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I shook my head as the car hit the road to Manhattan and sped past houses and signboards that I didn't care to read. Elise was right. I should have never involved the CIA. It was a mess now without clean fixing.
I pressed the accelerator down, and the speedometer read 100. It didn't matter how fast the car went on this empty road. I couldn't think properly, couldn't decide what to do. Go back to Indonesia right away to run with my family, or stay here and follow my initial plan to kill Elise’s husband?
I couldn’t return to my hotel anyway, so I kept the car moving. A few miles down the road, I parked the car at a small motel along the roadside. It was quiet and had lots of trees in front and behind it. Only the dim light bulb behind the small gate gave the place away.
I drove in, stepped out of the vehicle, and walked inside. The owners were a man and his wife, and they told me about their room rates.
I just needed a couple of hours to think, figure out how to kill Marcello, and get the hell out of this country before Luck found out I knew the truth about Elijah Radcliff.
Chapter 21
Elise
The sound of the waves crashing on the beach lulled me as the water flowed to my feet and then went back again. Standing in between Andrei and me was a little girl. A toddler, with the same light hair and blue eyes as Andrei. When the girl looked at us, her eyes shone with excitement. She looked at Andrei intensely and then at the water. Then she grabbed Andrei’s hand and pulled him forward. Andrei obeyed, bending down and following along as they walked closer to the sea. I wanted to join them but watching them together filled me with so much joy.
The sea was strong and would have knocked the girl off her feet, but Andrei held her by the waist so the water could not pull her down.
Then I woke up. I had been dreaming about Andrei before, but this was the first time I dreamed about our child. I smiled when I thought about her in my dream, but when I scanned the room, wanting to tell Andrei about her, he wasn’t there.
It had been days, yet there was no news from him. I got up from the bed and set my feet on the floor. I rubbed my face with my hands and walked into the living room. Nancy, the agent in charge of protecting me, came out of the spare bedroom wearing pajamas and holding a book in her left hand.
“You all right?” she wondered.
I rubbed the back of my neck and asked the important question. “I’m fine. Have you heard from Andrei?”
She shook her head and walked past me to the kitchen. She didn’t look back when she said, “No, we haven’t heard anything. Do you want coffee? I’m making some.”
“No, I am okay,” I answered.
I looked out the window, watching the waves crash on the shore. We had plans to live our lives here and stay out of trouble. But if anything happened to Andrei, there would be only a few people to blame. I was the first, then the CIA.
“I just want to know if he is okay. Or at least where he is.”
Nancy put down the coffee pot and came to stand next to me. She put her left hand on my shoulder and stared at my face. “Honey, you will be fine no matter what.” She smiled. “I know how hard it is for you right now, but you are capable of many things. And I can guarantee you one thing... you will see him again.”
Her voice was calm, but not as comforting as she thought it would be. I smiled nervously and nodded. “Thank you.”
She looked so sure of herself, like she was expecting me to hold myself up and not worry at all. But there was a possibility that something would go wrong. What if something had already happened to Andrei? I should brace myself for the worst.
I headed to the bedroom after that. In the last couple of days, before he left, Andrei had given me the password to the laptop. The thing was sitting on the nightstand. Whatever was inside, he had told me, it would make me happier. A laptop filled with pictures and details of his wealth.
Memories, money.
Could that make me happier? The answer was no.
I sat down and stared at his things in the house, the sneakers on the floor and the bottle of cologne on the nightstand.
Instinctively, I put a hand on my stomach and looked out the window again. The wind blew the palm branches outside, and the sun was warming up for the day. Andrei had said three to seven days. I took a deep breath and tried to think of the beautiful things we would do when he returned, like shopping for baby things and visiting places around the city.
When I got up and walked to the bathroom, Nancy hurried to her bedroom and spoke in a low whisper. I followed her and knocked.
“Is everything okay?”
She hung up and smiled at me. Fake.
“Yes… I… I want us to go out and have breakfast. Is that okay?”
I nodded, narrowing my eyes at her.
