Page 112 of Faded Gray Lines

Mateo calmly watched me break down. “Do you remember the last promise I made to you?”

I nodded. “You said you’d never let anyone hurt me.”

“I meant it.” Mateo’s eyes were always intense, but something in the way they flickered with a complete lack of remorse drove me to voice the question that’d been spinning in the back of my mind for days.

“Did you kill my stepfather?”

He answered without hesitation. “Yes, and I won’t apologize, Leighton. I’d do it again if—”

“Good.” My simple response, spoken with such cold detachment, didn’t faze him. In fact, it seemed to lift a weight off his shoulders.

Neither of us spoke of it again. We didn’t need to. On some level, I knew from the moment I heard Finn was missing, Mateo had killed him. Maybe a part of me even prayed for it to be true. Mateo was a smart man, and maybe I’d indirectly planted the seed that set it all in motion. That should’ve frightened me, but it frightened me more that it didn’t.

An hour later, I stared into the fire when Mateo sat down beside me and handed me a glass of strong brown liquid.

I sniffed it. “I don’t like whiskey.”

“Good, you’re not supposed to. Drink it anyway.”

I took a small sip and coughed. It tasted like leather and turpentine and burned like fire.

“I got a call from Brody.” Watching the fire, Mateo tossed back half the glass like water. “After visiting with the current governor, Val got the charges dropped. It seems the evidence containing my fingerprints was conveniently lost.”

I took another sip. “Just like that, huh?”

“Just like that.”

“You’d think that could’ve happened before all that death do us part stuff.”

“Are you regretting it?”

Lifting the glass, I watched the fire dance through the liquid. “No, but you should. People are dropping like flies around me.”

I meant it to be a joke, but he didn’t laugh. Actually, I didn’t either. Maybe it wasn’t a joke. Maybe he should reconsider. After all, husbands in my family didn’t have the longest life span.

We sat in silence again and eventually, Mateo set his glass aside and stood, offering me his hand. “I don’t know about you, but I could use a shower.”

Just like that, the conversation was over.

Mateo insisted on washing my hair and kissing every bruise he’d inflicted on my body outside the Tahoe. He took me gently in the shower and then again wrapped in his arms on the biggest bed I’d ever seen.

Sleep came late, but just before I drifted off, his raspy whisper blew across the back of my neck. “Te amo, Star.” I love you, Star.

I closed my eyes.

It was the first time I’d heard those words in four years.

* * *

Mateo yawned and stepped out of the bedroom. “She’s at it again?”

Dragging my eyes back toward the screen, I nodded and waited for her to take the podium. Jackie had already given her dutiful intro, looking like she hadn’t slept in days.

Unlike my mother’s campaign manager, Mateo and I had slept in much later than we’d intended. We awoke to call from the front desk informing us that a nice young lady had dropped off my car and a few wedding presents we’d forgotten. He also said she’d left her phone number if I’d like to call her. Of course, the lady had been Eden, and the wedding presents, thankfully, were a fresh change of clothes and toiletries.

Also included was a note to turn on the television because the circus was in town.

Right on cue, my mother walked up to the podium dressed to the nines in a smart maroon pantsuit and matching lipstick. The banner scrolling across the screen had me rolling my eyes.