And only when we are five miles down the highway, in the dark, with the check on the seat beside me, do I cover my face with my hands and scream.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
BROOKS
I wake up on the leather sofa in the library of the main house. My neck is stiff, and a headache is pounding behind my eyes like a relentless drum.
For a split second, in the haze of morning, I forget. I reach for my phone to text her. To ask if she wants coffee.
Then reality crashes down.
I sit up, groaning as the room spins. The house is silent, but the silence feels heavy, accusatory.
I couldn’t stay in the cottage last night. After the taillights of the town car disappeared through the gates, the air in the guest house became suffocating. I couldn’t look at the bed where we slept. I couldn’t look at the kitchen table where she ended us.
So I retreated here. To the main house. To the scotch bottle.
I check the clock on the mantel. 7:00 AM.
I have to go back. I have to verify it. A part of me, the desperate, pathetic part, hopes that maybe I dreamt it. Maybe she’s still there, making coffee, wondering where I am.
I walk out of the main house and across the dew-soaked lawn. The morning air is cold, the wet grass soaking through my socks.
I push open the cottage door.
The kitchen is flooded with sunlight. It’s cheerful. Insulting.
The table where I left the manila envelope is bare. The five hundred thousand dollars is gone.
But the ring is there.
It sits exactly where she left it, a single solitaire catching the sun. It sparkles violently, bright and sharp. It mocks me.
You’ll need this for the next one, she said.
I pick it up. The metal is cold. It feels heavy in my palm, heavier than it ever did when it was an heirloom in a safe. Now, it feels like a tombstone.
She took the money. She left the ring.
I close my fist around it, the diamond digging into my skin until it hurts, then slip it into my pocket.
It was a job. That’s what she told me.
I walk to the bed looking for a sign that she hesitated. A forgotten sock. A note. Anything that proves she was real.
But it is pristine. The bed is made. The closet is empty. She cleared the set.
I look at the bathroom counter. It is clear of her toiletries. It’s as if she was never here. It’s as if the last eight weeks were a hallucination brought on by a concussion.
I lean against the doorframe, a sick feeling churning in my gut.
Was she that good?
I replay the last eight weeks in my head. The coercion. The blackmail. I dragged her into this against her will. I forced her to play a role she hated.
But somewhere along the way, I thought the roles had become real. The way she laughed at my jokes. The way shedefended me to Royce. The way she looked at me when we were alone in the dark, soft, open, vulnerable.
I could have sworn I saw something real in her eyes. I thought that what started as a hostage situation had turned into a partnership.
