AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I race upstairs to my jewelry box and flip it open. The two shiny coins sit where I left them, stacked together. One gets tucked into my pocket, and I rush back downstairs. Alden stares at the flattened disc when I hold it in front of his face.
“Do you remember this?”
His fingers brush over mine as he takes it from my hand and stares at it. “I know it means something to me, to us. I can feel that.” After a moment, he adds, “I carried it in my wallet. For luck.”
Tears stream down my face as I nod. “Since we were teenagers. I have a matching one. I’ll tell you the story of where we got them when you come back. So, you have to come back, understand?”
He nods and sweeps a tear off my cheek. “I promise.”
I take his hand and bring it to my mouth to kiss the coin. “For luck.”
“I love you, El.”
“I love you. Please be careful.”
I follow him to the front door and watch him trek through the snow. It’s a good thing he drove his truck. Oliver’s car wouldn’t have gone anywhere in this. He’s already cleaned it off, but it takes him a minute of rocking it forward and back to get it out of the driveway.
Once it’s on the salted, plowed road, he pulls away. I can’t bring myself to go back inside until he’s turned the corner and out of sight.
Now what the hell am I supposed to do?
In the weeks after I lost him before, I shut down and went through the motions without really thinking or feeling. This time has to be different. He isn’t dead, and I’m going to see him again. I need to be alert and aware in case he needs my help.
The next few hours drag by. There’s no one I can talk to or tell what’s going on. Not without risking his four hour head start. At one o’clock, about an hour after his deadline to turn himself into the police, my phone rings with a call from Milo.
I know why he’s calling before he says it. “I’m at the shop. Cops were here looking for Alden. You can probably expect them at your place before long. He sawed through that anklet and left it in his apartment.” It takes me a moment to realize he said Alden, not Oliver.
“Alden told you?”
“He did.”
“You believe him?”
“Yup. It lines up with what I’ve seen of him lately. The bikes and shit, you know? It shocked the hell out of me, but I believe it’s him. As close as they were in looks, it could happen.” He pauses for a second. “Do you have any doubts?”
“None. He told me stuff only he would know.”
“How are you handling things?”
A snort shoots out of me. “You mean finding out my fiancé has been alive all this time and right in front of my face or knowing I could lose him again to prison or being prepared for cops to breathe down my neck and to be a public spectacle again? Fine, everything’s fine.”
Milo chuckles. “I can come and stay with you if you don’t want to be alone when the police show up.”
“Nah, I’ll be okay. Alden’s alive. I can handle anything now. I’d rather have you keeping Stokes Brothers running. Do the other guys know?”
His hesitation is telling. “They do, but Smith is…struggling with it.”
“He doesn’t believe him?”
“I don’t think he knows what to believe.”
“It’s alright. It’s crazy and hard to swallow. We’ll get proof soon.” We have to. My phone beeps, and I glance at the screen. “Lowell is calling now. I have to go. Thanks for believing him, Milo. He needs you to be on his side.”
“Always have been. On yours too. Take care, and call if shit gets crazy.”
When I switchover to answer Lowell’s call, he’s quick and to the point. “Is Mr. Stokes with you? I'm trying to reach him.”
“No, he left about five hours ago. I don’t have a way to get in touch with him.”
