Shimmy Bang Sparkle(83)
She didn’t move, not even an inch. So I put my hand on her delicate breastbone and shoved her away, hard enough to make her stagger. Now the fucking tears came to my eyes, and her beautiful face got blurry. The woman I loved started to disappear. The guard gave the door a hell of a yank and managed to get his elbow into the gap. My heart was ripping in two, but I didn’t give a fuck about myself. She was what mattered. She was all that mattered.
So I locked eyes with her, set my teeth. I was what I would always be—a thief, a criminal, a guy who’d never be able to walk the straight and narrow for long. But I had the chance to do one good thing, and this was it. “Bite those stars. Do it for me.”
“This isn’t goodbye,” she said with trembling lips.
It was goodbye, and I knew it. But there’d be no saying goodbye to what I felt for her. That was a life sentence I was glad to serve. “Run for it. Never look back.”
And she was gone. The hotel door swung shut, and everything was quiet and still. For one instant, it felt like it had all been nothing but a crazy dream. Until the guard yanked the bathroom door open and came at me with every goddamned thing he had.
41
STELLA
Sirens, so many sirens. I stepped out of the lobby with our prepacked luggage and Priscilla as the noise of approaching police cars pierced the air. I felt myself gasp for breath and fought back a wave of tears. Clusters of guests and employees turned in the direction of the noise, and so did I, frozen solid by a potted palm that had a WAIT HERE FOR VALET sign sticking out of it.
“Uber, you call Uber? Elizabeth? Uber for Elizabeth!” said a voice, jolting me out of my daze. I turned to find a black sedan in front of me. It was the same guy who’d driven us to the Ritz only yesterday, and what seemed like an entire lifetime ago. He got out of his car and hoisted my little carry-on—and Nick’s duffel—into the trunk, wedging the bags next to two bottles of radiator fluid.
I will not cry. I will not cry. I will not cry. Not yet.
From behind me came the sticky, rubbery noise of a set of tires on the shiny cobblestones. When I turned, I saw the thing that I hadn’t even let myself imagine was possible in the shower. It was a cop car, clear at first but then blurry and far away behind a sheen of quickly welling tears.
The radio clipped to the officer’s belt was going crazy. As he walked past me with heavy, authoritative steps, the dispatcher said, “Unit fourteen. Caller reports intruder in his room, over.”
The Uber driver opened the back door for me and guided me inside, asking, “Ma’am, are you all right?”
I swallowed and nodded, not trusting myself to open my mouth and do anything but let out a sob. Without allowing myself to think about what I was actually doing, without letting my mind register that I was leaving the man I loved behind in a whole world of trouble that I had caused him, I sank down into the back seat, and the driver closed the door. I turned to look over the rear headrests as another cop car pulled into the U-shaped driveway. And another. Bulky, husky guys in blue uniforms headed toward the revolving doors.
“Oh God,” I whispered into Priscilla’s silky fur. She climbed up awkwardly in my arms to get a look for herself, her little paws digging into the gray upholstery. Her tail swung slowly and tentatively, like even she knew everything had gone terribly, terribly wrong.
The driver buckled up and fussed with his phone for a second, and then we began to leave the driveway. A fourth cruiser pulled up, idling on the outside of the cobblestone U, as if awaiting orders to block anybody from exiting. The driver signaled left, and the cop waved him past.
But I was too stunned, too shocked, too empty to even breathe a sigh of relief.
We headed south on the PCH, and the cop cars and the Ritz grew smaller and smaller behind us. The sirens became faint, replaced by the sound of fresh air whooshing through the slightly opened windows. The driver rolled them up and turned on the air-conditioning, and the pineapple-shaped air freshener twirled on its string on the rearview mirror. “Ma’am, didn’t you come here with your husband?”
My husband. The word hit me so hard, I actually gasped. With all my might, I pulled myself together. On the outside, anyway. Spinning my gaudy rings on my finger, I met the driver’s eyes in his rearview mirror. They were kind eyes, actually. Worried and honest. “Yes, I did.” Now I spun the rings almost hypnotically, round and round. Round and round. Round and round. “He’s meeting me back at the campsite later on. Had some business to take care of,” I said, feeling my voice get wobbly and weak.
“Oh yes, indeed. I see.” He nodded and straightened his seat belt. “Would you like me to give you my card? That way he can call directly?”
My chest felt like it was collapsing on itself as I took the card from the driver, a print-at-home number with smudgy ink. It hit me then, hard and painfully, that there was no best-case scenario now. I would never sit in the back of an Uber with him again. I would never take a road trip again.
I might never see Nick Norton again.
I sank farther down into my seat, and the tears spilled out unchecked. Priscilla jumped into action instantly, licking my face and frantically trying to make it better. But all the dog kisses in the world couldn’t make me feel better right now, and I knew it.
Suddenly, my phone buzzed in my purse and I pawed for it, sniffling and wiping off my cheeks with my palm. It wasn’t Nick.