Chapters (51)
- Cover
- Dedication
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- Forty
- Forty-One
- Forty-Two
- Forty-Three
- Acknowledgments
- P.S. Insights, Interviews & More . . .*
- About the Author
- About the Book
- Also by Alison Gaylin
- About the Publisher
“That never stopped you before,” he said. “What about that crazy guy in Kentucky who told you that the mayor of his town was a murderer? You flew out there, exposed him as a liar, uncovered a bigger, better story about the underage prostitutes—”
“That was different.”
“How?”
“Well, for one thing, he never claimed that his fucking mayor was the person who turned my mother into a worthless drug addict.” Quentin closed his eyes, but not soon enough. He saw the spark in Dean’s eyes, that wince, as though he were bracing for a blow. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“No. I’m sorry. That was insensitive. I need to be more—”
“You don’t,” Quentin said. “You don’t. What I need to do is grow up, do my job. Stop blaming everything on Mommy.”
“It was only six months ago. You need time.”
Quentin said, “I need to stop being so damn scared.”
“You’re scared?”
Quentin swallowed hard. He hadn’t meant to say that out loud.
“What are you scared of?”
He shook his head. “That wasn’t the right word.”
“Quentin,” Dean said. “You’d tell me, right? I mean, if anything was going on with you again . . .”
Quentin took Dean’s face in his hands. He kissed him, because it was something he knew how to do, because he could close his eyes to do it and because it felt a hell of a lot better than answering that question. “What are you scared of?” Dean whispered.
Getting found out. Quentin didn’t say it, but the words raked at his skin, the backs of his eyeballs. They pushed into his lips as he kissed the man he loved more than anything, so much more than himself . . . Those words, always close to the surface when the topic of his mother came up, her death and what it had done to him, what he’d done . . .
His hands slid down the length of Dean’s smooth body, more powerful than his own and yet more yielding. He wasn’t all coiled up inside like Quentin was. He had nothing to hide.
Quentin pulled away. “I’ll investigate,” he said. “I’ll look into April Cooper’s past. If I can find a compelling enough reason to believe she survived that fire, I’ll fly out to New York and track down Renee.”
“Quentin.”
“Yeah?”
“I know what you’re scared of.”
Quentin’s stomach tightened. “What?”
“Hurting people.”