The Double

I put the parking brake on and we walked around the front of the car to switch drivers. Six weeks on from the airfield, we were both still nursing injuries. We’d been incredibly lucky. The rain that had made the wing so slippery had also saved us: as we’d hit the runway, we’d skidded and slid rather than scraped. If it had been a dry day, we’d have lost most of our skin. Even so, we’d hit the ground hard. I’d cracked two bones in my ankle and still favored the other leg. Konstantin had come off worse: three broken ribs and a dislocated shoulder, but the worst damage was to his arm. Hauling me to safety and putting all that strain on it when it was already injured from the bullet had permanently damaged the muscle. He could still drive and write and pick me up, and physiotherapy was helping, but the doctors had warned that he’d never regain full strength in that arm. When they’d told us, I’d burst into tears.

But he’d just put a finger under my chin and lifted my head to look at him. “It’s our weaknesses that make us human,” he’d told me. And I’d thrown my arms around him and hugged him close.

Our hearing had taken several hours to return and it was weeks before the ringing in my ears went completely. One of the first things I’d heard, as I lay in a hospital bed, was Calahan’s conversation with Konstantin, who was in the bed next to mine. Calahan had been muttering and his silhouette on the curtain had its shoulders hunched with embarrassment. I’d had to really strain to hear.

“... special,” Calahan had told Konstantin. “So you’d better not mumble her mumble—”

“I won’t,” Konstantin had said solemnly.

“Or I don’t care how goddamn powerful you are, I’ll—”

“I won’t,” Konstantin reassured him.

And Calahan had stomped off. Poor Calahan…. I knew we weren’t right for each other, but I hoped he found someone soon. He needed someone as stubborn as him, someone who could break through all the walls he’d put up and help him lay his pain to rest. She was out there, somewhere.

Ironically, my mom had come to visit me in the hospital. Her health was much better, after her latest round of treatment, and I’d had a long phone call with her to prepare her for my new face. When she finally saw me, there was a lot of sobbing from both of us. But she finally sniffed and pushed back from me, then shook her head. “Doesn’t matter what you look like,” she told me firmly. “You’re still you.”

To my amazement, she took to Konstantin immediately, describing him as a gentleman. I’d been worried at first, afraid she didn’t understand what he was, who he was. But when I explained, she waved aside my concerns. “Is he a good man?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said with feeling.

“That’s all that matters.”

Konstantin had offered to pay her medical bills, but it turned out he didn’t need to. Word had gotten out about my shopping trip and once people heard that Christina Rogan, one of the best-dressed women in New York, liked to shop at my mom’s boutique, the place had turned into one of those “undiscovered gems” that columnists love to write about. The shop had never been busier and my mom had to take on an assistant.

Grigory, broken-hearted, had testified against Christina. Without her influence, his loyalties had swung back to Konstantin and he’d refused to answer any questions about his employer. Konstantin hadn’t said anything directly but I knew that had gone a long way towards letting him forgive his former bodyguard. Christina, meanwhile, was going to be serving a long sentence in a federal penitentiary for conspiracy to murder, attempted murder and the drug charges we’d first brought her in on. Grigory’s sentence was looking to be a little shorter thanks to his cooperation. Finally, in a big win for the FBI, the arrest of the assassin had cleared up a whole slew of unsolved murders.

Konstantin and I crossed over at the front of the car and I kept going towards the passenger side... but Konstantin caught my hand and brought me to a stop, then pulled me back to him. “What?” I asked, startled. “What’s up?”

“Nothing,” he said. Those blue eyes looked deep into mine. “Nothing at all.”

He smoothed his hand through my hair, pushing it back from my face. I’d stopped dying and straightening my hair and it was slowly turning back to its natural muddy brown frizz. He said he preferred it. I was dressing a little more like me, too, within reason. I wasn’t going to stop wearing all the designer clothes, but it was nice to just throw on jeans and a sweater sometimes, like today. I’d even got some glasses with plain glass lenses so that I could wear them again. Mainly for him. In the bedroom.