the mirror.
He’d aged ten years in the past forty-eight hours.
His skin was the pasty color of an old man’s, his hair spiky and dark. A black shadow covered his jaw-line and circles of exhaustion hung under his eyes. He scrubbed his face with his hands and looked again. God in heaven, no wonder Alexis Mission had been scared of him. He scared himself.
A sudden squeak sounded in the room behind him. His hand on his weapon, Gabriel pivoted and pushed through the door…then he relaxed. Alexis had lain down, the box springs so worn they creaked under even her slight weight. Walking over to the bed, he studied her but her expression was blank when she looked up at him.
“Are you hungry?” He glanced over his shoulder to the parking lot beyond the window. “I’ve got some stuff in the van if you are.”
She stared at him for a moment, then without a word she rolled over and faced the wall.
He stood silent and still. For now, she’d shut down, her emotions and reactions too raw and exposed for her to even comprehend, but later she’d have more questions. He’d seen it happen before. Gabriel turned to the chair in the corner and dragged it to the door with one hand. Propping it under the knob, he sat down wearily, his body unsteady, his mind drained. He wished he could sleep but knew he couldn’t.
A long time would come and go before he could experience that luxury again.
ALEXIS CLUTCHED her paper coffee cup, the steam rising slowly between her face and Gabriel O’Rourke’s. They were sitting inside the van, somewhere off the main highway, exactly where she had no idea. He’d woken her after what felt like only a few hours’ sleep, and they’d gotten into the vehicle, driving for a full hour before he was satisfied enough to stop and get them coffee from a run-down all-night diner. She wasn’t too sure what he was doing, but she suspected he was checking to see if they were being followed. The knowledge didn’t make her feel any better. Neither had waking up and realizing he’d been watching her as she’d slept.
He was trying his best to fool her, but she was sure the man sitting in front of her knew more than he was letting on. She swallowed the pain and confusion that filled her. “Who do you work for, again?”
“You’ve already asked me that and I’ve answered it. Asking me again is not going to get you a different response.” A lock of dark hair fell down on his forehead before he pushed it back impatiently. “It doesn’t matter anyway. All I’m here to do is make sure you understand what has happened and what’s going to happen next.”
Despite everything he’d said, she couldn’t accept—didn’t want to accept—what he’d told her. It wasn’t possible, she kept telling herself. “I—I can’t just walk away like this. No funeral. No services. It’s not right.”
His glance went to the deserted highway that ran beside them, exactly as it had at least a dozen times while they’d been sitting there drinking coffee. When his eyes came back to Alexis, they held a different kind of darkness from before, and she trembled, despite herself.
“I thought you understood.” He leaned closer, his manner hard and impatient. “I don’t know how to say it any other way than I’ve already said it a thousand times. You can’t see the bodies or bury them. It would take too much time. In fact, we’ve already…taken care of that.” He held out his hands almost in defeat, the first gesture he’d made that seemed human to her. “I’m sorry, Alexis, but they’re gone.” He shook his head. “They are gone.”
She wasn’t sure if it was his voice or the use of her name, but all at once his words sunk in, the reality of what they actually meant ripping into her with a force that tore her breath away. The last vestige of her denial was destroyed along with it.
“They’re dead,” she whispered.
He nodded, a tinge of something that looked like pity crossing his expression before he could prevent its appearance.
“Toby’s only four,” she said inexplicably.
“He was four.”
His use of the past tense didn’t escape her, but Alexis refused to let herself cry. She wouldn’t let him see her do that. It took everything she had, but she composed herself, then looked up. Gabriel O’Rourke stared back. His eyes held the total force of his intensity and it was directed straight at her.
“You cannot go back to Los Lobos. Ever. You understand that, don’t you?”
“Yes,” she said numbly.
“The house will be sold. The proceeds will go into a bank account and they’ll be forwarded to you. Everything else—any other accounts they might have held—will be sent to you later.” He crumpled his coffee cup and dropped it to the floorboard of the van. “I’m going to put you on a plane in a bit and you’ll fly away from here. People will meet you at the other end. They’ll take care of you.”
“What does that mean?”
“You’ll get a new life.”
“A new life? I don’t want a new life. I want my old one back.”
“That’s impossible. It’s gone.”
“That easily?” She snapped her fingers, her voice breaking. “You can erase people’s existence just like that? Their history? Their lives? Everything they are? You have that much power?”
He ignored the question. “After this, you’re going to be someone else. My organization doesn’t put people into the Witness Protection Program but they will help you. You’ll get a new home and a new name—”
She laughed, an edge of hysteria accompanying the sound. “Do I get a new family, too? A new mom and dad? How about a baby brother? Can we add a little sister, too?”
He didn’t react at all. He simply stared at her, those bottomless black eyes taking it all in without a flicker.
She blinked and looked away, the finality hitting her again, harder than ever. She thought of a thousand things she wished she’d grabbed from the house. Her mother’s fake pearls. The video of her graduation. Toby’s Pooh bear. Her father’s favorite sweater. None of it valuable but all of it priceless. Then she thought of the photo. When Gabriel O’Rourke had ripped that picture from her hands, he’d taken her history as well. Her past was gone. Her family was gone.
She was gone. The person she’d been twenty-four hours ago no longer existed.
And she had a bad feeling that she didn’t even know the real reason behind the nightmare. “Why?” she said almost to herself. “Why?”
Surprising her, the man in black answered her question, his voice a knife. “Your father was an honorable man, that’s why. He always did the right thing.”
“And Mom?”
He shrugged, the emotion he’d allowed her to see already evaporating, already disappearing. “She loved him.” He paused. “Just like they both loved you. That’s one thing that’s for certain.”
“Nothing’s for certain.” Alexis looked down, into her coffee mug. An oily reflection of her face looked back, more real to her right now than her actual existence. She lifted her eyes. “Not anymore. You’ve taken
