Unfiltered & Unsaved (10 page)

When he got up to go to the bathroom, she missed the warmth of him, and moved to the hollow where his body had been to embrace that lingering heat. She heard the shower start and wondered if she should go and join him, but she had only the guidance of movies for that, and maybe they were all wrong. Maybe he liked to be by himself after something so intimate, the way Brittany did.

“Hey!” she called out. “Don’t get the bandages wet!”

“Yeah, I know,” he called back. “Don’t worry!”

She’d need to check the dressing when he got back, and make sure the stitches were still good, but at the moment, lying warm and drowsy in the bed they’d made seemed like the most luxurious thing she could imagine … until she heard a noise that sounded different than the shower’s downpour. It was a buzz, a quiet one, and it was coming from somewhere in the vicinity of Elijah’s discarded pants.

She patted the pockets. There were three more condoms (she put those aside on the bedside table, just in case) and, in the back pocket, a very small, very cheap phone. A disposable.

This one was buzzing like an angry bee.

She stared at the number on the screen but didn’t recognize it, and before she could decide what to do, the call went away and the phone fell silent. Some of the romantic haze faded out of the moment for her. Hope began to wonder who was calling, and why. A girl, maybe? One of his other
good girls
that he’d sold a magazine to and then fallen into bed with? That was a stupid train of thought—and crazy jealous—but she couldn’t help it. She wanted to believe just for now that there
was
no world outside this room, and the two of them. That he had no past, and they had a bright and untarnished future together. It was fantasy, but it was
hers,
and she wanted to hang on to it as long as possible. At least until morning.

She was putting the phone back in his pants, feeling ashamed of herself, when the screen lit up with a text message.

GOT IT YET?

Hope stared at the blinking message on Elijah’s phone.

And stared.

The sound of the shower running faded into white noise, and the glow of those letters on the illuminated screen grew until they seemed the size of a movie screen. She couldn’t think. Didn’t
want
to think.

GOT IT YET?

The sound of the shower shutting off jerked her hard out of the trance, and when she blinked, she saw the afterimage of those letters displayed in the darkness. Haunting her.

Hope paged through the phone for more info, but there wasn’t much beyond the phone number to the device and a couple of programmed contact numbers, simply labeled
One
and
Two
. She slipped the phone back in his pants and let them drop to the floor, then wrapped herself up in the sheets and covered herself with the duvet. She felt exposed now. Exposed and very chilled.

She heard the bathroom door open, and the pad of footsteps on carpet, and then Elijah was sliding beneath the covers. His warm, damp body curved to hers and
dammit
she couldn’t stop the response that leaped through her in a white-hot, involuntary thrill. She wanted him. Still. Again. And yet, when she closed her eyes, those words still hung there in the darkness …
GOT IT YET?

“I should probably check your stitches,” she said. It was almost mechanical, something to say while the rest of her brain struggled to process information. His chuckle was half-smothered by his lips against her shoulder.

“They’re fine. And the bandage is fine. I took it off before I showered and put it back on after. Hey, you’re a little cold,” Elijah said, and wrapped his arms around her to pull her closer against his skin. “You should have jumped in the shower with me.”

If she had, she’d have missed that damning phone call and text, and oh, how she wished she’d succumbed to the temptation. She didn’t say anything, because she wasn’t really sure what she
could
say in that moment. Questions pushed at her, but she still wanted to cling to some last sad shred of delusion, and believe that he really cared.

GOT IT YET?

Elijah’s lips gently pressed to a sensitive spot just below her ear, and it was warm and seductively calming. “Hope? Anything wrong?”

“No,” she said, and pressed against his body to let its heat drive away her inner chill. “No, I just don’t want this to end.” That wasn’t a lie. She wanted to believe in him. She wanted to trust him.

“Let’s just enjoy what we’ve got,” he said. “Worrying about tomorrow will just drive you crazy. You’re safe; I’m safe. It’s all okay.”

There had to be some explanation for that call, that text, that didn’t involve betraying her. Her body was still echoing with the delights he’d given her, and the idea that it was all a lie, or worse, all a deliberate
plot
, was something she just couldn’t accept. She couldn’t be that blind. That stupid.

She could still see the glowing screen and letters against her closed eyelids, but it was fading now. Maybe she could just will it away.

Elijah made a drowsy, contented sound that vibrated down her spine, and in a few more minutes she felt his breathing shift to a slow, deep, steady rhythm. He trusted her enough to surrender into sleep, at least. Or he underestimated her enough.

Hope didn’t quite sleep, but she napped on and off, still struggling with her fears and her paranoia, until she saw the glow of sunrise warming the curtains. In the morning light, she almost convinced herself that it would be okay. Almost

When she finally shifted, Elijah mumbled sleepily and rolled away from her, and she slipped quietly out of bed and headed for the bathroom. She stopped in the doorway, reversed course, and quietly retrieved her backpack and put it inside the bathroom with her before she closed and locked the door and turned on the shower. It didn’t take long to heat up, and she stepped into the pounding spray with a feeling of deep relief. The shower curtain was an opaque dark brown, and it seemed like she was sealed into her own private space, with time to think. Better yet, not to think at all.

The steaming water rinsed away her fears, and in the growing light of day, it all began to seem like an overreaction. If he’d been meaning to betray her, he didn’t have to spend all night with her, holding her. He could have just done it. He didn’t show his strength much, but she could feel it in him, and she knew that if he decided to overpower her there wasn’t much she could do to stop him. That had seemed like an exciting risk in those breathless dark hours, when she couldn’t dream of
not
trusting him, seeing that strength caged and harnessed—present, but never threatening.

But now it was daylight, and he hadn’t made her any promises.

She finished her shower and toweled her hair dry. She’d brought her clothes in with her, and dressed quickly.
Maybe I’ll order breakfast,
she thought, and reached down for the backpack she’d leaned against the side of the sink cabinet.

It wasn’t there.

Hope felt around. For a moment she thought it must have fallen over, wedged itself between the cabinet and the wall, or slid underneath … but it wasn’t there. She dropped down to her knees to take a closer look.

Nothing. Her backpack was missing.

She shot to her feet with a gasp and looked at the still-closed bathroom door. The lock was popped out, and she distinctly remembered pushing it in.

She opened the door quietly, trying not to wake Elijah. The room was still murky, since the curtains were closed, and she tiptoed toward the desk where the menu was located. Of course she knocked into the chair, and it skidded with a loud thump into the wall, and she froze and looked toward the bed, but the glow from the bathroom light cast a broad swath across the carpet, the tangled covers, and the bed.

The empty bed.

Elijah was gone.

Hope stood there for a long moment. She stared at the tangled covers without having any thought at all … just a frozen, static silence in her brain, until the panic clicked in. His clothes were gone. His shoes.
He was gone.

Elijah was gone, and so was her money.

###

The first second was shock. The second was betrayal. But in the next gasp of breath, Hope felt an overwhelming, focused burst of anger. Real anger, the kind that started as a hot burn behind her eyes and then sheeted down through her body like a red wall of flame.
I’ll kill him,
she thought. She knew what that meant now, and they weren’t just empty words. She’d seen someone die, and she wanted to do that to the man who’d fucked her and betrayed her, like she meant
nothing
.

Like she was just another of his easy marks, his shy, desperate good girls willing to part their legs and part with cash in exchange for a charming smile.

Hope switched on the desk light, and that was when she saw the note. He must have meant for her to see it, because he’d positioned it carefully right on the center of the wood, just where the lamp would hit it like a spotlight. Hotel stationery, written in neat block letters.

Hope,
it said.
Please forgive me. I lied to you. Solomon let me go. He wanted me to go with you and gain your trust. He said he’d kill Avita and dump her body on the way out of town if I didn’t lift the backpack and make it back there within 24 hours.

You asked me why I couldn’t go to the cops, and I’ll tell you the truth: if I do, I’m busted. I had to get the hell out of Wichita ahead of an arrest warrant for breaking and entering. I can’t go to jail, not if there’s another way to help her.

You never asked me if I was religious, but I am, and I’m going to pray that someday, I’ll see you again. Thank you for an amazing night.

And then, separated by half an inch of blank space, a single line:
I put your stuff in the shopping bag for you. Be safe.

She sat down in the desk chair, staring at the paper. Her heart was pounding with useless rage, and she knew she should understand the situation he was in, but she
didn’t.
He could have talked to her. Asked her for help. Gone to the cops, even if that landed him behind bars.

You
could have gone to the cops,
her conscience argued, annoyingly. You
could have done it the second you walked out of the coffee shop with the money. But you didn’t. You made the choice to sin, and keep on sinning, and you pretended like that wouldn’t have consequences. But it did, didn’t it?
The worst and sickening thing was that even now, her body was still humming with the sexual energy Elijah had woken in her … energy that pulsed and pushed, eager for more of his touch. Her body still wanted to trust him; in fact, it almost insisted on it. If she’d ever needed more proof that the flesh was weak (and stupid), she couldn’t have asked for a more graphic demonstration.

Thank you for an amazing night,
the note read, and there wasn’t any doubt that it had been amazing. Shattering. The flashback of orgasms still rattled through her brain and made her shiver in sympathy, and she wanted that, wanted
him
, more than she’d ever wanted anything in her life.

There wasn’t much to pack. Hope spotted the shopping bag of convenience store-bought supplies
. I put your stuff in the shopping bag for you.
The bag, when she pulled it out from under the table, was surprisingly heavy—too heavy for some leftover bandages and antiseptic.

She opened it and looked inside, and blinked for a moment before what she was looking at made sense.

The bag was full of cash.

He’d emptied the cash out of the backpack.

Her mouth fell open, and she had to sit down again, all the angry burn of her outrage fading away. There was another note on top of the money. She picked it up with a slightly trembling hand.

I told him I’d bring him the backpack,
Elijah had written.
I took ten thousand and padded the rest with other stuff. I’m hoping he’ll take it and run. You should do the same, Hope. Take this and run like we talked about, and don’t look back.

She was still holding the other note, and she put them side by side, reading first one, then the other. His advice was sound. He’d found a compromise, one that let him save his friend’s life and at the same time, give her back her own chance to escape. It put him back in Solomon’s hands, but he’d chosen that.

All she had to do was move on, and forget him.

Hope took the two notes, folded them, and put them in the shopping bag. Then she folded the top down and hefted it and went downstairs.

The gift shop was open. She palmed a twenty from one of the stacks in her bag and bought a cheap ASU Rio Verde duffel bag, a small travel purse, and an assortment of magazines grabbed at random from the shelf; one of them was some kind of publication with a profile of a star ASU-RV football player, and she paused for a second, because she
knew
that face. It took her a few seconds to place it, though, and when she did, it came as a shock.

He’d been at The Coffee Cave. One of her co-conspirators.

She glanced over the headlines speculating on his brilliant pro ball future, and remembered that he’d said he had a lot to lose. He hadn’t been exaggerating about that. She put the duffel bag and magazines in the bag, which also helped cover up the cash, and added the change from the twenty as she walked to the restroom. In the safety of a stall, she transferred the contents of the bag into the duffel, and zipped it safely shut. It was stuffed and heavy, but it’d do. The magazines placed on the top and sides smoothed out the profile and made it look less like a ransom-drop bag of cash, at least.

Hope didn’t expect to find her car in the parking lot, but she was surprised on that one, because it was exactly where she’d left it. She realized with a sick surge that her car keys had been in the backpack. Along with her ID, of course.

That was when she noticed the folded sheet of paper under the dew-sparkled windshield. It felt damp, but when she unfolded it, the letters were totally readable. Elijah’s handwriting, again, on hotel stationery.

I was going to take it but I couldn’t. It’s unlocked. Keys and ID are in the glove compartment.