Page 72 of So Close

I crush the end of my cigarette, extinguishing it. “I don’t know.”

“You still had long hair when I saw you last year,” Ben says.

“About that …” I focus on Robert because his mind isn’t yet clouded by age. “Can you tell me more about what you’ve seen?”

He takes a long drink of whiskey, stretching back in his chair. Then he shrugs. “I don’t know what to say. I’ve never told anyone but Pop because it’s crazy.”

“You saw a woman in the house. Why’d you think it was me?”

“She was tall, like you. Thin, like you. I was down by the water, so it wasn’t like she was right in front of me, but she was a knockout, like you.” He shrugs again, clearly embarrassed.

“It was you,” Ben insists. “I’d know you anywhere.”

Your words echo through my mind.I haven’t been back.

“Lily!” The wind carries your voice to me, scattering my roiling thoughts. That you’re shouting for Lily is a soul-rattling shock, as it’s the first time you’ve called me by her name since I woke.

Shoving the chair back, I leap to my feet. I search the beach and see you running. “Kane!”

Your head turns toward me, and you sprint with the astonishing speed and grace I once admired on the basketball court, your feet flying across the sand. Your beautiful face is pale. Your eyes are dark coins, a payment for Charon to ferry you across the River Styx to me, your hell. Guilt settles in my gut. I race to you, meeting you partway. You snatch me up, squeezing so tightly I fear a rib will crack. I welcome the pain.

Your hand thrusts into my hair, anchoring me against you. My feet hover above the sand. You’re quivering violently, and I hold you as tightly as I can, keeping you together. The picture Ben painted of you on the shore wracked by grief is in the forefront of my mind. Coming back to an empty house must have revived that pain in you, and I beg forgiveness.

“I’m sorry,” I tell you, a sob in my throat. “I should’ve left a note.”

“You can’t just leave like that. I need to know where you are.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” I gentle you with my hands, stroking your back. “I wasn’t thinking.”

My gaze scans the beach for danger. It frightens me to have you out in the open. The flowers are a taunting revelation that our location is known, as is my recent past. We’re exposed in every way possible, and you are the target.

Ben’s gruff voice calls out, “You didn’t have a wake, boy. She’s trapped in purgatory, held between this life and the next.”

Your chest expands in a shuddering inhale. “I’ll keep holding her tight then, Ben,” you shout back, “so she’ll stay.”

37

WITTE

Shirtless and barefooted,sweat from exertion slowly drying in the afternoon air, I lean against the balcony railing and read the latest text to my mobile.

Paid in cash. No name. No license plate. VIN obscured. Full video emailed as attachment. The Range Rover had a tracking device on the undercarriage.

I study the grainy black-and-white surveillance photo of a gentleman exiting a florist shop in Greenwich. His head and face are clean-shaven, his eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses. He is a large man, muscular – in some parlance, he would be called “the muscle” – dressed well in a suit with the jacket loose enough to conceal a gun.

Movement through the black-framed French doors draws my gaze to Danica as she collects my discarded clothes from the white carpet of her living room. My lover of many years picks up after me, cooks for me and pampers me. All of which is unnecessary but lovely. My daughter says it’s serendipitous that I found a woman willing to accommodate the demands of my career. That Danica is a dazzling beauty who charms me with her wit and easy companionship is a bonus.

I smell her on my skin, and a primal need stretches inside me.

Opening my email, I skim the written report and then watch the video. It begins on the street, the vantage courtesy of a camera on the opposite corner. He arrives in a black Bugatti, a vehicle so distinct it’s evident he doesn’t care if anyone remembers him. He unfolds from behind the wheel, neatly buttoning his jacket before entering the shop. While he’s far too large to be truly agile, he conveys danger and menace in the fluidity of his movements and the way he thoroughly assesses his surroundings for hazards before stepping away from his car.

I forward the email and ring Mr Black. He answers immediately, and I begin without preamble, “I suggest returning to the penthouse. The beach house is too exposed.”

“I’ll discuss with Lily.”

Danica has slipped into a sheer white kimono, her nude perfection still on full display. She moves with the sinuous grace of a cat, her platinum hair falling to her waist.

Even after years together, I am still too eager and too lustful with her. I’ve just taken her on the floor, which she’d demanded I do the instant we rushed laughing through the front door, hot with desire like teenagers.Fuck me now, Nicky, she’d ordered, pulling me down on top of her in a tangle of silken limbs. Nothing could have deterred me from responding to that command. And when I’d pulled free of her sated body in a rush to answer my phone, she evinced no pique at being abandoned so swiftly after orgasm.

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