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“She asked about Benjamin. She wanted to know more about where he was taken.” The question lurks beneath the statement. She already knows what I want to know.
“Like I said, Piper is an optimist. She thinks Benjamin could still be alive.”
Noelle looks down at the floor. “I told her what I thought.”
“I don’t care what you think,” I retort. “I care about what you know. If you tell me everything that happened between when you took Benjamin from his crib and the last time you saw him, then…”
She stares at me, waiting for me to finish the sentence. But I don’t know how to. Every fantasy I’ve had of this moment ends in Noelle lifeless on the floor. I’m not sure how to even pretend there is another possibility.
“Then what?” she snaps. “What will happen to me? Or maybe you haven’t gotten that far yet. Maybe your plan doesn’t extend beyond pumping me for information.”
She’s holding the gun more confidently now, once again aiming at my chest. I wonder how good of a shot she is.
When I don’t answer, she grimaces. “I knew it. You’re fucking lying,” she says, shaking her head at her own gullibility. “You were never going to help me. Piper never asked you to spare me, did she?”
Her upper lip curls. I’ve seen this same expression on the faces of too many men to mistake it for anything else now.
Noelle is ready to kill.
45
PIPER
I fall asleep with Timofey’s warmth blanketing me, his heart beating against my back.
The next time I open my eyes, I’m alone.
I know immediately that he isn’t behind me. But I know he isn’t in the room, either. It’s the way animals know a storm is coming. Some mechanism deep inside of me that registers the difference in the air. The lack of him.
I roll over, arm stretched across the cold mattress. He’s been gone for a while, then. Long enough for his body heat to fade from the blankets.
I wipe sleep from my eyes and sit up. His phone isn’t on the bedside table and his wallet isn’t in the cup on the dresser.
Would he have gone to the gala without me?
“No.” I shake my head and lay back on the pillows. Wherever he is, I’m sure he’ll be back soon.
I haven’t had much to eat the last twenty-four hours. I consider padding down to the kitchen. Maybe Akim is there and can make me something. Though when I try to think about what I’d ask him for, nothing comes to mind.
I pat my stomach. “You’re going to starve your mom if you don’t quit making me nauseous.”
Mom.
It’s the first time I’ve really considered the title. It’s the first time I’ve ever applied it to myself, that’s for sure.
I smile. “I’m going to be a mom.Yourmom.”
Timofey will be a dad.
The thought sends an immediate shiver down my spine. I feel a quiver low in my core that tells me it wouldn’t take much at all for me to have an entire brood of kids with this man.
I can see it, a little movie in my head. Timofey and I, surrounded by dark-haired, blue-eyed little angels.
“He’s going to be such a good dad to you,” I whisper, curling my arm over my midsection. “He will always protect you and take care of you. You’ll be so loved.”
I close my eyes and settle back into the pillows just as the door creaks open.
My smile splits my face wide. “I was just talking about you.”
