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“Oh,” I said stupidly.
Did someone ever get used to being a threat to the people in their lives? I could maybe ask Ronan, but he didn’t seem very chatty this morning. I settled into the seat and directed the vents away from me. “So, what’s this new plan?”
He took the left turn fast and I had to brace myself against the door so I didn’t slosh coffee all over myself. “Jesus, Ronan.”
“I’m going to put you on the bus in the village. The bus will take you to Carrickfergus and from there, you’ll get the train down to London.”
“By myself?”
“By yourself?”
I wished that didn’t make me scared. I really wished I were tougher than that, but it would be a lie. This new plan was terrifying. “Why are we doing this? Is it because of last night?” Was he punishing me for trying to fuck him the way I had? Truthfully, I felt bad about it. Like I’d taken something from he didn’t want to give, even though he didn’t really fuck me. He’d been inside of me just a little and not for long. Between my legs, I was tender and sore and all I wanted was more. “I’m sorry that I forced the—”
“No.”
I waited for something more from him. Some sign of the man who’d made me farl with jam and beans. But he wasn’t in the car with us today.
“But . . . what about you? We were going to go together. The two of us.”
“You don’t look like the person they’re looking for.”
“That’s good right?”
“But I do.”
I pursed my lips at him. “We should have dyed your hair. Put you in some flannel.”
He was silent.
“So . . . that’s it? Really?”
“I’ll give you the address in London. You’ve got to memorize it, like, and we’ll buy you a burner phone in the village. You’ll be with your sister by sunset.”
That sounded good. But not good enough to change my heartache over this goodbye. I sipped my coffee, and he drove too fast, and knowing something was coming and wanting it to come had never been such two separate things before. It was harder than I thought to hold them both in my hands.
The village was dark; rows and rows of small and connected houses lined cobblestone roads. Dogs at the ends of chains barked as we went by. There was a castle in the distance, lit up and a little menacing. I wanted to ask Ronan about it, but the man driving the car was a little menacing too. So, I concentrated on not spilling my coffee and seeing my sister.
Ronan turned onto a downhill road that led to the harbor with boats bobbing in a marina. There were small stretches of businesses on either side of the road. Bakeries and coffee shops and chippys and clothing stores. Ronan pulled into a grocery parking lot.
“Sit tight,” he said and left.
I sat in the quiet car watching a few early shoppers stroll past, in and out of the brightly lit doors of the grocery. One of the people, a man, stopped by the car and knocked on the passenger side window.
I jumped and screamed in my throat.
“Open the window,” he said to me through the glass. He wore a cap pulled down low so I couldn’t see his face and his hands were in the pockets of his thick coat.
Morellis, I thought. Dead or alive.
I threw my leg over the gear shift, climbing from the passenger seat to the driver’s seat.
He leaned down, glaring at me through the window. “I have paperwork. For Ronan?” The words didn’t register. I had my hand on the door handle, thinking I could run.
“Jaysus,” the guy said and then opened the passenger side door, tossing a big envelope from under his jacket onto the seat. It all happened so fast I didn’t even have time to begin this scream.
He gave me a rude gesture through the windshield and walked on like nothing had happened, and I laughed so I wouldn’t cry out of fear.
I picked up the envelope and tipped it over into the seat. A deep red passport slipped out, as well as a driver’s license and a bank card. All with the picture Ronan had taken of me in the cottage bedroom.
My hair looked like a five year old had cut it and without makeup on, my face was almost completely washed out. I didn’t even have eyebrows. But perhaps the strangest difference was the set of my jaw and the look in my eyes.
Yeah. The woman staring back at me—Beth Soeterick of Brussels—was a stranger. Even to me.
Ronan opened the door and found me sitting in his seat. I scrambled back over to the passenger side.
“Glenn came?” he asked looking at the passport in my hand.
“Yeah. Scared me.”
“I should have warned you, but I thought he’d come find me in the store. He must have recognized you from the picture.”
