“Come on, son.” Lyra’s dad clapped a hand on Grayson’s shoulder. “I’ll show you to the spare room.”
To Lyra’s surprise, Grayson didn’t argue. As her dad escorted him out of the kitchen, Lyra turned back to her mom. There was one more question she needed to ask, a question she hadn’t been able to bring herself to raise around her dad.
“Do you have any idea where Tomás is now—the real Tomás?”
He could still be involved in all of this somehow. There must have been some rhyme or reason to the decision to planthisID on that body. Whoever did it would have needed to be sure he wouldn’t pop up somewhere immediately thereafter, drawing attention to himself, inconveniently alive.
“There is no real Tomás, baby.” Lyra’s mom came to sit beside her at the table. “The man could be anyone he wanted to be. Charming. Irresistible. I swear, he could talk anyone into anything.”
“You said you left him when I was three days old.”
“I know.” Her mom looked away, then down. “But the truth is that he left me. More than once. Left and came back, left and came back, and I let him, again and again. I was naive and in love, and he was your father. We were together almost a year, but I never really knew the man. I barely knew whoIwas back then.”
“That’s hard for me to imagine,” Lyra said.
“It was my starving artist era.” Her mom shrugged. “You saw the bangs. But being a mom, being your mom—it grounded me, Lyra. By the time I met Keith, by the time I met yourdad, I knew exactly who I was, and I knew from the moment I met him, from the momentwemet him, that Keith Kane wasreal. He was solid, what-you-see-is-what-you-getreal.”
Lyra had never thought much about the fact that, growing up at Mile’s End, she’d always known what love looked like—real, solid, day-in, day-out love.
“And as it turns out,” Lyra’s mom said, reaching for her hand and giving it a little squeeze, “when you know who you are, when you know exactly who the other person is, falling in love can be as easy as just… letting go.” She smiled. “Ten days. That’s how long it took me to know with your dad.”
Lyra swallowed, unsure why she needed to. “I should try to get some sleep,” she said. In the morning, she and Grayson could try to find a way to obtain the file on her kidnappingwithoutraising any flags at the sheriff’s office. By morning, Alisa would hopefully have something to report back regarding Odette, and they could figure out their next move.
In the morning, Lyra couldn’t help thinking, as she made her way up to her old room and laid down on her old bed,it will be day number five.
Chapter 17
JAMESON
Jameson’s eyes were closed, but he wasn’t fully asleep. In the Tuscan countryside, in the back seat of a private car, he wasn’tdreaming. He was remembering:
“How’s Tuscany?” Avery asks.
Even with an ocean between, the sound of her voice makes Jameson want to play. “The birthplace of the Italian Renaissance? Full of winding roads, hills and valleys, where a morning mist rolls out in the distance, and the forests are littered with leaves so golden red that the entire world feels like it’s on fire in the best way? That Tuscany?”
“Yes. That Tuscany.”
“I’ve seen better.”
“Jameson!”
The part of Jameson that wasn’t asleep felt the car come to a stop, but he refused to let go of the memory—of Avery.
“Give him a moment.” That was Xander, addressing their driver. “He’s communing with the beast.” Xander, in typical Xander fashion, did not specify whatthe beastwas.
“I was thinking,” Jameson corrected, opening his eyes and taking inthe sight outside the car: the rolling hills; the world-on-fire trees; the vineyard—and the villa. It was one of a handful of Hawthorne vacation homes that Avery had not divested herself of yet.
Jameson climbed out of the car and walked toward the gate—not a grand gate like the one at Hawthorne House, but a simple one that came up only to Jameson’s waist. It was surrounded by much taller hedges, and as Jameson stepped through the gate and onto the property, he made a mental note:I didn’t search the hedges before.
Xander stepped through after him and looked up at the stone villa, two-thirds covered in ivy.
“Seventeenth century,” Jameson told him.
“What are we looking for?” Xander rocked back on his heels. It was the first time he’d asked, despite the conversation he’d overheard Jameson have with Alisa on the way here.
“Follow me.” Jameson made his way into the villa, which was unlocked—Alisa’s doing, no doubt, since Jameson had made good on his promise to keep her up to date on his progress.
Inside, there was no real foyer to speak of, so it didn’t take Jameson long to reach the room with the hearth. A massive stone fireplace took up nearly an entire wall. Overhead, wood rafters met stone walls. To Jameson’s right, a wooden staircase led up to the second floor, but right now, Jameson wasn’t concerned with the steps or the rafters or the kitchen visible through a stone archway to his left.