Page 25 of Close Your Eyes and Count to 10

“What’s your greatest disappointment?”Dr. Garvey had asked.

She didn’t have to think about that for very long. “My husband. My ex-husband.”

Coincidence, of course. The book, the cigarettes. Or just the universe fucking with her as usual.

“Are you okay?” asked Malinka, coming in close and putting a gentle hand on Adele’s arm. Her skin was dewy with youth, eyes bright.

“Yeah,” Adele said, forcing a smile. “Just spooked.”

Malinka inspected her cut with tenderness. “The bleeding stopped. It’s not too bad.”

Adele gave another look inside the tent, shone her light around the space, but there was little else to see. Just a collection of empty booze bottles in the corner. “Some squatter, probably.”

Who would live here? Why? Someone on the run. Someone with no place else to go. She was still quaking slightly, felt chilled.

Not a ghost. Not someone with nefarious intent. Not…Miller.

Right? Her thoughts went back to her last conversation with Agent Coben.Even people in witness protection, whose lives depend on staying hidden, can’t always stay away forever.

Adele felt her heartbeat in her throat.

“Whoever it is, we scared him off,” said Malinka, maybe reading Adele’s worry. “He won’t come back.”

The young woman sounded so certain. But how could she know that?

“There’s more to see. Are you up for it?”

“Yeah,” Adele answered. “Of course.”

Malinka exited through the double doors, and Adele gave the room another pass, her light falling again on the crumpled pack of cigarettes, the tattered paperback.

“What else scares you?” Dr. Garvey had wanted to know.

“That he wins.”

“Who?”

“Miller. That he never comes back, that he gets away with it. That my children and I spend our lives wondering what happened to him.”

What she didn’t say was that she was equally afraid of what she would do if shedidsee him again. There was animalistic rage that lived inside her, that had fueled her survival. She kept it caged. Who would she be and what was she capable of if it got loose?

Finally, she followed Malinka out the door.

* * *

Later, Adele drifted off to a fitful sleep. In her hypnagogic state, she was chased by the dark form through endless hallways, only to come upon Miller lounging on the cot, smoking.

“You don’t belong here, Adele,” he said with his familiar disapproving frown. “You know that.”

Then Malinka leaped out at her, and she was startled awake.

Adele shrunk into her sleeping bag. Who was that shadow? Where was he now?

Off in the distance, she heard the sound of Malinka’s voice, bright and talking fast. Then a long low groan from the hotel.

Esperança—that’s what Gustavo had called the hotel.

Hope. It was a tricky thing, powerful enough to lure you across an ocean, and so easy to lose.

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