The Espionage Effect(105)
“Perfect.”
Now the broken mirror reflected how I saw the world. Fractured.
Miserably unfulfilled, I shuffled back into the main room to survey the damage.
“Not enough,” I muttered, disgusted. No amount of destruction would ever be enough to balance the damage I’d sustained on the inside.
Beaten and unable to do a damned thing about it, I let the bottled-up emotions well forth. Hot tears stung my eyes until they streamed down my face. The choking cramp at the base of my throat snapped into an agonizing gravelly wail. My chest heaved for oxygen, unable to suck in enough air as I suffocated once again, drowning in the center of it all.
And as the deluge hit me like a burst dam, I collapsed on the bed in the middle of the shards of glass, overcome by body-racking sobs.
Hours later, after I’d cried my eyes and heart out in the destroyed hotel suite then collapsed from sheer exhaustion, I found myself absently sitting at the concierge desk, checking out.
“Your room is already covered under the credit card supplied by Ms. Johannsen.”
“Good.” Sounded more like the vacation had been covered on EtherSphere One’s dime. “Oh, and things got out of hand in the room last night,” I added in an offhand tone, implying we’d drank too much and had knocked a few things over. “Be sure to charge all the damages to that same card.”
“Absolutely, Ms. Hill. We will take care of it all.”
If only their five-star concierge abilities reached that far.
The thirty-minute drive back to the airport was uneventful. Only the illuminated Vegas-like billboards erected at five-hundred-foot intervals along the darkening jungle canopy on either side of the highway broke up the monotony.
Passing through the airport security checkpoint with my lone carry-on bag took longer than the ride due to the tourist group ahead of me, including a couple who insisted that a wide-brimmed sombrero and rainbow-netted hammock would fit into the overhead compartments.
While I waited my turn, two black eyes stared at me from behind the metal grid of a pet-carrier door, its expressive reddish-brown eyebrows blinking at me from its protective cage.
“Yorkie,” the twenty-something girl holding the carrier supplied to a question I hadn’t asked.
And yet, I felt a kinship to the little imprisoned Yorkshire terrier. Along for the ride, out of control of its destiny. Grateful for the walls around it casting it into shadow, yet instinctively wanting to break free—without worry of the inherent dangers of the world that put it there.
After clearing security, I wandered through a gauntlet of flashy designer products being hawked in the glaringly bright duty-free corridor, the only pathway to the departure gates. The food court greeting me at the other end didn’t hold any appeal; out of pure necessity, I’d raided the breakfast tray to consume basic sustenance on my way to hotel checkout. A quick glance at the flight boards yielded no information; they only posted gate assignments within an hour of their departure times.
Weary from more adventure than I’d bargained for, and needing to be away from people, I found a vinyl seat amid a sea of empty chairs, dropped my bag beside me, and plopped down.
“Ow!” I growled, reminded with bright color dotting my vision that Alec’s miracle Field Cocktail still had its limitations.
The low hum of distant conversations echoing against hard surfaces began to soothe me. Passengers with baggage in tow flowed from the duty-free area and stared up at the flight board, registered disappointment on their faces, then wandered off to get swallowed into the crowds of the food court.
A Margaritaville waitress walked into my line of sight, the long plastic strands of her lime-green grass skirt swishing over her short underskirt and tanned legs. When she waltzed behind the counter, my gaze rose to the giant replica seaplane suspended from the ceiling. The signature “Capt. Jimmy Buffet” was painted on the fuselage above the aircraft’s name, Hemisphere Dancer.
Even though red-and-green Christmas lights dangled over the wings, the mock plane triggered memories of the real one just hours ago that Alec had flown—that we’d crashed. With a heavy heart, my mind wandered to the events of the past week.
But with every succeeding recollection of my time with Alec, the pain became less devastating, until some brought a smile. Dry comments he’d muttered while training me. The warm amusement in his tone when he’d call me “Pink.” The intensity in his eyes as he’d held me in his bed that last time, moved deep inside my body with measured purpose, gazed at me as if I’d become his entire world.
There were moments when what we’d had between us seemed real.
My heart burned in my chest. I sucked in a deep breath, staring at the twilight world outside, but it didn’t ease the pain. On a heavy sigh, I rubbed the heel of my hand on my sternum—to no avail.
Had I made a mistake by rejecting Alec?
I had no basis for comparison. No guideline or rule. Only the comforting familiar darkness I habitually fled to when needing to protect myself.
Through my tear-blurred vision, a couple sitting a few rows away at the neighboring gate caught my attention. Turned sideways in the connected chairs, they’d scooted together as far as the padded metal arm between them would allow. Her curly blonde shoulder-length hair to his dark shadow of stubble over his ears toward his temples. Her early twenties to his pushing forty. She had a clean, pretty, rounded face with thick, long eyelashes. He had a narrow scar slashing through one eyebrow and a countenance hardened by life. And yet, their stark differences didn’t matter. Whatever their stories, despite anything that had marked them to this point, regardless of the endless cacophony of the airport around them, they only existed for one another.