On a nod, Beau unclips her seatbelt, takes a visible inhale, and gets out of the car, looking up at the front of the building as she does. I join her on the sidewalk. “Do you want me to come in?” I ask. She nods, so I hold my hand out for her to take and lead the way, hating this uncertainty on her. The door opens before we get there, an old fella who’s suited greeting us with a sympathetic smile.
“You must be Miss Hayley,” he says, his voice loud, like he hopes to raise the dead in his care. He opens the way, allowing us to step into the reception area. It’s cozy in a sickly way. Full of florals—the paper, the prints, the carpet. But it reeks of death. “I’m Arnie Gluttenhiem.”
“Thank you for keeping open so late,” Beau says, gazing around, moving into my side and clinging on to my arm.
“What, dear?” he yells, leaning in.
“I said—”
“What was that?”
“I was going to say—”
“Damn hearing aid has broken again.” He taps his ear, where a wire hangs just below his lobe.
“Thank you!” Beau yells, making me wince. “For staying open!”
He waves off her appreciation. “Death isn’t a nine-to-five job,” he shouts, sweeping an arm out toward the back of the room where three doors are. “The one on the right. Your father’s ready for you.”
Beau stares at the door, frozen, breathing heavily.
Torn.
“Take your time,” I say quietly. “Do you want to sit down for a moment?”
She shakes her head, stepping forward. And again. And again. I follow her lead, until we’re at the door. She takes the handle. Stills. “Do you mind if I go in alone?” she asks, looking up at me, almost in apology. “I have some things I want to say to him.”
“You do what you have to do.” I detach her from my side and drop a kiss onto her forehead. “I’ll be here.”
I take a seat on one of the floral chairs and watch as she starts again to build the strength she needs to go inside and confront her father. Because that’s what she’ll do. Confront him. Have it all out. Tell him how he made her feel, how much she needed him. That he wasn’t there.
Closure.
I mentally will her on, encourage her, push her, my body tense in the seat. She takes the doorknob. Her shoulders raise with a confidence-hitting inhale.
Then she drops her hold and moves back, exhaling. “I can’t,” she says to the door, forcing me to my feet. “I can’t do it.” She swings around, her eyes flooded with tears ready to fall, her head shaking, dislodging them, making them tumble down her pink cheeks.
I don’t get the chance to go to her. She comes to me, crushing her body into mine, holding on. Needing me. And I fucking hate it. I envelop her in my arms. Safe. “I don’t want you to regret it,” I say, my nose in her hair, feeling her tears soaking through my T-shirt and finding my skin.
Then she’s out of her hiding place again, roughly wiping at her cheeks, looking back at the door, the internal battle ongoing. “Okay,” she says to herself, going to the door again. I hate this. How she feels. Her inner turmoil. Because there is fuck all I can do to fix it. She takes the knob, turns it, pushes the door open a fraction, takes another deep breath.
I’m watching her so closely, my eyes fixed, my mind focused, that I startle when my phone rings. Beau swings around to face me, watching me rummage through my pocket. I pull it out. Roll my eyes at the screen. “It’s just Goldie,” I say, letting it ring off, returning my attention to Beau. And so now we will begin the whole torturous, painstaking task of building the strength to enter again. “Go,” I say, soft but firm, nodding to the ajar door. She looks over her shoulder, contemplating the wood.
My phone dings. Goldie. And what her message says sends chills down my spine.
Incoming!
I look over my shoulder to the door as I draw my gun, seeing shadows of men approaching through the frosted glass. “Fuck,” I hiss, scanning the reception area, noting the old boy at the desk lost in paperwork, the cameras, all the doors. Beau’s attention is back on me when I find her, eyes questioning but knowing. She starts scanning the place too, and she’s off across the carpet fast, heading for a door in the corner. I go after her, looking back, seeing the shadows closer, motionless on the other side of the door. Checking their weapons.
Beau pushes into the door and I follow her through, closing it quietly behind me, taking a moment to reassess where we are. The metal drainage channels on the floor tell me before I have a chance to look up and see the dead body on the slab. Ice-cold air radiates from the corpse, making me shudder, and Beau stares at the old woman, as still as her.
“Beau,” I say, taking her arm and pushing her toward a door on the other side of the room with an illuminated EMERGENCY EXIT sign above it. I believe this might be an emergency. I push into the metal handle and break out into a yard. The metal gate on the other side is chained and padlocked. “Fuck it,” I mutter, grabbing one of the many industrial trashcans and pushing it up against the wall as something flies past me. I freeze and look up, seeing Beau on top of the wall. She looks down at me halfway to positioning the trash can to use as a lift.
“Take your time,” she says casually, turning and falling to the ground on the other side.
“Beau,” I hiss, livid, as I haul my big body up the wall on a few grunts, my muscles yelling for a break. She didn’t even check if the fucking coast is clear.
I drop down the other side. “Don’t ev—”
“The coast was clear,” she says tiredly, motioning to the empty alleyway, just as a thud sounds behind us. She looks back, and I just know what she’s thinking. “The old man.”
“We can’t be sentimental, Beau.” We’re running for our fucking lives.
“But—”
I move onward, my gun in one hand, Beau in the other, practically manhandling her. “He’ll be fine.” I don’t know that at all.
“What if—”
“Beau, I haven’t got time for this,” I hiss, poking my head around the corner, seeing my Range Rover up the street. A BMW is directly outside the funeral home, a driver at the wheel. Where the fuck is Goldie?”
And like she’s heard me, she appears at the back of the BMW, armed, and walks down the side of the car. The whooshing of a bullet leaving a chamber sounds and blood splatters the screen.
Goldie looks at the door to the funeral home, and I whistle to get her attention, just as a thud sounds behind us, accompanied by a rush of foreign words. Polish.
I release Beau, giving her a look to suggest that if she moves, she’ll be getting it, and she holds her hand out. I’m not a stupid man. I give her my gun and arm myself with the other in the back of my jeans as I lift a trash can and gently place it down by the wall, stepping up and plastering my back to the bricks. I’m about to tell Beau to get in position by the gates, but she’s already there, poised, ready. I hate the sense of unstoppable pride I feel. Hate that she knows what she’s doing.
A head appears over the wall, and before he has a chance to spot me, I grab his jacket and haul him over. He hits the floor with a splat and Beau has a bullet in him before I’ve even aimed.