Behind Closed Doors (Rochester Trilogy 3.50)

I did it because I want to know.

Damn it, I want to know.

“I don’t have any scars,” she says.

I arch an eyebrow at her.

She laughs. “Fine. I miss…” Her gaze goes thoughtful, and I feel like a goddamn asshole. She’s going to answer me honestly. She’s going to give me this piece of herself after I’ve already searched through her background. I’ve read every file that exists on Marjorie Dunn. This will only flesh out those details. “I miss my dad.”

“What about him?”

“He’s been gone a long time.” The corners of her mouth turn down. “I barely have any memories left, but I still miss him so much. Maybe what I miss is the idea of being together. And I miss…” Marjorie looks away, toward the window. The brightening sun glows on her face. “I miss how my mother would work so hard for us. She put everything she had into keeping us safe and happy, right up until she died.”

“How did she die?”

I already know. Marjorie’s eyes flick to mine. My chest squeezes with guilt. “Cancer. There are a lot of bad things in the world, but watching somebody die of cancer…” A quick shake of her head. “It was awful. Aside from losing my dad, it was the worst thing.”

To hear this in her voice makes me question everything. Why the hell did I go into this career? Why have I stayed so long? What am I doing here? I’ve had a hundred conversations like this over the years. Maybe thousands. Hearing about Marjorie’s past in her voice is different. Seeing her emotions cross her face, pink and warm from sleeping with me, should be against some regulation. It hurts. The pain surprises me. I’m not used to feeling anything about a job.

“Do you really hate it?” she asks. “Your work.”

My base instinct is to avoid the topic, but it’ll only draw more attention to this fact about me. It’ll only make me seem more ominous. “For a long time, it was all I had. I don’t mind the work. It’s like any other job. Maybe more dangerous. It’s the person I’ve become that I don’t recognize.”

It’s true, goddamn it. My younger self would be horrified to discover what I’ve made of my life. That I’m a man who scares innocent people. Who lies to them. Who hurts them. And then, when the job’s done, I walk away like it never happened. There’s no reward for all this. No sense of accomplishment. I’ll do this until I’m killed in the line of duty or until I can’t take it anymore, and then I’ll have nothing.

“What did you want to be when you grew up?”

Not this. “I went to school for engineering.”

“Because you wanted to be an engineer?”

“No. I got in on a scholarship. A guidance counselor suggested engineering. I didn’t know what else to do.”

“What kind of scholarship?”

“Basketball.”

Marjorie’s eyes light up. “You played basketball?”

“What, you like sports?”

“I like how it looks when all the people on the team are working together,” Marjorie admits. “There’s a kind of magic in that, don’t you think?”

There was. I haven’t been on that kind of team since I graduated. I’m only in contact with one or two other people at a time. The CIA contract doesn’t seem like a prize anymore. A life of loneliness and violence, followed by more loneliness. Death, at some point or another.

“Tell me more about you, Marjorie Dunn.”

“I like it here in Eben Cape.” She watches me carefully as she says this. Worried I might reject this idea, maybe. But hell. It’s nice here. It could be a home. “I tried to make a life that my parents would have been proud of. They probably never imagined I’d own an inn, but they’d like it here, I think. They’d think it was peaceful. They’d understand wanting to live in a small town. It’s beautiful, even in the winter. It’s calm. No monsters lurking in the shadows, except…”

“Except?”

Her brow furrows. “No place is perfect. I’ve met some men here who made life difficult. My friend Emily’s husband was one of those. He’s gone now.”

“Because of you?”

She snorts. “No. He got into an argument with her brother, and he was killed. It was the talk of the town last year. Made me nervous to think about people killing each other. I didn’t like that. I was relieved when things quieted down. Relieved for Emily, especially.” Marjorie finds another one of my scars and focuses on it. “Do the scars still bother you?”

“No.” It’s tough to get closer to her, but I manage another inch. “That’s the thing about scars. They grow over with tissue that doesn’t have nerve endings. They don’t feel any pain. They’re basically dead.”

“It is a little like death,” she agrees. “But you’re still alive.”

“The scars will be with me forever. Same with the hidden ones. Those wounds are covered in the same scar tissue. I don’t feel anything.”