The chill in the autumn air is just what I need as I steady my pace with my hands in my jacket pockets. The metal of the gun feels cold against my hand as I glance from house number to house number.
55 West Planes. In the mailbox.
That’s what Marcus said. Simple instructions. But an easy setup if he’s planning one.
They say he’s a man with no trace, no past, and nothing to use against him. A ghost. A man who doesn’t exist.
He knows everything and only tells you what he wants when he wants to deliver it. But he’s a safe in-between for people like us to use. Because if Marcus tells you something, it’s because he wants you to know it.
And that’s a good thing, unless he wants you dead.
I brush my hair back as I glance from right to left. There’s a group of guys on the steps of an old brick house across the street and on its mailbox is 147.
I cross the street after passing them, so I’m on the odd-numbered side. The block before this was numbered in the two hundreds. So one more block.
The adrenaline pumps in my blood and I finger the gun inside my jacket pocket.
I have to will away the thoughts of Addison, no matter how much they cling to me and plague me every waking second.
My father taught us all to pay attention. Distractions are what get you killed.
A huff of a laugh leaves me at the memory of his lesson.
I guess when you don’t care if you live or die, the severity of his words don’t send pricks down your skin like they did when you were a child.
Tyler wasn’t with me that day. I wonder if my father ever bothered to give Tyler that advice. Addison was as big of a distraction to him as she was to me.
With the tragic memories threatening to destroy me, I halt in my tracks, realizing I wasn’t even looking at the numbers.
And I happened to stop right at 55. The mailbox is only two steps away.
The cold metal door of the mailbox opens with a creak. The sound travels in the tense air and the inside appears dark and empty. I dare to reach inside and pull out only an unmarked envelope. Nothing else.
My forehead pinches as I consider it. It’s thin and looks as if it’s not even carrying anything. But it’s sealed and this is the right address.
All of this for one little envelope.
Slamming the door to the mailbox shut, I walk a few blocks, gripping the envelope in my hand and looking for a bus stop.
I text my brother even though I don’t want to. I don’t want him to know it’s done. That I have what he’s been waiting for. It’s just an envelope.
It’s marked as read almost immediately and he responds just as quickly.
Good. Come back home.
Staring at his text, that pit in my stomach grows. I’m frozen to the cement sidewalk, knowing I have to leave and hating that fact.
I know I need to move and not stay here, lingering when Marcus will be watching. But with the phone staring back at me with no new messages or missed calls, the compulsive habit of calling Addison takes over.
The phone rings and rings and goes to her voicemail.
I haven’t stopped trying and I don’t intend to.
I stayed as long as I could outside her door. I listened to her cry until she had nothing left. I don’t know if I should have tried to talk to her and made her aware that I was still there wanting to comfort her, or if it would have only made her angrier.
A heavy burden weighs on my chest as I slip the envelope into my jacket, careful to fold it down the center and keep moving in the night.
I have no choice but to take this back to Carter. There’s no way I can stay.
For the first time in a long time, I feel trapped. Suffocated by what’s coming.
I can’t leave her again.
I can’t watch her walk away, and I can’t leave her either.
But it was never my choice.
It’s always been hers.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Addison
I can’t count the number of times I swore I was haunted. Not the hotels I stayed in or the places I moved. But me. A Romani woman in New Orleans once told me that it’s not places, it’s people who are haunted.
And since the day Tyler died, I swore up and down that he decided he would haunt me as I ran from place to place, never finding sanctuary.
From the creaks in the floorboards, to small things being misplaced. Every time I tried to find meaning in those moments. Each time I thought it was something Tyler wanted me to know and see.
There were so many nights when I cried out loud, begging him to forgive me. Even when I couldn’t forgive myself.
I wonder if Daniel heard my pleas.
My phone pings on the coffee table and out of a need to know what he has to say this time, I reach for it. I haven’t answered a single call or message from him. I don’t know what to tell him.
It’s fucked up. He’s fucked up.
He hurt me beyond recognition.
I should tell him how I couldn’t move for days on end. But the bastard knows that already.
I truly loved him, but a lie from years ago makes me question everything. He could have helped me heal. He could have shouldered the burden of my pain and I would have done the same for him. But just like when Tyler was alive, he was silent. He gave me nothing.
I’m surprised by the hurt that ripples through me when I see it’s Rae and not Daniel.
It’s a shocking feeling. And it takes me a moment to realize what I really want. I want him to beg me to forgive him. I want him to know my pain.
I let the idea resonate with me as I ignore Rae and click over to Daniel’s texts. Six of them in a row.
I’m sorry.
I was wrong.
I couldn’t help myself.
If I wasn’t with you and watching you it was too much for me to take.
I wish you would understand.
I would never hurt you. I never will.
I read his texts and the anger boils as I text back. You’ll never know how much it hurt to go through that alone. And you made it worse for me. You sat in silence while I was in pain. How could you ever think I’d forgive you?
I realize I’m more disturbed that he didn’t try to help me than the fact that he stalked me. I guess that’s not so different from what he did when I was with Tyler.
I press send without thinking twice. And then I click over to Rae, who wants to know how it’s going. Fucking priceless, I think bitterly.
I roll my eyes, letting a shudder run through my body and tears roll down my cheeks. Instead of answering her, I move to the kitchen for a bottle of wine.
I still haven’t unpacked my wine glasses and I know it’s because part of me was already envisioning leaving with Daniel. I knew he wasn’t staying long and I’d go anywhere with him. I would have done anything he wanted to be by his side.
My phone pings again as I bend down and grab a bottle of merlot by the neck from the bottom shelf of my wine rack. I pretend I’m going to let the phone sit there, but I’m too eager to see what he has to say. I’m a slave to his response.
He writes back, Because I was in pain too. And I’m sorry. It wasn’t to hurt you. It was only to distract me from the guilt I felt.
Pain and guilt and agony and death make people do awful things. But it’s no excuse.
I write back instantly, You used me.
I did.
I hate you for it. I stare at the text message and with the pain in my heart, I already know it’s not hate. It just hurts so much that he watched and did nothing.