Deeper (The Deeper Chronicles #1) (35 page)

Ro and Gavin left the office. It was time he did what should’ve already been done.

Noah walked over to the wall near his desk and tapped the edge of the painting to reveal a keypad. When he fitted his right hand into the pewter-colored grooves, the safe opened. “About our people at Harry’s...”

“Yeah?”

“If a damn pigeon comes near his mailbox, I want to know,” Noah said over his shoulder.

“Got it, boss.”

When Noah faced Cass, he held a single folder. The name Avianna Linton was hand-written on the tab. The file was thin, but Noah knew whatever was inside could be as dense as a forest with no way out.

With a hand on the door knob, Cass said, “You and Avi will be just fine.” Then he left Noah to his thoughts.

It was maybe a half-hour later when Noah was finished.

“Fuck.” He dragged a hand over his tired eyes. He had expected to find information about boyfriends, which he had. Maybe there’d be some embarrassing pictures from her childhood, which there were. And the usual: her social security number, past residences, debt history, and schools she had attended.

He was not expecting what he had learned.

So many things connected the two of them. First Harry, and now Ellie Linton. The coincidences fucked with his mind. For a split second, he wondered if she was a mole sent to destroy him. But as quickly as the thought entered his head, he shook it away.

He stood, stretched his aching muscles, and then walked over to Harry’s safe. Anxiety coursed through him as he turned the dial, using the numbers Avi had uttered earlier. When it opened, he was still just as shocked as he had been in the basement.

E. Linton.
Noah’s eyes landed on the name, remembering a time when Harry had been candid with him about Ellie Linton. He put Avi’s mother’s letters to Harry on the floor. Then his fingers grazed the edge of the shiny item. It was his Afghanistan Service Medal that he’d given to Harry for safekeeping. When Noah reached back inside the safe, he pulled out his thick medical file. Flipping through, he saw his aptitude test results, a picture of his platoon from basic training at Fort Hood that somehow got into his file—things from a time in his life when he thought change was a possibility.

Something fluttered to the floor. Noah bent, retrieving the waxy envelope with the purple calla lily that gleamed under the light. He shoved everything back into the safe and slammed it shut. Leaving his office, he found Avi just where instinct told him she’d be. Curled up on her side in the bedroom he told her was hers for the duration of her stay.

Even though she lay still, he knew she was awake. He lifted her up, sheet and all, and carried her to his bedroom. Shedding his clothing, he pulled her back into his broad chest and held onto her while she sobbed.

Harry used to have a saying: never sleep with someone whose troubles are worse than your own. This wouldn’t be the first time Noah didn’t take his friend’s advice.

He fell asleep.

“How’s the food?” Noah asked.

Avi’s attention lifted from her plate to his face, but then she quickly dropped it back down. “Fine,” she mumbled.

In many ways, Avi was like her father: bullish with a single-minded focus. Both had an uncanny ability to let only those they wanted into their heads. He’d given her time to process, but now he needed answers. He wasn’t a man who waited. And for her, he’d waited longer than ever—five days.

Noah’s fork clanged onto his plate. “Are you ready to talk?”

Avi pushed away her plate and wiped the corners of her mouth. When she made to leave the table, her answer was unmistakable.

“Did I ever tell you about the time I opened up your father’s scrapbook?”

Avi ran her hand through her hair, slumping back into her seat. She didn’t look at him, but Noah knew she was listening.

“It was a random day. Maybe a Saturday. I was bored, and your old man was at work. His antique TV was on the fritz again, and the book under the coffee table caught my attention. Plus, I was a nosey bastard. First thing my eyes landed on when I cracked it open was Harry cheesing.” He laughed.

Avi’s upper body leaned forward, though she never looked his way.

“I’d probably been in his life, oh, I’d say about a month or so, and I’d never seen that man laugh like how he was in those pictures. I had to ask myself, ‘Who the hell is this?’ Then I saw her
.
She was gorgeous. Big, curly hair. And in all of the pictures, Harry’s eyes followed her as if the sun and moon rose and set because of her.” He remembered how Harry had come home earlier than expected, finding Noah hunkered over his book filled with memories.

When Avi remained silent, he continued, “Anyway, your pops came home, caught me red-handed. I thought he was going to tear me a new one. He looked so angry. But then he just kinda gathered himself and told me to hand him the scrapbook. She labeled everything they did. Dates. Locations. I mean everything. The names Ellie Linton
and Harry Manning were all over that book. In some places, it was just EL and HM.” He laughed. “Cute. Made me jealous, even though I didn’t know shit about what was obviously love. So I asked about her.”

Avi raised her head. He never saw the resemblance, but now it was clear as day. She had her father’s eye color, but her mother’s deep-set eyes. And when Avi really laughed, and let herself
be
in the moment, her posture was reminiscent of many of the pictures he’d seen of when Harry was around Ellie: head thrown back, shoulders quaking, with hands holding her sides.

“Wha-what’d he say about her?” Her wobbly voice broke his concentration.

Her fingers raked through her hair, and now strands lay all over her head. She refused to look his way, flickering her gaze all over the dining room.

“He told me Ellie Linton was the love of his life.”

Her gasp was audible. A tear trickled down her cheek. He almost felt guilty, but he knew the conversation needed to happen whether she was ready for it or not.

“So now I’m asking you...besides being your mother, who is E. Linton to you?”

The silence stretched between them; across from him, the stubborn woman was drowning in whatever she held onto, if the small puffs of breath she couldn’t seem to catch were an indication, yet her lips never moved to speak.

“You stall, but your father’s answer came right away.”

Love of his life.
Not a “fling”, as her mother used to characterize the relationship.

It was hard to hear anything else. Harry described her mother as
the
love of his life. The word slammed into Avi’s chest, robbing her of the ability to breathe or talk.
Her
father loved
her
mother. A man who hadn’t seen Ellie in over twenty-odd years still pined away for her, and held her in high esteem...even protecting the few things she’d left in his home.

Avi had left her mother high and dry when it all hit the fan, too concerned with her guilt to reach out for Ellie’s hand.

“I...” she started and stopped. She couldn’t share what was running through her mind, because everything
and
nothing was rambling in her head all at once. Noah sat there with questions she didn’t want to answer, because she truly didn’t know the answers...hadn’t bothered to investigate or dig that deep in the last three years.

“Avi.”

She mumbled out, “It’s complicated,” and hoped he never heard them, but that was wishful thinking. Noah heard and saw everything.

“Uncomplicate it then.”

Her brows knitted together under his harsh directive.

“Your mother’s in prison.”

Avi didn’t say anything.

“She was a drug dealer.”

She swallowed. These were no questions, just hard facts that were getting too close to home. She pinched her lips.

“You were driving her car, it got pulled over, and they searched and found all of that shit.”

Avi sat taller, squinting at him, feeling warm all over.
How’d he know any of this?

“You were held until your mother came down and turned herself in.”

What could she say? He knew her whole life story; there was no reason for her to stick around for the sad end.

She stood to her shaky feet, needing to get away from the pin-prick sensations that were picking up speed in her heart as they always did when she thought of Ellie Linton. Plus, she had to hide from the relentless man and his questions in front of her.

“I’ve read Ellie’s letters to Harry.”

She cut her gaze from the table to behind his head. The wall was bare save his Diego Rivera painting called
The Flower Seller
. Ever since he’d seen the calla lily image at Harry’s home, he’d been fascinated by its duality. Noah didn’t know the depth of the meaning of the words below, but was drawn to the flower.

“I’m a paradox, like that flower.” He didn’t even know if she understood what the flower represented. “Very pretty flower, but also deadly.” It was one of the reasons he’d made it his product’s stamp. Avi’s sight never wavered from the wall. “When he was alive, Harry liked to think differently, but...” Noah shrugged.

Her body was half-turned away from him. Defeat radiated from where she stood stiff as a board with her hands rubbing her arms.

“All her letters to Harry—every single one of them—went on pages and pages about you. How she was worried about you. How she wanted Harry to watch over you, since she couldn’t. How she just wanted to speak with you.”