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Still. I do as he says.
***
“I thought you said the house was under guard,” I say, bewildered as we turn down the rural road toward my mother’s house. I see her car, and James’s, parked up by the two-car garage. But there are no SUVs here. No men in black with guns. “Where is everyone?”
“You’d have to look more closely.”
I do, but still, I see nothing. “Why aren’t they being watched? What if—”
“Relax. They are. Look.” He points as we slow and pull up the drive. On closer inspection, I do see hints that someone hasbeen here—that someoneishere. Big tire tracks, pulling off the muddy shoulder and into the overgrown woods; and up in the dilapidated barn, a slight movement, a flash of black. “Did you think I’d tell you they were under guard, then fail to put guards here?”
“No.”
“Then relax. Your mother and brother know nothing of what danger you—or they—are truly in. For everyone’s safety, let’s keep it that way.”
It makes sense, and I feel stupid for asking, and even for doubting him.This is his profession, I remind myself, casting him a cool look as he parks the truck, and gets out.This is his world, and I’m just the naïve girl who has gotten all tangled up in it.
I get out, following him. The rain has stopped for now, but the sky has a dark glare on it, the promise of much more to come. “Are you sure it’s a good idea for you to come in?” I ask, zipping up my jacket. I texted my mom that I was coming, but she didn’t mention that James was here, and I didn’t mention that I’d have one of his old college friends with me. “I don’t exactly know how to explain that.”
“Tell the truth. Or part of it.” He gives me a look. “I was in town visiting and gave an old friend a ride while her car was in the shop. Nothing too complicated there.”
“That was days ago.”
“Yes, well. You’re the one with the domestic life, and I’m the one protecting you from being killed by a Russian criminal. You do your part, and I’ll do mine.”
I stop and glare at him. “What is that supposed to mean?”
We’ve reached the front step. Already, Aleks looks out of place, too handsome, too clean and cut and slick and well-dressed to be at some upstate farmhouse that hasn’t seen a renovation since the 60s.
“It means that I don’t know how to lie in this situation any more than you would know how to lie in mine.” His voice is low now. He has his hands in the pockets of his jacket, and he lowers his voice as he speaks, turning toward me and leaning close. “Lie,” he tells me. “And lie convincingly, or risk their lives.”
Before I can reply, the door bangs open, and Mom peers through the screen. And it’s only then that I think:Adam.Not like I’m just remembering that I’m going to see my son, because that’s more or less all that I’ve wanted for every minute since this whole fiasco started. I think:Adam. My son. And his father.Because I’m the only person who has known to look for it: those little similarities. The way his eyes crinkle when he laughs; the wave in his hair that is so reminiscent of Aleks’. James has never noticed, but then—he has no reason to look, does he? He has no idea that I was ever even remotely interested in Aleks, much less that he was interested back, much less that we slept together, and I got pregnant, or that I had and raised his child.
Will James notice? For God’s sake, I hope not. But it’s too late now, I hear him in the next room, and then I hear Adam, too. And everything else, every fear and every worry, evaporates. If just for one split second.
“Mom, hey,” I say brightly as I can, opening the screen. Though she looks perplexed, and maybe even a little annoyed, she hugs me back when I briefly throw my arms around her shoulders. “Sorry to just swing by on such short notice, this is James’ friend, Aleks, from school? You remember him.”
“No. You know, I can’t say that I do.” Mom’s voice is weirdly hard, and so is the look in her narrowed eyes. Aleks is still on the porch, with his hands in his pockets. “I actually don’t believe we’ve ever met.”
“Once,” says Aleks curtly, inclining his head. “I dropped off James for Christmas the year we graduated.” And then, asthough the words hold more meaning than just what they have at face value, he adds: “I didn’t stay long.”
Mom looks at him then, so squarely, so dead on, that I practically hear the puzzle pieces falling into place in her mind.The year they graduated. The timing of the birth of my son, and the boyfriend who my family never met, the boyfriend who supposedly got me pregnant and fled the scene and was never heard from or seen again.Adam. With all of that dark hair and those dark eyes, and the somber disposition he sometimes gets. Like a boy much older, much wiser than one of his years. A sort of refinement we don’t inherit in this family, that Aleks wears like a perfume or a fine coat.
Yes—it’s impossible not to see it. Mom is looking at Aleks like she can see it all, every day of our history leading right here, up to this moment.He should have stayed in the car.Hell, he should have stayed back at the house. This was a mistake, all of this, it was such a mistake— because just like that, four years of lies are revealed, all in a moment and without a word. Mom turns her cunning gaze from him to me, and it says exactly what I feared:I know.
Mom knowing is one step closer to the world knowing, one step closer to Aleks himself learning the truth.
If I think that Konstantin trying to hunt me down and kill me has turned my world upside-down…what the hell willthatdo?
But Aleks looks right back at her. “Are you going to invite me in?”
Mom’s face is a hard mask. She opens her mouth to respond, and I have a sense it’s not going to be something very hospitable—but she doesn’t get the chance. At that moment, James comes around the corner, his hands on Adam’s shoulders, the pair of them doing a sort of march in step, both of them laughing. James spots Aleks, and his expression fills with surprise, then delight, then confusion.
“Aleks,” he says. “You’re kidding—what the hell are you doing in the states?Hereof all places?” His gaze shifts to me and fills with even more bare confusion. “Kat, I thought you weren’t feeling well, that flu that’s going around?”
“I…got a prescription,” I say, hating the heat that I feel rush into my face. I know I’ll wear it as a scarlet blush—I always do. Especially when I’m lying. “Anyway, I’m not contagious anymore. I figured I could swing by and say hi to the little one.”
When Adam wriggles free of his uncle’s grip and runs to me, grinning, I drop to my knees and catch him in my arms.God, he’s so small—has he always been this small?“You’re sick,” he says plainly. “You need to sleep and eat soup, grandma says.”
