CHAPTER NINE
Caitlin
“Parting is all we know of heaven
and all we need of hell.”
-Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Gabe is alive. Gabe is alive. Gabe…
I know I may be fooling myself. There is probably a logical explanation as to why none of the funeral homes in town have received Gabe’s body, and none of the hospitals near Giffney, South Carolina have treated a Gabe Alexander in the past few days. My head tells me the chances that the man I love is still alive are slim, at best, but my heart…
My heart is on fire.
I go through the motions of the day with hope burning a hole in my chest. I help my best friend, Sherry, make my little brothers and niece breakfast with flames whispering against my ribs, making my blood burn and the mounting heat of the mid-summer day even harder to handle. I can’t wait to go to Darby Hill tonight, to slip my lock pick into the servants’ entrance door, and to tease the pins the way Gabe taught me, until the knob gives under my hand.
I feel like I’m only half in my body, the other half of me already tiptoeing through Gabe’s parents’ mansion. I help Danny and Ray clean up the blanket fort in the living room, but I don’t see our shabby carpet or the couch that sags in the middle. I see priceless antiques and oil paintings, illuminated by yellow moonlight. I clean up the breakfast dishes with my mind racing, tracing the route I’ll take up the servants’ staircase to make sure Aaron and Deborah Alexander are sleeping in their bed before I start my investigation. I give Emmie a bath with my pulse fluttering wildly at my throat, as if I’m already shifting through Deborah’s desk, looking for clues, not scrubbing toddler toes.
By the time I change Emmie into her favorite pink tee shirt, white bloomers, and rainbow tutu, my arms are trembling, and I know I need to calm down or I’ll be exhausted before sunset.
“Play animals?” Emmie asks, pointing to the pile of stuffies on her toddler bed.
“Sure,” I say, hoping it will help keep my mind off more dangerous subjects. But as I watch her skip across the room to grab her favorite stuffed koala, tutu bouncing around her waist, I can’t help but think about the day Gabe bought the skirt for her at the French Heritage festival.
It was only a few weeks ago, but it feels like another lifetime. Back then, I had no idea the man I loved was living in the shadow of his own impending death, or that this summer would be the only one we’d ever have. It’s only been four days since I learned that Gabe had chosen life on his own terms over the risky brain surgery that would ravage his memories and personality, even if he were lucky enough to beat the odds and come out alive. Four days since his mother told me that Gabe had died in the hospital. Four days I’ve lived with this shredded, ravaged feeling, like my soul has been sliced apart and left bleeding in the still, gray fog that is a world without Gabe.
Gabe. Gabe is alive. He has to be alive.
I have to see him one more time. I have to hold him, kiss his stubble-covered cheek, inhale the scent of his skin, and promise I will never forget. I have to swear to him that—if we made a child our last night together—I will love our son or daughter enough for both of us. Because Gabe loved me enough in six weeks to last a lifetime. I don’t want to move on without him, but I can, and I will, if there is no other way.
But inside, I’m hoping for a miracle, praying with everything in me that I will find something in Gabe’s parents’ house that will prove his mother lied, and that the grief, that has threatened to devour me whole, can be put away. At least for a little while.
I need more time, if only to make sure I give the most important person in my life a proper goodbye.
“Do you need something?” Sherry asks later in the morning, nudging my hip with hers as we stand side by side at the kitchen counter making peanut butter sandwiches to take to the park.
“Like what?” I slap jelly on Ray’s sandwich and reach for the honey for mine and Emmie’s.
“Like a Xanax? Or a stiff drink? Your hands have been shaking all morning.”
I let out an uneven breath, willing my arms to relax. “No. I’m good.”
“Are you sure?”
I nod. “Yeah. I don’t want to be out of it in the middle of the day.”
And I don’t want a sedative impairing my motor coordination. Gabe and I broke into half a dozen buildings together and I’ve practiced with his lock-picking tools enough that I’m quick with a simple mechanism, but I don’t know what I’ll be dealing with at Darby Hill. I never thought to check the locks on the servants’ entrance door the few times Gabe and I had dinner with his parents.
“Remember, it could be nothing,” Sherry cautions for at least the fifth time since she first told me that Gabe’s body was nowhere to be found. “Someone could have made a mistake at the hospital, or I could have missed a funeral home, or—”
“You didn’t.”
“I know I didn’t.” She brushes her wild red curls from her forehead with a sigh, barely avoiding getting the peanut-butter-streaked knife in her hand stuck in her hair. “I’m just scared for you, C.”
“Don’t be scared. I know what I’m doing, and I have the security code memorized. I won’t get caught.”
“No, I mean…” Sherry casts a glance toward the living room where my twelve-year-old brother, Danny, is helping the little kids clean up toys, before turning back to me and continuing in a softer voice, “Are you going to be okay if it turns out Gabe’s mom wasn’t lying? If he really is…gone?”
I press my lips together and concentrate on cutting the sandwich in front of me into two perfect triangles, wondering how many peanut butter sandwiches I’ve made in my life. I’m doing the math—adding up the days since I took over raising my younger brothers and niece when I was seventeen, multiplying by three, and dividing by five to get an average of how many school lunches I’ve slapped together, anything to keep my mind off that awful question—when Sherry’s fingers close around my wrist.
“Caitlin, seriously.” She gives my arm a gentle squeeze before letting go. “If you fall apart at Gabe’s house and get caught, his parents could call the cops. They could charge you with breaking and entering. You could go to jail, or at least have to pay a fine and—”
“I’m not going to fall apart,” I say in an even tone. “I’m tougher than you think.”
Sherry’s brows draw together. “Well, I think you’re a gladiator, so that’s pretty tough.”
I blink, surprised. I assumed no one but Gabe saw the strength in me.
“Don’t look so shocked,” she says, rolling her eyes. “I mean, for years you’ve been raising four kids all by yourself, working two jobs, and getting nothing but grief from your dad for your trouble. I would have cracked under the pressure the first day.”
“No, you wouldn’t.”
Sherry’s amber eyes go wide. “Oh, yes, I would. The first time the kids all came down with the flu at the same time, I would have dissolved into a puddle of self-pity on the floor, and never gotten up again.”
“You don’t know what you’re capable of until you’re put in an impossible situation,” I say, repeating the words Gabe said to me the night we pulled our first job.
Before this summer, I never would have dreamed I’d crave the rush of stealing from the people Gabe’s father helped keep out of jail, balancing the scales of justice, while pulling my family out of poverty in the process. Before Gabe, I’d spent my life trying not to be like all the people who had let me down, instead of figuring out what I wanted from life. I hadn’t known who I was, or what I was capable of.
Now, thanks to Gabe, I know that I am strong, and prepared to fight a hundred bloody battles if that’s what it takes to find my way back to him. Less than a week ago, Gabe and I killed a man to protect the people we love. After that, a little breaking and entering is child’s play.
Of course, Sherry doesn’t know Gabe and I are responsible for Ned Pitt’s death. No one except Danny even suspects, and that’s the way it’s going to stay. Sherry’s right, I can’t afford to go to prison. There’s no one left to take care of my brothers and Emmie if I’m taken away. That’s why I have to be careful, and make sure I don’t get caught.
“You sure you’re good with staying here tonight?” I ask, shoving the sandwich bags into our cracked wicker picnic basket, and adding a few apples from the bowl on the counter.
Sherry nods. “And if anyone asks, I’ll swear you were asleep in the bed beside me, all night long.”
“Don’t worry about that,” I say. “No one’s going to—”
I’m interrupted by three loud raps at the back door. Even before the door slams open and my dad calls out—
“Who wants a lollipop?”
—I know it’s Chuck.
My dad always comes in through the back door, like a thief in the night, taking the people unfortunate enough to be related to him by surprise.