Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 108165 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 541(@200wpm)___ 433(@250wpm)___ 361(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 108165 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 541(@200wpm)___ 433(@250wpm)___ 361(@300wpm)
“Because Archer’s still alive.”
She pauses her fingers. “And that’s my fault?”
“No, it’s mine. But Slade doesn’t see it that way.”
Frankie continues to play. “Why?”
“Because I took out eight people in one year, and I’ve been here to take out the last one for eleven months. Eleven months of looking for any sign that he’s not the last one.”
“I haven’t been here eleven months.”
Jackson walks around the piano while she plays. She’s the living, breathing definition of grace, making everything look effortless—a oneness with the piano. “One shot. I used eight bullets to kill eight men. I’ve used seven bullets here, and Archer is still alive. Precision is the reason I’m not a wanted man. It’s what makes me a ghost. Everything is quick, neat, and traceless.”
Her eyes narrow at him, but her fingers keep playing. “I’m distracting you.”
“You’re complicating things.”
Frankie stops playing. They stare at each other. He lets her see everything in his eyes and hopes she can see his soul because then she’ll know. She’ll know how he feels about her. And she’ll know whatever they’ve become … it ends now. And that’s just the fucking awful unfairness of life. He has to make a choice, and from her glassy, red eyes, she knows it without him saying a word.
“It’s time for me to go home,” she whispers.
Jackson swallows hard before he returns a slight nod. He didn’t have this with Ryn, this last goodbye. And while it seemed unfair at the time, he now realizes the idea of closure is an illusion. Once someone has planted themselves in your heart, it’s forever.
There is no closure to infinity.
“Has anyone ever told you that your love for your family is the most beautiful thing in the world?”
Her words unearth his past. They peel back a layer to the life he buried, and he can hear Ryn as if she were standing before him.
“I want the guy that kissed his sister on the head and whispered, ‘You’ve got this.’” A laugh of incredulity bubbled up her chest. She shook her head with a painful grin. “That sounds so ridiculous, doesn’t it? That touch … the one that made me love you? It wasn’t even me you touched. I fell in love with you because of how you love your sister.”
He sits next to Frankie and plays the song he can’t finish.
She closes her eyes and lays her head on his shoulder.
When he stops, his hand rests on hers, lifting it to the keys. “Finish it,” he whispers.
“Jack,” she says in a thick voice as though she knows he’s asking her to help him let go.
“Finish it, then go home.”
She slowly lifts her head, letting an unacknowledged tear trickle down her cheek while her fingers cling to his last notes, taking something incredibly sad, and bringing it back to something filled with optimism. Every note comes easily; all she’s needed is his permission to finish the song.
When she finishes, there’s a finality to what he started. There’s a new finality to the life that inspired it. Her foot on the pedal and her fingers on the keys become weightless together.
It’s perfect.
“When Ryn died, I slept on her grave for days.” He stares at the keys. “I abandoned Livy. I was a mess. Just me … and a bag filled with bottles of alcohol. Eventually, my sister and her husband carried me to their car and took me home. They forced me to shower and put myself back together for Livy’s sake.” He grunts a laugh. “Jess said, ‘Time’s up. Now you move forward again.’ I never knew how badly I needed someone to give me permission to move on until her words put everything in perspective again. And I thought this song needed to go on forever without an ending until … now. Love is so fucking crippling. It’s a minefield—a bunch of … potholes waiting to make you stumble. And when the source of that love dies, you’re left in the dark—lost and confused—until someone takes your hand and shows you the way out. Until you find a new light.”
He rests his hand on hers.
She sniffles, abruptly standing and wiping her eyes with her back to him.
“Tomorrow, at this time, it will all be over. One way or another,” he says.
The hardest part of taking someone’s life is making it out alive. If Jackson takes that out of the equation, Livy can be free by this time tomorrow. Jessica can resume her life. And Frankie can find peace again, knowing Molly Sanford lost someone she loved.
Nothing will be right.
Revenge won’t fill the holes.
But a new chapter can begin because the previous one has ended.
And he will do it all … because of her.
“It’s beautiful,” Jackson says. “The ending to the song. I don’t think it was meant for me to finish it.”