Chapter 58 - The Husband I Buried

Now

Keith’s jaw tensed. ‘Don’t do this, man.’

‘Do what?’ Luis shot back, moving closer, almost in Keith’s face. ‘Tell Mackenzie who you are,’ he ordered. ‘If you don’t, I will.’

A pulse of dread slid through me. I looked at Keith – or rather, the man I had thought was Keith – and saw the hesitation in his eyes. He looked as if he wanted to be anywhere but here.

‘OK,’ he began, looking at me with an apology in his expression. ‘My name’s not Keith.’

I let out a humorless laugh. ‘Yeah, I caught that.’

‘It’s not what you think, though,’ he said quickly. His voice softened, almost pleading. ‘My name is Thomas. I couldn’t tell you because I couldn’t risk it getting back to Luis. Not before I had a chance to see this place for myself.’

The silence that followed was suffocating.

Thomas. The name hit me like a physical blow.

‘What the hell are you talking about?’ I demanded, heart hammering. ‘You’re Thomas?’

‘Yeah. I’m the guy Luis left behind. The soldier he said died on that mission.’

‘But . . . Sofia gave me your number. She said your name was Keith.’

He nodded. ‘Sofia and I made a pact a long time ago. When we realized something was going on with Luis. He was heading down a dark path. We just didn’t know where it would take him.’

Luis’s expression darkened. ‘Sofia?’

But Thomas ignored him. He took a step toward me, and for the first time I noticed there were two men stationed outside the door. Guarding it. Had they been there before, following us through the building? ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you, Mackenzie. But Luis has been part of this for a long time. I thought it was some hippie shit at first, but when you came to me and said you’d seen him alive when he was supposed to be dead, I realized it was more. I couldn’t just let you walk into it alone, but I had no idea it was a cult.’

I turned on Luis, a familiar rage bubbling underneath the fear. ‘Is that true? You wanted to be a part of this . . . cult? You’ve been a part of it since we met?’

‘I told you I’d tell you everything, and I will,’ he said. ‘Silas found me, and tried to give me some structure when I needed it. I owe him my life.’

‘Silas?’

He shook his head, a flood of sadness in his eyes, so I left it. Instead I turned to Keith – Thomas, whatever his name was.

‘Why did you let Luis think you were dead?’ I asked. ‘It broke him.’

‘He was already broken,’ said Thomas, looking right at Luis. ‘He did leave me there to die. He didn’t like what everyone was telling him. That this group had a hold on him. He didn’t realize how deep he was in already. It was like they’d found some way to get inside his head.’

The room felt smaller by the second. The walls pressing closer.

‘So, Sofia knew?’ I said quietly.

Thomas nodded. ‘I met her because I went looking for Luis. Their house was the last known address I had for him, but by the time I got there, Luis had already moved out. Sofia was worried about him. Said he wasn’t the same after he got back from the army. She couldn’t help him. Between us, we agreed to keep an eye out for him. When you showed up at her place asking questions, she knew something was wrong about this, so she called me.’

I paced, unsure how to proceed. For once, there wasn’t a clean line between problem and solution. Every truth bled into another lie. I glanced over at Rebecca.

While we talked, she watched. Calculating.

‘One more thing,’ said Luis, ‘Rebecca is an alias. Her real name is Elena. She’s part of the Institute too.’

‘The red-headed woman, Aimee, who knocked on our door when we moved in. Was that her, too?’ I said.

‘Yes. She’d dyed her hair,’ said Luis.

I looked at her. ‘I saw you at Luis’s grave. You were crying,’ I said. ‘Your hair was blonde and you were wearing dark glasses. I still couldn’t see your face.’

She smiled thinly. ‘In my line of work, you learn how to disappear inside someone else,’ she said, her voice descending an octave. ‘You can be anyone you want.’

‘And what is your line of work?’ I asked her.

‘Reconnaissance work mostly.’

So, she was a spy.

‘So you were crying at Luis’s grave, even though you knew he was alive.’

‘I wasn’t crying for Luis,’ she said. ‘I was crying for Silas.’

The look she gave me was murderous.

‘OK, so who is Silas?’

‘He took me in, made me a part of the Institute,’ said Rebecca. ‘He was behind the wheel of the car you thought Luis would be driving.’

‘He was my father,’ said Luis. ‘My mother had an affair.’

I opened my mouth, trying to process, to fit the pieces together.

So, this was why Rebecca–Elena–Aimee wanted Luis to sacrifice me. I wasn’t just collateral damage. It was personal. An eye for an eye. But I still didn’t understand. Not fully.

The DNA match is a first-degree familial match.