writhing from his touch.
Rory gave his head an angry shake. It
was not a road he wanted to follow. Solitary life suited him best. He’d
made his choices ten years ago, and he would stick by them. With a defeated
sigh, he shut the front door behind him, picked up his bag from the floor, and
extracted the key to unlock his room.
But his imagination taunted him with
glimpses of what life could be like if he relented, compromised, reconciled with
his family, sought to make a different kind of life.
A life that included his wife.
* * * *
Grace clutched the bedding tighter
around her, unsure of what had woken her. She’d explored the apartment until
midnight, admiring the stately pieces of furniture in the living room, flicking
open countless books from the walnut armoire to study the dedications from
decades ago. To Marjorie, with love, from Fredrick. To Fredrick, always
yours, Marjorie.
A trail of footsteps thudded through
the hall. Grace jolted up in bed and listened to the creaking sounds. Panic
tightened her stomach. She flung the covers aside and jumped to her feet. The
room offered nothing she could use as a weapon, unless she twisted out a wire
hanger and attempted to poke the intruder in the eye with the metal spike. She
edged across the floor and silently turned the door handle.
In the hall, the locked door she had
assumed led to a cleaning closet stood ajar. She slipped out and tiptoed closer,
until she could peek inside. A small room opened before her, with a narrow bed
on the left, wall-mounted shelves on the right, and cardboard boxes stacked on
the floor beneath the shelves. A shadow crossed the room through an archway at
the far end.
Grace slammed the door shut and
turned the key in the lock until it clicked. She didn’t recall seeing a key when
she tried the door yesterday, but she brushed the thought aside. With so much to
explore, she was bound to have missed things.
Her pulse kicked into a wild gallop
as she scurried into the bedroom to get her cell phone and dial 911. Her hands
shook, and she pressed a wrong number. She raced back to the hall and tried
again, her gaze shutting between the keypad and the door handle that rattled as
the burglar tried to break free.
“Grace?” a muffled voice echoed
through the door.
“9-1-1 Operator, what is your
emergency?” said the voice on the cell phone.
“Rory?” Grace muttered.
“This is 9-1-1. What is your
emergency?”
Grace lifted the telephone to her
ear. “None. It’s my…husband, not an intruder. Sorry to have troubled you.” She
pressed a button to end the call.
“Grace, let me out!”
She leaned against the oak panel and
touched it with her fingertips, as if to check for flames on the other side.
“What are you doing here?” she shouted. Nothing made sense any more. The whole
basis of her marriage had suddenly been yanked away. If there was a conspiracy,
someone had to explain it to her.
“Open up, Grace.”
“No!” Her hands clenched into fists.
Doug and Debbie had introduced her to Rory. If the whole thing was a cruel joke
at her expense, she would never forgive them. Never . “Why are you here?”
she asked, her voice tight.
“My flight has been pushed back to
Friday. I need to take out body armor and surveillance equipment. I’ve arranged
for them to be delivered to the New York office. They should arrive on
Thursday.”
“Are we married?”
“Yes, Grace, we’re married. Until
death do us part , remember?” The door shook with another rattle. “Open the
door, Grace, before I lose my patience.”
She twisted the lock and toppled into
Rory, who yanked the door open with her fingers still grasping the key.
His arms closed around her, clutching
her to his bare chest. A rumpled T-shirt hung from one of his hands, and the fly
of his jeans flapped open. “I’m sorry I scared you. I came in on the red-eye. I
was going to have a shower before I crashed. I didn’t
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