Chapter 41
I must have fallen asleep, because we are in bed now, the last few rays of sunshine touching the cold windows. His head is resting on my chest. It’s heavy and my breathing is a bit strained, but I like it. I bring my arm around and gently stroke his hair.
“You’re awake,” he says, without moving.
“Yes . . . I thought you were asleep.”
“No, I’ve been awake for a while . . . I’m listening to your heart.”
“What does my heart say?” I ask and smile, wondering what his answer will be.
He lifts his head up and props it on his hand, his elbow on the mattress. He just looks at me, not saying anything.
Then he leans toward me and kisses me, a soft touch of his lips.
“Sam ,why didn’t you want to go to the ice hockey match with me?” I ask.
He sighs and leans back on a pillow. Then he turns his head to look at me. “I thought it would be better to keep some distance between us.”
“Why?”
“Because if we didn’t, I had a strong feeling we would end up like this.” He gives me a gentle smile and strokes my cheek with the back of his fingers.
“Why would that be a bad thing?”
He turns his head and looks at the ceiling. “I told you, Jane, I am not who you think I am. You . . . you deserve someone else, someone better.”
I turn sideways to look at him, stabbing my elbow onto the pillow, leaning my head on my palm. “Why do you keep saying that?”
“Eduardo thinks so too.”
I huff and roll my eyes. “Why would I care what Eduardo thinks?”
“Jane, you don’t know me.” He shakes his head, still looking at the ceiling. “He does.”
“I know everything I need to know, Sam. You are—”
A loud knocking on the door.
“Mr. Smith!” There is a muffled sound outside our hotel room. “Mr. Smith, a gentleman would like to have a word with you. C—could you please open up?”
I hear the sound of the door unlocking—a sudden panic clutches at my heart—but then I notice that Sam had jammed the door with a chair and the door doesn’t budge.
“Mr. Smith . . .” The concierge’s voice is low and trembling. “Mr. Smith, please, open the door.”
Sam looks at me and puts his index finger over his lips. Then he pushes me to move off the bed and slides down himself. He reaches for a backpack next to our bed, then quickly grabs all our clothes from the floor and stuffs them into the bag. He stands up and slides open the window. The rush of cold air sweeps in from the outside.
He glances over the windowsill.
“We’re gonna jump,” he whispers.
“What?” I look at him, my eyes wide open.
He doesn’t respond but instead takes my arm and pulls me up to sit on the windowsill. There is a startling bang on the door. He ignores it. He lifts my legs over the sill, holding me at my waist, and then he does the same.
I look down, our legs swaying three floors over the ground. My heart is drumming wildly in my ribcage, my hands clutching the windowsill, my stomach crumpled into a tiny ball.
“You’re crazy!” I say without a breath.
“I know.”
As the door bursts open with a crash, Sam pushes me forward, and we fall. My mouth is open for a scream, but no sound comes out.
The next moment we’re falling onto the outstretched awning of the hotel’s outdoor restaurant and the landing is so soft that I’m amazed. Sam quickly stands and reaches for my hand. I grab it and we flounder to the edge of the outstretched fabric, then jump down to a hibernating flowerbed and onto the ground.
And we start to run. Completely naked.
I don’t have the time or the courage to look at the people having dinner in the restaurant, but I can only imagine what their thoughts are.
I’m breathing heavily and my heart’s pumping under a rush of adrenaline. I turn and look back up at our window.
I see a man leaning out, holding something to his ear. The next moment, Sam pulls me around the corner and then stops abruptly. I bang into him.
What follows next happens so fast I don’t even perceive it in real time. Over Sam’s shoulder, directly in front of us, I see a man. He’s turning, stretching his arm toward us, holding—a gun?
Sam lets go of my hand and I freeze.
In a split second, Sam is next to the man, his leg stretched out in a kick. And then—an earsplitting sound. It’s so sudden that I don’t have a chance to cover my ears.
And then, the gun is flying into the air.
The man is looking up at the gun, frozen in shock.
I’m sure somewhere in his brain a command to catch that gun must have been sent. But the synapse impulse never reached his muscles.
The next moment, the man is staring down the barrel of his own gun, its grip tight in Sam’s fist now.
The man’s face is blank, a frown just beginning to form.
Another earsplitting sound.
His face is now placid and calm. A tiny round red hole in the middle of his forehead.
There is a moment of stillness, while echoes of the gunshot vibrate around the building. Then the man falls to his knees and crashes over sideways, a dull thud as his heavy body hits the ground.
Sam turns around. “C’mon!”
I am looking at the man on the floor. My brain is shouting all sorts of instructions right now, yet none of my muscles respond.
I can’t move.
I am rooted to the spot.
Sam takes my hand and pulls me down the small staircase the man was guarding. He opens a white wooden door and peeks in, holding me at a safe distance behind him. Then he enters and pulls me inside as well. After several steps through a small dark corridor, we go through another door; behind is a brightly lit hall.
It’s an indoor parking garage.
Sam runs toward a white Land Rover parked in a corner and I’m stumbling behind. At the driver’s door, Sam reaches for the handle and the car beeps and unlocks, the lights flashing twice.
“Get in!” he says, opening the door.
Naked and cold, I bundle myself into the passenger’s seat, hugging my knees. He quickly sits next to me, closing the door, then pushes the ignition button and the engine starts smoothly. He pulls his seatbelt on, then looks at me expectantly.
I look back, not sure if I should understand his stare.
“The seatbelt?”
I blink. The seatbelt?
Then it lands. The seatbelt, yes.
I buckle my seatbelt as quickly as I possibly can and Sam starts reversing. While the car is still going backward, he changes gears, then stamps his foot down on the accelerator. With squealing tires, the car races forward and we zoom up the exit ramp, the parking barrier flying off into the air as we crash through.