the dusk sky turns dark and a cold knot tightens in my stomach again as I think about last night. Why couldn’t I have kept my hands off her? My desperation made me stupid and irresponsible. We had unprotected sex, and I don’t even want to think about the possible consequences.
And I told her everything. Even if my family leaves, that alone could put her in danger. If those goons track her there, even if she doesn’t know where we went, she’s dead. If I brought her with us, then what? She’d be no safer. I’ve put her in an impossible situation.
We get off the bus in Sarasota and take a cab to Spencer’s, where I left my car the afternoon of Sophie’s job. We’re quiet on the drive back to Port St. Mary. She seems to understand what this is, and I’m glad.
“You can drop me here,” she says just before I make the turn onto her street.
I pull to the side of the road, but it’s a minute before I can bring myself to look at her, because every time I do, I see the look on her face when she came with me inside her. The most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. The memory makes me question everything.
“You’ll be okay?” I ask.
“It’s not me I’m worried about.”
Protectiveness flares inside me, hot and angry. “It should be. You are in real danger, Adri.”
She reaches for my face and melts my anger with a single touch. “You’re leaving?”
I nod because my throat is too tight for words.
“When?”
I swallow. “Soon.”
She eases in slowly, as if she’s afraid of scaring me away, and her lips brush over mine. As hard as I try to resist, I can’t. I reach for her face and draw her deeper into our kiss. When I let her go, she looks up at me for a long moment. Everything I see in that gaze—love, pain, good-bye—nearly kills me.
I gently push her back. A tear leaks over her lashes as she looks at me. “Good-bye, Rob.”
She’s stronger than me, because I can’t make myself say that word to her. She steps out of the car and doesn’t look back as she makes her way up the road toward her house. I watch her move under the streetlights until she’s inside before I can make myself pull away.
I’m breathing in short pants, trying to keep the emotions at bay, but the road blurs in front of me as my eyes well.
I pull over, drop my head against the headrest.
The next second, I’m being ripped from the car. A beefy kid about my age, with a flattop, a shiny badge, and a crisp uniform throws me onto the hood of the Lumina, yanking my hands behind my back and cuffing me.
Blue lights flash in the night. I was so lost in my thoughts, I didn’t even see them in my rearview.
“Robert Davidson, or whoever you are,” Adri’s father says, “you are under arrest for kidnapping and false imprisonment. You have the right to remain—”
“I didn’t kidnap her,” I interrupt.
He shoves the back of my head, smashing my face into the hood. “You have the right to remain silent, and I suggest you do that.”
He holds my face down and finishes with my rights while the kid frisks me. When he reaches the waistband of my jeans, I feel the tug as he frees me of my Glock.
The kid yanks me up, shoving me toward the cop car parked behind me.
“First day?” I ask him.
“Move!” he shouts.
He tries to shove me inside the car. I shove back, then lower myself in.
Adri’s father thinks he’s saving her. He’s not. Because all hell is about to rain down on Port St. Mary.
The police will dig into my family’s past. They may find out who we are, or they may not. Either way, if my arrest gets onto the Internet, or into the news—if my picture goes out—someone is bound to recognize me. If my screwups with Sophie and the thugs in Chicago haven’t already exposed my family, it won’t be long now. They’ll have to leave before that happens.
If I go to jail, I’m a dead man, and there will be collateral damage. A few redneck cops holding down the fort at their backwater jail aren’t going to slow down whoever comes for me. It’s as simple as that.
Chapter 29
Adri
I checked my phone when we got on the bus this morning and found a message from Chuck. Dad came looking for me