36. ABRAHAM
AbrAHAM
OVER THE NEXT WEEK, Nineah spent her avoidance in silk thongs and thick socks or my T-shirts and I let her.
I cooked her food and watched her eat.
I turned on the shower and watched the soap suds slide over her ass.
And in those seven days, I didn’t once ask her about the passports, the vacant lots, the airstrips, the two million dollar fishing boat in port at the Chesapeake, or anything else for that matter because if cowardice was a personality trait, then I was a recreant fool.
I was also weak.
After a few more hours of sleep, I’d sweated out the last of the fever and woke up to an empty bed.
I’d found her in the kitchen, naked save for an apron pouring batter into a waffle iron and within seconds, had her face down in a pile of flour, her pussy spasming on my dick.
The following days, she’d made a game out of licking her lips and paid for it in flesh.
I knew I was pushing my luck, taking her so many times in a short span like this, but if there was anything I knew about this woman, it was that she was a timed detonator with a sensitive trigger, and it was only a matter of time before her head caught up with her hormones.
Whoever had attacked her in Europe was lying dormant for now.
According to Silver who’d called last night, neither law enforcement, nor the hospital had received any inquiries regarding the Jane Doe and was still tracking down the aircraft he’d suspected was involved in Nineah’s assault.
Lithuanian coast guard had been a dead end on that front and the only witness to the crime had been the woman who was dead set on outrunning her demons on my dick.
As it stood, Nineah wasn’t in immediate danger—I’d assumed correctly that whoever had made an attempt on her life wasn’t willing to cross the border—but that didn’t mean she wasn’t being watched.
I’d been so focused on tracing her steps, I’d taken my eyes off the woman herself, allowing someone an opportunity to intercept her, but that wasn’t a mistake I planned on making twice.
Unfortunately for me, she was right—I’d exhausted my resources and had officially hit a point with this shit where shutting her out was no longer a viable option. Regardless of how much she remembered, the only one who truly knew her motivations, how her brain worked, was the woman herself.
Even still, of the secrets between these reckless moments, there was still one I’d yet to address—our marital status.
Until I came forward with the truth, I had no more right to ask anything of her than I had to be playing house with her like my bullshit wouldn’t catch up to me.
Nineah wasn’t stupid. She’d find out the facts because she was one-track minded and mission focused, and as much as I wanted to rake in every memory like I could make up for the ones she was missing, I couldn’t keep lying to my wife.
When I told her tonight at dinner that our divorce was going to be final in two weeks and why, I accepted that that was likely going to be the end of the honeymoon.
Nineah would return to the secrets that’d landed her in hot shit in the first place, and knowing me, I was probably going to be right there, waiting in the wings to play un soldat, because Matthias was right—I wasn’t unhealthily attached.
I was toxically possessed. And I was too old to hate shit about myself I couldn’t change.
But first, I had to make the damn dinner.
Grabbing one of the carts from the front of the grocers, I ignored the stares from other shoppers and went straight for the poultry section. God knew I wasn’t charming or romantic in any capacity, but thanks to my mother and Miss Hattie—rest her soul— I could cook.
I took no small amount of satisfaction in the fact that Nineah had gained back all of the weight she’d lost, not only in the hospital but in the months during our separation.
She hadn’t had the pounds to lose in the first place and a diet of red dye number 40 and refined sugar hadn’t helped.
Selecting my ingredients for smoked turkey legs and southern fried cabbage and sausage, I was headed for the checkout when a young gentleman carrying a basket full of barbecue supplies passed and recollection settled in.
I need you to grill this for me. Tonight.
The voicemail especially bothered me. It wasn’t the first time someone had left me a message in code, but it grated on me that I hadn’t deciphered her intent.
My first thought was that she’d wanted me to initiate the self-destruct protocol for her setup that would erase everything on her servers, her programs, all of her stored files.
We’d talked about it before. How sensitive her work was.
That leaving it unprotected could place employees at risk.
However, she’d taken everything with her when she’d moved out of the house.
Hadn’t she?
Now that I thought about it, I didn’t know. I’d only been to the small bungalow in rural Maryland once when she’d gone missing and I hadn’t searched her rental except to verify she wasn’t there. Except, now I was fucking thinking about it.
Checking out at the register, I paid for the food and started for home. However, five minutes into the drive, I found myself taking a detour onto I-270 and heading north toward Montgomery County.
Over an hour later, I pulled up to the lemon yellow cottage concealed by an infestation of ivies. The grass had been mowed recently, the leaves swept. I took the path up to the porch and reaching for Nineah’s key that I still had on my ring, I opened the front door.
There were no piles of mail, no rotting food smell, or heavy layers of dust. It was hard to believe that less than a month ago she’d slept here and not just because I’d practically aged a decade in that time.
Nineah wasn’t neat by any stretch of the imagination.
In fact, if I hadn’t been watching her since she’d initiated our separation, I’d have assumed she’d never lived here at all.
Leaving my weapon in its holster, I listened for activity but the single-story home was still.
I cleared every room in two minutes, finding nothing left out but single wine glass with a dark stain and a gloss print on the side.
Her bed neatly made, clothing folded inside their drawers, and only a quarter of the garment bags from our walk-in hanging in straight, organized sections in the master closet, I knew instantly that this wasn’t a home, it was a relic.
She might’ve slept here, but she didn’t live here. Not even close.
I walked through the bathroom where I found the shelving units mostly empty. All of her toiletries sat in a single pink bag on top of the overhead storage, even her toothbrush, and the space was void of towels, cloths, lotions, creams, serums, anything that would’ve made sense.
If her purse and car hadn’t been abandoned in our driveway, I’d have looked at all of this and assumed she’d planned on running.
Shit, maybe that’d been the point.
I left the bathroom in favor of the only other bedroom—an office space Nineah had been using as storage. Labeled boxes and luggage lined the walls, unopened, and unlike the rest of the home, had a slight coating of dust on top as if she hadn’t touched them since she’d had them moved here.
I considered opening them all, searching them, but that’d take hours.
Besides, Nineah wasn’t the hide-in-plain-sight type.
I closed the door to the bedroom behind me and was set to leave, but figured the least I could do was take the garbage out.
One less thing to worry about when she eventually returned here.
Reaching under the sink for a trash bag, I went to her fridge and examined the contents, ignoring my irritation at the lack of real food.
I checked the date on her milk which had expired last week and tossed it in the bag, along with a leftover box of Chinese takeout, an open package of molding grapes, and a near empty container of coffee creamer.
Opening the freezer, fully expecting half-a-carton of ice cream, I halted.
The only item in the freezer, still wrapped in the butcher’s parchment was a ribeye steak.
I set the bag on the ground, half-contemplating going out to my car for gloves, but ultimately decided against it. Picking up the frozen cut of meat, I removed it from the back of the freezer and turned it over where a thick envelope was taped to the bottom.
I held my breath as I separated the letter from the steak and placed it back into the refrigerator. Half expecting to find it addressed to me in Nineah’s loopy script on the back, I wasn’t surprised when I didn’t. However, the name of the recipient made me pause.
Stuffing the envelope in my pocket, grabbing the garbage, I locked up Nineah’s home, tossed the trash in the bin, and had my cell out before I even had the SUV in drive.