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The currency places her in Macau, China. We’re still trying to figure out how and where. Her name does not show up in any database for any plane, no bank statements showing cash used, no cell phone, nothing. We originally ran both her maiden and married names with no luck. She’s likely under a false identity. We have to dig some more. -H.
Eyebrows furrowed, he read the email again.China? Colin thought. His lip curled.
The bitch.
His hand tightened on his phone and he grimaced on a rough inhale as that word came back. He’d called her so many names the first few weeks after she left, silently and to himself, of course. But then the first local redheaded woman showed up dead and he firmly stowed away any bad thoughts he had about her. He refused to taint her memory like that, worried the next red headed woman would be her, though it wasn’t. Then the next lady showed up dead and he started truly panicking. After the fourth local redhead showed up, Jonathan threatened to put him in a seventy-two-hour psychiatric hold if he couldn’t get control of himself.
He’d ID'd every one of them. Each trip to the morgue killed a piece of his soul until he felt he’d never be the same again. Consequently, Colin began to torture himself in the gym to keep the anxiety that was his ever-present companion at bay.Then he moved on to broadening his sleeve tattoo, the hum of the needle and the pain overtaking his mind, canceling out his thoughts just enough to be bearable. Between the bodily torture, boxing with Alexander, renovating a small room off their closet, and the endless hours of work, he'd managed to make it through these fourteen weeks by the skin of his teeth.
How could she do this to me? Colin thought for the twelve thousandth time. With shaky hands, he knocked and pushed himself into Allison's princess themed room. He gave her a little smile, seeing she was tucked in for bed and Jonathan was sitting next to her in a recliner with his legs propped up, reading her a bedtime story in the glow of her pink princess lamp.
“Uncle Collie!” Allison smiled brightly, looking happy and content, tucked securely under the covers with her stuffed animals. Her normally gray cheeks glowed pink like her room. Finally, she was looking healthy. He bent and gave her a hug and a kiss on the top of her head, ruffling her strawberry blonde curls gently. However, Colin’s smile wavered when he heard ‘Uncle’ and those familiar feelings of insecurity came back hard.
“Hey, lil’ bit,” Colin said in greeting. He sat in a nearby chair and typed out instructions on his phone for the flight crew to have the plane ready to be boarded as soon as possible, and then messaged his personal assistant to get the hell up and pack, as she was coming too. He listened while Jonathan finished Allison’s bedtime story and closed the book, leaning down to kiss her forehead.
“Goodnight, daddy,” Allison said, yawning, curling into her pink bunny. “Goodnight, Uncle Colin,”
“Night princess.” Colin winced against the endearment as he made his way out of Allison’s room, hearing Jonathan shut the door behind them as they entered the hallway.
“Update?” Jonathan said shortly, his eyes flickering over Colin’s form tightly.
“She’s in Macau, China!” He hissed, throwing him a filthy look and pacing down the hallway with quick steps.
“Wow, she ran ran, huh?” Jonathan said, his steps quickly overtaking Colin’s as he hurried his way into the expansive primary bedroom, entering his and Vanessa’s closet and pulling down a suitcase that he began throwing clothes into.
“Seems so,” Colin said. His eyes stayed tight on Jonathan’s marble top island as he contemplated, for the billionth time, what she was doing with herself if she wasn’t dead. How’d she get fifty grand so soon?
The same question he’d asked her for months before having to drag it out of her.
“Hey,” Jonathan said, pausing briefly in his packing. “She’s alive. That’s the most important thing right now. Now let’s go get the girl back so she can stay that way.”
Colin nodded and waited as Jonathan finished up before they bid Vanessa goodbye and took off into the night towards the airport where their private plane was waiting.
***
EIGHT DAYS LATER. Macau, China. 10pm.
Olivia followed her friend and bodyguard, Erick, to the front of her bungalow. It was late, and he was once again walking her home from the local ramen restaurant.
She took out her keys and went to unlock the door, pausing for a second to glance up at the man, whose brown eyes were so similar to Colin’s. Feeling that familiar, haunting ache in her chest, she spoke quickly before she lost her nerve. “Hey, want to come in for a small nightcap before you go? I have popcorn, and I could use a friend right now,” she asked with a touch of sadness in her voice.
She wasn’t lying, her nights were becoming increasingly worse, and she knew if she didn’t have a night soon where she didn’t cry herself to sleep, then she was going to have to get on depression meds, and she didn’t want to do that.Her eyes burned with unshed tears.
Erick was nice, but he was no substitute for Colin, and Olivia knew she was just using his looks to appease herself. She missed her husband and her family and for the millionth time she wondered if she hadn’t misjudged the situation, only reacting out of hurt and extreme heartbreak. But the writing had been quite literally on the wall. How could she have misinterpreted it?
“Sure, but I gotta get back to my house soon,” Erick said, putting his hand at the back of his neck and squeezing. He briefly thought to himself that he couldn’t let himself go all the way with her as this woman was clearly damaged. He wondered about her. He didn’t have the whole story, but just the look in her eyes and the stance of her body made him wary. She’d been through something painful and he wasn’t sure he wanted to get near her with a ten-foot pole.
No, he’d accept his generous checks from Gypsy and go about his business as usual.
Olivia nodded with a small smile that never reached her eyes and opened the door, seeing her lamp glowing on a side table next to her kitchen. She threw her keys and her phone on the side table, placing her purse on the countertop and grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge, tossing it to him playfully.
God, anything to get my spirits up, she thought, feeling the familiar pang of grief glowing in her heart and making her chest tight. She was hopeful some company would help.
“Hey, find something on the television. I’ll be right back. I need to get out of my heels,” she said, padding her way into the space to the hallway. Sniffing, she scrunched her brows, noticing her place smelled different, slightly too familiar.
What is that? she thought, feeling that glowing, gaping feeling in her chest burn hotter.
Making her way through the dark and into her bedroom, her skin prickled as she went deeper into the room, gasping as her heel caught on something. Stumbling briefly, she was distracted from the niggling feeling as she bent down to extract herself.
