question clearly knocked him off his game. “Absolutely not. I just want to know if he slipped you—gave you—something. Anything. It could be small or big or—”
Claire stood up. “You’re disgusting.”
“Wait.” He stood up, too. “I’m not being an asshole.”
Claire employed one of Grandma Ginny’s quips. “If you have to say you’re not doing something, then you probably are.”
“I need you to sit down.” Nolan wasn’t playing around anymore. There was nothing flirty or silly about his tone. “Please.”
Claire sat back down, her spine straight in the chair. She could almost feel the power shifting back to her side. Nolan was going to lay all of his cards on the table, and she knew what the first card would be before he even showed his hand.
He said, “He’s alive.”
Claire asked, “Frankenstein?”
“No.” Nolan smoothed down his tie. “Paul. He’s not dead.”
Claire twisted her face into what she hoped was an expression of disbelief.
“Your husband is alive.”
“I am sick of your bullshit, Agent Nolan.” She forced some haughtiness into her voice. “I knew you were reprehensible, but I didn’t know you were cruel.”
“I’m sorry.” He held out his hands as if none of this was his fault. “I’m being straight with you. Your husband is alive.”
Claire tried to show surprise, but it felt too fake. She looked away. Coldness had always worked to her advantage. “I don’t believe you.”
“No more bullshit,” Nolan said. “We helped him fake his death.”
Claire kept her gaze turned away. She had to remind herself that she wasn’t supposed to know the extent of Paul’s crimes. “You’re telling me that the FBI helped my husband fake his death over three million dollars?”
“No, what I told you before is the truth. The embezzlement charges were dropped. That was settled between your husband and his partner. But we found some other things while we were investigating the initial complaint. Things that were a hell of a lot more curious than some missing cash.” Nolan didn’t elaborate. “We realized that Paul had information we needed. Volatile information. His life would’ve been in danger if it got out that he was talking, and we needed him alive to testify at the trial.”
Claire’s cheeks were wet. She was crying. Why was she crying?
Nolan said, “He was mixed up in some things—bad things— with some bad people.”
She touched her fingers to her face. The tears were real. How could that be?
“He asked to go into witness protection.” Nolan waited for her to say something. When she didn’t, he continued, “My bosses felt like he might be planning to run, so we moved up the day it was supposed to happen. We picked Paul up on his way to see you, taped him up with the squibs—that’s like a plastic balloon with fake blood—and told him it was going down in the alley.”
Claire stared at her wet fingertips in disbelief. She couldn’t be crying for Paul. She wasn’t that stupid. Was she crying for herself? For Lydia? For her mother who would never come?
Claire looked up at Nolan. He’d stopped talking. She should say something now, ask a question, make a comment.
She said, “Did you know Paul was going to meet me? That I would see it?”
“That was part of the agreement.” This time, Nolan looked away. “He wanted it to happen in front of you.”
Claire’s hands were shaking again. She longed for a time when nothing on her body shook with rage or fear or whatever mixture of hate and betrayal she was feeling right now. “The paramedics—”
“Were undercover agents. Detective Rayman was in on it, too.”
“The man at the funeral home?”
“It’s amazing what people will do for you when you threaten to sic the IRS on their financial records.”
“They asked me if I wanted to see the body.”
“Paul said that you wouldn’t.”
Claire clenched her fists. She hated that he knew her so well. “What if he was wrong and I asked to see it?”
“It’s not like on TV. We show you the image on a screen. The body’s usually in another room with a camera pointed on it.”
Claire shook her head. She couldn’t fathom the level of deceit at play. All to help Paul. All to give him a new life without Claire.
“I’m sorry.” Nolan reached into his jacket. He handed Claire a handkerchief. She stared at the neatly folded white cloth. His initials were embroidered in the corner.
She said the things she had wanted to say to Paul. “I watched him die. He was in my arms. I felt his skin go