For a few moments, he thought he was going to pass out. Buttoni hadn’t called a lawyer. He’d called a hit man.
Walt forgot about the food, ordered a bottle of tequila, and took it to his room. The ocean view from there was picture perfect… Blue skies. Bluer water. White sands. But he didn’t see it.
Everywhere he looked, he saw Megan. As a baby, being placed in his arms. As a child, running to him and laughing. As a teenager, growing into the selfish, demanding woman he’d taught her to be.
He sat down on the side of the bed with the bottle in his hands, then closed his eyes and saw the look on her face when the police took her out of the house. It was the same look she’d always given him, expecting him to fix what was broken.
He looked out at the ocean. Tears were running down his face. There was a part of him wishing he’d stayed with her. He would have died with her. Instead, he’d fed her to their respective shark and saved himself.
But the longer he sat, the more certain he was that he wasn’t safe from Buttoni, either. He’d just prolonged his demise. Megan was gone, but he was still connected to her, which meant the cops would be after him, which meant he was a threat. He was a loose end, and it was only a matter of time before Buttoni tied it up.
Despair washed through him like a hurricane through an open window. He opened the tequila, took a big swing from the bottle, then got a glass from a tray off the minibar and got shit-faced drunk.
***
Craig Buttoni was on a plane over the ocean when the news broke on TV, so he was unaware that his request had been fulfilled. But when he landed in London, the first message he received was: “Cleanup successful.”
He smiled. As expected. Then he grabbed a cab to his hotel.
As soon as he’d checked in, he paid the cleaner via bank transfer and went to bed. He never could sleep on planes. He was exhausted from the flight, and he had another plane to catch tomorrow evening.
He’d always meant to go to Monaco, and the farther away he was from New Mexico right now, the better off he would be.
The old-world charm and the casinos of Monte Carlo beckoned.
***
Now that Katie had the school visit behind her and her things unpacked, she was at loose ends about what to do with herself. The next day she walked out to the mailbox at the curb to see if her mail had caught up with her yet, but it had not. She paused a moment, looking up and then down the street, and for the first time really looked at the beautiful trees in the neighborhood.
The weather was warm. The sky was a picturesque conglomeration of blue sky and white puffy clouds, and she had an urge to go for a walk. The only thing stopping her was her reticence to step out into unfamiliar territory, and she needed to get over that. She went back inside to get her phone, changed into her running shoes, then grabbed a bottle of water and her sunglasses and locked the door behind her as she left.
Without thinking, she turned left, taking the route she drove to get to Main, and set off with an easy stride. Throughout her adult life, she’d been faithful about staying fit, and it was all because of a scare on campus while she was still in college. While walking home one night after work, she was accosted near her campus apartment but managed to escape without coming to actual harm. After that, she enrolled in a martial arts class and wound up with a black belt. She’d never had to use the skills, but after moving to New Mexico, she’d stayed in practice at her local gym. There was no gym in Borden’s Gap, but there were still plenty of places to walk, and today was her maiden voyage afoot.
The sun was warm, but it felt good, so she lengthened her stride and kept moving past the houses, admiring the lush growth of everything blooming and everything green.
A teenage boy was mowing a yard at a house across the street, and when he saw the pretty stranger, he stopped and stared until Katie waved.
Startled to have been caught gawking, he managed an embarrassed grin and went back to his mowing.
An elderly woman sitting in a chair on her front porch was reading so intently that she didn’t see Katie as she passed by, but the man coming down the street in a blue pickup truck not only saw her but rolled down the window and whistled at her as he drove past.
A little startled by his unabashed flirting, Katie kept her gaze on the sidewalk and kept moving.
She was almost at Main Street when she saw that same old dirty pickup truck and the same man driving that she’d seen at Welby’s Grocery when she first arrived. He glanced at her as he passed and then looked away.
Katie shuddered, then took a big drink and kept walking, refusing to let anyone mess up her good day. Even one of the local creeps.
She paused to admire a grand old house surrounded by an overgrowth of shrubbery and thought she saw movement on the porch.
All of a sudden, a little Yorkie darted into view and then scampered down the steps and started a kind of running bounce toward the street.
She heard a woman’s faint cry of dismay, then saw the owner, an elderly woman with a crown of white hair, coming down the steps far slower than her puppy. Without hesitating, Katie bolted across the street to try to catch the dog before it got away.
“Rhett! Rhett Butler…you come back here right now!” the old woman shouted.
Katie was loping toward Rhett the Yorkie, trying not to laugh at the name.
The Yorkie spied her and took a right, bouncing like a rabbit as it changed directions.
“Oh no!” the old woman cried, and then clapped her hands. “Rhett! Come here to Mama! Come here right now!”
Rhett was either deaf or not interested in the invitation and kept running up the street. But those tiny legs were no match for Katie’s long ones. She not only outran him, but got in front of him and scooped him up before he had time to change directions again.
The moment she picked him up, he licked her nose.
Katie laughed. “Oh my lord. You are something of a lover, aren’t you? But kisses will get you nowhere with me. You scared your mama, you little imp.”
Rhett had nothing to add and happily let her carry him home, panting like he’d just run a mile.
Katie met up with the old woman at the end of her drive and handed him over.
The woman hugged the little Yorkie to her.
“Bad boy, Rhett. Bad boy. Running from Mama like that.”
Rhett licked her nose. He had his moves down pat.
Then the woman looked up at Katie and sighed.
“Sugar, I don’t know who you are, but thank you for catching my baby. He’s such a bad boy, and I’m getting too old to walk him like I used to. Oh…and excuse my manners. I’m Delilah Cash, and this is Rhett Butler.”
Katie smiled. “So nice to meet you, Delilah. I’m Katie McGrath. And Rhett and I have already met and traded kisses,” she said.