Hidden (Nicole Jones #1)(20)

The smile disappears. ‘If I just wanted your help, you wouldn’t be in my bed.’

‘Maybe you’re in my bed because you want more.’ I cannot stop being cynical, unsure of my standing with him.

He makes a small sound that’s not exactly a chuckle. ‘Still difficult, aren’t you? This place hasn’t changed you.’

I stiffen. ‘Yes, it has.’

‘Then walk away.’

‘What?’

‘Leave. Now. If you do that, I’ll know you’ve changed, that you won’t come back to me, that you don’t really want to help me.’

‘Help you? You keep using that word. Help. I know this isn’t anything noble, so why are you pretending that it is? A man died because of us. Because of what we did. And you want me to do it again.’ My voice has started to shake. My heart pounds beneath the thin shirt.

‘Then walk away, if you feel that way.’ He is challenging me again. And then he adds, ‘Or maybe this time we can go somewhere together.’

My legs begin to shake, bare against the chill of the room, the shirt only coming down just above my thighs. I am exposed. But I cannot walk away. I am frozen in this spot as I think about what he’s saying.

I might have to flee again. I might have to give up this life as well as the other one. My breath catches in my throat.

He touches my face, running his fingers down my neck, tracing a line over my breast, pausing a moment to caress my nipple, then continuing down to my waist. He pulls me to him and kisses me deeply, quickly, before sensing my hesitation.

‘You’re going to have to leave anyway,’ he says, reading my mind. ‘Even if you don’t help me.’

‘Why?’ I manage to whisper.

‘I’m not the only one who knows about that postcard.’

My body feels like a spring, ready to bounce. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I’m not the only one who’s on your trail. I just got here first.’





ELEVEN


I don’t need money. I have enough saved up that I could leave the island and find another place to hide. It is not money from before. That money is gone. I carried some with me on that ferry fifteen years ago, but there is none left now.

‘The accounts were all frozen,’ he tells me now. ‘All I had was what we had on the boat.’ His eyes grow dark with the thought of my betrayal.

I had a feeling they’d freeze the accounts if they found us. I’d routed the money to several places, and they found them all. Except one. The only person who knew about that one was Tracker. Tracker took what was owed him and the others, left the rest for me.

‘I don’t have it. It’s gone.’

‘But you don’t deny taking it.’ His tone is flat.

‘I didn’t take much. It didn’t last long. It was gone before I got here.’

He stares at me, unbelieving.

‘Really. I left you mostly everything.’

‘And they took it. I couldn’t get any of it.’ He is angry now, and I take a step backward, away from him. The movement causes him to stand up straighter; his eyes do not let go of mine.

I wonder now what happened to him after. I have not asked him. He knows about my life but I know nothing of his. Is he really still in Miami, or is it New York, like he told Steve? What has his life been like for the past fifteen years?

‘Did they catch you?’ I whisper, wondering if a fifteen-year sentence would make sense.

It is as though a light switch has been flipped. His face lights up and he laughs out loud, reaching for me, pulling me to him. I tense slightly as his arms wrap around me. ‘No, Tina. They didn’t catch me. But that doesn’t mean you don’t owe me.’

It has gone from helping him to owing him.

‘It’s not my fault they froze the accounts.’

‘But if you’d stayed, we could have gotten more. I wouldn’t have been left with nothing.’

He believes I have to pay my debt to him. He has already made a subtle threat, and he could destroy me if he wants to. But as I listen to the beat of his heart beneath my ear, I realize that it might not be so easy for him. That my friends here might not believe him. After all, I am a respectable citizen. I do have odd habits, but everyone on the island is a little bit odd in their own way.

As I think this, though, I know better. I know a phone call to the police would uncover my secret. But would he do that? He would be putting himself at as much risk as me.

‘You owe me,’ he says again, and this time I see him as if for the first time: a man who has been harboring anger for so long that he will break me because I left him with nothing. He was hiding behind the one whose hand caresses my cheek and looks deeply into my eyes. Fear rushes through me as I realize how quickly he switches from one to the other.

I have never been afraid of him. Our relationship had its ups and downs. We are both opinionated and strong-willed. The attraction is deeper than looks; we always found our way back to each other after an argument, and our feelings were always even more intense than before. Later, there was an undercurrent of unraveling despite our best efforts to pretend otherwise. But I have never been afraid. Until now.

He pushes me away for a second before he pulls me back and kisses me and then abruptly lets me go.

I watch him out of the corner of my eye. He goes into the bathroom and I hear the shower. He is waiting for me to join him, but instead I put on my own clothes, close up the laptop and go back outside to my bike.