I am not hiding.
If Giovanni Dragoni thinks I’m going to scuttle around like a thief in my own life, he can choke on that assumption.
I drag my fingers through hair that’s less braids and more knots at this point, shove my feet into nothing—because my damned flip-flops are still on the beach—and slip out before the sun has fully breached the horizon.
The first few streets, I keep my fists clenched, ready to defend myself from my husband or his thugs if needs be.
Nothing and no one jumps out at me, but I’m not foolish enough to lower my guard or entertain the naïve notion that he’s gone.
I’ve found you, my little runaway wife. At last.
He wouldn’t have just upped and left.
But… I got away from him once. Who says I can’t succeed a second time?
I ignore the mocking voice at the back of my head and creep to the end of the alley that overlooks the beach and Marcel’s Place.
The shack is as deserted as I expect it to be at this time of day. Still, I watch for a full ten minutes before I hurry to the back of the structure.
I let myself in, then force myself to stop and listen.
Quiet. Still. Exactly the way I need it.
On tiptoes, I cross the sandy floor to the back of the kitchen and the locker where I left my things, and I retrieve my phone, my purse, my apartment keys from the staff locker.
My breath remains locked all the way across the street to the alley, then down between houses and gardens, listening out for the stupid drone.
Once again, I force myself to wait when I reach the row of houses and the pink one I’ve called home for almost a year and ahalf. A wave of sadness washes over me at the thought of leaving, but it can’t be helped.
Maybe—just maybe—I can grab a few things and vanish again before he realises I moved.
It’s a foolish hope.
I realise that even before I’m ten steps from my front door.
For starters, the door is unlocked and thrown wide open. As are the two shutters on either side of the pink door.
My stomach drops and for a moment I almost wish I’d been burgled, but even that is too much to hope for.
Because inside is… nothing. And it’s not the kind of nothing I can slot under “untidy.” Or “ransacked.”
It’s completely empty.
Every trace of me is gone.
No clothes or shoes or toothbrush or make-up.
The stupid little picture of my engagement day I took out of the frame and kept hidden behind the cereal box is gone. As is the damned cereal box.
Even my damned dental floss.
The only thing left?
My fucking flip-flops.
Placed neatly in the middle of the room.
Like a warning. Or a joke.
