A cross-country trip sounds good. I did some traveling with Ella when she was a kid, but not much. I’m willing to bet seeing the sights with Lina will be an experience, for sure. We can end the trip in Canada and look for some land and horses together. I smile at the thought of it and save some listings.
Then I send the email off about retirement. It’s been sat in my drafts for months, but I need to bite the bullet and move on. It’s time for my next chapter.
With Lina.
Another twenty minutes pass, but Lina doesn’t show. I go to the window and peek out, and sure enough, her car isn’t there. I scratch Fox’s head.
“Where is she, boy?”
He whines, nose pressed to the glass, like he’s waiting for her, too.
An hour passes.
And then I really start to worry.
I still don’t have her number, so I can’t call.
I pace, I convince myself I’m overreacting, then I pace some more.
What if someone took her? What if she went to the store and someone from that gang found her?
Fuck.
She could be in trouble.
She could be dead.
Maybe her number is somewhere in her things.
I take the stairs three at a time and go to her room. It’s only when I’ve searched through the empty nightstands that I realize her suitcases are gone.
And there’s a note on the bureau.
My heart hammers as I approach it, picking up the paper.
I’m sorry.
Two words.
I read them over and over, but they don’t register, and neither does the meaning behind them, because she can’t have said all she did and not meant it. No one is that good of a liar, not even her.
I’m downstairs again, sitting on the couch, the note resting on my lap.
And I wait.
I wait for the door to open, for her sing-song voice apologizing for taking so long at the store.
The sunlight moves across the far wall, and night falls.
But Lina doesn’t come back.
Chapter 13
Guy
SIX MONTHS LATER
As the sun beats through the windshield, I forgo the AC and open my window, instead. A cool breeze hits me and fills the car, and I open the passenger window too, so Fox can do what he always does—stick his head out and bark. He bites at the rushing air, eventually just letting his tongue loll out and flap in the wind.
