omission—not that anyone ever bought that line, least of all me right now. But I couldn’t tell her, not now, not over a car speakerphone.

“But it’s enough to have you jumping on a plane at the drop of a hat?”

I hesitated again, feeling too uncomfortable with the lie. I just had to cut the call short. “It’s nothing serious. Look, I’m at the airport, I’ve got to go. I’ll call you from there, okay?”

She went silent for a moment, then said, “Sure. Okay. Just—Sean?”

She didn’t have to say it. The worry was coming through loud and clear. She always said it, even after all the time we’d spent together and all the close shaves we’d been through.

“I know,” I told her.

“Call me.”

“I will.”

I hung up, feeling awful about having her worry unnecessarily, and feeling a lot worse about not telling her the truth.

The fact was, I didn’t know how I was going to break the news to her. No matter how I prefaced it or framed it or sugarcoated it, it was going to hurt.

We’d tried, and failed, to have a baby for a couple of years. Who really knows why that happens. The doctors will run all kinds of tests and explain why they think it’s happening, but ultimately, I think it was just our bad luck. As far as the specialists were concerned, the likely cause lay with Tess’s age and her being on the pill for so many years, but whatever it was, and despite trying the very best IVF treatments on offer, it just wouldn’t happen for us. The grueling process had turned into a drawn-out ordeal, with each failed attempt causing more emotional trauma. Tess, in particular, had grown more and more depressed with feelings of inadequacy, something that seemed insane to me—she was the most capable and giving woman I’d ever met. But she knew how much I had wanted to be a dad myself, and not just a stepdad to Kim, and although I’d done my best to play down the disappointment I felt deep down and no matter what I said, I guess I just hadn’t been able to hide it convincingly enough. She started finding it harder and harder to be around me and ended up flying off to Jordan, using the excuse that she needed to do some research for a Templar novel she was prepping. It was only recently, and by fluke—a near-death one, at that, after Tess had been kidnapped by some whackjob Iranian operative while she was in Petra—that we’d gotten back together again.

And now this.

It was definitely going to hurt.

It was also the kind of wedge that could drive a couple apart, and that was a prospect I was desperate to avoid. I mean, Tess was my life. But I knew that the sudden reemergence of an ex-girlfriend with my young child in tow would be, at best, a source of recurrent friction and, at worst, a complication that could wreck us. It wouldn’t help that Michelle Martinez was smart, funny, seriously hot, and—the deal breaker—someone I’d never mentioned to Tess. I’d blanked out that whole episode of my life. And no matter how attractive Tess was herself—which she was, in spades, the word luminous springing to mind whenever I try to describe her—and despite the fact that I was nuts about her and that she knew it, I had a strong feeling she’d inevitably feel threatened by my blast from the past. Anyone would. I get that. Hell, I would, too, no question. And, again, I’d probably end up having a hard time convincing her that she had nothing to worry about. Which she didn’t. Michelle had been a serious flame for me, but Tess, without a doubt, was the full bonfire.

Definitely not a conversation I was looking forward to, though it was already playing itself out in my mind. And as I drove into the parking lot worrying about Tess, far darker thoughts intruded and took center stage again, thoughts of Michelle and a little boy I’d never met and the dangers lurking around them.

I was starting to have a sinking feeling that maybe I should have grabbed a jet.