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“Crazy?” He chuckles, but it’s dry. “I know.”
“And the explosion?”
“Six months ago. In a restaurant. Apparently a gas stove exploded. Tables and chairs flew, mirrors and glasses broke.”
“Let me guess: for some reason on that day you sat further from the kitchen than usual?”
He shakes his head. “A guy toppled over me. I hit my head pretty hard on the floor, but he took the brunt of the explosion instead of me.”
I smile, my face a bit numb. “You’re lucky. I mean, in spite of everything.”
“I sure am. After all, I found you.”
Awh shucks… “Shut up.”
This time his chuckle is warm and sweet like melted caramel.
Meanwhile, his words are sinking into my brain like stones.
“Wait… you think someone is trying to kill you.”
He nods, falling quiet.
“This makes no sense. You said you haven’t done anything wrong.”
He shrugs. “I didn’t say it makes any fucking sense.”
“Accidents happen, and some can be pretty weird. Maybe you had a bad year, and now things will look up. Has anyone attacked you since the car crash?”
“No.” He licks his lips, glancing around. A nervous gesture. “But nobody knows where I am.”
“You’re hiding here.” I sigh. “I know I told you to be suspicious, but I doubt someone is after you for no reason.”
“Ray…” He closes his eyes, leans his head back, and he suddenly seems tired. Exhausted. “My uncle died a year ago, and I don’t think it was from natural causes.”
This time I sit up, and he lets me. I look down at him. “What are you saying?”
“I think he was murdered.”
STORM
No idea why the fuck I’m telling her of my suspicions. Nobody believes me. They think my uncle’s death affected me, made me paranoid.
Keeping a gun in the drawer of my bedside table, and another here, in the bathroom. Guns he taught me how to use. As if he knew all along our lives might be in danger.
I step under the shower and wash my self quickly and angrily.
Fucking Hawk. Fucking Rook. At least if they believed me…
Fuckers. If they weren’t my brothers in all but blood, if they hadn’t stuck with me through it all… Until I vanished. The tabloids wondered what happened, but my uncle’s well-oiled company machinery stepped in and an announcement was made that I was in Europe, for business.
That was the last news I read. I stocked the huge freezer in the basement of the beach house for food for a month, if not two, and hid. What for, I didn’t know.
I step out and grab a towel, rub my face dry. I guess my head was screwed on wrong, my every nerve end on edge. The first two weeks, I expected thugs to jump out of the bushes at any second and shoot me or knife me.
But nothing happened, and I began to relax. Jogging on the beach. Sitting outdoors. Swimming in the pool.
Until she arrived.
