I shook my head back and forth, trying to brush offthe weirdness that seemed to cling to me this morning. “Like what?”
“Like you want to push me off the balcony.”
Reaching for the coffee pot, I brushed off heraccusation. “I need coffee.”
“You said that.”
God, I was losing it.
“Are you okay, Caroline?”
I hadn’t told Francesca about Sayer mauling meyesterday. Part of me felt like I already knew what she was going to say and Ididn’t want to hear it. I knew it was a bad idea to kiss Sayer. We were so onthe same page about that.
Another part of me wanted her shocked empathy. I wantedher honest reaction that I couldn’t get past. That kiss had completely andutterly stunned me. Where had it even come from? I would have been lesssurprised had he started strangling me. Or pulled out a gun. Or wrestled ablack hood over my head and thrown me in the back of a windowless van.
But a kiss? With tongue and groping hands and sizzlingheat? Uh, no. Until yesterday, I would have sworn with my life that those dayswere over between us. So where had it come from?
It wasn’t like it was this grand gesture to get me togo out with him again. It wasn’t even a kind kiss. It was cruel and savage andcompletely, one hundred percent wild. There was nothing seductive about it,other than it had been a very long time since I had been kissed like that.There was nothing even remotely gentle about it. It was not a request for us toget back together. It had been a punishment of some kind.
Although I had yet tosussout the whys andwhatsof it. There were plenty ofother ways to punish me.
The skanky side of me shivered in anticipation.
That was so not what I meant, ho-bag.
Oh my God. I needed a mental health day.
“I’m fine,” I lied. “Just tired.” Turning around, Imet her gaze, not even meaning to manipulate her. It was just part of it—partof who I was. “The last couple weeks have been exhausting.”
She raised her coffee cup to me in a toast ofsolidarity. “Agreed.” When Juliet ran back to her room to get some toys for herbackpack, Francesca walked over to the kitchen island, trying to be secretive.“Any word on new identities?” she asked softly.
I shook my head, adding just the right amount ofcreamer to my coffee, turning it a rich caramel color. Black coffee was for thebirds and the guilty—or so my dad used to say. Which was apparently Francesca.She preferred to chew her coffee. “Not yet.”
“We should leave anyway,” she murmured.
Juliet bounced around her room, looking for a doll topack for school. I watched her from where I leaned against the island and feltmy plan cracking, finger length fissures like a spider web along the edges,making it fragile and weak. “Juliet needs new records, Frankie. She needs avalid birth certificate and social security card. We could maybe make it, buthow am I going to send her to school next year without some kind of papertrail. Immunization records, hospital and doctor’s records. Frankie, all therecords. I don’t even know how to start the process without them. I can’t showup in a new city and not have at least birth records. They’ll call CPS. They’lltake one look at me and assume I kidnapped her from a nice, punctual,two-parent family. I can’t risk it… I can’t risk losing her because we weren’tcareful.”
Francesca made a growling noise. “So many more detailsthis time around.”
“I know.”
“What are we going to do, Caro?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know.”
“I’m going to ask around at the hotel. There are somegirls… I don’t think they’re students. You know what I mean?”
“Fake visas?”
She nodded. “Something like that.”
“Okay. Do it. Our only other choice is to run withcash and hope we can get these particulars sorted when we land somewhere.”
Neither of us liked that option. There were too manyvariables, too much potential for getting caught.
Frankie’s hand landed on mine. “Do you think it’s justtheVolkovor do you think we need to worry about thefeds too?”
Leaning forward, I dropped my voice even lower.“Frankie, I don’t know. Sayer says it’s innocent. He says he’s trying to startover. I don’t trust him, obviously. But whether or not he’s telling the truth, Ido know trouble follows him wherever he goes. And if he’s hanging around here,it’s only a matter of time before trouble finds us too.”
