After Midnight (22 page)

“I could use a ride to the airport. Would you—”

“Of course.” He was leaving. The knot that had settled in her stomach earlier tightened. Her fingers flexed against her thighs. “I’ll take you to the airport.”

Without another word, he turned and walked out the door.

Chapter Ten

Isabeau ran in the mornings. She logged five miles a day, up and down the streets within a four block radius of her bar, her running shoes slapping against the pavement, ponytail bobbing. She enjoyed the exercise. It calmed her mind, and kept her in shape.

Today she’d left her
mp
3 player at home, preferring to lose herself in thought rather than drown her thoughts in music. She had enough music in her head without any external source. Enough that she’d already burned through more than ten sheets of composition paper in a desperate attempt to preserve her sanity. So far, so good. In a matter of days the throbbing in her skull had abated. The lingering ache she could deal with, and in reality could have as much to do with sleep deprivation and poor eating habits as with the music itself.

Nearly two days had passed since she’d seen or spoken with Noah. Not since he’d received word that his grandfather suffered a stroke. She’d delivered him first to his hotel room to shower and pack, then to the airport to catch a flight to London. Before he’d left, she’d made a point to program her numbers into his mobile phone in the hope that he would call.

He hadn’t. Not for two days.

Forty-eight long hours.

Perhaps if she’d slept it wouldn’t eat at her. Yeah, right. She missed him. More than she imagined she could. More than made sense. She might have dwelled on that, but she was too worried about him.

How was he doing? Had his flight been a safe one? Was his grandfather conscious and aware that Noah was with him?

She asked herself these questions at least five times a day when her mind would drift away from work and lock onto Noah. They weren’t the only things she wondered when she thought of him. If she were to be honest with herself, she also wondered if she’d crossed his mind since she’d dropped him off at the airport. Or if he’d forgotten about her as soon as she was no longer just down the road from him?

“Idiot,” she muttered as she checked over her shoulder for cars, then started across the street at an angle. She wasn’t the only one left in the dark. Noah hadn’t called Dominic, either.

That was the part that kept her up at night.

The squeal of tires echoed in the still air, followed by the smooth acceleration of a car coming up the road. Isabeau glanced behind her, only to squint as the sun reflected off a mid-sized sedan that seemed to bear down on her with increasing speed. Panic bubbled up the back of her throat.

She shifted to the right, as close to the line of parked cars as she could run. There was time for the driver to correct, room for the sedan to go around her. But as she checked over her shoulder again, she found the car heading directly for her.

Oh, God. Terror brought a surge of adrenaline. Up ahead, about twenty feet, sat an empty parking space—a buffer zone—a way to get off the road and onto the sidewalk where she would be safe. Her tired muscles screamed as she increased her speed. Self-preservation kept her eyes locked ahead when she was desperate to look behind. Her heart beat furiously in her chest. Her side stitched. She continued to run.

Finally she was there. Desperate, she dove for the empty spot. She landed on her forearms, her hands automatically going out in front of her to brace her fall. The skin on her palms tore. Pain lanced up from her left elbow.

Her cry of alarm was drowned out by the growl of the engine as the car zoomed past her, and accelerated down the road.

****

Isabeau sat in water hot enough to turn her skin red and shook. She was in her claw-foot tub, in her apartment, her air conditioning off, her blinds pulled. It had to be close to eighty degrees in here, but at least she was warm.

Okay, almost warm.

The only sound in the room was that of her ragged breathing and the gentle plop of blood dripping off her elbow and into the water. Her abrasions scrubbed and cleaned, arm resting on the lip of the tub, she worked at the final piece of gravel embedded in her left elbow. Her stomach turned when she pushed the fine-tipped tweezers further into her torn skin. Her teeth gritted against the pain.

Another drop of blood trailed down to her elbow, following the same path as the one before it. Nausea surged. Acid crawled up the back of her throat. She closed her eyes, only to snap them open as the pain spiked. Her mind screamed. She increased the pressure on the tweezers, twisting them to get a better hold on the tiny stone, but she made no sound. Not even as the last chunk slipped free.

Isabeau dropped the bloody tweezers on the towel next to the tub and leaned back. She sucked in a quick gasp as her skin made contact with the cool porcelain. Her body shivered. Staring without focus at the ceiling above her, she pressed a cloth against her elbow to stop the bleeding.

Now that her mind was no longer centered on the task of cleaning her wounds, the panic she’d felt during those few minutes on the street returned to grab her by the throat. No matter how many times she told herself the event was unintentional, that the driver had rounded the corner at too high a speed and didn’t see her until it was too late, a niggling voice of doubt sounded. How could she believe it was a terrifying accident when the driver steered toward her, not away? When they then sped off and left her lying on the ground, seemingly unconcerned with whether or not she’d been injured.

No, as badly as she needed to believe it was an accident, she couldn’t. And that frightened her more than anything else.

She blinked. A strangled sound worked up the back of her throat, but she managed to swallow it down before it could break loose. Her body ached. Her head felt clogged with too many thoughts and more than a little fear. She pressed her palm against her forehead and closed her eyes.

From the outer room came the sound of her mobile phone ringing—responsibility, rearing its ugly head. She had a business to open, a job to do. With a sigh she sat up and removed the cloth from her elbow, checking to make sure the flow of blood had ebbed. Assured that it had, she tossed the soiled cloth on the floor next to the tweezers. She fought a short, fierce battle to pull herself together.

Her mind clear, she stood slowly, pulled the plug to drain the water, and reached for a towel.

****

Two hours later, Isabeau was setting up the cash drawer when the door opened. One look at Dominic, his usual broad smile absent from his face, and she knew his news was not pleasant. She waited while he settled onto the stool nearest her.

“I just spoke with Noah,” he stated quietly.

“His grandfather…he didn’t make it, did he?”

“No. He died two days ago.”

Two days ago. “Did Noah get to see him before he passed?”

Dominic shook his head. “He was still on the plane.”

She pressed her hand into the place in her stomach where pain for Noah and what he was going through settled like a knot. She knew how much Henry had meant to him. Knew from her own life experience, how difficult it was going to be for him to accept that he hadn’t made it to his grandfather’s side before his death.

“How did he sound, did he…” Her words trailed off as the absurdity of the question struck. She closed her eyes, opened them again. “Will there be a funeral?”

“In a few days. Noah’s family is scattered, they’ll need time to arrive.” His brow furrowed. “Isabeau?”

“Yeah?”

“Your elbow is bleeding.”

“Again?” She snatched up a napkin and pressed it to her elbow. “I guess I’ll have to bandage it.”

“Do you have a first aid kit?”

“Yes. There, under the bar.”

Dominic slipped through to her side of the bar. He bent down to look where she had indicated, shoved aside a stack of papers and pulled out the white kit with bright red letters. Placing it atop the bar next to her, he flipped back the lid. “Let me see.”

He didn’t give her a chance to argue as he cradled her elbow in one hand and used the other to peel the napkin away and expose the injury. His hands were warm, his touch gentle. “It looks painful. What happened?”

She looked into his very blue eyes, and hid her unease behind a smile. “A little mishap this morning while jogging.”

“A mishap,” he repeated. His gaze moved over her from head to toe before shifting to the first aid kit. He reached for a sealed alcohol swab. “How would you define mishap?”

“I fell.” His hold on her elbow tightened minutely when she shifted away from the swab. “Don’t you dare try and use that on me, Dominic Price. It’s clean enough. I made sure to wash it good when I got home.”

He looked doubtful. “You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.”

He dropped the alcohol pad and picked up a single use packet of triple antibiotic ointment. She used her free hand to tear the top off the packet when he held it out to her.

“You never answered my question.”

“What question?”

Dom sent her a narrow-eyed glance before returning his focus to her elbow. He squeezed the packet, applying a strip of ointment along the worst of her scrapes. “Define mishap.”

“I told you, I fell. A car…got a little too close to me. I panicked and fell down.”

“You fell down?”

“Yes.”

“You?” he questioned, while he taped the edges of the gauze pad in place. “The one who only days ago was sure-footed enough to outmaneuver five seasoned soccer players?”

“Pete, seasoned?” It made her laugh.

He grinned. “Four, then. How did a car get too close?”

She turned her arm to get a better look at his handiwork as he tossed the garbage and washed his hands. She was stalling, she knew it and so did he. But she didn’t want to talk about her morning. “I guess they didn’t see me.”

He studied her, his eyes narrowed in thought while he dried his hands on the towel she kept near the sink. A few minutes passed before either spoke again.

“I don’t like this. The other day your car is vandalized and now someone nearly runs you down? Did you ring the police?”

Nope. And she wasn’t going to. They’d failed her too many times in life for her to turn to them the way others did. Besides, she hadn’t gotten a good look at the driver or the car’s license plate.

He took in her expression. “Well?”

“I’m fine, just a few scrapes.”

“Isabeau.”

“When is your flight?” she asked, bringing the conversation back full circle. “When do you leave for London?” The look he gave her in place of a response made the knot inside of her grow. “Dom, you’re his closest friend, you have to go. You, Nick, and Alex—you all need to be there.”

He sighed, stacking both hands atop his head. “It’s not possible.”

“It has to be. Noah loved Henry. He needs someone to be there for him.” Grief swelled. Unable to face the thought of Noah dealing with his loss alone, without the support of his friends and band mates, she turned back to the cash drawer. She began sorting bills into their proper slots.

“You could go,” Dominic said quietly.