The Plan (Off-Limits Romance, #4)(4)

One box, two, three… Fuck! My fingertips push into the opening of the next one, brushing something cool and smooth. Okay. I’m panting as I grip the box’s flaps and yank—too hard. The box falls on my feet, and something shatters.

The scent! It hits the air, and fuck! Saliva floods my mouth. My chest and shoulders start to shake. I can taste it—gin.

I shove the box aside and stagger back into the hall, arms raised. My throat feels thick and tight. I try to swallow, inhale through my mouth. Fucking hell—I’ve gotta get away from here!

With Cora on my heels, I jerk on sneakers, snap on Cora’s leash. Out the door, over the porch, down the stairs, onto sidewalk. Cora runs in front of me, loping like she’s been inside for weeks instead of hours.

Down the street, under the canopy of oaks. Run until I see the iron gates, then hang a right onto the pebble path that snakes between tombstones. The cemetery here is generations old, with towering, time-stained monuments and ancient-seeming trees.

Cora leads me leftward, down a trail that twists toward the bluff. Fucking shit. Just gotta get there…

I run past vaults and urns, more modern headstones, and field of unmarked graves. Kudzu vines curl over everything. I hate that shit, the way it spills over the open spaces.

My breaths are coming so damn frantic, I have to look down at my feet and try to center myself. Feel the ground below my sneakers. Smell the pine needles…the lake. My body wrecks a spider’s web; I feel it on my arm. My gait shifts as the path curves downhill, toward some railroad tracks on stilts beside a drop-off to the water. I run harder, slowing as I veer into the brush, where I tie Cora to the railroad stilts. I chuck my phone there in the grass beside her, pull my sneaks off.

Then I dive right off the cliffside.

For a second, there’s just air around me: thick and cold and slightly sharp. I glimpse the dark green water as it rises up to meet me. Then I’m plunged into the cold.

The impact and the low temp jolts my system, and I want to gasp. Instead I open my eyes, blinking at the surface. Always eerie down here. With my lips still pressed together, I imagine opening my mouth. I imagine sinking while Lake Fate simmers above me.

I can see the headlines.

McKellan dead in hometown

Bestseller drowns in Alabama

Author dies mysteriously

But it wouldn’t be mysterious, would it? Soon, the story would get out. My dad would talk, or Victor would. My agent. Everyone would know what happened. That’s how I would be remembered.

What would Marley think?

I kick a few times, hard, and kick again, and then I’m gasping at the surface. Then I’m swimming toward the shore.

You can take the boy out of the lake, but you can’t take the lake out of the boy...

I’m not a boy, though, am I?

By the time I trudge onto the sand, everything is tinged in dusky blue. Somewhere fifty feet above me, Cora whines out her concern.



*

Marley





The bike ride to my childhood home takes less than ten minutes. I spend the first two wondering what my ass looks like. When we were together, Gabe would always talk about me on a bike. How it made me look—and what it made him want to do to me.

Is he looking out the window as I pedal down the street?

Marley, get a grip.

I tell myself he doesn’t care, but that rings hollow. Clearly, he doesn’t not care. It’s been almost twenty-four hours since our terrible encounter, and since then, I’ve heard the pipes glug when he runs the water, felt the floor tremble when he slams a door, and heard the clink of what I thought might be free weights.

Every sign of his existence in the space below me is a shock. When I remember how he acted, I feel more shocked. It’s been twelve years. Does he hate me that much? I guess there’s a reason people avoid their exes. If I’m smart, I’ll swallow my pride and find a new place. I make a mental note to call around and see if anything is vacant.

And if not, a little voice asks as I pedal underneath the oak trees.

You’re thirty-two, I tell myself sternly. I’ve lived twelve years away from Gabe. Twelve years in which a lot has happened. I’m not some weak, submissive woman who lacks confidence and courage. Someone who can be walked all over.

I tell my old self-doubt to fuck off, and pedal harder toward the street’s end, where I coast down a hill, into a grove of tall pines right beside the lake. The houses in the cul-de-sac are little, white-washed matchboxes. Most have flowers by the mailbox, or a swing on the tiny front porch, but Mom’s doesn’t.

Still, I find the house, with black shutters and a plain, pink wreath, in reasonable condition—which is good, because I’m paying Mr. Morrison, the man next door, to take care of the lawn and porch.

I didn’t bother calling Mom before I headed over. My mother is enough for me to handle when she’s not expecting me.

I press my mouth to the door’s crack: “Hey! It’s me, Mama!”

When she doesn’t answer, I unlock the door and push it open slowly. My mother smiles at me from her recliner. I inhale the scent of sugar cookies and stale cigarette smoke, closing my eyes for half a second as I stand there in the doorway.

“I baked those for you,” she says in a wheezy voice.

I force myself to cross the dingy rug and hug her neck. “You look good,” I lie.