Robert Ludlum's the Bourne Evolution - Brian Freeman Page 0,141
passed, and she hadn’t heard a word from him. He was a ghost. Even so, she wanted to believe that he would be here for their rendezvous, that he wouldn’t leave her with nothing. Jason wouldn’t be that cruel.
If he was still alive. If the media reports were wrong.
Life had gone on for Abbey since she’d come home. She’d quit The Fort; she’d given up her studio apartment. She’d decided that she couldn’t go back to the person she was before all of this started, but she still had no idea what she was going to do next. Since then, she’d been in limbo, sleeping on a friend’s sofa and wandering the streets of the upper and lower towns in a kind of fog.
Her relationship with Jason needed closure before she could put away the past. All she could do was count off the days and nights until June 1.
Until now.
Would he show up?
Abbey pulled out her phone and keyed in a text. She’d texted the same number over and over for weeks, but all of her messages had gone into the ether, with no reply.
I’m here, mystery man.
Just like the first time. She waited, staring at her phone, biting her lip. But he didn’t answer her. He was never going to answer her. The minutes crept on, just as they had in April, and she was alone. Ten-fifteen came and went. Then ten-thirty. She came to grips with the reality.
The papers were right. Jason Bourne was dead.
Or maybe that was what he wanted her to think. Maybe, like last time, he was watching her right now from somewhere close by, with no intention of coming to meet her. It was his way of saying: Move on without me. She got ready to do just that, because he’d given her no other choice. She had to go. She had to figure out her life. She stared down at the river in the grip of a deep depression, and that was when she heard a whisper behind her.
“What do you like most about Quebec?”
Abbey’s hands flew to her mouth. She spun around, and there he was. Jason. Alive, unharmed, passion for her written all over his face. She stared back at him, the man who’d kidnapped her, the man who’d nearly gotten her killed, the man she was in love with.
“Those wonderful little maple candies,” she replied, hardly able to get the words out.
He took a step toward her, and they wrapped their bodies together and kissed. She could feel the longing pouring out of him, the need for her, the pent-up desire to hold her in his arms. His kiss said all the things he’d never be able to say out loud. His kiss said he loved her, the way she loved him. But his kiss also said something else. She could feel it.
He’d come here for a reason.
He’d come to say goodbye.
The strange thing was, she’d come here to say the same thing. She couldn’t stay with him. No matter what they felt for each other, they couldn’t be together. Real life didn’t work that way. They had to go on alone. Him to his world. Her to whatever came next.
But the hard part could wait.
For the next hour, they sat on a bench in the darkness of the boardwalk, with Jason’s arm around her shoulders and her head in the crook of his neck. They talked, and kissed, and talked, and kissed. She thought about suggesting that they get a room at the Château Frontenac, where they could spend the night and make love again. One more time. Before the end. But she didn’t do that. It was hard enough, knowing he was going to leave.
“I’m jobless and homeless,” Abbey told him eventually, with a little laugh, when he asked about the last several weeks. “I quit all of it.”
“I hope you didn’t do that for me,” he said with a note of concern.
“I didn’t, Jason.”
“Really?”
“Really. I won’t deny that you changed me, but whatever I do next is for me. You were right. I need to figure myself out, and this is the first step. Actually, I guess going with you was the first step, but I didn’t know it then. Now I do. Scary or not, I’m doing what you said. I’m jumping out of the plane.”
He smiled. “So what are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. I’m still thinking about it. But somehow I like not knowing. I like having to think about new choices.”
They were both silent for a while. The crowds on the boardwalk grew thinner as the night wore on. The end was getting closer, and as it did, the silences between them got longer. Neither of them wanted to deal with the future.
“Everyone said you were dead,” Abbey told him quietly when they ran out of other things to say. “I didn’t know what to believe. I hoped they were wrong, but I didn’t know. It’s been hell.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Even if you weren’t dead, I wasn’t sure you’d come.”
“I promised I would.”
“I know. And I’m glad you did. I’m glad you didn’t leave me to wonder.”
“Because now you can move on?” Jason asked.
She squeezed his hand tightly. She didn’t want to say it, but she said it anyway. “Yes. Now I can move on.”
“Good. That’s what I want you to do.”
“What about you?” she asked.
“My world has no room for outsiders, Abbey. You know that.”
This time, she didn’t argue with him. “Medusa?”
“It’s buried. So is Miss Shirley. You’re safe. You’re free.”
“What about you?” she asked. “Are you free?”
“I’m dead, which is almost the same thing. Nash wants me to stay dead for a while. It’s easier to work behind the scenes that way. In the shadows. If people don’t expect me, they don’t know I’m coming.”
Abbey frowned. “Does that mean you’re going back to that life?”
“For now. That’s all I know. That’s who I am.”
“Who do you think you are?” she asked, hating what she knew he would say.
“A killer,” Bourne replied without hesitation.
Abbey shook her head with regret. That word sounded so harsh from his lips. And so wrong.
“I need to go,” Jason went on.
“I wish things were different.”
“I do, too.”
“But they’re not,” she said. “Are they?”
“No.”
“I guess I should go, too,” Abbey murmured. “It’s time.”
She took his face in her hands and kissed him goodbye, long and slow. She should have left it there, but she couldn’t stop herself from asking the question that was in her heart. “Will I ever see you again?”
He didn’t answer. She didn’t expect him to answer. He simply stared into her eyes from a place she couldn’t go.
She eased away from him, already feeling lonely. She got off the bench and went to the railing that overlooked the lights of the old town and the dark snake of the river. Somewhere in the night, she heard a distant echo of music. She took in a breath of sweet, cool air as the wind rustled her hair. She could still taste him on her lips.
“You’re not a killer, Jason,” she told him quietly, without looking back. “That’s not who you really are. That’s never been who you are. Someday, I hope you’ll see that.”
Abbey turned around for one last look.
Bourne was already gone.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
BRIAN FREEMAN writes psychological thrillers that have been sold in forty-six countries and twenty-two languages. His novel Spilled Blood won the award for Best Hardcover Novel in the annual Thriller Awards, and his novel The Burying Place was a finalist for the same award. Other winners of this award have included authors Lisa Gardner, John Sandford, and Stephen King.
ROBERT LUDLUM was the author of twenty-seven novels, each one an international bestseller. There are more than 225 million of his books in print, and they have been translated into thirty-two languages. He is the author of The Scarlatti Inheritance, The Chancellor Manuscript, and the Jason Bourne series – The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum – among others. Mr Ludlum passed away in 2001.
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