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He won’t let me out of his sight since the attack, and I wake fitfully through the night to find him staring at me like he’ll burn the world down before letting anything else happen to me. I can’t say I don’t feel loved and protected, but this feels like a nightmare I’ll never wake from.
“Anything from Robert?” Patrick asks as his hand rests on my thigh.
We’re on the way to Hope Pizza. Patrick took the last two days off to basically hold me, have sex whenever I requested because I couldn’t take him staring at me like I’d break, and feed me until I couldn’t move. I know he’s trying to care away the attack, but it’s getting to the point where I don’t know what either of us is supposed to do anymore.
He also has to work, especially going into holiday season. Which requires his laptop, and he left that there in the flurry of activity after the attack. Sure, one of the family members could bring it to us, but I’m stifled and starting to feel the panic rising in my throat by the second. I need to get out, even if it means the short drive to and from the restaurant, where I’ll never be out of his sight.
“Not yet. He said the lab could take up to a week, which is still a rush job that I’m paying extra for. Not that I care, it’s just … we won’t hear for a while.”
And definitely not before I have to put half a million dollars in the shack down by the Delaware River. Even though I can get the money, I haven’t yet. I don’t know what I’m doing, wavering like this, but I’ve never been in a situation where everything is so life or death. It’s causing me to stall.
Because the life I’m risking is Patrick’s.
“I love you.” He palms my cheek as we turn onto the main drag of Hope Crest.
I lean into the touch, seeking any source of comfort I can get.
“Of course we’re driving through the thick of Turkey Fest,” he mutters, angling the car through the crowd of people swarming the streets.
Residents and tourists in their corduroy and flannel hold buckets of caramel corn, turkey legs, and copper mugs that look filled with something like a Moscow mule. Smiles on their faces, excited about the week of giving thanks for what you have, they’re all unaware of the pain in the passenger seat as I observe them out the window.
“In and out, okay? Mom and Liam are manning the front of the restaurant, but we’re not staying,” Patrick warns, knowing I don’t want to be shut up in the house any longer.
I know it’s what they all think will keep me safest, but that voice telling me he watches us keeps echoing in my head.
He parks, and we get out, me ducking beneath the brim of the baseball hat I’m wearing. Patrick rounds the car in a hurry and grabs hold of my hand tightly as we walk in the back entrance of his family’s restaurant.
“Patty, that you?” I hear Liam immediately as we enter. “Come in here?”
Patrick sighs and throws me a weary look because, of course, we’d get talked into something while coming here.
“Oh shit, Cassandra. Didn’t realize you were here. How you doing?” Liam is kneeling on the floor, cleaning up a large red spill that looks like a broken sauce jar.
I shrug, not trusting myself to speak.
Liam nods and looks to Patrick. “Can you run these orders up to table twelve for me? August broke two sauce jars and there is glass all in this puddle, I need to concentrate. We’re shorthanded and—”
“Yeah, sure.” Patrick would never leave his family in a lurch.
Nor does he know how serious the threat is or potentially how risky it is for me to be in public without having already gotten that money together or formulated a plan. But my tongue is frozen, as it has been since the attack.
He grabs the tray of food from the prep station and nods for me to follow him. I linger in the hallway, where I can still see the restaurant, but I’m not in full view of the customers. Patrick swings over to the table, chatting jovially with the family sitting there while he serves their food. I have no idea how he can plaster on that facade right now, but he’s miraculous at it. A better actor than even I can be at the moment.
Liam comes to stand next to me, and I assume the spill is taken care of.
“You okay? Truly?” He nudges my shoulder.
I swallow the lies in my throat. “Getting there.”
Patrick comes to join us, surveying the dining room and the chaos on the street.
“Isn’t that Miss Murphy?” Patrick points out the window to a familiar-looking woman standing at a display of dog sweaters across the street.
“What?” Liam snaps, his gaze zeroing in.
When I follow his gaze, mine lands right on Gabrielle, the woman who interviewed for the theater job the same day as I did.
“Wait, I know her. She interviewed for a job at the playhouse, we got to talking.”
