The Mysterious Stranger (The Confidence Game 3)

He was a talented con. He was used to easy victories. He’d wanted to bust Abundance as much for the victims as the thrill of testing his abilities. He’d wanted to work with Rory because every moment at her side was simply better than anything else he could be doing.

He’d done to Rory what Orrin Epcot did to his followers and he’d done it not because he was on a power trip, not because he thought he had superior judgment, but because he was scared of changing things between them and losing her.

“Fulfilled that prophecy with your usual outstanding attention to detail, dickhead.”

Fuck.

He’d just driven another truck through a fence and saved no one, marooning himself in a paradise that was nothing without her. He was a cult of one and hadn’t understood how badly he needed to be busted out of that way of thinking, clinging to fear as if it was more likely to save him than truth and love.

He had to wait till the next afternoon to get a seat on a plane off the island. He’d have chased after Rory, but he had no idea where she was going. When he finally had cell coverage and called, her phone tossed him to voicemail. A part of him was proud of her for that.

In the absence of a plan that made any sense, he just wanted to go home to his own Grand Master and his bamboo cotton sheets and his cool gel-infused pillow. It was the opposite to what he normally did when he couldn’t be near her, but he’d lost the urge to put more distance between them. She’d come home eventually, and he’d be waiting.

He’d been traveling for twenty hours when he stepped inside his apartment, desperate to shower and sleep, and encountered uninvited guests.

“Mom, Cal. What’s going on?” How did they know he was due home? Had to have been tipped off by the family car service he’d used from the airport. Had to have bribed his doorman to get inside. Goddamn it.

“You could call it an intervention,” Cal said from the couch.

“Or a support group. That might be nicer,” said Mom. “You know how those work for alcoholics and drug addicts and people who have a problem with grief, or too much sex, or desperately want to get recruited into a cult. Congratulations, darling. Job well done.”

“The Feds nabbed a container of cash from a ship headed to the Cayman Islands on Rory’s tip-off. And Mike is doing okay. Good work, both of you.”

That was great news, but it could’ve come as a text. “Thanks. The welcome committee is swell, but I’m jet-lagged and I really need to hit the sack. Can we do whatever this is another time?”

Cal shook his head. Mom laughed and lifted knitting to her lap. He blinked twice at her.

“It’s your Christmas sweater. I’d better see you wear it too.”

It was some loud green and red pattern that he’d rather see in a psychedelic dream than on his body.

“Better than being stabbed with your number zero.”

Mom made those needles click. “What did you say?”

“Never mind.”

“We’re of a mind, that’s why we’re here,” Cal said. “You have to fix things with Rory.”

Cal might as well have had cactus spikes coming out of his head. There was no grovel superior enough to fix things with Rory. “I don’t even know where Rory is and I’m not talking to you about her.”

“Because?”

“Because cactus.”

“Cactus?” Cal quirked his head. “I don’t want you to talk about Rory with me. I want you to talk to Rory about the two of you.”

Mom wagged a third needle at him. What sorcery was that? “He means how you fucked it up, darling. Go and apologize. Get on your damn fool knees and beg for a second chance and then never ever doubt her commitment again.”

“Always nice to know my mother is on my side.”

“I am on your side. That’s precisely why we’re here. You’d imagine Halsey was the one who overthinks, but no one tops you for that.”

“Makes you a sensational con,” Cal added, “but in your private life you never go deep because then you’d have to think about it and that would kill all the fun. Not to mention you have loved Rory forever.”

Shocked out of his stupor, Zeke looked from Cal to Mom and back again. It must be possible to divorce your family for cruel and unusual interference combined with senseless withholding of vital information.

“One of you couldn’t have mentioned this now stunningly self-evident truth fifteen years ago?” The two of them exchanged a what-gives look. He clapped his hands to get their attention. “Thank you for your opinions. You can show yourself out any time now. Just like you broke in.”