Page 36 of Run with Me

For the firsttime in my life, I understood what people meant when they said you could hear a pin drop. Well, I was pretty sure that I could hear a flyfart.

“Mary, what are you doing here?” Jack repeated.

“My appointment was canceled, and I’ve been here long enough to know that keeping that woman at our house another minute will cost you way more than a marriage.” She was rubbing her belly. Her lips were sealed straight, like a flatlined heartbeat, and her nose scrunched upward. She was doing that thing with her nostrils, the one raging bulls did before they ran through town in August.

“I’ll leave.” I finally located my sandals by the elevator. I rushed to grab them, and stepped into the elevator before Jack had a chance to stop the ever-so-slowly closing door. But I did it. I got away. I pressed the lobby button again, to make sure that’s where I’d end up. Given this was my first time – or maybe second, since Jack somehow got me into his apartment last night – I acted on instinct. I hurried to put my sandals on my feet. Their distressed leather gently scratched against my soles. The closer I descended to the ground floor, the more I concentrated on the gap that would open, sliding the metal plates apart. And when they did, I charged out, like one of the freed bulls, only to bump into a hard chest.

Shit!

The man grabbed my wrist and held it tight in hishand.

“Come on, kid. Before you get yourself into more trouble.”

Jack’s voice was commanding but not upset. I stopped thrashing as soon as I realized that it was him. I didn’t know what it was about him that made me trust him somuch.

“How did you getdown?”

“I took the stairs.”

Thatfast?

“This elevator is unusually slow,” he explained at my confusedlook.

The first drops of sweat beaded down his forehead. I could see his heart hammering under that hard chest. If he was out of breath, then he was doing a darn good job keeping that to himself.

“It’s only five floors,” he added.

“Where are we going? Please don’t take me to prison. But I can’t stay here either. Mary’s gonna killme.”

“You leave Mary to me, and let me helpyou.”

“I knew she would freakout.”

He stopped for a moment and took a look at me, breathing harder. Was his patience thinning? “Why can’t you see that I want to helpyou?”

“Because no one ever has. Well, not no one.” I rubbed my belly again.

“Did you leave him to protect the child you’re carrying?” he asked.

I nodded. That was partially true. Staying in Pace wasn’t even an option. If Ben ever found out that I was carrying John’s child, he’d take that one away from me as well, right after he tortured me to tell him where I hid the money.

“What do you say if I get you settled in about a hundred feet away from Mary?” He winked. “Will you staythen?”

I didn’t understand what he meant by that until I was standing on the penthouse floor in the building across the street from Jack’s. We crossed the street through an underground tunnel. There were a few stores there and little boutiques selling magazines, cigarettes, andgum.

“There’s a subway connection here,” Jack explained when we crossed.

Moments later, I stared across the street to where Mary was pacing back and forth, almost like a caged raging bull. Thank God bulls couldn’t fly because I was afraid she’d fly over here and break through the window.

I turned around just as Jack came out of the bathroom. He pulled up his zipper and caught my gaze following the movement of his fingers over his crotch. I felt my cheeks flush withheat.

“You didn’t run away,” hesaid.

“Nah, I think Mary’s growing on me a little.”

He chuckled.

“This is Xavier’s place?” I asked.

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