Lincoln’s bedroom. I remembered it, mostly because it was the size of a walk-in closet. I struggled to sit up. Bad idea. The pain swirled around me, putting black dots in my vision. I stilled, one hand at my head, the other clutching the sheet to my chest. Lincoln was nowhere to be seen, and his apartment had an empty feeling, like when you know you’re the only one home.
I moved my head slowly to look around. A note lay on the bedside table. I struggled to focus on the words. Take these. Don’t go outside. Don’t call anyone. Only open the door for me. No one else. I’ll be back soon. “These” were some painkillers next to the note. I followed that instruction to the letter, downing the pills with the glass of water he’d set nearby. Slick.
The alarm clock said 9:14 a.m. I’d been out all night and into the day. Night. Last night. My memories hit me, dwarfing the pain in my head until it was laughable. I had been kidnapped, was going to be murdered, but I’d saved myself. I’d wrecked the bastards, and Lincoln had pulled me to safety. I was alive because he’d found me.
Even more incredible, he’d said he’d forgiven me. What I’d done was unforgivable, something that I could never live down. But Lincoln, the man with a violent past, had given away his forgiveness like a freebie. It was too good to be true. More accurately, he was too good to be true. I would never deserve a man like that, a soul like his. But I could try to do better. Scratch that. I would try to do better. I didn’t know how, not yet. But I would make it up to him somehow.
Where had he gone? Was he safe? Would the men who’d kidnapped me be back, assuming they’d survived the crash? I shivered. The fear raked its claws across its cage in my breast, a threat. I took a deep breath. If I was going to have any chance at being a better person for Lincoln, and for me, I was going to have to change. To do things differently. I approached the fear and set it free.
“I am afraid.” I said it out loud, as if it would have some effect.
At that moment, I decided that fear wouldn’t rule me any longer. If I was afraid, well, fuck, then I was just afraid. I would live. I would move on. What I would not do was betray the ones I loved. Love. I loved Lincoln, loved him even more than I loved myself. I knew it now. Now that it was probably too late.
The memory of deafening Mediterranean music wafted through the pounding in my head, and I remembered Lincoln walking away into the darkness toward the contract killers. Then there’d been a fire blazing through the dark. What had become of the rough men?
My vision cleared a bit, the pills working quickly on my empty stomach. Any clothes I’d worn the night before were gone. I saw the belongings from my purse piled on top of Lincoln’s chest of drawers, but the purse itself was missing. My cell phone was there, too, though it was dismembered. He’d separated the pieces and ditched the battery, making it unusable and me untraceable. I suspected he’d taken my clothes and my bag and burned them or got rid of them some other way. Any blood that might have been on them was gone, charred or covered up. He’d erased any evidence that I’d been in the wrecked car. Smart. I wouldn’t have to worry about explaining anything to the police. Not that I’d talk to them anyway.
I threw my feet over the side of the bed to stand. The blood defied gravity and somehow rushed to my head, causing an intense ache as I slowly locked my knees. I stumbled to the bathroom and rinsed my face with cool water from the tap. There was a bandage at my temple. I removed it and grimaced at the cut. Then I saw the dark circles under my eyes, the telltale sign of head trauma. Jesus.
After toileting, I dressed in one of Lincoln’s shirts. All of his pants swallowed me, so no hope there. I couldn’t go back to my apartment. DiSalvo had likely already discovered his men had failed. He’d send more and more until I was dead. No place was safe. Not even here, under an AUSA’s lock and key.
I sat back down on the bed and stared out Lincoln’s window, past the fire escape and into the blue sky beyond. The rain of the previous night seemed to have swept the firmament clean, giving it a new start. If only new starts were more readily available for the people on the ground.
I laughed. I was alone, laughing like a crazy lady in someone else’s apartment. I guess that’s all you can do sometimes. When you realize you’re royally fucked sideways with a studded dildo, what else is there to do but laugh at the humor of it all?
I calmed myself, putting a lid back on the hysterical stew bubbling up inside.
I knew what I had to do.
I fumbled for Lincoln’s phone. It was the corded type with huge numbers, like for elderly people. Must have come with the apartment. I dialed.