Over the Line (18 page)

Lee

Rob talked Wes and Eric into letting everyone go down to the public beach last night to watch the Fourth of July fireworks. I begged off. It’s been three days since I found out I killed the only man I’ve ever loved. I’ve spent every minute of them trying to figure out how to live with myself.

I’m in the kitchen when Wes knocks at the front door. I heard him drive in a few minutes ago and send Tanner and Jeff on their way.

Rob is the only one up, other than me. He’s on the sofa, coffee mug in one hand and TV remote in the other. I know he still blames me for all of this. I talked him out of killing Oliver, then Oliver escaped on my watch.

I give Rob the eye that he should get the door.

“It’s open,” he yells without moving.

I cut him a glare as Wes strides in.

“Good news,” he says, and my stomach cramps remembering the last time I heard him use those words. “DOJ’s given us the go-ahead to lift your guard detail.” He comes to where I’m standing and slides the front section of yesterday’s
Chicago
Tribune
onto the counter in front of me. “In case you’re interested.”

Spots flash in my eyes as I stare at the front-page article and I’m suddenly lightheaded. There’s a picture of what looks like a construction site with yellow police tape strung between two cement columns. Under the tape is a black blanket covering something on the ground. Bile rises in my throat and I close my eyes until it settles. When I open them, Wes is studying me.

“You don’t have to read it,” he says, “if it’s too upsetting.”

I shake my head, because he’s wrong. I have to know what I did to Oliver.

According to the article, Oliver’s partially burned body was discovered at a construction site outside Las Vegas. They speculate, based on the brutal nature of his murder, it was some sort of mafia retaliation.

I hand the paper back to Wes before I’ve read halfway through. Turns out I don’t have the stomach to know what I did to him after all.

Wes moves across to Rob and hands the paper over the back of the sofa. Rob spreads it out in front of him with a crisp snap and starts to read. “They burned him. Bastard got what he deserved.”

“Jesus, Rob! Really?” I brace my hands on either side of the sink before my legs give out. I’m going to throw up.

Rob shrugs and goes back to reading.

Wes splits a glance between us. “There were still fingerprints and his dental records. There’s no question it’s him.”

Rob gives me a knowing nod from the sofa when he finishes reading, but he knows nothing. There’s no one I can talk to. The love of my life is dead and I can’t ever tell a living soul I loved him.

“The guys and I won’t be here on a regular basis anymore, but you know I’m still available,” Wes says as he moves to the door. “If there’s anything any of you need, don’t hesitate to call.”

He’s looking directly at me as he says it, and when I glance at Rob, he’s scowling at me. But better he thinks there might be something between me and Wes than me and Oliver. Falling for a Fed would be a hard pill for my big brother to swallow, but falling for a Savoca would be blasphemy. Unforgivable.

“Thanks, Wes.” I walk with him outside and find the porch empty. “No Eric?” I ask, looking around.

He shakes his head. “Detail’s been pulled. I just came by because I wanted to tell you in person.” He grasps my hand as we reach his car. “And I needed to see for myself that you’re okay.”

I don’t pull out of his grasp. His hand is strong and I draw energy from his touch. “Thanks, Wes. I’ll be fine.”

“I’ll be by to check on you later this week. And you know you can come up to Tampa anytime . . . for lunch or . . .” He takes a deep breath and holds it as he glances toward the house. He must not find Rob’s face in the window, because he leans in and presses his mouth to my forehead. “Whenever you’re ready.”

He releases me and I feel suddenly cold in the muggy July swelter.

“Thanks, Wes,” I say. “For everything.”

He nods and climbs in his car. I watch him go, wondering if my heart will always feel like a vacuum, or if someday someone like Wes will be able to fill the hole Oliver left there.

I pass Rob on my way back in. “I’ll be at Adri’s,” he says. “Sherm is up. Make sure he walks the dogs.”

“That didn’t take long,” I mutter.

It’s only when his feet stall on the steps down to the driveway and he looks over his shoulder at me that I realize how bitter that sounded.

“Go,” I say, flicking my hand at his car. “She misses you.”

He looks at me a second longer, then nods and climbs in his car.

Sherm is tripping over the dogs on his way downstairs when I step inside.

“Cereal or eggs?” I ask.

“Cereal,” he answers, tugging open the pantry door.

It’s a relief. I usually love cooking breakfast for him, but I don’t seem to love anything anymore.

“Don’t forget to feed the dogs,” I say, heading up the stairs. “And walk them when you’re done.”

I close the door of my room and curl into a ball on the bed. I’ve washed my sheets several times since Oliver left, but his scent has permeated into my pillow. I pull back the pillowcase and bury my face in it. It’s the only thing I feel like doing anymore. All I want is to sleep, which I do, and cry, which I don’t.

Oliver haunts me in my dreams. They never end the way we did. Usually it’s some form of happily ever after. But that’s why we dream: to grasp the things that never could have been in real life. I wake from those dreams with an aching heart, but since my meltdown on the beach with Wes, I haven’t let myself cry. Those are all the tears I’m allowed, because crying feels like self-pity and I don’t deserve anyone’s pity. Especially my own.

***

The days pass this way—I have no idea how many—and I survive from one to the next. Most of the time, I don’t even know why I bother.

I’d always thought losing Mama is what drained Papa of his humanity. For the first time it’s occurring to me it might not have been that at all, but the body count that followed in the aftermath. He’s responsible for dozens of lives. Maybe hundreds. I saw the weight of it take its toll on Rob after he started working with Papa and wreaking his own havoc. It crushed him, consuming the human part of him.

I’m only responsible for one life—Oliver’s—and it’s robbed me of my humanity.

How can you know that you’ve killed another person and stay human?

***

As promised, Wes has been by a couple times a week. This is maybe his third or fourth visit. I’ve lost track.

He tucks a strand of tangled hair behind my ear as we sit together in the love seat on the porch, staring out over the bluff at the late-afternoon storm rolling in with the waves. Rob left for Spencer’s earlier, and Grant is back to his usual, rarely home, so it’s only my Beetle and Wes’s silver Dodge Challenger parked in the drive in front of us.

“Have you been out of the house at all this week?” he asks.

I haven’t showered this morning and haven’t bothered with makeup for a few weeks, so I’m sure he’s reassessing his opinion of me.

“I went to Polly’s on Tuesday.”

He stands and brushes off his slacks. “I’m taking you out to dinner.”

I look myself over with disdain, still in yesterday’s tank top and shorts. I haven’t even changed my underwear. “I’m a mess.”

“Then fix yourself up.”

I just sit here, staring at him.

“Or don’t,” he adds, holding his hand out. “Either way, you’re coming out with me.”

I take his hand and let him tow me out of the love seat. “I need to at least shower and change.”

“I’ll wait,” he says, nudging me through the front door.

Ulie is in the kitchen, pulling things from the pantry, and Sherm is glued to the TV. “I think I might be going out for dinner.”

“Well, hell,” she says. She looks at Sherm then back at me. “Maybe we’ll just order pizza.”

“I don’t have to go,” I say, hoping she’ll give me a reason to say no to Wes.

Her eyes flick to the window in the door and when I follow them I see Wes is leaning against the porch rail, talking on the phone. “I think it will be good for you to get out.” She steps around the island and her black-coffee eyes search my face. She pulls me to her with a gentle hand on my arm and leans close to my ear, lowering her voice so Sherm won’t hear. “You and Oliver were friends at Kellogg, weren’t you?”

She was in New York the whole time I was with Oliver in Chicago. Had she been home, I have no doubt she would have known. With just the boys around, my secret was safe. Rob knew we were in school together, but he rightly assumed I hated Oliver because he was a Savoca. No need to question it. It was in our DNA. No one ever asked me about him.

“Yeah.”

“I know you blame yourself for what happened, Lee, but it wasn’t your fault. He got your gun. You couldn’t have done anything. And if he’d stayed, it might have been Rob who killed him and that would have been worse.”

“I know,” I say, “but that doesn’t change that he was here. It doesn’t change that he’s dead now.”

Maybe it’s the undercurrent of anguish in my tone, or maybe it’s that she’s always been able to read me better than anyone else, but her expression changes as I speak. Understanding dawns in her eyes.

“How long?” is all she says, but I know exactly what she’s asking.

“A year,” I answer, my voice hitching.

She pulls me into a hug. “God, Lee. I’m so sorry.”

I swallow the lump forming in my throat and pull away. “Wes is waiting. I’m going to shower.” I turn for the stairs without looking back.

Wes drives us off-island and we find a hole-in-the-wall in Loveland. It’s quiet and dimly lit. We take the booth in the back corner and instead of sliding in across from me, Wes sits on the same side as I do.

His shoulder presses against mine and the contact makes me feel almost human. I don’t deny myself the feeling, just for a moment. Just to remember what it’s like.

He hands me a menu and I think about my baby-monkey theory as I look it over. The whole time, it was Oliver’s touch I craved, just like the test monkey craved its mother. Anything else was just a substitute.

But he’s gone and it’s not my right to mourn him.

“What’ll it be?” an older woman in an ill-fitting waitress’s uniform says from next to our table.

“Ladies first,” Wes says, pressing his shoulder more firmly against mine.

I haven’t read a word on the menu, but I don’t want to send her away and prolong this. “The Cobb salad,” I say, because it’s the first thing my eyes land on.

“I’ll have the cheeseburger, medium rare,” Wes says.

“That comes with fries. You can add coleslaw or a side salad for two ninety-nine,” the waitress volunteers.

“Let’s do that,” he says, folding his menu and handing it to her.

“Which one?” she asks, her penned-on eyebrows raised in a question.

“Both.”

“Drinks?” she asks, jotting in her pad.

Wes looks at me.

“Diet Coke,” I answer.

As Wes goes over the beer menu with her, I zone out . . . until his hand slips onto my thigh and squeezes. I look up to see the waitress heading toward the kitchen to put in our orders.

“You okay?” he asks.

“Yeah. Just thinking.”

He removes his hand from my leg and leans back in the booth. “I know this whole thing scared you pretty good, Lee, but I think, if anything, it should make you feel safer. You saw the machine at work. When you testified against your father, we told you we’d keep you safe. We just showed you how. Nothing’s going to get past us.” His arm loops behind me and his hand closes over my shoulder, strong, firm, and sure. “
I
will never let anything happen to you.”

I give in to the baby monkey inside me and lean into him, resting my head on his shoulder. He tips his face into my hair and his warmth begins to crack the ice filling my veins.

We sit like this in silence until our food arrives. “I’m serious, Lee,” Wes says before he lets me go to eat. “Your family is safe.
You
are safe.”

Bitterness rises up inside me like the tide and I stab at a cherry tomato with my bent fork, spewing seeds and juice in a stream onto the paper placemat. “And my eleven-year-old brother is going to grow up knowing only fear.”

He finds my gaze, locking me in his. “Kids bounce. I’ve seen it in this job. Sherm is going to be fine.”

He’s so full of caring and compassion, but hard and tough too. It’s everything I need right now, so I lean tighter against him, drawing on his strength as we eat.

It’s twilight when we get back to Port St. Mary. The town has rolled up the sidewalks for the evening.

Wes pulls out into the same wide spot in the road where I retrieved Oliver’s car all those weeks ago. “I don’t know what else to say to you, Lee. I see how this whole thing has torn you up, but I don’t know what to do to fix it.”

“I’m not sure it can be fixed,” I say, staring blindly out the windshield.

“It kills me to see you like this,” he says, his fingertips brushing under my chin and coaxing my gaze toward him. “You are one of the strongest women I’ve ever met, but all your fight is gone. All your strength.”

“It’s just . . . a lot of things.”

Keeping one hand under my chin, he reaches for my shoulder with the other. When I don’t pull out of his grasp, he tips my chin up and leans toward me.

I don’t draw away from his kiss because it hurts my heart to kiss another man and remember how Oliver’s kiss moved the earth under my feet.

And I deserve to hurt.

Lee

I’m drunk.

It started out as a glass of wine with lunch at the Sunfish Café near Wes’s office. Then I coaxed him into playing hooky and getting a few beers at Sentry’s Pub. Then drinks and dinner at 400 Beach Seafood and Tap House. With every stop we’ve gotten farther from Wes’s office and closer to his apartment.

It’s not Wes’s fault that I can’t walk. He tried to suggest I slow down. I answered by guzzling the rest of my third Kamikaze.

That was when I nearly fell off my chair and he loaded me in his car.

We’re still in the parking lot, and even though Wes hasn’t started his car, it feels like we’re on a roller coaster. I can’t get my bearings.

“You can’t drive like this,” he says. “I’ll take you home and bring your car down tomorrow.”

I shake my head, making my head spin and any words I wanted to say blur in my brain.

“What does that mean, Lee?” he asks, leaning back in his seat. “What do you want me to do?”

“Take me home with you.” There’s a slur to my voice and it somehow strikes me as the funniest thing I’ve ever heard. I burst into uncontrolled laughter.

He just stares at me for a long time before starting the car.

When the laughing makes me feel like I’m going to throw up, I’m able to contain it. I close my eyes and lean my head against the window as he drives. It’s just a few minutes later that we’re pulling up to his building.

I don’t remember exactly how we get to his apartment. There’s a vague recollection of him carrying me bride-style from the elevator to his bedroom, but I can’t be sure. I only know I wake up in his bed in the dark. A quick scan with my hands ensures me I’m still in my dress, but my shoes are long gone. I’m pretty sure they never made it out of the restaurant. The bed tilts and tosses like a magic carpet and I lift my head to see how Wes is doing that. But I’m alone.

When I try to sit, I discover I’m significantly less drunk than I was when we got here, but still drunker than I’ve ever been in my life up until tonight. I manage to gain my feet and stagger to the bathroom.

I make the mistake of turning on the light. The image looking back at me from the mirror is one of a deranged circus clown. After weeks of wearing no makeup, it felt a little funny this morning to put it on. Now I wish I hadn’t. I find a facecloth on the towel rod and wet it, scrubbing my face clean. I finger comb my hair and then pick up the toothpaste tube from the holder next to the sink. As I squeeze some onto my finger, I remember Oliver doing the same and my face crumbles with the image.

But I push the tears and the thought away along with any last remnants of Oliver. When I’m mostly presentable, I go in search of Wes.

I came to Tampa this afternoon for a reason.

I find him asleep on the leather sofa. He’s thrown off the sheet, and he’s in only snug-fitting black boxer-briefs.

I slip my dress off my shoulders and let it drop to the floor, then climb onto the sofa next to him.

He wakes with a start. “What . . . ?” He rubs the back of his hand over his mouth and sits up. “What’s wrong?”

I grasp his strong arms and pull him back to lie next to me on the sofa. “Nothing now.”

There’s a long minute where he says nothing. He doesn’t even move. But then he wraps his arms around me and pulls me close. “You’re sure you’re okay?”

His breath in my hair is warm; his hands on my skin, sure. He’s strong and alive and whole.

I’m not.

I’ve thought about this a lot since the day on the beach a month ago when Wes told me Oliver was dead. I think the reason Papa and Rob lost their humanity to the business is because a soul can’t survive forcing another soul into oblivion. The instant I found out I’d killed Oliver, I felt my soul somehow unmoor from my body. It’s as if they’re in the same place in alternate planes of existence. My body is just a meat machine, moving through space aimlessly. My soul is aching and cold and alone, crying in the dark for someone to find it and bring it home.

If it’s ever going to find its way back to me, I need to help it. I need to do something that transcends body and soul, binding them back together. I need to let myself really
feel
.

I reach around and unhook my bra, then press up and let it slip off my shoulders.

Wes watches me in the moonlight through the picture windows of his living room, his eyes wide. “Lee, you’re drunk. This isn’t happening to—”

I cut off his words by pressing my mouth against his. I slide on top of him as we kiss and press my body along the solid length of his, skin on skin, separated by nothing but a thin layer of lace and cotton.

He hesitates before kissing me back, but then his lips begin to move with mine. His fingers dig into my hips and I feel his cock start to thicken where I straddle him.

I glide my hand between us and stroke him through the thin cotton of his underwear, encouraging it.

His hands slide to my ass and grind me harder against him. His mouth trails up my neck, along my jaw and finds mine again. The scratch of his stubble on my skin feels like Oliver, and I close my eyes and shudder.

We kiss and his hand trails up my bare stomach. He flicks his thumb over the nub of my nipple. I arch into his strong hand and it envelops my breast.

He lets out a tortured groan, and all I hear is Oliver. All I feel is Oliver.

All I want is Oliver.

In one deft move, he rolls us so he’s hovering above me. I take the second before he settles his weight on top of me to shimmy off my underwear and kick it to the floor. He lays me back as his mouth closes over one nipple, then the other.

There’s a stirring of warmth in my belly.

“Yes,” I breathe.

His warm mouth giving suck and his tongue swirling my nipples into straining peaks makes me feel more alive than I have in the last month. I can feel my soul hovering—deciding whether to come back to me.

We kiss and explore, his hand eventually slipping between my legs. A finger plunges inside me as he palms my clit.

He’s strong. I can feel him, coiled tight. Ready.

I want to feel. I need to feel.

Oliver
.

I press his boxers over his hips and free his cock. He’s hovering over me, his erection poised and ready.

And then everything stops except his breathing, hot and heavy on my neck.

“I can’t,” he whispers. “I can’t. I’m sorry.” He pushes back and sits on his heels. “You’re drunk and I’m not going to take advantage of you.”

The gnawing wrongness I’ve been trying to ignore at his non-Oliver scent and his non-Oliver feel and his non-Oliver moves rolls through me from head to toe. I slide up to sit on the sofa and make a feeble attempt at covering myself. “I shouldn’t have pushed you.”

“You know I want this, Lee. I have since I met you. But before I risk everything for this, I need to know it’s what you really want.” His eyes stay locked on mine, despite the fact that I’m buck naked and shivering. “Not when you’re drunk. Not when you’re scared. But all the time.”

Risking anything for me is a bad gamble. Oliver risked everything for me and lost. And this is how I repay him, take everything he died for and cheapen it.

I claim my clothes from the floor and run to the bathroom and throw up.

When the nausea finally passes, I brace my hands on the sink and stare at my reflection in the mirror, self-loathing eating through my insides like acid.

“Oliver,” I whisper, my eyes welling and rippling my image, distorting me into the monster I am.

He loved me. He died for me.

And I never deserved him.