Chapter Eleven
MORNING COMES WHETHER I like it or not.
I'm at the window of the bedroom, in the same suit I changed into an hour ago, watching the sun come up over the lake and feeling a sinking sensation in my stomach that won't go away no matter how many times I tell it to.
It's time.
I force myself through the motions of a civilized man, which I wasn't for half of my life. I take a shower. Shave. Change into a fresh suit, charcoal this time, the one Juniper would call serious. I even put on a watch because it's supposed to be an indicator of one's power and wealth.
Supposedly.
For me though, I only use it to time myself when I'm training. Other than that I'm good.
Rollo already has the limo on standby when I get to the basement. He's at the rear door, holding it open, his face giving nothing away.
“Where to, signore?”
“Juniper.”
“Of course, sir.”
I get in. Rollo closes the door, walks around, and slides into the front passenger seat beside the driver. The partition stays down. Nobody speaks.
I try to think of what to say as the driver negotiates traffic. I know she invited Elliot up. I know he stayed a long time. And although I have hidden cameras installed in her place, I barely managed to resist the urge to spy on her last night.
It's the least I can do, after everything.
But I'm still stuck on what to say. I don't even know if I can really let her go. But I'll try. I owe it to her. I owe everything to Juniper because memories of her alone are what kept me alive in almost the past two decades.
She's why I'm alive.
But I'm also why she's stopped living.
And maybe that's why I can't think of anything to say. Because there's nothing I can say to someone who didn't deserve to be hurt.
We pull up at the curb in front of her building. The driver kills the engine. Rollo half-turns in his seat, waiting for me.
I make up my mind.
“Rollo.”
“Yes, signore?”
I take the envelope out of the inside pocket of my jacket and hand it to him over the partition. “Hand it over please.”
“Of course.” He takes it. Doesn't look at it. “Anything else, signore?”
“Just that and then we can go.”
He nods once, gets out of the car, and walks across the sidewalk into her building without looking back. The door closes behind him.
I wait.
The driver is looking straight ahead through the windshield. A delivery truck idles three cars up. A woman walks past with a stroller and a small dog on a leash who tries to sniff the limo's tire and is dragged away.
And while waiting, I try but fail to stop myself from remembering...
The first time I saw her.
Those memories over the years just become more vivid. And more romantic. Doesn't it mean I'm losing my mind to think that? Or is it because I find myself loving her more and more as time passes by?
I remember so many things about her. Things that make my heart clench, my heart bleed—
What the hell?
I'm out of the limo as soon as I see Rollo coming out of the building. He's not walking. He's running. Running, with the envelope still in his hand, across the sidewalk toward me, and I've never seen Rollo look like this.
“Signora...is gone!”
No. No. No no no no no.
I run up the four flights to her apartment, taking the stairs three at a time, doors cracking open as I pass. Rollo's already asked all of them...and no one's seen her leave.
El Carnicero is dead.
Who else would want to harm my wife? Who do I have to kill to get her back?
Rage and fear are a terrible combination as they start gnawing at each other, and by the time I reach the fourth floor and shoulder through her unlocked door, I feel like I'm about to explode.
It's empty.
And there's nothing.
No struggle. No overturned table. The lamp's where it should be.
The framed tree-in-the-snowstorm Odessa always called too on the nose is still on the wall, still standing in its snow.
Her keys are in the bowl. Her coffee cup is in the sink.
The throw blanket is folded on the back of the couch the way she folds it.
No sign of forced entry.
No sign of her at all.
No. No. No no no no.
“Signore?” Rollo is in the doorway behind me. His voice sounds far away. “What do you need me to do?”