Chapter 28 #2
My first instinct was to rip it off, protest that I didn’t deserve to be on the wall.
But looking at it closer, seeing the relaxation in Elliot’s posture…
I’d been so focused on what this relationship was doing to me that I didn’t see what it was doing to Elliot.
The good things. I made him happy. It seemed impossible, yet I was tentatively allowing myself to accept it.
I sipped my water. Elliot made great martinis, but I’d stopped at one. I didn’t want to be fuzzy from booze when I gave him his reward for the photo. Not that he’d done it for any kind of reward, which was why he was getting a world class blow job.
I’d whispered this to him when he whisked forward to grab my glass. He’d smiled darkly, kissing my neck amidst the chaos of the bar, lighting up my synapses.
Though I had been working, my head throbbing from the noise and from craning my head at the wrong angle, I’d shut my laptop to watch Elliot work.
He had Blondie—I refused to refer to her by name because I was a petty bitch—helping him behind the bar. My pulse spiked each time she got close to him when she didn’t need to, laughing too loudly at whatever jokes he was telling—he wasn’t that funny—and shooting death glares in my direction.
We were not going to be fast friends. I smiled back at her wordlessly saying ‘get used to me, girlfriend, I’m here to stay. ’
I’d been content to sit and watch Elliot while taunting Blondie for the entire night, but my headache slowly got worse, so I rustled through my purse for a painkiller.
I didn’t have a single Advil. There was a time when my purse rattled from the amount of pill bottles I’d stashed in there.
Uppers. Downers. Muscle relaxers. Yet I was sober-ish.
And an aunt whose niece loved toting my Birkin around with sticky hands, so my purse was free of mood-altering substances.
Rain poured against the ceiling of the bar, coming in out of nowhere, harsh and loud. I rubbed my temples as I peered out at the setting sun, the waves moody and angry as water poured from the previously blue sky.
My head was spinning.
I shifted my attention back to Elliot who was at the bar, busier due to tourists seeking refuge from the rain.
When my phone buzzed, I squinted at the text on my screen, my heart dropping at the message from an unknown number.
Wharf. Now. Tell no one. Or she goes into the ocean.
The picture attached was of a familiar set of combat boots and stuffed spider.
Clara. Even with a blinding headache, I felt it.
The other shoe dropping that I’d almost convinced myself wasn’t going to happen.
I’d chastised myself for never fully relaxing, despite having technically gotten rid of the monsters in the night.
If I’d had more sense, I might’ve registered how stupid the text was, would’ve alerted Elliot or Beau or someone.
It was the plot of a bad horror movie, obviously baiting me.
But my brain felt as if it was stuffed with cotton wool, my mouth dry and my heart a jackrabbit in my chest. All I knew was that Clara was in danger, the clamor of the rain, the throbbing of my head and the urgency in the pit of my stomach forcing me off my barstool.
I teetered on my heels for a second before I walked purposefully out the door. I forgot I was surrounded by people who could help. Help save Clara. Save me.
I forgot to ask for help.
ELLIOT
I took my eyes off her.
Because I’d been lulled into a false sense of security.
Because I trusted that all the darkness had left. That no more killers would appear in my restaurant, trying to take my woman from me. That I wouldn’t find Calliope covered in blood, curled on the floor.
All evidence pointed to that.
Calliope had been right—I was a simple man. Those kinds of things didn’t exist in my life. And I had felt certain that that portion of life was over. Life was simple. The ocean. The restaurant. My family. My woman.
She was happy too. Which filled me with purpose and pride.
Until I saw that her barstool was empty, her laptop sitting closed in what was ‘her spot.’ She carved her name into it with a steak knife to ensure that people didn’t sit there.
Locals knew well enough, and she was more than happy to educate tourists.
It amused me. Made my cock thicken. But when it came to Calliope, what didn’t?
I wasn’t entirely sure what made my hackles rise, seeing that vacant seat. It was the laptop—she’d never just leave it sitting there, nor the purse that cost more than a used Honda, slung over the corner of her stool.
Calliope wouldn’t just leave those things there, even if she was just going to the bathroom.
We were in a small town full of trustworthy people, but she didn’t trust easily.
I forced my heartbeat to slow, to give her some time to come back from the bathroom or a phone call to call me overprotective for all the concern showing on my face.
Three minutes. I counted them in my head even as I shook cocktails, poured beers, smiled at patrons.
“Have you seen Ca—” I leaned over to ask Betty, but she was gone. Likely delivering drinks to the full tables. We hadn’t expected the surge of tourists when the season was meant to be over. It was a zoo in here, so she’d offered to help behind the bar as well as waitress.
Which was why a scowling Beau had carried a tray of food out to a table. I flagged him over once he dropped it off.
“We need more fucking waitresses,” he grumbled.
“Calliope’s gone.” I forced my voice to remain calm, even though I knew my brother heard the rising panic in my tone.
Beau, to his credit, didn’t dismiss me. As if he had some kind of danger detector, he was instantaneously on guard.
He didn’t know about what happened in New York, but he suspected that shit had happened.
I hadn’t told him about Naomi either. I didn’t know if that was the right choice or not. I was living in the gray now.
“You check inside, I’ll go outside,” he said.
I looked at the rain battering the windows, making visibility shit, coupled with the rapidly dimming light. It was a shitty thing to have to do, running out there when Calliope was likely in the bathroom or taking a call somewhere, but Beau didn’t hesitate before he jogged out the door.
I flagged down Dave, telling him to take care of the bar while I took five. He nodded and easily took over. I forced my steps to remain unhurried as I searched the back, my office, knocking on the door to the ladies room, looking for her.
Nowhere.
I grabbed my phone from my pocket. Rowan answered on the first ring.
“Have you heard from Calliope?” I told myself I was overreacting and that she’d be furious at me for involving her brother.
“No.” His answering tone was already tight with apprehension. “Why?”
“Probably nothing.” I clutched the back of my neck. “She was at the bar, now she’s not. All of her things are still there.”
“It’s not nothing,” Rowan scoffed. “I’ll make some calls, be over there in five.”
The intensity and concern underneath his harsh tone did nothing to silence the low hum of panic that was radiating through my brain.
I wanted to tell him everything was fine, that I could handle it, could take care of my woman. But I squashed my ego. I’d rather have bruised pride from overreacting than regret that I didn’t take all the help I could get.
Already I was preparing for Calliope telling me off for involving her brother. I looked forward to it. I prayed for it, once I’d moved through the entire restaurant and couldn’t find a sign of her.
Beau hadn’t returned from outside. As the rain pounded heavier, a stone of dread settled in the pit of my stomach.
I opened the patio doors that one of the waiters had just closed to stop the spray of rain from coming inside. All the outside tables had been abandoned due to the downpour. I leaned over the railing, searching the now darkened beach for a sign of Beau or Calliope.
My eyes squinted as lightning flashed, illuminating the rough seas for nothing more than a second.
A second was all I needed for my heart to stop and for my body to launch forward, clearing the railing and landing in the sand below.
I barely felt the impact as I pushed my body to sprint toward the dock.
The rain pelted against my skin, the ground uneven beneath my feet.
I growled in my frustration that my legs weren’t moving fast enough.
I kept my eyes plastered to the same spot in the water as lightning flashed again. My blood was nothing but ice.
I could see them better now. My brother’s unmistakably large form, battling against the waves, arm around a lifeless form I knew was Calliope.
For as long as I lived, I would never, ever forget my brother fighting against the surf, holding my unconscious woman in the middle of a lightning storm.
I skidded on my knees, my stomach flattening against the dock to reach out to Beau as he approached with Calliope’s limp body in his arms.
I thanked God one thousand times that Beau had previously been a championship swimmer. Not many people would’ve been able to survive against the huge swells while holding 110 pounds of dead weight.
My hands slipped against her drenched blouse, as I hoisted her up onto the dock.
My shoulders burned at the weight. Not because Calliope was heavy—it was one of my goals to put more weight on her —but because she didn’t move.
I’d never forget the emotionally heavy toll of dragging my unconscious woman from the ocean.
I pulled her into my chest, she was sodden and limp. “Calliope.” I held her face. “Calliope!” I yelled then.
Nothing.
My brother hauled himself up onto the dock as I laid her down, realizing that she wasn’t breathing.
She wasn’t fucking breathing.
My entire world tilted sideways. Ten minutes ago, she’d whispered in my ear about blow jobs and photos. Three hours ago, I’d mounted a picture of me and her on the wall, the first of many to come. It wasn’t going to be the last.
“Call 911, now!” Beau roared through the rain. “I’ve got her.”
He quickly dropped down to put his ear to Calliope’s chest, placing his hands where they needed to be to start CPR.
I fought the urge to push his hands away, to do it myself. My brother was trained in lifesaving measures just as well as I was. Yet I had lost valuable seconds to my panic. Seconds Calliope might not have.
My hand trembled as I dialed in the pouring rain, willing my phone to work then shouting at the operator to get an ambulance to the dock, their replies lost against the rain.
Though I knew it wouldn’t arrive in time. Between the storm, the scant amount of resources our town had, the location of the restaurant… We couldn’t rely on anyone else to save Calliope. It was just us.
“Beau, I can’t lose her,” I told him in between compressions. “I can’t fucking lose her.”
Beau didn’t stop. “You won’t lose her, little brother. I promise.”
But my brother didn’t have the power to make promises like that. My lips fastened against Calliope’s in time with Beau’s compressions.
“Live,” I commanded as I breathed air into her lungs. “Do not give up. You are not that weak.”
Her body shuddered. Not with life but from the force of my brother’s compressions.
Lights flashed from the parking lot. They were not red and blue. Headlights from some car illuminated us on the dock, and they stayed on.
Whether the person in the vehicle saw us or not, I didn’t care. I was both grateful and horrified at the illumination of Calliope’s lifeless body. Her form jerked with each compression, her lips blue, eyes closed, face utterly pale.
“Elliot!” Beau barked.
I jumped, realizing I’d been frozen in the moment, the crucial time when Calliope needed me the most.
I laid my lips against hers again, willing her to breathe on her own. To splutter. To fight.
She was still.
As the rain continued falling, a loud thumping on the wharf made me look up for a split second. Rowan’s horrified expression was illuminated by a flash of lightning.
He didn’t say anything, just watched helplessly as my brother and I attempted lifesaving measures on his sister.
“I have a feeling the ocean might rightly take me as someone who deserves to be punished for my sins.”
The words from that day on the dock echoed in my brain, clashing against the hammering rain, the thud of her limp body as it slammed against the dock from Beau’s compressions.
“I refuse,” I whispered against her mouth. “I refuse to believe that you are being taken from me. You are worthy. Stay,” I ordered. “Breathe.” I fastened my lips against hers. “Live,” I commanded as if it was within my power.