Found and Lost (18 page)

30

Assistant to the photographer was a mind-numbing job, but watching Natalia work was utterly engrossing. To Clay's surprise, the ceremony took place outdoors on a farm. The bride and groom escaped in a horse-drawn buggy to have their pictures shot around the red pole barn. A little after 9:00, dinner and dessert had been served—buffet style, plenty left by the time the vendors (himself included) got in line—and the tiki torches around the white reception tent were lit. The DJ powered out one R&B hit after another that sounded exactly the same and clashed painfully with the down-home country surroundings.

Clay, Natalia, and several octogenarians seemed to be the only ones not dancing. Clay sat at a deserted table strewn with flower petals, crumbs, and white cake plates that honestly did look like china. The geriatrics conversed several feet away in a huddle of cigar smoke.

Natalia had resumed taking pictures after wolfing down a plate of food. She might well have forgotten Clay was here the way she had re-submerged into work mode, artist mode. During the exchange of vows, she'd crouched in the center aisle, just behind the front row of white folding chairs, and angled her camera upward. She crept all around the silk-flowered arch and tilted her camera every which way, yet she never intruded. From an out-of-the-way corner, probably only Clay noticed her at all, though
noticed
was a feeble word for what he was feeling.

Dressed in a short-sleeved, black Oxford shirt and slim black jeans, her hair pulled back but loosened by the evening breeze, Natalia outshone the twenty-something bride without trying. Her lips pursed when she set up a new shot. A beam of success lit her eyes when she captured what she'd seen through her viewfinder or in her head. Clay could have stepped out from his corner, marched down the aisle, and demonstrated for the new couple exactly how to kiss one's bride. Now, hours and good food and fake conversation later, his final task was to guard Nat's camera case. He lounged back in a plastic folding chair and battled the desire to drag her onto the portable dance floor.

A minute later, she lowered her camera to the at-ease position, level with her waist, elbows bent. White holiday lights fringed the inside of the tent, and colored lights rotated on the dance floor, constantly shifting the hue of the yellow bridesmaid dresses. As if someone had complained about the monotonous bass, “The Loco-Motion” started to play, and every dancer over fifty burst into applause. Natalia hovered at the edge of the celebration, face unlit. She lifted her camera, took a shot, lowered it again. Slipped around the edge where grass met floor and probably didn't realize she now faced Clay head-on. How could he have been married to her for nineteen years without seeing firsthand how her art absorbed her?

She raised her camera again but brought it down to waist-level too fast. Oh, must have seen him. Maybe she would approach him. No one would notice, at this point, if she did.

Nope. She took another few shots, sidling away from him. It was okay, it really was, or it would have been, if today had been any other day. If he knew that, had she not been on the job, Natalia would have danced with him to Grand Funk. At some point, though, he'd lost the answers to fundamental questions.

Someone's five-foot great-grandmother shuffled over to his table and plopped herself down. Her arthritic hands curled in her lap. “You here alone?”

“Photographer's assistant.”

She laughed. “You're kidding.”

“Nope.”

“Never seen a wedding quite like this in all my born days. Horse and buggy, mostaccioli in warming pans, and the wedding party wearing yellow of all colors. Maybe those cops around back are the fashion police, eh?”

Fun. He got to entertain the delusional relative of strangers. “I'm sure that's what they are.”

“That'd be why their uniforms are gray instead of blue. See, gray is a neutral color. Good color for fashion police.”

Run!
Clay shoved back his chair, breathed in and rocked back on his heels.

“And, see, that way they can judge anyone no matter what color she's wearing, unless she's wearing gray, of course. That might get a little sticky …”

The woman really didn't know who they were. Clay walked away, and she kept talking. Where was Natalia, why couldn't he find Natalia? He had turned both of their phones off. There was no one they needed to hear from other than Marcus, who wasn't likely to call now, since he couldn't have anything to say other than
“Sorry about that broken promise to keep your daughter safe.”

His body buzzed, senses tuned in. The evening breeze tingled the hair of his arms. Dance music pulsed in his ears. The scent of American gourmet had begun to dissipate: baked chicken, roasted potatoes, green beans, mostaccioli. He spotted Natalia and could breathe again. She knelt in a corner of the tent, lining up a low-angle shot of the dance floor.

He strode past her to the back of the tent. Not that it really had a back, but one end had been designated for the caterers, and they'd parked their trucks on the other side of the tent flap. He ducked outside, into the wavering light of tiki torches and a spotlight aimed in this direction from the barn. Guys in white shirts and black ties milled around, packaging food, loading their trucks.

Off to one side, out of the caterers' way, stood two stocky men in gray uniforms and utility belts. Badges, nightsticks, radios, sidearms. Clay backed away one step, then two. The one nearest him looked up and met his eyes.

“If you're thinking we must be here without an invite …” The agent shrugged. Smiled.

In the stark shadows, swallowing nerves might be more obvious. For all Clay knew, his Adam's apple was all they could see. And if it was, then …
They don't know me.

“Ending the honeymoon before it gets started?” His own voice sounded tinny.

“No, no. Would you believe it, here for the photographer.”

“Oh, I think she's gone.”

“They do blend in.” The second agent scratched the side of his stubbly jaw. “GPS on the cell phone says she's still here.”

Come on, Nat!
Did she expect Khloe to call from inside re-education?
Don't look away. Calm down.
“Must be a very important person.”

“We can't discuss that, obviously.”

“Right, of course. But if you crashed a wedding for her …”

“It's just routine questioning. Needed an opportunity to talk to her alone.”

Without Clay. Free to spill the burdens that anyone trained to read people would see in her every breath, her every blink. Her husband was a Christian, and her daughter was wrongly accused. They'd known everything. All this time. Maybe they tacked on some clichéd assumptions, too, like Clay as an abusive husband who threatened her to keep her quiet.

Lord, if You're not going to make things right, then I am.

The prayer, the rant, the pushing back at a God who didn't bother to pull for him—it hung in the night and drifted away like torch smoke. But not before both agents zeroed in on something, maybe a flicker in his eyes, a twitch in his cheek, maybe just a breath that drew itself in deeper than the last one. They hadn't recognized his face, not yet, but they knew him. The almost fugitive. The man about to lose.

One of them stepped closer. “Clay Hansen?”

31

Stretched out in front of her, Violet's hands trembled, one on the doorknob, one gripping the hard metal shield. Her palm pressed the embossed words so hard, they would imprint onto her skin. She opened the door.

Austin nearly fell into the room. He scrambled to his feet. His wide eyes clung to hers. “Violet, I …”

Maybe she'd jumped to conclusions, maybe … What, maybe a civilian's nightstand drawer held a Constabulary badge and gun by mistake? She shoved the badge in his face. He actually paled.

“Crap,” he said.

Violet dropped the badge at his feet. It hit the carpet with a gold glint. She hugged herself against the last truth she could ever have guessed. She'd come here to tell him everything. To trust him. To end the freedom of people she couldn't trust.

At least they all admitted who they were.

“Are you undercover?” The squeak sounded like someone half her age.

Austin bent to pick up the badge, and for a wild instant, Violet pictured herself shoving him off-balance and running out the door, down the lobby stairs, into the summer heat. He straightened. His eyes were blue pools of regret.

“Let's go sit down.”

“Answer me first. Were you supposed to pretend you were in love with me, so you could convince me to spy on them?”

A scowl pulled his mouth. “Violet, who insisted on you spying?”

“Maybe you used some kind of, I don't know, psychological thing. To make me think it was my idea.”

“Think about that. I didn't know about Khloe until you told me.”

Khloe. Her arms tightened around her middle.

“Yeah, I know it was Khloe. The Christian friend you didn't want to turn in. She left her ID at the meeting we busted.”

We.
Ice trickled through her body. “Why, then?”

“You'll have to specify the question.”

“Stop it, stop trying to sound all scholarly like—like—you.”

The blink could have been a wince. “I'm not undercover. I didn't fake my interest in you. I met you at Elysium by chance. I thought you were attractive, and your introspection was refreshing. And you know I also thought you were older.”

It sounded true, all of it. If only it was.

“Please come sit on the couch, and we'll talk.”

Violet nodded, trailed him back to the living room, but sat across the room in his beanbag chair. He crumpled onto the couch as if a boulder had pushed him down.

“If you're not undercover, why didn't you tell me you're a con-cop?”

Austin rubbed his eyes. “Do you know that up to half the population knows of someone who's practicing Christianity and refuses to turn them in?”

“Okay, now's not the time to give me an education.”

“The media wants you to think everyone agrees with the government all the time. Well, they don't. And the Constabulary … we're one of the least-agreed-on issues in the country.”

“So …?”

“So, no, I don't instantly tell acquaintances what I do for a living. Especially interesting female acquaintances. About every third person I meet avoids me after they find out.”

Weariness drew lines between his eyes. Violet pushed to her feet and stepped toward him, sat on the couch with a cushion between them.

“The buddy you told me about, the con-cop. You were talking about yourself. You're trying to find the resistance.”

One hand fisted his hair. “What I did, hiding this from you. It wasn't to manipulate you into anything. It wasn't part of my job.”

Violet twisted the edge of her T-shirt. She could forgive him. Unless …

“Violet?”

“That number I texted the addresses to. Was I texting you the whole time, on some government phone?”

He sighed and this time scrubbed both hands through his hair. For the first time, that flustered gesture didn't make her want to smooth away the mussed strands.

“You lied to me,” she whispered.

He jumped to his feet. “Yes, okay? Yes. I lied to you.”

“More than once.”

“I was going to tell you, until that night in the park. You were so conflicted about Khloe, I didn't want to …” He scrubbed at his hair again. “To scare you off.”

“So you used me instead.”

“Absolutely not.”

She sprang to her feet and poked her finger at his chest. It was risky, but she couldn't stop herself. “If I meant anything to you, you wouldn't have lied to me, and you wouldn't have let me go off trying to catch Christians when you thought I could be in danger.”

“You weren't supposed to go off trying to catch Christians. You were supposed to text me one address. One. And then get out of there.”

“I wanted to help—”

“Instead I get another text with another address, and I get no response from you when I ask what's going on. You vanished. I thought they were brainwashing you, I thought …” Austin gripped her wrist, pulled her closer. His cologne, his nearness, filled her head.

“You thought what?” she said.

His arms caged her. His mouth crushed hers. She couldn't breathe. He didn't let go.

Finally.

She melted closer. One hand held her, and the other was finding places he'd never touched before. He grabbed her hair, close to the roots, and his mouth followed her movement, kissed and kissed her, warm but hard. Wanting her, yes, but … A tear squeezed from her clenched eyelid. Her mouth felt bruised, and still he didn't let go. She whimpered around the kiss, pushed at his chest. Austin pulled back, and his breathing ruffled her damp hair. Violet shoved, but, crushed against him, she had no leverage. No strength. And then he was kissing her again.

This was being an adult. This was what she'd been asking him to do for months.
I don't think I want it. Wait, Austin, I don't think I …

She let out a sob and beat her hand against his arm. He staggered back one step, but he would grab her again, force their mouths together again.

“Stop stop stop!” Violet planted both hands against his chest and shoved.

His eyes widened. He held up his hands. His foot tipped back, off-balance. Before Violet could stop pushing him, his head hit the wall and—

Blinking stars. A throb in her lip, in her teeth.

He'd hit her. With his fist.

He backed into the corner, hands raised in front of him, shaking. “Violet. Oh, no. No.”

She ran to the laundry room and grabbed her shoes. She headed for the front door.

“Violet, please, I'm sorry, please.”

She didn't stop for his voice. She would never heed his voice again.