“Then, too, Sarah and I needed a fresh start, away from that jerk I was married to. I don’t regret leaving Manhattan.”
She paused to take a breath. “But moving to a different city now, assuming another name, having to lie to everyone in order to establish a new identity, I don’t want to do it again.”
“I don’t want you to either,” he said, meaning it. “Stay where you are, Becs, and live your life. Don’t consider me every time you make a decision. Your happiness and well-being, Sarah’s, that’s all that you shoul
d take into account.”
“But now that Jack Connell knows where I am—”
“You can’t betray me to him because you don’t know anything.”
“He doesn’t believe that. He’s certain that I know where you are.”
“Then he’s wrong, isn’t he?”
“And so are you.”
“Am what?”
“Wrong. Something’s going on. What?”
God, she was tenacious. “Don’t worry about me. I’m fine.”
Ever attuned to the slightest nuance, she asked, “What did you do this time?”
“You know better than to ask.”
“Just tell me so I won’t have to worry.”
He hesitated, then said, “I got crosswise with my neighbors.” Experience had taught her to read between the lines. She wouldn’t guess that, this time, he was speaking literally.
“Plural?”
“Two of them.”
She made a small sound of regret. “How crosswise did you get?”
“They’re still breathing, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Don’t get nasty. I just want to know what happened.”
“Actually, Becs, you don’t. If you don’t know, you won’t ever have to lie about it.”
“For God’s sake, when will you stop?”
“When I’m finished.”
“Or until someone finishes you.”
“There’s always that possibility.”
She gave a huff of mirthless laughter. “But I’m not supposed to worry?”
He didn’t have a response for that.
“If you’re done there, wherever there is, you’ll be relocating now.”
He looked at the building across the street from where he was leaning against a utility pole. Visiting hours at the hospital were over, so there weren’t as many people coming and going as there had been earlier.