He held my gaze, his blue eyes icing over with hatred.“And you know once upon a time, you would have supported that.”
I bit back all the things I had to say on that matter.
He jiggled the keys in his pocket and switched topics.“I’m expecting a package today. I’m not sure if they’ll drop it off here or atmy cabin. Just wanted to give you a head’s up.”
It took everything in me to remain politelyprofessional. “I’ll be on the lookout for it.”
His jaw ticked again. “I’d appreciate that.”
I watched him walk out of the office to his Jeep. Iprevailed with a calm outer appearance resembling a statue, but inside I was onfire. My heart slammed against my breastbone, punching and kicking andscreaming in frustration. My blood rushed and my adrenaline spiked and it wasall I could do not to cry. It wasn’t even like I felt like crying or I wasmoved with sadness or anything. It was the surge of emotion desperate for anescape, desperate to release any way that it could. My brain bellowed in furyand my heart thudded in heartache, and my eyes were just desperate to ridmyself of it all. I didn’t want to feel like this anymore. I didn’t want it tobe this hard or this hurtful or this harrowing.
Sayer pulled out of the parking lot with Jesse in tow.I scrambled for my phone, yanking it out of my pocket and pushing dial before Icould take another breath.
“Hello?” Francesca answered on the third ring.
“I can’t do this,” I told her. “Let’s go. Let’s leavetown.”
“Tonight?”
“Right now.” I couldn’t seem to catch my breath. “Ican’t do this anymore, Frankie. I don’t want to be around him anymore. It hurtstoo much.”
“I ran into Gus today,” she whispered. I heard a doorclose. She was at work, so she must have shut herself away. “He showed up at thefront desk, asking for a meeting with me.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” She let out a slow breath. “Yes. I will be.” Ididn’t bother pointing out that she was contradicting herself. I could relate.“I knew they were here. I had seen them. So it wasn’t so much of a shock as itcould have been.” She was silent for a few beats before she admitted, “He gaveme the same thinly veiled threats Sayer gave you. Don’t leave town and allthat.”
“So what are you saying?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know if it’s a good idea. Do wehave other identities? Do we have enough cash? We can’t make a mistake. Wecan’t mess this up. They can’t find us again.”
I agreed. “I reached out to my guy, but I haven’theard anything yet. That either means he’s dead or he’s working on it.”
She made a wincing sound. “I hate not knowing. I needa game plan.”
The pain in her voice made my heart hurt. “We’re goingto get out of this, Frankie. I swear to you, we will never go back.”
She sniffled, but she was able to relax a little whenshe said, “So we’re not flying out of town tonight like bats out of hell?”
“Standby,” I told her. “Let’s not count anything outyet.”
“Caro, I’m not sure if I’ve ever told you thisbefore…” She sniffled again, stalling, making me worry about what she was goingto say. “I just wanted to say thank you. Thank you for getting us out. Thankyou for giving me these five years. You don’t know how much they’ve meant.”
She already sounded defeated. Or maybe she hadn’ttotally given up, but she was preparing herself for it just in case. “They’renot over, Frankie. We’re still out. We’re going to stay out.”
Her voice dropped to a whisper, signaling an interruptionfrom work. “I’ve got to go. Love you.”
“Love you too.”
I hung up the phone and spent the rest of the daythinking about a whirlwind of escape plans and what if scenarios. By the timethe FedEx guy showed up I was sick with nerves, but hell bent on leaving townwith an infallible plan in place. This wasn’t a game. This was the real dealand I needed to execute it perfectly.
The FedEx guy lifted his chin in greeting as hecarried a few packages inside. Maggie’s was his last stop of the day, so henever showed up until close to five. We were friendly but I had yet to learnhis name or give him mine.
“What did you order?” He walked with the stack ofpackages held as far away from him as possible.
“I don’t know,” I chuckled. “I just sign for them. Idon’t know what Maggie orders.” Which wasn’t exactly true. I did a lot of theordering for the resort, but I couldn’t think of anything that I’d gottenrecently that would smell bad.
He dropped the packages in front of me and I got awhiff of what he meant. Stifling a gag against the rotten smell wafting fromthe cardboard boxes, I quickly signed for them. “Oh, something is definitelywrong with one of them.”
