“Don’t leave me,” I said into his shirt. “I can’t do this alone.”
He was quiet for a moment. The muscles of his back softened only slightly beneath my cheek. And then he put a gentle hand on my leg, his thumb tracing a line on the back of my bare calf.
“Yes, you can,” he said.
“Fine, then,” I replied, my arms still around his waist. “I don’t want to.”
His hand gripped the back of my knee, and in a single movement he’d turned himself around, pressing my knee into the bed, pushing me back, pulling himself over me. He was so incredibly strong. He looked down into my face and brushed my cheek with a brief touch.
“If you’re in, then you’re in,” he said roughly. “For all of it.”
I ran my hands down his chest. “So are you,” I reminded him.
He kissed me, in that way he had, soft and possessive at the same time. When he pulled away, his eyes had gone dark, his breathing as ragged as my own.
“I’m in,” he said.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
THREE WEEKS LATER
The seams of my stockings weren’t straight. I bent and fixed them, then brushed smooth my best skirt, its hemline decorously falling to the middle of my calves. I buttoned the matching jacket, then unbuttoned it again. It was wool serge, protection against the early October chill, but as I stood in this small room in Whitehall, I felt myself dampening with sweat.
“Are you finished?” George Sutter asked from beside me.
I glanced at him. Long gone was the man who had begged for his brother’s life as the woods burned behind him. Instead, he was once again the calm, powerful cipher in a suit pressed by his invisible wife, watching me with an unreadable expression in his eyes.
“I suppose so,” I said, glaring a little at him.
“Good.” He ignored my expression. “Remember what I told you, the information we are specifically looking to retrieve. Try to keep control of the conversation.”
“Assuming there will be a conversation,” I said.
“That is up to you, Miss Winter. In any case, you have been briefed extensively and should have an idea of what questions to ask.” He paused. “And remember, someone is watching and listening at all times. He will be bound, and there is a guard just outside the door. He cannot hurt you.”
“I shall try not to expire in fear.”
George sighed. “It would be beneficial if you would take this with a degree of seriousness, Miss Winter.”
I shrugged. The sweat trickling down my back belied the gesture, but I didn’t let on. “Just open the door.”
The interview was to take place in a small room with a high window, furnished with a single table and two chairs. On the wall was a pane of smoked glass, through which I presumed someone would be watching us. Colin Sutter was already there. He sat at the table, wearing pale prison linens, his hands cuffed and chained to the chair, having been brought from whatever private cell he was kept in as the great minds of British government tried to get him to confess.
His eyes flashed with interest when he saw me; he obviously had not been given any warning of who he had been brought to see.
I pulled out the chair opposite him and sat. He did not move; I tried not to let his resemblance to Gloria rattle me. His dark hair had been combed back and slicked to his head. He was clean shaven, well fed, relaxed. His presence was like that of a snake in the room.
“I may as well tell you,” I said to him, glancing at the smoked window, “that I’ve been briefed about what to ask you. I believe your brother told his superiors that sitting opposite one of your victims would have the chance of unnerving you. That’s how he got clearance for me to be here.”
Colin regarded me blankly and said nothing.
“But it’s a lie,” I said, loud enough for whoever was listening—however they were listening—to overhear. “And I think we both know why. You know why your brother wants me here, and so do I.” I shifted in the uncomfortable chair. “Everyone, quite frankly, wants to know what I saw that day when you shot at me, but no one in the official government wants to admit it. They don’t want to admit they’re curious about the vision of a psychic.”
Colin glanced away. It took me a second to realize that he, too, was looking at the smoked glass. There was no sound, no interruption. No one came in to take me away. Colin, according to his brother George, had resisted all attempts at interrogation. He had answered only the most basic questions, refusing to give names of those who had hired him, to confess to the bombings or the murders, even to speak for himself. He was well on the way to being hanged for treason for the bombings, and behind his immaculate exterior, even I knew that George was afraid his brother would go to the gallows without answering a single question that hung over the last seven years of his life.
Colin looked back at me, and his gaze flared with curiosity. In that second, I knew I had him. Finally, he spoke.
“It was the cigarette, wasn’t it?” he said, his voice rasping a little, as if he didn’t use it often.
“Yes,” I said.
He leaned his head back and stared at the ceiling. “I knew it. I knew. It took me too long to remember it—too long. By then, it was too late.”
I shrugged, hoping it was convincing. “You made a mistake,” I said. “It cost you.”
“What did you see?”
I didn’t want to be in this room with him any longer than I had to, so I told him. “I saw her.”