Saints and Assassins (The Sentinels) (33 page)

“Really, anywhere?” she asked. Eve
knew where
she
wanted to go and it wasn’t Chicago.

A knock at the door made her
jump. “It’s okay, it should be Charlie,” said Adam.

He left the bathroom
, closing the door behind him. Adam
stuck his head back in the doorway confirming that Charlie was there, he laid a shirt
and shorts on the counter for her
.
Eve got dressed and towel dried her
hair.

Looking in the mirror as she combed her
hair
,
she
realized that
she
was looking at a much different person than
she
had been two months earlier.
Her former life had been comparable in her mind to that of a zombie, but now, now she
was married
and
pregnant.
Eve
couldn’t be h
appier. What Michael had told her
in
her
dream was right
.
Adam had protected her
and loved
her
.

“So what’s for dinner, or uh bre
akfast I guess. I’m starving?” Eve made a great effort to sound upbeat and cheerful.

Both men seemed qui
te surprised as they looked at her
. Adam smiled and shook his head.

“What? I’m eating for two you know, I haven’t had anything to eat in hours except a
Twinkie. I need nourishment.” She stood with her hands on her hips.

“Did you want to dry your hair?”

“Too hungry, let’s go!”
she
demanded with a grin.

Breakfast was at a twenty-four hour diner
down the main drag of the bay. She
bypassed the breakfast food though and went straight to the hearty lunch menu. There
,
she sat with her
husband and his friend eating hamburgers, with extra pickles
.
It was there that
she
learned a lot about
her husband.
Adam
and Charlie had gone to college toge
ther and t
hey had
had their share of wild parties.
Charlie told
her
about a few of the girls that Adam dated. It was pretty entertaining and more importantly relaxing.

While she was having a good time and felt relaxed for the first time in weeks, she was curious about Sanders. B
ut
she
thought
she
would wait
to broach the
subject. After
she
start
ed yawning, Adam insisted that they return to the hotel so she
could
go to bed. Charlie would be separating from them at
the diner.

“I
t was very nice to have met you.
”
Eve
tiptoed up to hug
him. “Thank you for ever
ything.
”

“Anything for a beautiful lady,” he replied smiling. “As for you, try and stay out of trouble so I don’t have to com
e save your sorry ass.” He slapped Adam on the arm.

“Ouch
,” Adam whined.
Eve
had completely forgotten that he had broken ribs and other bruises.
She
suddenly felt sick to
her
stomach as
she
remembered everything that had happened to him earlier.

“Take it easy man, and I fully expect to see that baby when it’s born,” he said as he left
them
.

They
walked back to th
e hotel silently hand in hand.

Once they were in the room,
Adam slowly sat down on the bed, he was
trying not to groan too much she
could tell, but the pain was wearing on him.

“Let’s get you into bed.”
Eve
smiled as
she
stood in front of him. Adam leaned forward resting h
is head on her
stomach.

“Eve, I’m so sorry you had to be involved in this. I wish I could tak
e it all back,” he whispered. She placed her
hands on his face and lifted it so that
she
could see his eyes.

“Adam, if none of this had ever happened then we wouldn’t be here right now. I know that may sound, well it sounds masochistic but it
’s not.” Eve knelt in front of him.
“Adam, I love you so much. You’ve given me everything that I could ever want and more.”
She
embraced his face in
her
hands,
and for the second time since
she had
met him,
his eyes were wet
.
A
tear es
caped and rolled down his face.

“Adam, you saved me, not just my life but my soul. And now I carry part of
each
of our souls inside me. We can spend the rest of our lives together showing thi
s baby how much you loved me,” she whispered. Eve
kissed his eyes, then his cheeks and lastly his lips.

Adam
pulled her
close to him. “You saved me to
o.
” 

Eve
clim
bed into bed with him curling her
body around his. That night
she
dreamed of a beach, the clear bl
ue water and the sun. They
were walking
down the beach, holding hands,
but
she realized that the hand she
held was tiny, too small to be Adam’s. As
she looked down she
saw a child. She had shoulder length brown curly hair, with brown eyes and her face was beautiful.
She
could see Adam in her featu
res as well as her
self.
The child’s legs were unsteady, but they each
held onto her petite hands
,
he
lping her walk. She smiled at Eve
and
made the most beautiful sound she had ever
heard. “Mama.”

Eve
woke up happy, smiling and with a full bladder so
she
slipped out of b
ed trying not to wake Adam. As she washed her hands and face, she
could see in the mirror
the evidence of where Edwards had hit her
. There was a hint of purple along the line of
her cheekbone. Eve moved her mouth around as she examined the bruised area. Her
face was sore but nothing that wouldn’t be better in a couple of days.
Her eyes dropped to her belly and she
lifted
her
shirt just a bit
, revealing her
stomach. Turning sideways
,
she
forced
her
stomach outward as far as
she
could and gave it light tap.
Eve
grinned as
she
bounced on
her
feet feeling better than ever.

Baby.

Eve
tiptoed back into the bedroom and crawled back into bed.

Adam wiggled
in the bed and turned toward her
.
She felt that
she
might
explode with joy when he finally opened his eyes. His lips slowly curved upward. “Good morning,” he said.

“Good afternoon is more accurate
considering it’s almost one,” she
replied.

“Wow, what a nap. How are you feeling?”
he asked as he lightly touched her
bruised cheek. “I’m fine,”
she
replied.

“How long have you been up?”

“Just a few minutes. It’s a girl,”
she spoke softly. He looked at her
bewildered. “I think the baby is a girl. I dreamed of her and us last night.”

“Really? What did she look like?” he asked.
Adam brushed his hand through her
hair as he looked intently into
her
eyes.

“She was beautiful. She looke
d like you with those warm eyes.
”
Eve
touched the corner of his eye. “And like me. Her small face was wrapped with my brown hair. She was perfect.”

They
spent a while longer in bed and then ordered in room service.
Eve
was so hungry that
she
ate ev
erything
on her
plate, plus th
e bits that Adam hadn’t eaten. They
laughed, ate and watched TV for
the rest of the day all from their
bed. It felt so good to be free.

“Eve, I meant to give you this back last night.” Adam extended his arm out with his hand concealing something.
She
held
her
hand out a
nd he let the locket drop into her palm.

“I already removed the micro SD card
. It’s on the way back to Judge Hurst right now. I thought you might want it back.”

“
Thank you. I am glad to have it.
”
Eve walked over to the night table where the
old shoebox sat
.
Lifting the
lid
, she
replaced the neckla
ce. “That’s where it belongs,” she
added.

“Eve may I ask you something?”

“Of course,”
she
replied raising one eyebrow.

“What all is in the shoebox? You don’t have to show me, I’m just curious.”

“Here.
”
She handed
him the box. “You can look, it’s mostly junk, just sentimental junk.”

“Are you sure?” he asked. Eve assumed
he had looked at some point during the last year or even in the last few weeks, but apparently he hadn’t. He sat down on the bed and opened the box. Inside he lifted the locket back out and laid it on the comforter. 
That’s when Eve
decided to show him everything instead of him guessing.

“Here, these are the ticket stubs to the Prince concert that we went to. This is a really corny one. It is a napkin from a restaurant that Michael took me
to on one of our first dates,” she
told him. He smiled looking like he was trying to hold back a laugh.

“See I told you it’s corny. Oh you’ll love this one. Here’s a photo of me on Halloween about five years ago, I dressed up as Cat Woman. We went to a costume p
arty, Michael was a caveman.”  Eve
dug further into the box and showed Adam the photos of
herself when she
was little, glasses and all.
She
’d
had the radial ke
ratotomy surgery on her
eye
s when the procedure was new. They
laughed as
they
looked through the photos and things. Putting the lid on the box mad
e
her pause for a moment.
She ended one chapter of her life and began a new one, but to
close the old chapter
she needed to know one thing.

“Ad
am what happened to Sanders?” she
asked quietly.
Eve
felt sad to think of him in that trunk or dead somewhere, even though he had Mi
chael killed and tried to have them
killed too.

“Actually, he’s probably already back in Chicago right now.”

“What? He’s not, he’s not dead?”

“No,
Sanders was being delivered directly to the FBI, gift wrapped. Figuratively speaking that is. Charlie met Sam at the airport and got the travel arrangements made for he and Mr. Sanders.

“
Sanders needs to pay the price for his crimes and to be honest I think imprisonment will be more of a punishment for him than death would be. Besides, I didn’t want you to have that on you
r
conscience, since he didn’t have to die,” Adam concluded.

Pondering everything that Adam had told
her,
she
actually felt relieved. The last few mon
ths had been such a whirlwind, she
got caught up in
it
including the violence and desire to kill those who had harmed the people
she
loved
.
The insanity was over now and there was no need to feel the anger anymore. Not when there was so much love to share with the baby that would be born i
n a few short months. Adam and Eve
would have this time
to themselves, continuing to nurture their
love for each other as well.