Page 32 of The Rook’s Obsession

“All clear,” I announce, after checking under the beds. “No assassins.”

“We know one thing for sure. Laura didn’t fall in love with you because of your sense of humor.” The fact that she’s referring to herself in third person is a little unnerving, but it’s something I do my best to overlook while she enters the room and sits at the foot of the bed closest to the door. That’s all she does for a while. She sits with her hands on her knees and stares at the worn carpet. I understand what she’s going through—at least, the physical side of it. Now that the adrenaline rush has passed, and she’s had time to reflect, the weight of everything that happened tonight is settling on her. It’s been heavy, weighing her down. Yes, I know the feeling well. There’s not a damn thing I can do to help her with it.

Her head tips slightly, shoulders sagging. Shoulders I want so much to reach out and take hold of before I draw her close. My hands flex, ready to reach for her. That would be a big mistake.

“Are you tired?” It’s a stupid question. I already know the answer. She could be half-dead. That doesn’t mean sleep would show up anytime soon.

Still, I should encourage her to try. We’re both running on fumes, and we’ll need to hit the road as soon as possible in the morning. We’re going to both need clear heads as we figure out what the hell we’re doing next.

“Exhausted,” she admits, but she doesn’t make a move. She stays where she is, staring at the same spot on the carpet like she’s trying to burn a hole through it.

She’s been retreating deeper into herself for hours, all through the ride. If I let her go to sleep like this, she’ll be further away from me than ever when she wakes up. The distance between us will only get worse. Whatever delicate thing started to grow between us back at the cabin will evaporate.

I can’t let that happen. I won’t.

“Come with me.”

She looks up for the first time since sitting down, brows drawn together over her nose. “Where?”

“To the pool downstairs. I noticed the signs pointing to it while we were in the lobby.”

“So did I, and I noticed the sign saying it closed at ten p.m.”

Now she cares about the rules? I arch an eyebrow, folding my arms. “So? What, you think I can’t pick a lock on a pool door?” When her expression doesn’t change, mine does, and I heave a sigh while giving her a helpless shrug. “You need to get out of your head for a little while. We both do.”

That gets through to her. Appealing to her sense of logic is what brings her to her feet so she can follow me out to the hallway, then down the stairs to avoid being seen in the lobby. Granted, I doubt the woman would give two shits either way if she saw us wandering. She might not even be awake by now, for all I know.

Still, I don’t feel like taking a chance. We’re not here to be remembered later on.

The pool is on the lowest level at the far end of the long building. It sits behind a glass door with a sign listing the hours, printed in large block letters. It doesn’t officially open for another three hours or so, meaning we’ll have privacy. The lock is your usual commercial deadbolt, which takes me roughly fifteen seconds to pick. When the door swings open, the chlorine hits us immediately. Sharp, familiar. It reminds me of countless summers swimming at the public pool when I was a kid. I won’t bother asking her if she remembers anything.

The only light in the room comes from the ones underwater, which turn the surface blue-green. The only sound other than our footsteps comes from the filtration system. Against the far wall sits a line of lounge chairs. As I close the door behind us and lock it, I can’t shake the feeling of being in a space separate from the rest of the world.

She stands at the edge of the water, staring into it. “One problem.”

“Which is?”

“We don’t have bathing suits.”

For someone in her line of work, she is almost shockingly pedestrian when she feels like it. “No, we don’t.”

She looks up from the water, hitting me with a stare that feels somehow heavier when the blue-green light from the gently moving water reflects off her face. “You’re suggesting we swim naked?”

“The only thing stopping us is fabric we don’t have.” I pull my shirt over my head and toss it on one of the chairs. “We’ve already seen each other without a stitch on. At this point, I don’t think modesty is our biggest problem.”

I can’t read her expression as I untie and take off my boots. She’s not assessing me with that cold, clinical stare she gave me back in Prague. It’s not the fake warmth she tried to give me in the shower, either. It’s something in between the two. Cautious, suspicious, maybe. But not closed off. She’s intrigued.

“You’re trying to distract me,” she decides.

“Is it working?”

After waiting a beat, she reaches for the hem of her shirt. The one I bought her. It’s wrinkled now, and it carries the faint odor of gunpowder after what went down earlier. She pulls it off and tosses it aside the way I did with mine.

She doesn’t look away from me. She’s telling me this is her choice. There’s a fire in her eyes as she steps out of her jeans. The underwater light catches the scars on her arm and her leg, painting them in blue. This time, she doesn’t turn her body away to hide them.

Once she’s bare, so am I. I’m damn glad as I lower myself into the water that I thought to use the superglue on my wound, because the sensation of warm water closing over my sore muscles is something I didn’t know I needed. I sink up to my shoulders and lean against the edge, allowing myself to relax.

She looks like something out of a dream, still standing with her bare feet at the edge of the pool. The glow from the water casts shifting patterns across her body before she drops into the water without a word and goes under completely.