Lake pays and exits the diner, and I follow her home.
As I watch the garage doors close behind her silver truck, I’m tempted to break my silence because the nights she cries herself to sleep are the worst.
Yet, I’m licking my wounds the best I know how, and I’ll be damned if I put myself though the pain she can inflict again. Unless she assures me with one hundred and ten percent certainty that she wants me the way I want her.
I need her. In my bed, in my life, in the space I can retreat and just be myself. Lake must become my wife. Any other form of relationship between us is unacceptable. Lake and I can never just be friends.
* * *
The next day,Lake remains at home.
She stays home the day after and the day after that.
No diner, no grocery store.
A few days later, I follow her to the local college, where she is starting a job.
She’s done with me.
I need to move on.
FORTY-NINE
I DO NOT MOVE ON
Thanksgiving
I did not move on. I’m very stubborn that way. Who knew? Everyone, apparently, except me, since I called my plane to pick me up so I could leave Louisville the night I resolved to move on. But then I canceled my flight. Which prompted my sister to call me relentlessly until I answered and allowed her to beg me to come home.
I refused.
Oh, how the tables have turned.
Val came back to the island and is now getting ready to deliver her babies in the sanctuary of our home. People tell me not one but two men are there with her. One of them is the bartender, Antonio, whom I almost executed. The reason he was able to escape the island? My sister saved his life because he’s one of her lovers.
People tell me she has only two. But I’ve been tracking her movements for a while, and I think she’s dating three men. Yes, that’s right. Three.
She’s sworn the staff to silence about the other man who’s at the house in my absence, but I’ll find out who he is soon enough. If I ask. Maybe I won’t ask. Maybe I’ll let her be. Jury’s still out on that one.
Needless to say, I’m still in the US. Tonight, I picked up Miro from a small town near Nashville, Tennessee, where he ate Thanksgiving dinner, posing as the new nice guy next door who bought the sheriff’s old farmhouse. When, in fact, he intends to marry the sheriff’s daughter.
The dinner went well, and Miro snuck into his future wife’s house later for a quick shag, and, at almost two in the morning, we made it back to Louisville.
We pull up outside Lake’s house, a small, two-story home in a quiet neighborhood. Miro looks around. The street is poorly lit, which I reported to the city.
Honestly, I’ve reported many things to the city since I purchased a home nearby. I can’t stand hypocrites who run their mouths in the media about how helpful they are to their residents but then can’t or won’t pay someone to fix a lightbulb on the already dark street.
Maybe I expect too much. Maybe that’s why I should go back home, where I could call Gustavo to fix the light the very next day.
But I digress.
A frown forms on Miro’s face as he pulls out his silencer and his pistol. “I’m pretty sure I drove by this house not too long ago, so I’ll need you to brief me on the target. Is someone holding Lake hostage? Why am I here, Alessio?”
“Put that away,” I tell him.
He does without question. He digs through his black leather backpack and takes out a hunting knife.
“That too. Put it away.”
