All Our Yesterdays (28 page)

“I’ve been selfish, letting you take responsibility for pulling the trigger.” He tucks a loose strand of hair behind my ear. “The truth is, I kind of love that you can’t do it. That’s who you are, Em. If it were easy for you, you’d be no better than him.”

“But Marina,” I say. “And Finn. They’ll suffer if we fail.”

“We’ll think of something.” He presses a kiss to my forehead, then my eyebrow and my cheek, each one warmer and more lingering than the last. “And we won’t give up.”

“Finn . . .” I whisper, my body growing heavy as his lips continue to move across my face.

“We’ve already lost them.” The languid kiss he leaves at the corner of my mouth sends a shiver up my spine. “Pointless to try to catch up. We should get some rest.”

“Rest,” I murmur.

He kisses me, finally, on the lips, pulling the breath out of me until I’m gasping and dizzy. He pulls away and slides the car into drive. With one hand, he takes my own, lacing our fingers together, and with the other, he steers us toward a motel across the street.

Twenty-Five

Marina

We arrive at James’s house as daylight is beginning to turn the edge of the sky pink and orange. It’s hard to believe it’s only been two days. The world’s been so flipped on its head that day is night to me, my eyelids growing heavier as the sun comes up.

I catch a glimpse of my house as James pulls into the garage. The lights are off, and there’s no car outside. Maybe my parents are already gone. I’m not sure if the hollowness I feel is relief or disappointment.

I shove Finn awake in the backseat, and we stagger out of the car while James is already unlocking the door to his house. He doesn’t seem sleepy at all, like he’s fueled by something purer and more primal.

“He okay, you think?” Finn asks as he climbs out of the car.

I sigh. “I don’t know. He was saying some weird stuff while you were out.”

“Oh, uh.” Finn looks at the ground. “Really?”

I narrow my eyes at him. He
was
asleep, wasn’t he? He glances back at me, unmistakably guilty, and I smack him. “You’re terrible!”

He rubs his arm. “Your talking woke me up! Believe me, that was the
last
conversation I wanted to eavesdrop on.”

He walks past me into the house, and I frown at his back before following him. Inside, James is moving from room to room, shutting all of the curtains so that not a crack of daylight comes through. He passes me on his way from the living room to the dining room and throws the lock and dead bolt on the front door on his way.

“Everything all right?” I say.

“It’s going to be fine. I’ve just got to . . . make some calls. So just make yourselves at home.”

“Now that you mention it”—Finn scratches his fingers through his unwashed hair—“I could use a shower.”

I try to smile. “I’ll say.”

“Ha-ha.”

“You can use the first guest bathroom,” James says. “There’s shampoo under the sink, and you can borrow clothes out of my closet.”

Finn nods and heads upstairs.

“Do you mind if I lie down in the blue room?” I ask. “I don’t want to go home right now.”

“Sure.”

I turn to trudge up the stairs, and James comes with me. Halfway up he loops an arm around my waist, and I lean into him.

“Tired?” he says.

I nod and look at him out of the corner of my eye. He’s acting surprisingly normal, the frantic curtain-closing aside. Nate is
gone
, but James isn’t crying or pacing or pulling out his hair. He looks focused. Energized.

“You should get some rest, too,” I say. It can’t last. This is some weird James-style denial that will only make the breakdown that much worse.

“I will.”

We walk together toward the blue room, which I’ve always thought of as mine. I’m sure I’ve spent more nights in the mahogany bed with the blue damask comforter than anyone else. I pause only to toe off my shoes before collapsing face-first onto the mattress.

“Are there fresh sheets?” James asks, as if that matters.

“I don’t care.” I crack one eye open and see James closing the curtains with the same care he did downstairs. I roll over and shimmy myself under the comforter. “They’re clean.”

“Good.” He sits down beside me and pulls the covers up to my chin, tucking them around me like I’m a little girl.

“Thanks, Mom,” I say. “So, who are you going to call?”

“Dr. Feinberg. I want to find out if he gave my notes to Nate. Plus, there are some . . . other things I need to talk to him about.”

“Okay,” I say, not knowing how else to respond.

“And I’m going to call Bob Nolan at the FBI. I don’t want Richter working on Nate’s case. If Nolan sees the stuff we found, maybe he’ll do something about it.”

I run a hand down his arm. “I hope you’re right.”

“I hope so, too. In any event, nothing should happen for a few hours, so get some sleep.”

He leans down and kisses my forehead, and the moment lingers. He pulls away slightly, like he’s realized what he’s doing, and our breath mingles for the space of three shallow breaths before his lips sink onto mine.

His lips move against mine once, slowly, but other than that we’re both still, our lips just pressed against each other. It probably seems peaceful from the outside, but my insides are rioting. Something strange happens in my chest, like my heart breaking open and spilling heat into my body, tingling through my limbs. I want to move, open my lips or touch his face, but I’m frozen.

Then James puts his hand on my chin and tilts it toward him, deepening the kiss, and I crash through my paralysis. I’ve figured it out, why I couldn’t take all of Sophie and Tamsin’s seduction advice. It’s because I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to
seduce
James, to trick him and his hormones into wanting me. I wanted him to want me all on his own. Like this.

I run my hands up his broad back and into his hair, on the opposite side from his stitches, and make a mess of it the way I’ve imagined doing so many times. Nate’s dead and I’m leaving, and all I want is to drown myself in this moment until I’ve crowded out everything else. James picks up on my urgency, and his gentleness slips away, becomes fumbling hands and messier kisses. He pulls at my sweater, fingers curling in the hem.

“Is this okay?” he whispers.

“Shut up.” I press the words against his lips and drag his shirt over his head. Mine quickly follows, and then there’s skin on skin and the world narrows to the places where we touch. I strain toward him and pull him closer, back into a kiss, wanting to disappear under the weight and heat of his body on top of mine.

James turns his head away from me. “Sorry. Sorry. I shouldn’t have.”

“What?” I whisper.

He stands and gathers his discarded shirt and shoes. I sit up, crossing my arms over my chest. “James—”

“Sorry,” he says, not looking at me.

And then he’s gone.

Em

I wake, squinting into the light. I’m not sure where I am, but the thought doesn’t bring panic like it should. I try to shift away from the sun and realize there’s someone beside me. My cheek is resting on Finn’s bare chest, which rises and falls with his breath, the quiet thump of his heart in my ear.

Oh yeah.
Rest.

The motel room is tiny, with peeling paint and a carpet that would cause my mother to drop dead on the spot, but the mattress is soft and the sheets are clean and cool. The person beside me isn’t half bad, either. I have no desire to ever get out of this bed. The world can go to hell outside our locked door; I’m not leaving.

Finn lifts a hand and runs it through my hair, his touch featherlight and gentle. I close my eyes and enjoy the tingle his fingers send through my scalp. When he kisses the top of my head, I look up at him and smile.

He narrows his eyes at me. “I thought you were asleep.”

“So
that’s
why you were being so sweet.”

“I don’t know about that. . . .” He kisses me, and maybe I should be self-conscious about my unwashed hair and unbrushed teeth, but I’m not. Not now.

“This was a good idea,” he whispers, “if I do say so myself.”

“Yeah.” I sigh as the cold air comes creeping in again. “But—”

“No! Not yet. No buts yet.” He kisses me silent. “Let’s at least eat our complimentary continental breakfast first.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s afternoon.”

He glances at the clock on the bedside table. “Damn, cheated! Oh well, we’ll have to find something else to do instead.”

I’m laughing when he kisses me this time, and I feel the imprint of his smile against my lips. His words are warm in the air between us as he kisses his way down my neck. “God, you don’t know how I dreamed about this. All those nights with that wall between us when all I wanted was to touch you.”

My face flushes, which is stupid. It’s stupid to get so embarrassed and trembly over a few little words. I hide my face against his shoulder.

He flops back against the pillows. “But it’s probably time to get serious again, huh?”

I burrow a little closer to him. “Probably.”

“So, what are we going to do?”

“We’ll stake out James’s and Marina’s houses,” I say. “If they’re not there now, they will be soon.”

“But finding them is the easy part, isn’t it?”

“Maybe I was wrong before.” I push myself up on my elbows. “Maybe we didn’t try hard enough to convince James to give up on Cassandra. He’s seen us now. If we could make him understand how bad things get—”

“We’ve already tried that,” he says gently. It was number one on the list, the very first thing that some previous version of Finn and I tried and failed at. “Besides, when have you ever seen James let something go?”

“Never.” I lie back down. “I know. You’re right.”

Finn sighs. “Maybe we give up. We weren’t up for it this time. Maybe the next version of us will be.”

“Do you think we’ve done that already? Do you think other versions of us have gotten the same note, come back here to kill him, and given up?”

“Maybe.” He runs his fingertips up my back and smiles. “We could drive down to Florida. Lie on a beach somewhere and get drinks with umbrellas in them while we wait for time to erase us.”

“Doesn’t sound like a bad way to go,” I say, picturing the scene, the sway of the surf and the sun beating down on us. I haven’t been warm since we came to this time. The cold has settled into my bones now, my marrow. But the vision fades. It’s replaced with a picture of Marina, who I’ve finally—
finally
—learned to love. My stomach turns. “Four years later and I’m still so selfish. I can’t kill James because of how badly it will make
me
feel, when so many other lives, even Marina’s, depend on it.”

“Hey.” Finn puts a hand on my face and makes me look at him. “You’re not selfish. You’re a loving person who wants to believe in the good in people, even after all you’ve been through. If you were selfish, it would have been easy to kill James.”

“Maybe.”

Finn sits up and looks at me seriously. “You talk about Marina like she’s a different person from you, Em. You
are
Marina. You are that same loyal, determined, infuriating girl. It’s time you started seeing how great you are, just like you wish Marina could see it. I mean, look at me. I think I’m
fantastic
.”

I smile. “You
are
fantastic.”

“I know!” He kisses me. “And so are you.”

“I’ll take your word for it.” I sigh and, with great effort, climb out of the soft, safe bed. “We’d better get moving.”

Twenty-Six

Marina

I must be really tired, because even with a noxious cocktail of anger, shame, and lingering arousal churning in my stomach, I’m out in minutes. A knock on the door wakes me, and I drag myself up through sleep to waking. Did I dream it? James kissing me, his hands on my bare skin, him running out with no explanation?

Finn’s standing in the doorway. “James just got a message from Richter. He’s going to meet him at a restaurant downtown in an hour, and he wants us to go with him.”

“What?”
I push myself into a sitting position. My head is heavy and spinning. When did this all happen? How long was I asleep?

“He’s acting really weird, right? Even for James? It’s like he thinks—”

“There’s still something he can do that will make a difference?” I say.

“Yeah.” Finn sighs. “I can’t keep running along after him, waiting for the breakdown. I’ve barely been home in two days. Can you talk to him?”

I climb out of bed and straighten my clothes. “I’m sure as hell going to try.”

“Oh, and by the way,” he adds, “the family has descended, and Alice is pissed at us.”

“Great.”

I find James downstairs at the kitchen island, drinking a cup of coffee in big gulps. He’s showered and changed, but from his bloodshot eyes, it’s clear he hasn’t slept. Nancy Shaw-Brookline has arrived, and her three children are squabbling over crayons at the dining room table. Alice, who has probably never done a dish in her entire life, has unpacked the entire contents of the refrigerator and is scrubbing the inside with barely controlled mania, while Vivianne, who has her eyes closed and is rubbing her temple, is on the phone with what sounds like a catering company. I listen in confusion until I remember.