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He saw it, and his Adam’s apple moved up and down. A light that started to shine in his eyes diminished, and even though his hands were still cuffed to the table, he was able to lean back. He put distance between us with that motion.
“I know. Matt Francis. Chrissy told me about him.” Hepaused, his gaze darting to the mirror behind me. “She told me about Bailey, too.”
Everything went flat in me. “Don’t say her name.”
He shut that down real quick. A nod. His eyelids clasped closed a second. “Yeah. Okay.”
I knew I should keep the real questions to a minimum, and this next one was as real as they were going to come. But did it really matter? The authorities knew about him. They knew about Calhoun. They knew about me. Not much was still secret, so I had to ask, because it’d been bothering me since he first broke into Bailey’s sanctuary.
“Were you the payment?”
He drew in a ragged breath, his own nostrils flaring.
I leaned forward. “Did he allow our mother her freedom because she gave you up? Or did he kill her because he found that she’d hidden one of us from him?”
Fury lit up his entire face.
He jerked forward. His throat contorted.
His features twisted, sharpening.
One brief second before he caught himself. He forced himself to relax. Then he lounged back. He swallowed. His shoulders loosened.
He rolled his neck, back in control.
And he smirked. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”
I waited.
Nothing.
I frowned. That was it? That was his comeback?
My frown deepened, and feeling some of my monster railing inside of me, I leaned farther over the table and showed him my teeth. “That’s all you have? No smart retort? No jab? No insult?” Were his social skills less developed? “I don’t know what your life was like, but I have to ask: Do you know what mine is like?”
He blinked, and I got him.
There was a sense of wonder there.
I leaned back again. Victoria said he was supposed to study me. She said that’s what he had been doing, what Calhoun thought he had been doing.
If he had, he would come back with something. Anything. Even an old insult that Matt might’ve used. A little quip. But I was getting nada from him.
He hadn’t been studying me.
“What were you doing?”
His eyebrows flew back up.
He saw it. He knew I had him, but he didn’t cover it up. He didn’t slam a wall down. Instead, he let me see him, and then he said, “I won’t.” His head lowered closer to the table, closer to me. “Not here.”
Oh yeah.
We were doing the twin thing, already.
I got his message loud and clear.
I nodded, standing up from the table.
