Over the Line (22 page)

Lee

I tuck a leg under me in the desk chair and thumb the diamond on my finger as I read Oliver’s note for the thousandth time, trying to dig beneath the words for the
meaning
.

I’ll be back
.

That’s it. One line scrawled in his block print on the hotel notepad.

I’ll be back.
Like the Terminator.

I’d just gotten out of the shower at a little after ten when there was a knock on the door. Room service brought me one of pretty much everything on the breakfast menu. I’m assuming that was Oliver. I also assumed, because there was so much food, that when he said he’d be back, he meant any minute to eat it with me.

That was five hours ago.

Now I’m starting to think he ordered so much food so I wouldn’t starve waiting for him.

What if he’s not coming back?

I push the notion out of my head with thoughts of Friday. In forty-four hours, we’ll be married.

The marriage license is spread on the desk, next to Oliver’s note. I smooth a finger down the edge of the paper. The sting of a paper cut assures me it’s real.

“Lee Silva,” I say, trying it out and liking the ring, the cadence.

I pull the pad with Oliver’s note closer and tear his sheet off the top. First, I print Lee Silva, then underneath, in my big, loopy scrawl, I write it again.

I lean back and look at my phone sitting next to the marriage license. I picked it up to call him when he still wasn’t back at noon before realizing I never got Oliver Silva’s number. I’d bet my bottom dollar that Oliver Savoca’s number, which I know by heart, is disconnected. I don’t dare try it to find out.

I’d go out looking for him except for three things. One: I’ve got nothing to wear but the tank top and skirt I left the house in two days ago, or the hotel bathrobe. I’m currently in the robe, waiting for my underwear to dry after washing them in the sink. If my head had been on straight when I left the house after fighting with Rob yesterday, I would have gone to my room and packed some of my things, including my phone charger. Two: I’ve got no car. We came here in Oliver’s. Mine’s still at the house. Three: Even if I had dry clothes and a car, I have no idea where to look.

At first I thought maybe he’d gone out shopping for something to get married in. By noon, I was certain he must be having car trouble, or maybe he’d gotten into an accident. But as the day’s worn on, Rob’s words keep creeping through my brain.

You just painted a huge target on your forehead
.

His family is going to hunt him down like a rabid dog. What if he wasn’t as careful as he thought? What if they’ve already found him? Killed him? The first time I thought he was dead, it nearly destroyed me. This time, I know it would.

But that can’t be it. He was routed through Safesite: new identity, new
everything
. There’s no way anyone could have found him this fast.

In the still silence of the room, my phone vibrating on the desk feels like an earthquake. I snatch it up. The battery’s nearly dead, but I haven’t dared turn it off in case Oliver tries to reach me. Though, in my rational brain, I know he doesn’t have this cell number any more than I have his. My rational brain also knows that he’s aware of which room in which hotel he left me sleeping and could call through the hotel landline if he wanted to reach me.

Which is why I
know
something is horribly wrong.

He’s hurt. Or dead. There’s no other reasonable explanation. He would have contacted me otherwise.

When I see it’s a call from Adri, my heart sinks and I almost don’t answer, afraid of using the last bit of battery. But just before it goes to voice mail, I press Connect.

“Hey, Adri,” I say, trying to come off like everything’s great. “My battery’s almost dead so I have to make this quick.”

“I need to know what’s going on,” she says, her voice thick, as if she’s been crying. “Rob was here . . . said you were all leaving, but he wouldn’t tell me why.”

My breath catches in my constricting throat. “He’s going through with it,” I say more to myself than her.

“Going through with
what
? What’s this all about?”

My heart breaks, knowing Rob’s giving up the one thing that’s made him human again. Because I’ve found my soul mate, he’s losing his. “It’s a long story, but the upshot is, it’s my fault.”

She sniffles. “I don’t understand.”

“Someone from Chicago found us . . . or me, really. I tried to convince Rob that he wouldn’t betray us to the mob, but Rob doesn’t believe it. He thinks he needs to run to protect the family.”

“Why? Who is this person?”

I take a deep breath and hold it. “He’s the man that we’ve all along believed contracted the hit on our family.”

She gasps. “Oh my God! Is everyone okay?”

“Everyone’s fine, Adri. I know he’s not the one trying to kill us.”

“Then why did he hunt you down?” she asks warily, and I realize as much as she’s rubbed off on Rob, his caution is rubbing off on her.

“It’s complicated, but we . . .” I swallow the lump forming in my throat. “We had a relationship in Chicago before I left.”

“You had a relationship with the man who tried to have you
killed
?” she asks, her voice racing a pitch.

“It wasn’t him. He came here to find me.” I rub my swollen eyes. “We’re in love, Lee. We’re getting married.”

My heart is so heavy as I say it that it drags on my chest like an anchor and I can’t get a full breath. I have to believe that Oliver’s okay. He’s got to come back.

“That’s . . . Wow . . .” She breathes into the phone. “But if you’re marrying him, I’m not following why Rob thinks you need to run.”

“Because
we’re
not running.
They
are. Away from us. We’re not going with them.”

“Oh my God,” she whispers, then louder, “Are you serious?”

“As a heart attack.” And it feels as though I might be having one. “Rob will never trust Oliver. There was nothing I could say to change his mind.”

“Rob had been fighting with someone,” she says. “His lower lip was cracked and swollen when he was here. Was that your Oliver?”

I sit up straighter. “When was that, Adri?”

“He just left. He was only here for a few minutes, and like I said, he wouldn’t really tell me anything. I needed to know what he’s thinking, so I called you.”

“Adri, I’m really sorry. I wish I could make Rob see things differently,” I say, my heart thudding in my chest.

She sighs. “That’s your brother. No one’s got a thicker head. Be safe, Lee.”

I disconnect and dial Rob.

It goes to voice mail.

Next, I try Ulie.

She connects almost instantly. “Lee! Is everything okay?”

“Was Oliver there?”

“This morning,” she answers. “He and Rob went down to the beach and they both came back up bloody.”

My epic sigh blusters through the phone. “What time?”

“Early,” she says. “Oliver woke us up, so maybe around nine.”

“When did he leave?”

“Probably twenty minutes later.”

The sense of dread that’s been gnawing at my insides becomes voracious, ripping big chunks out of my stomach and robbing me of my breath. “Did he say anything? Maybe where he was headed when he left?”

I can almost hear her head shake. “He didn’t say anything. Just got in his car and drove off.”

“Okay, Ulie. Thanks.”

“Buchanan is coming for us in, like, an hour, Lee.” There’s a pause, and when she’s back her voice is thick, as if she’s swallowing tears. “Please come h—”

My battery picks that instant to crap out.

My heart still drags like that thousand-pound anchor as I stand and pace to the window. I brace my hands on the warm glass and breathe. In. Out. In. Out. When I’ve coaxed my body off the edge of hyperventilation, I go to the bathroom and pull on my still-damp underwear. I get dressed and go back to the window, staring out into oblivion.

Because there’s another possibility. One that I haven’t let fully form in my mind. It’s been there, buzzing at the periphery of my thoughts all day long, but I’ve squashed it like a typhoid-carrying mosquito. I wouldn’t let the notion poison my conviction that I’d chosen the right side of Rob’s ultimatum when I chose Oliver.

But whether it was to protect me or expose me really doesn’t matter. I can no longer deny it’s the most likely scenario.

How do I find out if Oliver Anthony Silva purchased a plane ticket back to Nebraska? Or, worse, Chicago?

Oliver

Omaha isn’t exactly an air travel mecca, and everything getting there seems to connect through O’Hare. It’s bad enough that the Feds relocated me only five hundred miles from Chicago. I’m not flying through the death zone to get back there. It took three airline counters and five cranky ticket agents before someone finally found a way to get me to Nebraska that didn’t involve my impending death. I connect through Minneapolis on a flight that leaves at five thirty tonight. Consequently, I’ve had plenty of time to people watch.

And think.

I have to say, in the end, it’s the old couple that got me.

There was also the twenty-year-old guy in full army camo that sort of choked me up when he saw the cute blonde in the purple blouse waiting near my seat and knocked three people over getting to her. He dumped his army-issued backpack on the floor five feet from where she stood and lifted her right off the ground, swinging her in a lopsided circle and kissing her full on the mouth. There was some applause from standers-by, and when they came up for air, they grinned at each other like love sick fools. It was sweet in a sort of Hallmark-y way.

But it’s really that old couple near the baggage carrousel who flipped the switch in my head. They’re quieter and less demonstrative in their reunion, but there’s no doubt from the combination of euphoric serenity in the old woman’s eyes when she hugs the man who’s been waiting patiently for her outside security that she’s truly home. And they haven’t even left the airport.

I’m not a moron. I know that’s a long shot for me and Lee. The reason I’m sitting in this airport is because I’m fully cognizant of the facts. I probably won’t live long enough for us to become that wrinkled old couple who are so married they can’t remember a time they weren’t. But as I shove up out of my seat, instead of heading through security to my flight, I go to where the husband is struggling to haul his wife’s enormous orange rollaway suitcase with a green ribbon tied around the handle off the belt.

I grab the handle and heave it to the ground next to him, then hold out my hand. “Thank you.”

He looks at me, wide-eyed, and takes my hand, giving it a surprisingly firm shake. “I should be thanking you, young man.” He smiles at his wife. “She always over-packs when she goes to visit her sister. Told her she’s going to put my back out one of these days.”

Her eyes shine as she smiles back at him, and I know that’s what I want. My new purpose in life is to give a wrinkled-up Lee every reason to want to look at me just that way someday.

“Thank you,” I say again with another pump of his hand. I turn and jog for the escalator up to ground transportation. I turned my rental in when I got to the airport and I can’t take time now to go through the process of getting it back, so I grab a cab, praying it’s not too late.

Everything Rob said was true. I’ve got an enormous fucking target on my forehead. But everything I told Lee was also true. We could probably live without each other, but it wouldn’t be much of a life. Together, it will be explosive. And that’s without the mob factoring in. Nothing about our lives together is going to be normal, but normal’s never been anything I’ve cared to learn how to do.

An hour later, the taxi dumps me at the hotel turnout. I bypass the desk and head straight to the elevators. I tell myself that, if she’s still here, it’s a sign. I’m never going to question this again. I’m going to marry Lee on Friday and never look back.

I bolt off the elevator and jog to our room. A relieved sigh leaves my aching chest along with some of the tension when I see the DO NOT DISTURB sign hanging from the knob. I take a deep breath, then scan my card.

There’s the soft tick of the latch and the green light on the lock flashes, granting me access to my future. I turn the knob. The curtains are drawn and the room is cloaked in gloom. It’s nearly six. Maybe she stayed in bed today.

I move silently across the room to the bed. There are mounds of sheets and blankets, but in the dark, it’s impossible to make out specific shapes. I go into the bathroom and flick on the light, then crack open the door and peer at the bed.

I hold my breath and press the door open wider, trying to talk myself out of what know I see—what I knew I saw in the dark, but didn’t want to admit.

An empty bed.

I flip the switch for the sidelight above the nightstand, and as the fluorescent bulb slowly comes to life, the full light confirms what my heart’s known from the second I walked in the room.

She’s gone.

“Shit,” I say, pressing my forehead against the doorframe.

I push off the wall and move to the desk. Maybe she left a note.

My note is there, torn off the pad. “I’ll be back,” I read. Why didn’t I keep my word? Why did I let Rob make me question this? I’ve already given Lee too many reasons to doubt me, and now I’ve stacked the cherry on top.

There’s a second piece of paper, crumpled near the phone. I smooth it open on the desk and read
Lee Silva
, both printed and in her flowing script. Her mother’s maiden name. My wedding gift to her. The only thing I could think to give her that mattered.

Our marriage license is on the desk as well. I reach for it, but my hand stalls when something flashes in the dim light. My heart crashes and burns when I realize it’s her ring, sitting on top of our license.

If there was any question what she might have been thinking when she left, this answers it.

I brace my hands on the desk and try to fill the hole in my chest with air. It takes a few minutes before I can get a full breath, then I shove off the desk and bolt to the door. The bellman hails me a cab and twenty minutes later, I’m at the fisherman’s cottage on the bluff.

I have the cabbie drop me at the end of the driveway when I see Lee’s and Rob’s cars up near the house. The sun hangs low over the ocean, but as I skirt up the driveway it feels like déjà vu. I’m coiled tight, just as I was the night two and a half months ago when I first followed Rob home from Spencer Security. Except this time, when I reach the top, I’m met with barking dogs.

Crash and Burn are in the run.

I duck behind a scrub oak and wait for someone to come check on the dogs. But after several minutes, the house remains quiet.

I move to the side of the house below Lee’s window and sift a few small rocks out of the sand with my fingers. I toss one at the second story window and it pings off the glass. I wait for Lee’s face to appear. When it doesn’t, I toss another rock, harder. It’s more a chink than a ping this time, and I’m surprised the pane doesn’t shatter. I wait again, but still no response.

Dread coils around my heart like a python and tightens as the obvious starts to dawn in my mind. As I pass the dog run on the way to the porch stairs, Crash and Burn bark more manically. In their run is a massive bowl of food that is now half empty, and another equally massive bowl with water. There’s a note clipped to fence.

I pull it down and read Lee’s script:

To the Loveland animal shelter,

Names: Crash (lighter one) and Burn (darker)

7-month-old shepherd mix

Loving puppies that would make great family dogs, or a good companion for an elderly person.

So that’s it. They’re gone.

My heart plummets into my wingtips with the realization that she might have been at the airport at the same time as me, waiting at a gate on the other end of the terminal. I might have watched her flight come and go on the departure board and never known it was whisking my future back to Safesite and out of my life forever.

I fucked this up, and there’s no going back.

I drop the note and move in a daze to the front door. It’s unlocked. With my last ounce of energy, I tread upstairs to Lee’s room and sprawl on her bed, pulling a pillow over my face and wrapping myself in her scent.

And I just lay here, not really knowing or caring what comes next.

***

The sound of a pistol slide racking near my ear wakes me. I open my eyes to bright sunlight filtering through Lee’s thin white curtains.

And an enormous guy in a blue button-down, glaring down at me with a gun aimed between my eyes.