Blood of the Assassin - By Russell Blake Page 0,51
corporate security work she’d been pressing him about. All he knew was that he loved Dinah and didn’t want her to be distressed, and the job had now strained their relationship beyond what it could reasonably bear. She’d been understanding of so much – having to live a transient lifestyle, moving constantly. Bodyguards. Most wouldn’t have been willing to make the sacrifices she had. But it looked like she’d finally reached her limit.
He wasn’t looking forward to the conversation to come.
The car rolled to a stop in front of the elevator. The driver waited until it arrived and Cruz stepped in before pulling off to the assigned parking space, where the night shift driver would take over in case Cruz needed to go somewhere in an emergency. That would be one of the two guards on permanent rotation in the lobby – a fixture of his living situation.
When the elevator slowed and stopped at his floor, he stepped into the hall and moved slowly to the condo, dreading what was to come. Some days he felt about a hundred years old, and this was one of them.
“Honey? I’m sorry I’m so late. I brought dinner,” he called as he pushed open the front door. Silence greeted him, and the condo was dark. He flipped the lights on and walked to the kitchen, then set the bag with the sandwiches in it on the counter and listened for any signs of life. Again, nothing.
Cruz strode to the bedroom and peered inside, and his breath caught in his throat. A note lay on the dresser, folded neatly, as was Dinah’s way. He approached it with trepidation, then picked it up like it was a poisonous snake and moved to the bedside lamp and flicked it into life. The writing was precise, the message short.
My darling husband,
I love you more than you will ever know, so this is the hardest letter I will ever write. I know you have your reasons for agreeing to work with that murderer, but I can’t go along with it. You know how much misery he has brought to my family and the unforgivable things he’s done, and I can’t bring myself to wish anything but death upon him. For you to choose to cooperate with this travesty is a betrayal of everything we have, and I can’t look at you knowing you would choose that over us – the relationship we’ve built. So I’m leaving. Maybe I will feel differently in time, maybe not, but for now, I can’t go on. Just as with infidelity, there are some things that are too big to ignore. This is a deal breaker. I’m sorry, my love, but it is, and I can’t be with a man who would do this to me. I wish you well, and hope you’ll be safe and cautious. No good can come of this. Don’t bother me at work – I don’t want to hear from you. Please respect my wishes.
Your wife, Dinah.
Cruz numbly re-read the missive, unable to believe his eyes, and then his whole form seemed to collapse in on itself, as though the pressure of the unbearable atmosphere had crushed him like an empty beer can. He felt for the edge of the bed with a trembling hand, his eyes unfocused, searching his cognitive resources for where he had made a mistake understanding the meaning of the words. Dinah, gone? Left him? Impossible. He had gotten something wrong, misread some key indicator, misinterpreted some important bit of information.
The mattress pushed against the backs of his knees and he sat down numbly on the bedspread, which was neatly tucked in, probably one of Dinah’s last acts in leaving a tidy vacuum in which Cruz would spend an eternity without her. He wasn’t sure how long he sat, gazing into space with the thousand-yard stare of a chain gang prisoner, but eventually he was back in the moment and forced himself up. He approached the wide dresser and pulled open the top drawer of Dinah’s side, and didn’t need to look down to confirm what its weight already had. Empty: her clothes gone, only the faint smell of her perfume lingering in the wooden rectangle.
He turned and moved to the closet and swung the doors open, and saw what he expected – her luggage missing, her side of the space empty. He stared at the empty clothes rod, the barren shelves, and the enormity of the situation hit home.