You Don't Know Me (19 page)

“How? Is he after you?”

“Frank thinks so. Garcia jumped parole and somehow found Blake—”

“Who’s Blake?”

“He was . . . he was my boyfriend. The one who was working for Garcia. He was placed somewhere else. Apparently he’s been murdered.”

Nathan was shaking his head, his eyes wary upon her for the first time. “Can this guy find you, Annalise?”

“Yes. I . . . I wrote to Blake when I first moved here and . . .” She looked at him. “Nathan, I hadn’t met you. I was lonely and . . . I thought I loved him.”

“You told him where you lived.”

She tightened her jaw. Nodded.

Nathan let out a word she’d never heard him use. Turned away from her. “How could you do this?”

“Nathan, I had no choice—I was told to start over. To assume a new identity. I was dead to the world . . .”

He faced her again, wearing an expression she had never seen.

No, wait—she’d seen it yesterday on the porch, when he’d looked like he wanted to dismantle Frank.

It turned her cold and she wanted to shrink away.

Nathan’s voice shook. “No, Annalise. How could you not have told
me
sooner? Frank’s been here for five days. We’re all in danger! We should be gone already.”

His words knocked the wind from her, and her voice emerged as a whisper. “I . . . I didn’t want to make our children start over. I thought their lives would be destroyed if we left. Jason has the play, and Colleen has her scholarship, and Henry is just starting middle school. It’s a terrible time to leave—”

“So we start over! There is someone after you who could
kill
you. Annalise, I can’t believe you risked our family like this!” He got to his feet, began to pace, his hands on his hips.

“He doesn’t know about you.” She said it softly, holding on tight to her arms. “He doesn’t know I’m married. That I have children. I . . . I could just leave.”

Nathan looked as if she’d slapped him. “You’d just leave me. Us.”

Annalise looked away, her eyes filming.

She heard him pull in a long breath. Then, “Yes, I guess you could.”

His words sliced through her like a blade.

He was silent for so long that she glanced up at him. He had sunk onto the bed, was frowning at her. “That’s why you keep the lights on. And jump when people walk into the room. And don’t watch cop shows. It’s because of the memories, isn’t it?”

She nodded.

He let out a wretched laugh, nothing of humor in it. “Suddenly everything makes sense. Your family didn’t die—
you
did. Which is why you don’t have any pictures of them and why you never talk about them. You erased them because you erased yourself.”

Her throat burned.

“Those people you Facebook stalk? Your family, isn’t it?”

She nodded again.

“Your children have grandparents. Aunts and uncles. Cousins.”

“I’m sorry, Nathan.”

He stilled then, his eyes narrowing, as if assimilating information. “That’s why, after only a few dates, you agreed to marry me. Why you acted as if I was saving you or something. Why you became the perfect wife.” His voice lowered. “I was your cover. Your hiding place. Part of the pretend world you made for yourself.”

“Nathan, I married you because I loved you.
Love
you. And this is my real world—not pretend. There’s nothing fake about it.” She got to her feet and moved toward him.

He stood, held up his hands, backing away. “Except
everything
. I don’t know you at all.”

“You know me. You know everything about me.” She didn’t care that her tone grew desperate.

“Except your name. Your past. Everything that makes you who you are.”

“
You
are what makes me who I am. You and Jason and Colleen and Henry.”

“I’m so glad we fit into your cover life.”

“Nathan, please—”

“Mom!”

She froze as Henry’s voice sounded, followed by knocking on the door.

“Grandma’s here. She wants us to come over for dinner.”

Oh. Yes. The voice mail.

Annalise didn’t know what else to do, so she found something of normalcy. “You go over, Henry. We’ll be right behind you.”

She looked at Nathan. “Right?”

She didn’t know him. Not the man who stared back at her—coldness, betrayal, even disgust in his eyes. “Not one word to my mother,” he snapped as he wrenched off his tie and headed toward the door.

Sometimes Tuck dreamed of snow. Dreamed of sprawling on the icy blanket, staring at the sky, flakes drifting onto him, covering his face, his body. Encasing him, soft and light, like feathers, until . . .

Until he couldn’t breathe. Until his entire body lay entombed, the oxygen waning, the pressure of the snow breaking his ribs, crushing him. Sometimes he even heard voices, shouting like they were searching for him, but when he opened his mouth to yell, nothing emerged but screams.

He woke himself with his own shuddering breaths even as the door banged again. “Tuck!”

Oh, he’d fallen asleep on the sofa, a gold knit afghan over him, the Weather Channel woman still calling for snow tomorrow, flurries of hope upon the ski hill they called a mountain.

“Tuck!”

“I’m coming!” He switched on the light. He hadn’t meant to fall asleep—but he hadn’t slept well since Saturday night, the image of Mrs. Decker’s anger haunting him, and today he’d just wanted to lay out of school. But he’d gone anyway and then worked out after classes, feeling puny as he watched the football players deadlift into the four hundreds. He could barely squat over one hundred.

Still, he worked out because snowboarding was his escape, and this year he planned on winning the Sugar Ridge Free Boarding competition.

He flicked on the outside light as he opened the door. Colleen stood on the step, stamping her feet, her eyes red and puffy.

“Babe, what are you doing here?” He’d tried to track her down today at school, but she wasn’t waiting for him in their usual place by the drinking fountain and, well . . . he thought maybe her parents had forbidden her from seeing him or something.

“I hate my mother!” She pushed past him.

He looked out into the street for a car. “Did you walk here?”

He didn’t live that far from town, just a couple blocks, but almost a half mile from school and even farther from her house.

She threw her bag onto his dad’s old recliner. “Yes. Because I ditched my mom. Because she was . . . she was judging you. She didn’t believe you wanted to go to church with me.”

“Yeah, well, she’s probably pretty steamed after seeing me in your room.”

“But we weren’t doing anything.”

He gave her a look that made her turn a little red. Yeah, they’d been doing enough to scare him. “Have you been crying?” He closed the door, came over to run his thumb across her cheek. “I thought you were going to break up with me.”

Colleen smiled through her tears. “No.”

He tangled his fingers into her silky hair. She didn’t want to break up with him. He couldn’t ignore the relief that whisked through his chest even as he tried to hide it. “I was thinking . . . maybe I should go apologize. You know, tell them that I’m not such a bad guy.”

“I don’t know if that will do any good. My mom seems to think you’re just going to get me into trouble.”

She was probably right there. Especially the way he was feeling
today, his house so lonely, and Colleen looking like she might leap into his arms.

He stepped away from her. “Want a pop?”

He opened the fridge, leaning down so she couldn’t see his face. Of course her parents would never like him. He’d never sit with them and eat popcorn in the stands. He grabbed a Dr Pepper and handed it to her.

She considered it. “Got anything stronger?”

He wanted to swipe the can from her. “No. Sheesh, no wonder your parents hate me. What’s going on, Colleen? When I met you, you didn’t even drink. Now you’re buying weed and coming over here . . . I don’t get you.”

Her eyes went cold. “Forget it.”

“I’m not going to forget it. You know what? I would do anything to have my mom here when I got home, fixing dinner. Or my father hassling me about homework. Or my brother—” His voice hitched on the word. “My brother wrestling me for the remote control. But that’s not happening, and for a while, yeah, I was mad. So mad that I started hanging around people I thought could make me feel better. They only got me into trouble, and I did stupid things. But I’m not that guy anymore.”

“I’m sorry.” She started to cry again. “I guess I should go home.”

“Good, because that’s where you should be.” He slammed his hand on the door before she could open it. “But I’m driving you.”

“No, you’re not.” She shoved him and lunged at the door.

He caught her, stepped in front of the door. Folded his arms. “Colleen, what do you want from me? I like you. I think you’re pretty, and when I asked you out, I thought it was because you liked me too. I thought I was so lucky having a girl like you in my life. But now I don’t get it. I’m trying with everything inside me to help you here and to be a good guy, and you won’t let me.”

Her eyes had turned glossy. “You’re never going to fit in my family, you know. They think you’re a loser. My mom wants to kill you—and just wait until my father hears about you in my bedroom!”

The way she said it made him cringe.

“Then why are you here, Colleen? Why do you want me in your life?”

She clenched her jaw. Then she pressed a hand to her mouth, shook her head.

He had no idea how to interpret that. “I’ll get my keys. Stay here.”

“No—” Colleen caught his arm. “I’m sorry, Tuck. . . . I’m such a mess.” She closed her eyes, her shoulders shaking.

He didn’t know what to do. So he put his hands on her shoulders and pulled her to himself.

She wrapped her arms around his waist and held on. “I’m sorry. I just . . . I’m scared.”

He lifted her chin. Searched her eyes. She had such pretty blue eyes, even when covered with black makeup. “What are you scared of?”

“I don’t know. One minute I’m fine, and the next, I’m in a panic about my life. I’m going to blow it; I know I am.”

“What are you talking about?”

“My whole life my mother has believed that I was amazing, that I could be just like her. But I can’t. I’m not like her. I’m going to let her down.”

“You’re not going to let her down.”

“You don’t understand. Sometimes it feels so overwhelming. I picture all these terrible things happening—dropping a serve, getting a bad grade. What if my life doesn’t turn out at all?” She brushed the tears off her cheeks, smearing black across her face. “What if I can’t do it?”

He softened his voice. “Do what?”

“I don’t know—win sectionals, get a scholarship, go to college, fall in love. Do it right. I want my life to go faster, to be done and happy. I want to know it’ll all work out. I just . . . I just want to stop being so afraid all the time.”

Tucker whisked another tear from her cheek. Probably he should go to the bathroom, get some toilet paper for that makeup mess.

“And sometimes I get so angry. My parents are perfect. They have no idea what it feels like to be me. They live a charmed life even now, and when they get on my case . . . they don’t understand me at all.”

She looked up at him. “I really like you, Tuck. I thought you wanted someone more . . . well, a party girl. And I wasn’t one, so . . .”

“Colleen. Stop trying so hard.” He cupped her face in his hands, lifted her chin. “I already like you.”

Tucker kissed her. Softly, like he had the first time because he’d been so amazed that she was with him, he thought she might slap him. But she hadn’t. And now, like then, she responded sweetly, with nothing of the ardor of the other night.

It reminded him of the girl he’d fallen for, the one who glanced at him from the volleyball bench, blushing a little because he was in the stands, or followed him around at his snowboarding competitions.

She moved away.

He smiled. “See, that’s the Colleen I had a crush on all last year.”

“You did?”

He nodded. “I like the real Colleen, not the party Colleen. Maybe you don’t have it all figured out, but you don’t have to. Maybe you just have to figure it out one day at a time.” He kissed her again. “Let me take you home and I can even apologize to your parents, try to get them to like me.” He swallowed, forcing out the words. “Make them think I’m not a loser.”

Colleen leaned away from him, making a face. “I’m sorry I said that.”

Yeah, well, she couldn’t help if it was true.

A light layer of snow slicked the road as he drove to her house. He pulled into her driveway, the glow of the outside lights turning the snow orange.

Colleen held his hand across the seat. “I’m scared to go in.”

He stared at her house, the darkness. “Are you sure they’re home?”

But at that moment, the front light flickered on and Colleen’s grandmother walked out of the house. She wore her rubber snow boots and a jacket wrapped around herself, snow dotting her graying hair. She walked right up to the Jeep and knocked on the window.

Tuck braced himself as Colleen rolled down the window.

“Hello, sweetie. I was just reminding your mother about dinner.” She glanced at Tuck with kind eyes, and he gave her the best smile he could muster. “Is this your boyfriend?”