Five Ways to Fall

She averts her eyes to dart around the office, searching for something. An answer. Or an escape. Her eyes suddenly widen as panic flies through them. “Did you give him your name?”

“Yes, I did,” I answer calmly.

Somehow, her face pales even more. “Why?”

“Why not, Charlie? Why wouldn’t I?”

Her head shakes back and forth, ridding itself of panic and fear and . . . everything. “You had no right going through my things or answering my phone.”

Standing, I gently place the phone back in the purse. “I guess not.”

I turn my back on her and walk out to the club.

“Some people need sleep,” John mutters groggily.

“Then don’t sleep with your phone by the bed,” I retort.

With a loud groan, followed by a coughing fit that leaves me cringing at the sound of morning phlegm in John’s lungs, my P.I. demands, “What do you need?”

“Is there any chance that her ID is fake?”

“I assume you mean Charlie?”

“Yes,” I snap with impatience. When I came back to my office after half an hour, Charlie was gone. She took either a bus or a cab, because she didn’t have her truck here.

I have half a mind to drive over to her place and force the truth out of her. I can’t bring myself to do it yet, though.

“It’s damn solid if it is. She’s got a valid passport, birth certificate . . . everything. Maybe it’s a stolen ID. You’d need a ton of cash and major connections to pull that off.”

“But it’s possible.” Is everything that I know about Charlie a lie? Has she been lying to me all this time?

His heavy exhales blows into the phone. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Okay. Can you see what else you can dig up on Charlie Rourke? Old school pictures, gymnastics pictures, anything. And find out if there’s anyone by the name of ‘Sam’ in her life.”

“Will do.”

I hang up. I stare at my phone, the lump in my throat choking. I want to call her. But, right now, I’m pissed off, too.

More, though, I’m something I haven’t felt in years.

I’m hurt.

Chapter thirty-two

CHARLIE

I knew it was coming.

I’ve sat on a park bench overlooking the water for hours, staring out at all the people who live their own lives, who worry about paying their rent and what bar they’re going to go to on the weekend.

Waiting for my phone to ring. And now it’s ringing, the display reading “unknown caller.”

He’s anything but unknown.

My stomach twists into knots as I answer.

“Hello, little mouse.”

“Hi.” I’m still shocked that he called my phone. It’s registered under “Charlie Rourke” and I’m sure he’s using a burner phone, but still, he’s breaking one of his rules.

“How are things?”

“Good.”

“Good. The weather’s lovely at home.” Small talk. Sam always did like to keep it simple.

“It’s nice here, too.”

“Good, good.” There’s a pause. “I need you to check your email.”

My stomach drops.

“What?” No . . . I didn’t hear that right. It’s been only a few weeks. I was supposed to have months, or longer. Or forever. “I thought we were laying low.”

“We were. The problem has been resolved.”

What? “No!” I take a deep, shaky breath. I’ve never said no to Sam. Ever. “I mean . . .”

“Is there something wrong?” There’s a long pause. “Is this because of Cain?”

He may as well have reached through the phone and torn my insides right out of my body.

Now Sam has Cain’s name. How long before he has more? “No.” My hand has never shaken as badly as it does now. I don’t even have the steadiness to push it through my hair.

Why did Cain have to do that? Why? I had to fight the gasp from escaping my mouth today when I came out to find my phone in his hand and that strange, inexplicable look on his face. It was like a punch to my stomach.

And then he started questioning me, as I’ve dreaded him doing for weeks. I didn’t know what to do, what to say, so . . . I turned it all back on him. As if he were to blame for all this.

I could tell he was angry with me. Worse, by the look in his eyes, I could tell he was hurt. When he turned his back on me and walked out, I did the only thing I could think of. I walked out to the street and hailed a taxi.

“Does he know . . .” Sam’s voice trails off, deceptively calm.

“No!” That comes out strong and fast and unmistakable. “Nothing.”

“Then how did he have my name?” Suspicion. I hear it dripping from his voice. He thinks he caught me in a lie.

“I was drunk. I let your name slip. It was something harmless, though, about birthdays and—”

“Nothing is harmless!” he snaps, and I flinch. With a breath, he adjusts his tone, though there’s no mistaking the ice. “You are down there for a reason. You will do what I ask and you will follow the rules! And, if you don’t feel that you owe it to me for giving you all that you have, then do it for your friend’s sake because, if I have to come down there, I’ll make sure he isn’t causing me any more problems. Do you understand?”

Dread seizes my lungs. Somehow I don’t think a simple conversation with a teenage boy—as he most likely had with Ryan Fleming—is what Sam has in mind now. “Okay,” I manage to get out in a raspy voice.

“Good thing, little mouse. Right away.” The line goes dead.

Quickly logging in to the Gmail account, I find the draft folder. Sure enough, the instructions are there.

Ten tonight. Eddie and Bob. Fuck . . . Bob. How is that going to go? I have to hope he realized his own mistake after he sobered up. Maybe he’ll apologize?

Maybe I’m the biggest moron in the world.

I have to get out of work tonight. I wonder if Cain even wants me there anymore.

If Sam gets hold of him, he’ll wish I’d never walked through his door.

I never noticed how heavy that black door at the back of Penny’s is.

I could have just phoned Cain. Or texted him.

And yet here I am, walking toward it, aching to see him, ready to crawl on my knees to beg his forgiveness. I can’t think much beyond right now, except that I need to see Cain. And that I’ll be doing the drop tonight, to make Sam happy. To find some reprieve.

After that . . . I can’t think about it. I know what needs to happen and I just can’t face it right now.

On the third knock, the door opens and Nate’s giant body fills the doorway. His face immediately splits into a wide grin when he sees me. Hope sparks. Maybe Cain doesn’t hate me after all. If Cain hated me, Nate would know about it.

I walk down the hall toward Cain’s office, butterflies stirring, preparing to give an award-winning performance on deathly female cramping—complete with hands pressed against abdomen and hunching over. That’s the only thing I can think of and, given that my period is due any day now, it should work well.

I push open the door to find China, with her skirt hiked up around her waist, straddling Cain’s lap on his chair, her lips locked onto his.

And the butterflies drop dead.

Chapter thirty-three

CAIN

Fucking perfect.

I was one second away from forcefully removing a brazen China from my lap because she wouldn’t get off voluntarily—after leaping on, uninvited—when she decided to plant her lips on mine, crushing my dismissal.