She eased back into the dark bedroom. “Jonah?” she whispered.
No reply. He was already asleep.
She delicately loosened the clasp of his watch and slipped it off. He murmured but didn’t wake. The ring eased over his knuckle without a yank.
Back in the office, she held the items under the desk light to study them.
Not a single letter had been engraved on either, but the watch’s branding proclaimed it to be an Omega. Maybe she could use the watch to somehow . . . figure out more about him? Returning her fingertips to the keyboard, she began searching for this particular style—a diver’s watch with a blue face and stainless-steel band.
After several minutes, she located it online. This watch was a Seamaster, Planet Ocean 600M Co-Axial Master Chronometer. Ironic name seeing as how she’d found Jonah barely alive in the ocean, which didn’t exactly qualify him as a Seamaster. More like the sea had mastered him.
She skimmed down to the price. Eight thousand four hundred and fifty dollars.
Eight thousand dollars!For a watch? That was obscene.
How many stores carried this? Was it rare?
Not very rare, apparently. Dozens of online stores offered it for sale.
So how could she use a watch to determine Jonah’s real name?
She racked her brain. But every avenue she considered ended in a dead end.
Insomnia stunk.
Late that night, Remy lay on her side, knees tucked up, hands under her cheek, ordering sleep to take her away like a taxicab with a customer.
So far, all the proverbial sleep taxis had passed her by.
When her parents or sister visited, she gave them the bedroom, inflated a blow-up twin mattress, and slept on it in the office. But she couldn’t listen for Jonah’s breathing or check his pulse very easily from there, could she? Thus she’d dutifully wedged her air mattress onto the floor between the bed and her bedroom wall. All lights were off except for one across the hall in the bathroom.
The mugs of tea she’d consumed were jangling in her system. But so was worry.
He was badly hurt and far from civilization. The specter of potential death still loomed.
How could she face his family and friends if he took a turn for the worse and she couldn’t rescue him? What would she say then?Well, you see, I just learned CPR a few hours before his heart stopped and I really didn’t know what I was doing. I might have mixed up the number of chest compressions with the number of breaths. So sorry!
Also, if he’d been beaten, it seemed she should worry that his attackers might come looking for him so they could finish the job. She kept reminding herself thatifJonah had been beaten, his attackers had been long gone by the time she’d reached Jonah. They’d have no way of knowing she’d come upon him, or who she was, or where she’d taken him.
Nonetheless, anxiety lingered.
Remy repeatedly lifted up on an elbow and twisted to squint at the clock on her bedside table. 11:52 p.m. 12:30 a.m. 1:28 a.m.
Should she check his pulse?
His breath sounded quiet and steady. But was ittooquiet? She could no longer hear it. She scrambled upright. Holding her hair out of the way, she craned over him and stuck her ear next to his nose.
There. He was breathing. For long moments she waited. Yes, he was breathing. Almost inaudibly but well.
She resumed her position on her mattress.
2:02 a.m. She peeked over the edge of the bed and squinted at the dark outline of his chest. Concentrating hard, she could see that it was rising and falling.
2:41 a.m. He shifted, then moaned. “Are you here?” he whispered in a half-asleep voice.
“I’m here.”
“Don’t go.”
