Spin State - Chris Moriarty [184]
“That’s ridiculous!”
“Is it? What happened this afternoon? You bolted like a spooked horse. You want to tell me what that was about?”
“You know what it was about,” she whispered.
“Of course I know. I know things you don’t even remember. Things you’re afraid to remember. When are you going to figure out that I’m the one person you don’t need to hide from?”
But that was a question she couldn’t even begin to answer.
“Look,” Cohen said wearily. “I’m not blaming you. I don’t think there’s much blame left to go around once my part in this has gone under the microscope. I have a stupendous ability to generate objective reasons for doing exactly what I want to do, and this time I surpassed myself. I was helping you. I was helping ALEF. I was helping everyone but myself. It was all so logical, so pristinely selfless. And what has all my ‘helping’ come to? Korchow blackmailing you to let me crawl into your soul and ferret out your deepest secrets.”
Li started to speak, but he barreled on, silencing her. “Was I manipulating you? Maybe. And yes, I was willing to back you into a corner. Or at least go along while Korchow did it. But when you accuse me of playing with you . . . well, you know it’s not that way. You hold every key to every door. And you didn’t need the intraface to open them. You could have done it years ago if you’d wanted to. It was all yours. All of it. It still is.”
Li turned away and looked out at the gray sky, the last flush of the sun sinking below a cloud-swept horizon. She held out her hand without looking around, and Cohen took it. She squeezed hard, until she felt the knuckles slide under the skin.
He laughed. “Say something. Or I’m going to start begging and embarrass both of us.”
She turned to look at him.
“Oh God, Catherine, don’t cry. I can’t even stand to think about you crying.”
But it was too late for that.
“Do you know how I paid for this?” She gestured at her face. “For the gene work?”
He shook his head.
“My father’s life insurance money.”
“Oh. The dream.”
“Yes, the dream. He went down into the mine with Cartwright and killed himself. They faked it to look like a black-lung death, so I’d have the money to pay the chop shop. Did you know that? Did you sniff out that little secret?”
“No,” he said in a small, quiet voice.
“So you see that dream wasn’t a lie at all. I did kill him. Sure as if I’d put a gun to his head.”
“He was dying anyway. I’ve seen the medical records.”
“Well, he wasn’t dying yet. He could have lived for years. He killed himself to give me that money. And I took it and left and never looked back. And you know what the worst thing is? I didn’t even go down there with him. My mother went. I didn’t. I’ve forgotten every other fucking thing about my childhood. You’d think I could forget that.”
“You were young. Children aren’t always strong. Who the hell is?”
“That’s not the point.”
“Then what is the point?”
“That I don’t even care anymore. Don’t feel guilty. Don’t feel sad. Don’t feel anything. I don’t remember enough to feel anything. I threw away my home, my family, every memory that makes a real person. And I have nothing to put in their place but fifteen years of lying and hiding.”
“You have me.”
She closed her eyes. “I can’t give you what you want, Cohen. I lost it years ago.”
“I didn’t fall in love with that child you’re so scared of remembering,” Cohen said after a long silence. “I fell in love with you.”
“There’s no such person,” Li said, and pulled her hand away.
Night had fallen. There was no light, no movement in the open space of the dome below them. A light flared overhead, flashing across the sky like a shooting star, and it took Li a moment to realize that the light was there beside her; Cohen had picked up his lighter and was fidgeting absentmindedly, passing Ramirez’s fingers back and forth above the blue flame.
“I’ll call it off,” he said. “I’ll tell Korchow you can’t do it. I’ll figure out how to make him believe it.”
Li laughed bitterly. “You think this is a bridge game? You do that, and he’ll kill me.”
“No.