Page 88 of You Know Why

The bleeding has stopped. His nose is sore and swollen, but fortunately, not broken. His ribs aren’t as lucky; he is having trouble taking a full breath. But he is alive.

He jams his laptop into the bag, drops the bloody towel to the floor, and steps over the dead body on his way to the door. A glance through the curtains: Nothing seems amiss. The meager light shines on the body behind him, showing the face of the man who drove the SUV away from Hartsfield. Which means the blond bastard is still out there somewhere. A lesson drummed into him during his training: Where there’s one, there’s many.

They’ve followed him to Nashville. This is not good.

He palms the weapon he took off the blond and parts the curtain again. The wrecked parking lot of the Knights Inn near the Titans’ stadium is empty, but that means nothing. They could be waiting. There’s no other way out, though. He searches the body of the dead man, comes up with another gun and a decent switchblade. He pockets that, then moves to the door. He tenses, controls his breathing, then throws open the door, moving into the space before anyone can come through. He clears the catwalk, sees no immediate threats, then hurries to the stairwell and down to the parking lot.

He is three steps from the asphalt when the shots ring out.

He takes one bullet to his leg, and another grazes his arm. The pain collapses him, and he rolls to the ground. Fuck. Fuck!

Moments later, the blond stands over him with a sneer.

“Where’s the money, Andrew?” He steps onto Trey’s leg, right where the bullet has torn through the meat, and white-hot agony explodes through his body.

All Trey can do is groan. He tries to roll into a ball but can’t. He’s pinned, staring into the single black eye of the blond’s weapon. Blood is leaking to the pavement below him. This is not good.

“Who are you?” he gasps.

“That doesn’t matter. Where’s the money? Tell me, and I might let her live.”

They can’t kill him. But they can make his life hell. And they can hurt Brooklyn or the kids. Even with his family under guard, he knows these men are vicious and will stop at nothing to punish him. He won’t let that happen.

“If you hurt her—”

Another shot, this time fractionally to the left of his head. Gravel sprays up and covers his face. He spits dirt.

“Get motivated, real quick, or she’ll end up like that sweet little wife you had. A knife in her gut, bleeding out onto the living room floor. How did that one feel? I’ll make sure that this time, it’s worse. I’ll make you watch as I gut her. And I’ll make it last. Like I did with your parents. That was much more fun. God, your mother screamed . . . Now, where’s the fucking money?”

Fury burns through him. Trey raises his gun hand slowly, as if in surrender, and the second the blond relaxes, he rears up with his left hand. The switchblade plants itself in the blond’s torso, and Trey shoves him backward. The man falls hard, and Trey scrambles to one leg. His right is useless; he drags it behind him as he scurries to the bike.

An arm around his neck yanks him backward. He’s already off balance and goes down again. The blond is on top of him now, straddling his waist, the knife still sticking out of his chest.

Trey watches in horror as the man slides the hilt away from his body. The blade comes free, and blood trickles down the blond’s chest. He grins, and it sends a frisson of fear through Trey’s body. He struggles and bucks, trying to throw the man off, but he’s too weak.

“You missed.”

Trey sees the rock coming down, and then there is darkness.

What’s in a Face?

Brooklyn

Under the watchful eye of Margot and Eden, plus the FBI team, who’ve been stationed at my door for my protection, my recovery starts to accelerate. I do everything the hospital staff asks. Memories of my life before the accident continue to emerge, return, and help me fill in the missing pieces, but there are still deep gaps. Flashes of our lives come and go like leaves falling from the trees, twisting and dancing. Margot reminds me of little things, and big, patiently, sometimes laughing with me at our childhood antics, sometimes with reverence, or tears. It is fascinating seeing my life through her eyes.

I’m still having trouble with the days leading up to the accident. The doctor says that’s not atypical, and I might not ever regain those particular memories. Although I witnessed the accident firsthand, in person and on video, I still don’t recall the details. That’s probably for the best.

I’ve become a minor celebrity on the ward. They don’t have many people in their care who are constantly discussed on the twenty-four-hour news networks and have bodyguards lurking in the corridors. To their credit, they do a good job isolating me from the inevitable journalists and curiosity seekers who try to visit. They treat me like I’m just a normal person, but I can see and hear the whispers and looks. I can’t watch TV—the movement on the screen gives me extreme vertigo—but Margot fills in the blanks of the real world for me.

She is my lifeline to reality, a ghost in duplicate moving us through our lives.

Sheehan comes by again to see if I’ve remembered anything more. He looks horrible, and I suspect he’s not sleeping or eating properly. He says Detective Lee is working her side of the case, investigating the murders of Trey’s parents.

I grieve for these strangers and for the fact that they will never meet their grandchildren. But I have nothing more to share, and Sheehan leaves, defeated.

My room is full of balloons and flowers, and visiting hours bring friends who stay and chat, assiduously and politely avoiding asking me what I know they’re dying to hear about. The children climb all over me when they come in the afternoons after school, regularly asking questions about where their father is and when I will be coming home. I have no answers for them.

No answers at all.