Page 19 of Break the Ice
It still hasn’t sunk in yet. If it ever will.
Mitch finally arrives. He’s an older man with lines on his face and who looks like he’s never smiled a day in his life. A few other men accompany him. They come in as a united front and set right to work. They finish wrapping Mr. Hawk in garbage bags, his entire body concealed with black, shiny plastic. Then they dump him in a laundry bin the maids use. They cover him up with towels and bedsheets and wheel him out like they’re employees at the hotel.
One of them even wears the uniform.
The others set to cleaning.
“Here,” the man named Mitch says. He shoves a change of clothes into my chest. “Hurry up, and wash up in the bathroom before we bleach it.”
I do as I’m told. I change out of the Valentino dress and the strappy heels I’ve worn for the night and into the simple hoodie and jeans I’ve been brought. Rafe’s done the same. He grabs me by the hand once we’ve rinsed the blood off us.
“We have to get out of here.”
I thought we were a we, but I had been wrong. David never had any intention of making it real. He was always a predator looking to take. He spoke all the right words and did all the right things to make me blind to the fact that he wasn’t a good man.
He knew just how to lure me into his trap.
Make me think he really did see something special in me.
I wanted to believe that it was true. That I was special.
And that we would be together.
Rafe leads me down the hall. We ride the elevator to the ground floor many levels below. He never leaves my side as I float in a daze, bouncing between the present and the past. How much did I have to drink tonight?
The whiskey in the drinks Mr. Hawk made has me so sluggish and foggy-brained that I want nothing more than to crawl into bed and forget tonight.
“Nobody has to know,” Rafe mutters to me and me alone. He squeezes my hand tighter inside his, pulling me along. “Nobody’ll find out. There’s nothing to worry about.”
I believed him when I shouldn’t have. I won’t make that mistake again.
7. Marisse
Jhene pounds on my door for fifteen minutes straight. I was hoping she’d give up and go away, but after we reach the sixteen minute mark, I heave a sigh and plod over to answer. She rushes inside without any greeting or preamble.
“Jhene,” I groan. “What part of my text didn’t you understand? The part where I said no visitors or don’t come?”
“I was in the neighborhood.”
“It’s Tuesday at one p.m. You live across the city.”
“I’ve always said I love West Seattle midday.”
Jhene wanders across the open space of my apartment and stops at the floor-to-ceiling glass wall that overlooks the sandy strip known as Alki Beach. She might think she’s being casual and nonchalant, but that couldn’t be further from the truth—her vacant stare, the roll of her lips, the stilted stance at the window, they all give her away.
I pinch the bridge of my nose and grit out, “What is it, Jhene? Something on your mind?”
“Nothing… just…”
“Just… what?”
She shrugs, turning away from the cloudy beach view. “You’ve been acting weird the past week. You’ve been cooped up in your apartment.”
“I’ve told you. I’m unpacking and getting settled. I just moved here. I need some time to adjust.”
“You skipped out on Gourmande.”
“And?”
