Four Seconds to Lose (Ten Tiny Breaths, #3)(13)

Sam said they were a bunch of idiots and I was perfect the way I was. But he also decided I should learn how to hoot and holler and giggle. So he signed me up for acting classes. He told me that sometimes you need to pretend to be something you’re not. Turns out I’m a terrific actress. When I’m concentrating, I can mold myself into just about anything.

Maybe that’s why Sam thought this would be a good fit.

I was ten the first time I witnessed something one might call “shady.” Sam and I took a father-daughter trip down to Nicoll Bay one evening. On the way, we played a fun game of do-you-see-any-strange-cars-following-us, where I watched out the back window for any vehicle that kept making the same turns as we did. When we arrived, it was dark and quiet down by the water. We went for a walk, and he held my hand as I devoured a strawberry ice-cream cone. I remember us stopping at one point, him reaching into his coat pocket. A second later, he swung his arm back and launched something into the deep waters.

He took my hand again, winked at me, and we continued walking.

I didn’t ask what he had thrown in. In fact, I didn’t say a word. I just squeezed his hand and we continued walking.

I was twelve the time that I passed by the cellar in the middle of the night—on my way to grab a new box of bagel bites from the basement freezer—and heard the angry voices. I had to press my ear to the door. Sam and Dominic were in there arguing, something about the police and fingerprints and Dominic wanting “out” and Sam telling him there is no “out,” that they were in this together. In a harsh tone that Sam never used on me, he accused his best friend of being f*cking sloppy. Sam never swore. The stairs creaked loudly as I scurried back to the kitchen, where I pretended to heat up a glass of milk.

That’s where Sam found me.

“What did you hear?” he had asked in that cool, even tone of his, his gray eyes severe. I never lied to Sam and my instincts told me not to start then. “You and Dominic talking about the police and fingerprints.”

With a deep inhale, his hand lifted to his mouth to cover it with a rub, smothering a curse. “Sometimes you might hear things that you shouldn’t hear.”

I nodded slowly.

“It’s important that you never repeat those things. Ever. Or everything that we have here—you, me, this house, your life—it’s gone. You’ll be taken away. You’ll live in an orphanage, where people won’t appreciate you for who you are. You’ll have no one to love you. You won’t be in gymnastics or acting. Do you want that?”

Pursing my lips tightly, I shook my head.

“Never talk about things you may hear or think, okay?” Sam warned.

I nodded again. “Just like that night at Nicoll Bay.”

I remember his eyes widening, as if startled. As if he was surprised I noticed or remembered, or both. “Yes. Just like that. People will use information to hurt us. You don’t want that, do you?”

“No.” I leaned in to wrap my arms around him in a hug. Sam was the only dad I knew. He loved me, even though I didn’t see him very much on account of his busy schedule. But he made sure to attend every gymnastics competition and every school play. He always sat in the front row and he was always the first one on his feet—his arms loaded with flowers—to tell me what an incredible little actor I was going to be. The idea of losing him pained me. I would do anything not to lose him.

When Dominic’s wife came to our door a week later in hysterics, looking for her husband who’d been missing for days, I stood beside Sam and watched quietly as he hugged her and wiped her tears, as he shook his head, his face full of concern, telling her that we hadn’t seen him since the Fourth of July party, three weeks earlier. When she hazarded a glance at me, I bobbed my head up and down in concurrence.

That was the first flat-out lie I’d ever told for Sam.

After she left, Sam patted me on the back and whispered, “That’s my little mouse. Quiet as can be.”

I beamed. Making Sam proud always made me feel warm inside back then.

A hiker found Dominic’s body at a national park in Maine, months later. His gun lay next to him. The news report cited a suicide. All Sam said was, “It’s a shame.” No shock in his eyes, no tears down his cheeks. Not until the funeral, that is. That’s where he let loose. Apparently, Sam has his own acting abilities.

Me? I said absolutely nothing.

And now I’m here.

The elevator dings as it reaches the seventeenth floor, and I need to clench my muscles to stop from peeing as I roll the suitcase out. You can do this. The last time was fine.

Yet something about this delivery feels different. The guys I delivered to before were different. That hotel wasn’t as classy. And this bag is just too damn big. If it’s completely full, then . . .

I try not to think about it, zoning in on the door numbers and the exit signs and camera at the end of the hall. By the time I reach 1754, my pep talk has lost all it’s worth and I’m back to clenching my muscles.

Two quick knocks followed by a long pause and a third knock, per Sam’s directions. My stomach leaps into my throat as I see something pass behind the peephole. I’d had to take my sunglasses off in the lobby because walking through a hotel with them on is just plain suspicious. Thankfully, with heavy makeup and the hair, most people wouldn’t recognize me if they passed me on the street.