Chapter 21: The Market Exchange
The train slowed into the station with a long, metallic sigh. Outside the window, the orderly grids of a small city gave way to the cheerful chaos of a market set up under the vaulted iron arches of the station plaza. The sudden burst of color and life after the monotonous green of the plains was jarring. My eyes stung from lack of sleep, but the scene was insistent: pyramids of gleaming peaches, baskets of bread with crackling crusts, stalls draped in linens and stacked with rounds of cheese that smelled of earth and damp cellar.
“We have time before the shuttle,” Tommy said, shouldering his bag. “We should get some real food. Something that doesn’t come in plastic.”
I didn’t argue. The sandwich sat in my stomach like a lump of clay. We stepped off the train and into the stream of people. The air was a potent mix of espresso, yeast, and sun-warmed fruit. It should have been comforting. It felt like a set decoration.
We wove through the stalls, our shoulders brushing. The crowd provided a murmur of cover. I kept my voice low, casual, as if commenting on the weather. “Beau texted back. Said the vet came by.”
Tommy picked up a peach, testing its firmness. “Yeah? Everything okay?”
“Yup.” I stopped, pretending to examine a jar of honey. I could feel him beside me, a tense presence. “And Luca—tell him I said hello.”
Tommy’s hand stilled on the fruit. His jaw tightened, a tiny muscle feathering near his ear. He put the peach back down carefully. “Who’s Luca?”
I met his gaze, my expression flat. “Our cow. The big Holstein with the notch in his ear. You remember Luca.”
There was a beat of silence filled with the market’s din. His eyes searched mine, looking for the trap. I just blinked, waiting. He offered a curt nod. “Right. Luca. Got it. Oh, Gertie gave birth?”
“Last night. Two healthy calves.” The lie was effortless. Gertie had been barren for three years.
He nodded again, faster this time. “Good. That’s… that’s real good, Bree.”
My phone buzzed in my hand—a video call. Carter’s name glowed on the screen. A different kind of tension, sharp and vital, shot through me. I swiped to answer.
His face filled the screen, a little pale, propped up on a hospital pillow, but his grin was wide and real. “Hey! You’ll never guess who I just had a staring contest with.”
“The ceiling tile with the water stain?” I said, forcing a lightness into my voice that felt like lifting a sack of feed.
“Nurse Henderson. I won. She blinked first.” He shifted, wincing only slightly. “Where are you? That looks… European.”
“Just a fancy farmer’s market. They got peaches the size of your head.” I panned the phone around briefly, catching a blur of colorful stalls and the station’s ironwork. “How are you feeling?”
“Bored. Itchy. Beau brought me a milkshake from the diner. It was mostly melted.” His eyes squinted. “Is that Tommy? Let me see him.”
I angled the phone. Tommy leaned in, his earlier stiffness dissolving into a performance of easy charm. “Hey, kid. Heard you’re malingering in there to get out of chores.”
“You know it. Heard you finally caught a fish.”
Tommy’s laugh was perfect. Just the right amount of sheepish pride. “Took long enough. Yeah, got a couple of beauties. Bree tell you? Gertie’s a mama now.”
Carter’s face lit up. “No way! That’s awesome. How many?”
“Two. A bull and a heifer,” I said, the fictional calves taking shape in my mind. For a moment, the three of us existed in that bubble of normalcy. The talk of cows and fish and melted milkshakes was a lifeline, thin but strong. Carter’s smile was everything. It was the farm in summer, it was the reason my lungs kept drawing breath.
“You gotta send pictures,” Carter demanded.
“Soon as we’re home,” I promised. The words ‘home’ felt dangerous. “You listen to the doctors. Don’t be a hero.”
“No heroes here. Just a guy who wants to get back to his own bed.” He grinned again. “Hurry up, will you?”
“Working on it. Love you, bug.”
“Love you back.”
I blew a kiss at the screen, the gesture automatic, maternal. His image vanished, leaving the reflective black glass. My smile, which had felt so real a second ago, melted off my face like wax. The grim determination that replaced it was cold and familiar. It was the face I wore when checking a sick calf at 3 a.m., when signing a loan document, when walking into a cellar in New Orleans.
Tommy was watching me. The market’s joy felt like a taunt. “He looks good,” Tommy offered.
“He looks tired,” I corrected, slipping the phone into my pocket. “Shuttle’s this way.”
We didn’t speak as we pushed through the crowd, leaving the scent of bread and peaches behind for the antiseptic smell of the station’s main concourse. The airport shuttle was a sleek blue coach idling at the curb. We boarded, found a seat near the back. The other passengers were a mix of tourists with roll-aboard luggage and businesspeople tapping on laptops.
As the shuttle pulled away from the curb, I watched the market recede, a postcard of a life we were hurtling away from. The coded exchange played in my head. Luca. It was the name Jean-Luc had given when I’d first grabbed him. Tell him I said hello. A message sent into the void, a seed planted in Tommy’s anxious mind. Let him wonder who else I might be talking to. Let him sweat.
The flight information flickered on a screen at the front of the shuttle. We were on our way to the France Airport. Then to Dallas. Then home.
Tommy stared out his window, his reflection ghostly on the glass. He was thinking about the call, about Luca, about the ninety million euros and the software he’d written. I could almost hear the calculations.
I kept my hands still in my lap, one resting over the pocket that held the Ghost Chip. The other closed around my phone, still warm from Carter’s call. Two weights. One of hope, one of dread. The shuttle merged onto the highway, accelerating toward the horizon where the airport’s control tower speared the slate-grey sky. The game wasn’t over. We were just changing tables. And this time, I knew my opponent was sitting right beside me.
And this time, I knew my opponent was sitting right beside me.
The airport was a monument to sterile anxiety. The check-in kiosks beeped with hollow cheerfulness under the cavernous, echoing ceiling. Tommy handled everything, his movements efficient, his face a pleasant mask for the camera. He used the passports Renard had provided in New Orleans, documents that felt warm and dangerous in my hands. “Mr. and Mrs. Miller,” the agent said, barely looking up.
“Honeymoon,” Tommy added with a wink, his voice oozing a charm that made my skin prickle.
The agent stamped the boarding passes with a dull thud. We were through. Security was a slow, shuffling nightmare of belts and bins and silent scrutiny. I walked through the scanner, half-expecting alarms to scream, for hard hands to seize me. Nothing happened. On the other side, I reassembled myself, my boots feeling heavy as I tied them.
Our gate was in a quiet terminal wing. A wall of windows looked out onto a rain-slicked tarmac where ground crews moved like ants under the grey wash of evening. Tommy dropped his bag on a vacant row of seats. “I need to find a plug. Battery’s almost dead.” He held up his phone, the screen dark.
“Yeah, okay,” I said, not looking at him. “I’m gonna walk. Stretch my legs.”
“Don’t go far.” It sounded like concern. It felt like an order.
I just nodded and walked away, the rhythm of my boots on polished tile the only familiar thing. The concourse shops were a blur of overpriced duty-free perfumes and sad-looking sandwiches. Then I saw a newsstand-slash-souvenir shop, its racks overflowing with kitsch.
I drifted inside. The air smelled of cheap plastic and printed paper. My eyes skipped over keychains and snow globes. I needed something for Carter. A tangible proof of a world outside his hospital room. A stupid, bright piece of normal.
Then I saw them. A spinning rack of playing cards. Dozens of decks, faces of castles and landscapes and abstract art. My breath caught. Tommy’s scholarship, his “good poker face,” the feel of the Ghost Chip in my palm. It all collapsed into this single, stupid rack.
My hand moved past them, almost of its own will. Next to the cards was a spinner of keychains. One was a tiny, garish metal Eiffel Tower. It was tacky. It was perfect. Carter would roll his eyes and hang it on his old backpack anyway. I grabbed it, the metal cold, and took it to the register.
The transaction was a numb exchange of euros. I pocketed the keychain, its edges sharp through the thin fabric of my jeans. As I left the store, I glanced back toward our gate. Tommy was there, seated by the window, his phone to his ear. His free hand was gesturing, sharp, emphatic. He was leaned forward, his back to the world, deep in a conversation he didn’t want overheard.
I didn’t want to go back yet. A set of tall glass doors led to a small, neglected outdoor patio—a designated smoking area for souls needing a last hit before confinement. It was empty, the ashtrays overflowing with damp butts. I lingered near the door, the humid breath of the evening leaking through the seal.
I just needed a second. A single breath where I wasn’t performing.
A hand closed around my upper arm. The grip was firm, not harsh, but absolute. I spun, a gasp tearing from my throat, my free hand already curling into a fist.
It was Jean-Luc.
He looked like hell. A dark bruise bloomed along his jawline, disappearing into the collar of a simple black pullover. His knuckles were scraped raw. But his eyes were the same—deep, calculating pools of exhausted intelligence. He looked at me, and I looked at him, and for a single, suspended second, the entire airport vanished.
I didn’t think. I hugged him.
It was a frantic, clumsy thing, driven by a surge of sheer, illogical relief. I buried my face against his shoulder, smelling cigarette smoke, cheap soap, and the iron-tang of dried blood. My hands came up between us, and I grasped his, turning them over.
I counted his fingers. One, two, three, four, five on the left. The right hand, scraped and swollen, but all digits present. Intact. A sob I didn’t know I was holding hitched in my chest.
I released him, stepping back as suddenly as I’d grabbed him. My face flamed. The reality of the gate, of Tommy, came crashing back. “How?” I whispered, the word ragged. “How did you know where to find me?”
Jean-Luc’s gaze flicked over my shoulder, scanning the concourse, before settling back on me. He reached out and gently tapped the phone in my jeans pocket.
“Carter,” he said, his voice a low, gravelly rasp. The single word was an entire explanation.