Boiling Point (Crossing the Line #3)(76)

Throughout the entire scene, Polly had been a presence for Erin, but she’d been useless, only able to see Austin staring down the barrel of a gun. You want to put a bullet between my eyes? Cries of denial had risen repeatedly in her throat at the memory, her phone remaining hatefully silent inside her purse. Not delivering any news. Not telling her if Austin was still alive. Until finally, finally, the phone had rung.

Polly had been terrified to answer upon seeing Derek’s number. No. She wanted Austin. She wanted her conceited, inappropriate, secretly amazing Austin. Just before the call could go to voicemail, she’d answered. When Derek told her that Reitman had been taken into custody, she’d nearly collapsed, thinking it was confirmation that he’d shot Austin. Is he dead? Is he dead? She remembered her words bouncing off the shiny linoleum hallway floors outside Erin’s hospital room.

Her body had surrendered to relief when Derek explained that Reitman’s gun hadn’t been loaded. That Austin had been suited up with a wire and sent in as a trade for her and Erin. Six hours later, no one could find Austin, nor had anyone heard from him. There’d been no mention of the money from Derek, which meant Austin had it. He’d taken it and gone.

Now there was a very real insecurity attempting to break through her utter joy over Austin being alive. It was taking all of her concentration not to let the insecurity win. If she stood up and went home, walking and boarding the train would require her to let her mental guard down. Which was why she was frozen to her chair, feeling rather than seeing hospital guests passing by like fuzzy specters.

Austin hadn’t taken the money and left her behind. She couldn’t allow it to be a possibility. But the fear remained, growing stronger. Gaining speed. She felt painfully alone, trapped inside some undiscovered realm where everything was the opposite of what she’d known twenty-four hours prior.

Sitting there would solve nothing, however, so Polly stood on shaky legs, traversed the hospital corridor, and walked into the pitch black of predawn Chicago. The buzz from the fluorescent hospital lights stayed with her as she walked. And walked. Without any real idea of where she hoped to end up. She needed to end up in Austin’s arms. She needed him to be standing outside the hospital doors with an explanation, but when he didn’t appear, she began looking for him on every street corner. At every bus stop. Passersby were few and far between at this time of the morning, but she double-checked to make sure none of them were Austin, waiting for her in a disguise, with a concise explanation for where he’d gone.

When Polly realized where she’d ended up, she started walking faster. Their hotel. Perhaps he hadn’t known where to find her. Perhaps he was waiting in their room. Even as her brain dismissed that hopeful logic, she was jogging through the lobby and riding the elevator up, fumbling in her pocket for the wallet to extricate the key card as it ascended. Somehow before she’d even turned the door handle, she knew Austin wasn’t on the other side. There was no electricity, no intuition or pumping excitement she always experienced when he was close.

Polly pushed open the door and stopped. But his scent…it hung in the air. Fresh. Like he’d just been there? Or was that her exhausted, desperate mind trying to conjure him any way possible?

Her gaze was drawn like a magnet toward the bed, where it was silhouetted by the outside streetlight. Images lambasted her from all sides. Austin’s head falling forward with the belt’s first strike. Their mutual groans as he took her hard, unrelenting in his quest for her pleasure, so intent on her every reaction.

That man had felt something for her, hadn’t he? It hadn’t been a game. She didn’t care about the money anymore and would have told him, had she been given the opportunity tonight. She only wanted Austin. Had it been the same case for him?

Polly slapped at the light switch, a ceiling fan illuminating the room from above with a soft glow.

On the bed. What—

Tea bags. Hundreds, maybe even thousands of them were waiting in a mountainous pile, their pink tags waving in the fan’s breeze. Polly was across the room in a millisecond, scooping up handfuls of the familiar brand. Distressed whimpers fell from her lips because she didn’t know what they meant. Was this Austin’s way of saying good-bye? No, please.

She pinched one of the bags between her thumb and forefinger, noticing for the first time writing on the pink tag. In Austin’s confident scrawl were three bold words. I love you. Tears fell from her eyes as she picked up another bag and saw the same words. He’d written them on every single tea bag. Her chest constricted to the point of agony. Dammit. Why wasn’t he there to tell her himself?

Polly’s phone went off in her purse, making her jump a full foot in the air. She scrambled to get it out, refusing to pause and wipe the moisture from her eyes. Not Austin. Her father.

“Hello?”

A drawn-out, heavy sigh greeted her. “You’re okay.”

“Of course I’m okay.” She flopped down onto the mountain of tea bags, sending a dozen of them to the floor. “Why…why are you calling?”

Her father didn’t say anything for a moment. “The money. I woke up to go for my run and there were just…stacks of it on the kitchen table. I assumed it was you.”

“No.” Polly’s eyelids fluttered shut, nuzzling her cheek against the fragrant tea bags. “Austin. It was Austin.”

“Right.” She could hear him pacing. “What am I supposed to do with it, Polly? Pick up where I left off? That’s not an option for me. Not anymore. Not without…”