Playing God (Helford #2)

(33) Dust

I didn’t expect much from Woodburn anymore—that way I wouldn’t be either surprised or disappointed with what I got—but it was still a swift punch to the stomach when we pulled up outside of a very familiar structure in Paris, a building that I knew all too well. Jonathon’s childhood home on the outside looked exactly as it had that last night, as if nothing had changed. The neighborhood was still just as residential and peaceful, and it was like a sick sense of déjà vu when we all clambered out of the car, Jonathon and I staring at the building.

I hadn’t expected what Woodburn had said to be completely true—in no way would I have thought when he told me to tell Jonathon he was going home, I didn’t think he meant it literally.

Apparently, Alexander had given them full permission to use the site if they wished—he wanted it to stay in the family name, but he was willing to use it as a safe house—but no one had walked through those doors in many years all the same. Sometimes, Alexander came in and checked on it, but he was the only soul that still pumped life into the building. Jonathon’s face was dark as he looked at the façade of the place that had once been the only home he had known, the home I had ripped him from and threw him into this vagabond lifestyle.

I looked at the building and I felt the nights of sitting on surveillance with Rian, watching the comings and goings of the neighbors and the DuPonts alike, getting the feel and pulse of the neighborhood. I remembered when Jonathon wanted to bring me home to his father, and how nervous I had been. I wouldn’t forget everything that happened in that building, and all of the ways that I changed in there.

I saw a hand reaching to touch my shoulder and shied away, knocking into Jonathon’s side in my attempt to get out of the way. Meade’s face was blank as he looked at me, his hand still outstretched. I offered him a shaky smile and nodded, telling him silently that I would be alright, but we both knew better.

Meade might have a hell of a poker face, but I knew enough about him to see through it. He was looking at the location of his brother’s last mission, where I had told him to go ahead and spared the target we were charged with killing. It wasn’t easy for either of us to be back in this town, and I assumed that it was bringing back some nightmares for Jonathon, even though he didn’t even see the half of it. I shoved my hands into the pocket of my hooded sweatshirt, breathing out the chill of the oncoming night.

“Well,” I said, “we can’t just stand outside all day.”

Parker muttered something that must have been in agreement because he opened the back door and grabbed his and Valerie’s bag, heaving them onto his back as he kept his eyes firmly on Jonathon, the warmest kind of concern barely hidden on his face, and I realized that, even though Jonathon and Parker’s friendship had changed when Jonathon found out the truth, that it hadn’t gone away. They had to hide it through their professionalism on the job, but Parker showed more compassion for Jonathon in just that one look than he had ever showed me, or anyone else for that matter. Jonathon sent him a look back, like he was trying to reassure him, and he was doing well—considering. Jonathon grabbed his bag and Meade handed me mine, still with a blank expression. We locked the doors of the van that would be taken to a garage and headed across the street to the door, the looming structure towering over us. My mouth was dry with fear.

“I haven’t been here in five years,” Jonathon muttered, sounding almost surprised of that fact, like it couldn’t have possibly been that long ago—or that little ago. He took the key from Parker’s hand and walked slowly up the stoop, holding there for a second before unlocking the door and pushing it open. He looked around inside, stepping in, and I noticed he was shaking.

Parker shot Valerie a pained expression before he followed his friend into the house, and I was the next in line. I tried to act natural when I walked through the doorway, but my hands remembered reaching down and brushing down the skirt of my dress, worrying about if I was overdressed because I was seventeen and nothing else mattered. My footsteps echoed throughout the large open room, and I looked around, seeing everything I hadn’t seen in a while like a slap to the face.