“Are you okay?” I ask, alarmed, reaching for him out of instinct. His back trembles under my hand. “Kai? Kai! What’s wrong?”
“What did you say?” he asks, voice thick. “About my cheii?”
He doesn’t know. Of course he doesn’t know.
“He’s alive. Tah is alive.” I don’t know why I didn’t tell him sooner. It should have been the first thing out of my mouth. “He was out shopping when Ma’ii came that morning, and he slipped away in the chaos of the fire. He was at my place after Black Mesa, waiting. He’s been living with me in Crystal.”
“That’s impossible,” he says when he finally finds his words. “My cheii is dead.”
“No, Kai. He’s alive. And he’s waiting for you.” I rush on, scared that if I stop, I won’t say it. “I’ve been waiting for you too. Both of us. You have family in Dinétah. That’s your home.”
“But Gideon said . . .” He trails off, shaking his head. I have a feeling Gideon has said a lot of things. Kai looks at me, and there’s something different about his posture, something of the man I know. But it’s gone almost as quickly as it came.
“What’s going on, Kai?” I ask, suspicious. Because that look. I know that look.
“I think I may be a fool, Maggie,” he whispers to me. “I think everything I’ve done may end up being for nothing.” His eyes search my face, looking for . . . I’m not sure what. And he looks so alone, so . . . scared, that I impulsively lay my hand against his cheek. He leans into my palm, kisses my bare skin, and desire thrills through me.
“I’ve started something here,” he whispers against my hand, “and I have to see it through.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I know. But can you trust me anyway?” he asks. “I know it’s a lot to ask, and things look bad right now, but if you could . . . if you could have faith, just a little longer . . .”
My breath comes short, and something tightens in my chest, because even after what I saw in his room, what I saw at that dinner table, my answer is simple. “I have faith.”
He smiles, no doubt recognizing the same words he said to me on Black Mesa.” He starts to move away. But it’s not enough, this brief touch. This conversation with more secrets than answers. I need more. I need Kai. I lost him once, and I’m not losing him again.
But he’s already walking away.
“Kai!”
He pauses and turns back.
I’m on my feet, and I close the space between us, and then I do the only thing I can think to do in the moment. I grab him by the back of the head and pull his mouth to mine, and before he can react, I bite his lip, hard enough to draw blood.
He rears back, surprised. Looks at me like I’m a little crazy, but I do my best to give him innocent eyes. He smiles back hesitantly. Reaches into his trouser pocket and pulls out a tissue. Dabs at the bloody spot.
“Sorry,” I murmur. I run a finger over his quickly swelling lip, let his blood paint my fingertip.
“I’m not sure how I’m going to explain that,” he says, touching the tender place on his mouth before dropping the tissue back in his pocket. I don’t say anything. I may trust him, but an insurance policy never hurts.
A burst of party, a sliding door. Kai gives me a look, clearly trying to say something, and then says loudly, “I’m not going back to Dinétah with you. I have a mission to complete, and I’m going to finish it tomorrow, come hell or high water.”
I see a shadow hovering around the corner, and I understand that Kai’s words are meant for whoever is listening, not me. Another lie within a lie, but I told him I had faith in him and I meant it.
“I belong here with Gideon,” Kai continues. “He’s my family now. I’m sorry, but I’m already home.”
One last look and then he’s backing away, into the shadows. He turns the corner, says something in a voice that sounds surprised, and then he and the owner of that shadow disappear through the sliding door, back to the party.
Chapter 37
I wait until the sounds of the party have died and the bright golden lights have all gone out to hunt Gideon down. I go back the way I came. Circle around the pool, hop the gate, and make my way past all the little rooms. I don’t stop at Kai’s. Not because I don’t want to. I do. More than anything. But I know that if I want Kai back for good, I have to deal with Gideon first.
Amangiri’s private residence is a mansion at the top of a small mesa. The darkness is thicker here, away from the main compound’s lights. The once colorful mountains of Canyon Point are rendered into hulking shadows. I scramble up the white rocks, my feet fighting for purchase in the shifting sand. The spill of pebbles under my feet sound like the echoing patter of rain.
Again, there are no guards here, and I wonder if Gideon is trusting, arrogant, or if there’s something else about the man that I’m missing entirely. It’s not a good feeling, and I pat my weapons again, making sure everything I need is with me.
There’s a wall around the mansion. A solid adobe, ten feet at best. I take a few steps and come at it running. Launch myself forward, reaching up hands up to grab the top and haul myself up. And marvel at what lies beyond the wall.
It’s not the house. It’s beautiful in the stark way I’ve come to understand Amangiri. A two-story block of concrete in the same style as the rest of the compound, shuttered windows showing no light at the balconies in the back. What stops me in my tracks are the gardens surrounding the house. Sculpture gardens, full of strange metal-wire statues. Some are beautiful, a ten-foot tall angel with delicate feather-like wings that trail to the ground. Some are hideous, hunched monsters with pointed, razor-wire claws. The monsters devour human figures that scream, openmouthed, as they are consumed. And everywhere, metal insects. Locusts mostly. But all kinds of flying insects—bees, dragonflies, wide, flat-backed winged beetles. In another place, under different circumstances, the statues might be beautiful, but here in the shadowy darkness, knowing what I know about their maker, they are grotesque.
I drop off the top of the concrete wall into the sculpture garden. Move silently through to the residence and head for the back of the house that, just like the hotel, is a wall of sliding glass doors. The first one I try is unlocked. I draw my gun and step across the threshold.
I’m in a living room. Modern, clean, but as soulless as the rest of the Amangiri. Low lighting reveals a fireplace big enough to stand in, now cold and banked. White couches and low, armless sitting chairs. A coffee table centered over a white carpet. And more metal statues. Some of these I recognize as images of the Diyin Dine’é, copies of things I’ve seen on sand paintings or at ceremonial. Although I don’t know why Gideon would sculpt statues of the Holy People for his living room.
“Come out, come out, Gideon,” I whisper in a singsong. “Time we had a talk.”
The room seems to swallow my voice, and it doesn’t echo back to me. Just disappears in the stillness.
I leave the living room and round the corner into a dining room. Metal and wood chairs line a table long enough to sit ten people, but only two places are set. An open bottle of deep mahogany-colored whiskey sits between them, a note perched against the base, written in a flourishing script. I pick up the note and read it: I was hoping you would come. Join me for a drink. I’ll be only a minute.
“You have got to be kidding me,” I mutter.
“I assure you I am not.”
The same attractive middle-aged man from the party moves into the light. He’s holding a silver serving tray. The elaborate curlicues decorating the handles gleam like treasure in the soft light emanating from the room behind him, which must be the kitchen. And on the tray, what looks like, of all things, a pie. Apple, I think, although I can’t remember the last time I had an apple, never mind a whole pie of them. The impossibly rare smell of cinnamon and sugar waft from the dish, and despite the completely surreal moment, my mouth waters.