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“That’s an awful lot, Taylor.”
“Can you forgive me?”
His deep green eyes met hers. “Can you forgive me?”
“Yes. I can.”
“Then you know my answer.”
He pulled her close again, settled his lips on hers. His beard scratched her chin, and felt her heart pounding.
This was so right.
She was sorry when he stopped.
“Taylor, are you really okay?”
Not entirely. But she was getting better. She squeezed his hand.
“I’m okay. At least, I will be. Right now, we have more important issues to deal with. We need to get Memphis and Evan together. Can you help?”
He smiled.
“I think I can. Let me make a call.”
EPILOGUE
Taylor had a chance to see Rachael one last time.
The British government wanted to prosecute her, but the United States wanted to extradite her as well. She’d broken parole and stolen the identity of a woman named Madeira Hudson. Started a new life. Went to school. Got her degree. Met and married Roland MacDonald, moved to Scotland and bore him three sons. Had a normal life, for a while. Then became overwhelmingly obsessed with Memphis. Changed her name to James and started her second downward spiral.
God knew how many other crimes she’d committed. Her initial release from the state mental institution had been predicated on compliance with her probation. Since she’d broken that, and fled the country, she was going back inside.
But there were bigger issues concerning her case in the States. The parole officer assigned to her case was dead, and Rachael was the prime suspect. The New York police would be able to clear a homicide if they got her back. The Brits had her on too many charges to count—kidnapping, two counts of attempted murder, drug possession. Whoever got to have first crack at her, Rachael Mack was going away for a very long time.
Taylor didn’t know whether an asylum or jail was the right place for a person like Rachael. She was obviously a psychopath. The syringe had been loaded with penicillin, which Taylor was deathly allergic to. Coincidentally, so was Rachael, and that’s why she’d flinched when Taylor put the needle in her neck.
Taylor thought it telling that the woman would gamble that way. Or maybe, just maybe, it was her own personal suicide bomb, like a cyanide capsule, just waiting for her to be caught. Maybe she was simply crazy after all.
Rachael had stolen Evan away from her comfortable life, stashed her in an asylum in Russia, and effectively killed the child she carried. The tiny boy had been born early, in freezing conditions; with no neonatal support, he had died within hours.
That news alone had been heartbreaking for Memphis, but it was tempered by the fact that his wife had been found. She was alive. No one knew for sure what her mental state would be, but the finest doctors were lined up to take care of her.
After extensive questioning, Rachael broke and explained her crimes. The intimidation. The forgeries. The illusions. How she’d broken into Memphis’s world, his email, his office, and pretended to be him. The physical intimidation, passive-aggressive at first, when she put the cut glass in Taylor’s new coat, then more direct. The hypnosis. Then the hallucinogens, her own prescription for Seroquel tinged with LSD. How over two years ago, she’d taken the young woman she’d recently hired to na
Rachael told Evan she was Memphis’s mistress, that he hated her, that he didn’t want her or the child, then knocked her out. She put the na
Rachael had taken Evan to the coast, off Inverness, and put her on a boat. She’d made many friends while incarcerated. And the Russian mafia in Long Island possessed a legendary cruelty. They already had the signed committal papers. A few favors, a few strings pulled, and Rachael had Evan out of the way.
The story was astounding in its simplicity and duplicity. Evan’s grave up at the kirk was exhumed, the body inside tested for DNA, matched to a woman named Patricia Cantrell, who’d been missing for over two years.
The Inverness airport was situated on a strip of land between the city of Inverness and Fort George, an English garrison built to house the English troops left in country after the Jacobite uprising of 1746. There was no more fighting on Scottish soil between the Brits and the Scots after that. Their enemies were larger, from without, not within. Like the Highsmythes and Rachael Mack. They’d never seen her coming.
They were coming now. Rachael was shackled, head bent, shuffling along like a crippled dog. Taylor refused to feel anything for her. Compassion was best reserved for creatures who could be saved.
Rachael was being transported to London for holding while the various governments decided what to do with her. It seemed to Taylor that she had shrunk, and she doubted Rachael would see the inside of a prison. She’d kill herself before she went back inside for long, Taylor was sure of it. And she was certain that she wasn’t sorry about that, either.
As if she knew Taylor was there watching, she lifted her head and stared right at her. A small smile played on her lips. She awkwardly turned her hands around within their metal braces and raised her middle finger.
Such a classy girl.
Taylor resisted the urge to return the gesture, settled for watching Rachael get loaded into a British Airways 767. She hoped she’d have a very uncomfortable flight, then dismissed her. She’d have to testify, come back to England to let them know what Rachael had done to her, but that was probably a while away.
As the plane with Rachael inside left, another pulled up. This one was a private plane, a Bombardier Learjet, specially procured by Baldwin’s covert friends.
Evan had been found, desolate and alone, fighting to keep her sanity. While she wasn’t directly mistreated, the Russian government was more than happy to keep the news of a British citizen’s unlawful incarceration on their soil quiet, and were willing to do most anything requested of them.
Memphis stood five feet away from Taylor, watching the plane arrive with breathless anticipation. He’d lobbied to go directly to Russia to get Evan himself, but was denied. Instead, he’d had to wait for her to return to U.K. soil, just like everyone else.
The Lear pulled to a stop. The door swung open and the stairs unfolded. A man Taylor didn’t recognize stood in the door, then reached behind him to give a hand to some one else.
Taylor heard Memphis suck in his breath.
Evan looked nothing like Taylor in person. Her hair was shorn. She was obscenely thin. But she gave Memphis a wavering smile, and he bolted for the stairs of the plane. She met him halfway down the steps, and they embraced, two drowning souls who’d just found a bit of flotsam in a very wide sea.
Taylor felt tears prick her eyes. This was right. This was good. The universe was realigned.