I giggled in the dark, and Mom pressed her finger to her lips again and said, “Shh. We don’t want to wake Daddy! This is only for us, remember?”

I nodded and smiled and clamped my mouth shut.

Only for us.

Rain still felt like that, like a secret.

But now, when I looked at pictures of her, all I saw was the terror in her eyes when her life had been threatened to gain my cooperation. I would have done anything they asked of me if it meant protecting her.

“What’s her name?” Nick asked, dragging me from the memories.

“Moira. Moira Creed.”

He turned away from the picture and toward me. “Were your parents still together when you went missing?”

I shook my head quickly. “They split up a long time ago. My mom wanted us to have the same last name, so she never changed hers back. Just made things easier, I guess.”

He didn’t say anything in response and left the living room for the parlor. Aggie and I hardly ever set foot inside it. It was done in the traditional Victorian style, with rose-red wallpaper and dark woodwork. The windows were draped in heavy curtains, and the hardwood floor was covered in threadbare rugs.

The furniture was traditional as well, and Aggie had a complete matching set. There were four chairs and one settee. The wood frames were hand-carved mahogany, and the upholstery rose-colored damask. I respected that they were old, and that someone had taken a lot of time to make the set, but it was ridiculously uncomfortable.

Nick stopped just over the threshold and stared at the baby grand piano in the corner of the room. “Do you play?” he asked me.

“No. Do you?”

His eyes narrowed as he thought. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know if you can play the piano?”

He went over to it and pulled out the bench. I followed and sat beside him, our legs pressed together. With his index finger, he reached out and touched a key, then gave it a tap. The note vibrated through the room. It’d been forever since I’d heard anyone play. Aggie didn’t either. It was her daughter’s piano, and Aggie hadn’t had the heart to get rid of it after her daughter died.

Nick stretched out his fingers, one after the other, testing the keys beneath, as if the ivory suddenly felt familiar. He pressed a key, then another, and then suddenly he was playing, his fingers running over the keys with quick, decisive precision.

I slid off the bench, stunned, in awe, wanting to see the whole picture, see it from afar.

The more notes he strung together, the more his body loosened, as if whatever strings held him permanently taut had been severed.

The music turned darker, deeper, the rich notes hitting me in the chest until there was nothing but the music and me, until it filled every corner of the room, every hollow of my senses.

I closed my eyes as Nick hit a few higher notes, striking them softly as the deeper ones played beneath with a steady thrum and drum. The song reminded me of so many things. Of rain and thunder, of bare feet on cool sand, of pomegranate seeds bursting open between your teeth.

And then suddenly the music was gone and Nick’s hands—the same hands that had just created something so real that I felt it in my soul—shook me and I opened my eyes.

“You okay?” he asked, and without thinking, without doubting, without waiting, I reached up on tiptoes and kissed him.

He stiffened immediately, and I could almost hear his uncertainty.

But then he was kissing me, too, pressing back until I rammed into the wall and rattled the picture frames. He didn’t stop. I didn’t stop. He placed one hand at the small of my back, driving me closer. The other he ran behind me, to my neck, and my skull vibrated at his touch.

I felt his tongue graze my lips, and I answered, parting, letting him in. My breath came quickly, my insides quaking.

And then, just as quickly as it began, it ended and Nick pulled away. “Elizabeth,” he said, hoarse and wavering, “this can’t happen.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m not one of the good guys.”

The side door banged open and I jumped. Aggie’s voice carried through the house. She was talking to someone, but I couldn’t tell if she was on the phone, or if someone was with her. Curious, I stepped through the doorway into the living room and caught a glimpse of Dr. Sedwick following Aggie down the hall toward the den.

I turned back to Nick, to say something, anything, but he was already gone.

27

NICK

I STUMBLED INTO THE APARTMENT ABOVE the garage, my fingers clenched into fists. When the door slammed shut behind me, I slumped against it and scrubbed at my face.

What the hell just happened?

The piano.

Elizabeth.

Her mouth on mine.

I needed to move. I needed to do something. I needed to get out of here.

I threw the door back open and thundered down the stairs, down the driveway. I wasn’t wearing running clothes, but I didn’t care. I could run in a snowsuit if I had to.

On the street, I turned left, heading away from town. With my legs moving beneath me, arms at my sides, shoulders loose, lungs pumping, I started to feel more like myself.

I’d hardly ever pushed a girl away. If someone offered a hookup, I almost always took it. And the fact that I’d stopped Elizabeth, even though she was clearly up for it, left me feeling detached from myself—the immoral version of myself I’d grown accustomed to. It was screwed up that I was freaking out over the fact that I’d actually done something right for once, but no one ever said I was a perfect picture of stability.