“I know,” she says. “I know you’re right.”
The way she says it tells me that knowing it doesn’t make it any easier.
“What’s the plan?”
Moving on, the Riley I know, filing the moment away, getting back to work because the job is what keeps them both alive.
“I can’t tell you much. Not yet. Not here.” A pause. “You need to act completely normal around Clemente. Nothing changes. Nothing in how you look at me, how you speak to me, nothing. Can you do that?”
She looks at me steadily. “I’ve been doing it for months.”
“I know you can. I know.”
A beat of quiet.
“Do you trust Sam?”
“With my life. With yours.”
She holds my gaze. “Okay.”
Another beat.
And then I ask it. The question I hadn’t planned to ask that has been sitting in the back of my chest since dinner, since I’d watched Clemente’s hand move down her face and she’d leaned into it.
“Clemente.” A pause. “Do you…”
She looks at me completely level and steady. The look of a woman who has known this question was coming and has already decided exactly how to answer it.
“I do what I need to do, Ryan.”
The words land exactly as hard as anticipated.
Looking at the window, I breathe once. “Okay.”
She stands from the bed and pulls the robe closed around her, tying it, the efficient movements of a woman putting herselfback together for the world she is about to walk back into. Ava is assembling herself in the low light, piece by piece, until Riley is entirely underneath, and only Ava remains on the surface.
“I need to get back,” she says. “He’ll notice.”
A nod. We both know what that means, and neither of us needs to say it.
I check the garden, the path, the guards in their pattern, and the cameras angled away.
Clean.
She moves to the window.
Stops.
Turns back.
She looks at me, the robe now closed, composed, everything folded away except her eyes, which have always been the one thing she can’t entirely control, and says it simply, without asking for anything in return.
“I’ve missed you, Ryan.”
I look at the freckle, the eyes I have always known, and the hand that had been flat against my chest, feeling my heartbeat.
“I’ve missed you too.”
