The Endless Road to Sunshine - Nicky James Page 0,2
It was driving me mad. I’d fallen so far off the rails I feared for my own mental health more and more each day.
Maybe the court had made a mistake. Maybe they’d locked up an innocent man.
But at the root of it all, I knew the truth.
I knew they hadn’t.
Morgan was guilty.
“Jason.” His voice was deep and rich. It had once rumbled through me like a lick of fire, heating my blood and dancing along my skin.
Today, it made me shiver, more an unwelcome infestation than a caress. I refrained from wrapping my arms around my middle, telling myself to be brave. To be strong. To not give him power. All morning, I’d told myself to keep my chin up and do what I had to do, then I could move on. If I could close the door on the past, then I might be able to find some way to open a new door to a future without him.
I didn’t trust myself to speak yet, so I crossed to the vacant chair on the other side of the table and took a seat. He watched every move. Attentive. Aware. How had I never seen the snake in the garden before now?
We stared at each other for a long time, neither of us speaking.
The air in the concrete room was stale, overly warm, and got stuck in my lungs with each of my ragged breaths. The circulation in the building was poor all around, the air conditioning subpar at best. The late summer weather was humid, and my shirt stuck to me, sweat dripping along my back and down my temples.
I searched Morgan’s face, swam in the depths of his eyes, and tried desperately to see under the surface to the man who’d remained hidden from me for all those years. I looked for the monster. The beast. How was it possible? This costume, this façade, it was too believable.
I was such a fool.
The guard stood motionless and silent at the door, feet spread, thumbs hooked in his belt loops. Ready. I remained aware of his presence and knew he could influence Morgan’s decision to answer me honestly. It was a chance I had to take.
Morgan was equally attentive, his gaze analyzing me back. It was almost a physical thing, like his deft fingers were rooting around my brain, testing for weaknesses.
He slid his hands to the center of the table, chains scraping with the motion, and left them there, palms up. An invitation.
I missed his touch. His warmth. I missed the Morgan I’d once known. The steady ache in my chest was something I’d fought against for eighteen months.
I stared at his hands. Hands that had once touched my skin, caressed and loved me. Hands that had also ended eleven lives.
Connecting us would be a bad idea. This was a game to him. A trick. He was trying to lure me into his trap of lies.
Ignoring the offer, I sat straighter.
When I found my voice, it rasped and broke, but I pushed through and asked what I’d wanted to ask since April tenth. “Did you do it?”
Morgan tsked. “Jason, Jason, Jason.” It was condescending and patronizing.
“No. Don’t. No bullshit. Just the truth. You look me in the eyes, and you tell me the truth. Right now.” I stabbed a finger against the table. “I deserve that much.”
The change in his demeanor was almost imperceptible. Had I not lived and breathed this man for two decades, I might not have seen it. To anyone else, he remained cool and aloof. But not to me.
Those electrifying eyes I’d adored and gotten lost in so many times over the years shuttered and lost depth. The warmth they usually held turned to ice. In a flash, the Morgan I’d known and loved was gone. In his place was the essence of pure evil, and I knew as well as I knew my own reflection in the mirror that for the first time in my life, I was seeing the killer inside him.
I didn’t recognize the Morgan across from me, and it chilled me to the bone. Who was this man? How had he been able to hide such wickedness from me for years?
He pulled his hands off the table, and they fell into his lap as he sat back on his chair, no longer eager for that connection he’d sought a moment ago. His sad smirk turned into something more sinister.