Listed: Volume V

by Noelle Adams

  She almost strangled on the swell of painful emotion but masked it by pretending to cough.

  Paul eyed her with his characteristic observation but didn’t appear unduly worried.

  When they got to the restaurant, Emily stumbled as she got out of the car, feeling way too hot and dizzy. She managed to smile and even laugh a little, as if she were amused by her clumsiness.

  She just had to make it a few minutes longer.

  “Are you sure you feel all right?” Paul asked, peering at her as they walked in. His hand even reached out to feel her forehead.

  She swatted his hand away before he touched her. He would know in an instant if he felt her face. “I’m fine. Don’t fuss. It’s just a little headache. Maybe this is what a hangover feels like.”

  He chuckled. “But you still feel like waffles? Why aren’t I surprised?”

  She liked his fond, teasing tone, even as it threatened to rip her heart out.

  The restaurant was packed, but the hostess still managed to secure them an immediate table, much to Emily’s relief. She stuffed Shakespeare into her bag before she dropped the bag on the floor next to her chair.

  Their server brought over two big glasses of fresh-squeezed orange juice before they’d even asked for it. Emily gulped hers down gratefully, her mouth feeling hot and dry. They put in their orders, and then Emily figured she’d waited long enough.

  “I’m going to run to the restroom,” she said casually. “Too much coffee.”

  Paul raised his eyebrows but didn’t question her statement. Emily managed to keep her legs steady as she made it across the large room and then down the hallway to the ladies room.

  She’d chosen this restaurant for a very particular reason. There was a window to the outside in the women’s restroom.

  It wasn’t very large, but it was large enough for her to crawl through.

  There was someone else in the restroom, but she just hid in a stall until the other woman left. Then she came out and stared at her pale face and overly bright eyes in the mirror. She pulled off her engagement ring and wedding band and placed them on the counter next to the sink.

  It was a risk, but Paul was likely to come look for her after not too long. At least, when he saw the rings, he would know she hadn’t been kidnapped. He wouldn’t be scared. He would know what happened right away.

  That would be better.

  She desperately wanted to leave a note, to try to explain something. She hated for him to be hurt. But that would soften it. It would be better if he was angry, if he hated her.

  Hurting him now would hurt him less than he would have hurt later, when she died.

  Then, not taking time to think or indulge second-thoughts, she climbed up on the sink—feeling suddenly dizzy as she did so. She held on desperately until she got her balance back, and then she unlocked the window.

  It pushed open easily and she crawled out, dragging her heavy bag with her.

  She was clumsy and uncoordinated—probably from the fever—and she scraped up her hands and banged her head pretty bad on the window frame. She ignored the pain, though, and jogged quickly down the alley as soon as she’d gained her feet.

  It was these first minutes that were most critical.

  She ducked into the closest subway station, just a block and a half away. Then she stumbled her way to the underground level and got on the first available train.

  She just needed to get far enough away that Paul and his security wouldn’t find her, wouldn’t catch her, when they realized she was gone.

  She experienced a blinding panic as she huddled into a seat of the mostly empty train. This was surreal, crazy. What the hell was she doing? The fever must have addled her brain to make her think that running away was the best option.

  But she kept coming back to one aching truth. It would hurt Paul less if she left now.

  And he was the one she had to think about.

  So she hugged her bag to her chest and tried not to cry. Her fever, for some reason, wasn’t rising as quickly as it had last time. She could still walk, although her head was pounding now and she was aching all over.

  But she had a plan, and she was going to go through with it.

  Ten minutes after she’d crawled through the window, her phone started to ring. She knew it was Paul, so she ignored it.

  When it kept ringing, she just turned the phone off.

  She couldn’t help but imagine what Paul was doing, what Paul was thinking, what Paul was feeling right now.

  And she started to cry.

  As she struggled to stifle her tears, an elderly woman sitting across from her asked, “Are you all right, honey?”

  Emily nodded wetly and managed to answer, “Yeah. Thanks, though.”

  Recognizing one of the approaching stops, she got up to exit the train. When she stepped off, she was stumbling, her knees buckling on every step, but she managed to make it to a pay phone.

  She couldn’t use her cell phone or Paul would know who she’d called.

  When a female voice picked up on the other end, Emily rasped, “Hi, Stacie. It’s me. Emily.”

  There was a long pause. Then. “Emily? Are you all right?”

  “Yeah.” Then she shook her head. She could barely see through the blur of her vision. “No. Not really. Can you come get me? I know it’s a lot to ask after…after everything. But I need help.”

  There was another pause, but not as long as the first one. “Sure. Sure, I’ll help. Where are you?”

  Emily told her and then hung up the phone. She found an empty bench and huddled in a corner of it, praying Stacie would get here soon.

  She hadn’t seen her former step-sister in over six years.

  When her father had married Stacie’s mother, the girls had been best friends, but that friendship had broken when the marriage fell apart.

  It had been a grief—a real grief—to lose Stacie as a friend, but loyalty to her father was more important.

  Emily lost track of time, falling into a feverish stupor, barely able to hold herself upright. Her hair was bothering her, but there was nothing she could do about it. She didn't have the coordination to find an elastic band in her toiletry case.

  Stacie found her like that on the bench, and her normally sharp, clever features softened when she saw her. “Oh, hon, what happened?”

  “I’m sick,” Emily said, hoping she was speaking lucidly. “Can I stay with you?”

  “Of course.” Stacie reached down to help her up. “Come on. Let me get you out of here.”

  Emily leaned on Stacie until they’d reached her car. Then she slumped into the passenger seat, still hugging her bag to her chest.

  “What happened, Emily?” Stacie asked, as she pulled her car away from the curb. She’d been parked quite illegally in a loading zone. “I thought you were married.”

  “I was. I am. I was.” Emily rubbed her face and tried to think. Of course, Stacie deserved an explanation. “It’s not working. I just need somewhere to stay.”

  “You can stay with me.” Stacie glanced over at her. “I feel bad about never getting in touch with you, after I heard…after I heard about everything. But I thought you’d still be mad at me, and I didn’t want it to seem like I was…”

  “I understand,” Emily mumbled, brushing away a few stray tears. She didn't even know where they had come from. “It’s all right. I was going to call you anyway. I was going to do it before I die.” She reached into her bag and pulled out her folded list.

  After she unfolded it, she put her finger under the second item from the bottom. It said, “Make up with Stacie.”

  Stacie had stopped at a traffic light, and she read what a twelve-year-old Emily had written there. Her face twisted briefly. “Shit, Emily. You’re gonna make me cry like a girl.”

  Emily half-laughed, half-sobbed. “I’m sorry. I should have apologized a long time ago.”

  “Me too,” Stacie said, brushing at her eyes impatiently. Her smile was sharp and almost teasing
despite her obvious emotion. “I should have reached out to you. I’ve always been the bigger person, after all, and I should be a role model for you in maturity and beneficence.”

  Emily huffed softly at her cousin’s attempt at humor and felt a little better.

  “So why didn’t things work out with your husband? I was really surprised when I heard you married him, since I always thought him a spoiled, entitled asshole, but—”

  “No,” Emily choked, glaring at Stacie in outrage. “He’s not. Don’t call him that. He’s…he’s…wonderful.”

  Stacie’s brows drew together. “Then why did you leave him?”

  Emily shook her head and couldn’t answer. She just felt too bad to have this conversation, and it hurt too much to think about.

  “We can talk about it later,” Stacie murmured, evidently recognizing that Emily wasn’t up to it. “You look like you feel like crap.”

  Crap was an understatement, although her fever still hadn’t risen as much or as quickly as it had during her last round of fever, just a few days ago.

  “It’s gonna get bad, Stacie,” Emily mumbled, tossing her head restlessly against the headrest. “Sorry to do this to you.”

  “Don’t be sorry,” Stacie replied. “I want to help. I should have helped a long time ago.”

  Twelve

  Paul was just numb.

  His emotions had taken such a battering in the last hour that he couldn’t seem to feel anymore. He sat stiffly behind his desk in the office of the apartment and tried to sort out options and possibilities in his head.

  It was useless. His mind was a hopeless blank.

  For long, agonizing minutes, he stared at his phone, which—over and over again—didn't ring.

  He’d been worried for Emily went she’d gotten up to use the bathroom in the restaurant earlier. She wasn’t looking well. He’d been afraid she might be getting a fever. When ten minutes passed and she hadn’t returned, he’d gone to ask the hostess to check on her.

  The other times he'd gotten someone to check on Emily in the restroom, she'd always eventually emerged. This time was different.

  When the hostess came out to say that no one was there, Paul had simply barged in. That was when he’d seen her rings lying without explanation by the sink. That was when his concern had shifted into bewildered panic.

  The bodyguard escorting him had moved into action immediately, searching the nearby area for Emily and ensuring she hadn’t been abducted. But Paul knew what had happened. She had left her rings behind in an obvious symbol.

  She had left him on purpose.

  He just didn’t know why.

  He’d called her cell phone immediately, but she hadn’t answered. Then he’d kept calling, never getting an answer. He went on what might be called a rampage as he repeatedly dialed Emily's number and demanded information about Emily’s whereabouts from anyone who might know anything.

  Jonathon Marks, the head of the security firm he used, had arrived when he’d been on the verge of shaking a man at the newsstand across the street who’d noticed Emily but couldn’t remember which direction she had gone.

  Marks had convinced Paul to return to the apartment while the security team carried out the actual search. Once he’d gotten there, Paul had begun making calls—trying to contact everyone Emily might possibly have turned to for help. No one admitted to having any idea where she was. They all had sounded convincing. Chris had seemed worried and offered to help.

  After the calls had been made, Paul’s crisis mode had faded without warning, as if the panicked urgency was simply too much for him to sustain. There wasn’t anything else he could do, and thinking about it hurt too much.

  He’d been sitting in his study ever since.

  His eyes drifted from the silent phone to his clenched fist. He forced his fingers opened and stared down at the two rings in his palm.

  Emily had loved her engagement ring. He still remembered the shocked awe in her eyes when he’d slipped it on her finger in the elevator two months ago. He’d never seen her without it since that moment.

  The simple platinum wedding band he held was smaller and slimmer but otherwise matched the one he wore on his left hand.

  Emily was supposed to be wearing these rings. She was supposed to be his wife.

  He looked at the platinum wedding band on his own hand. He was used to it now. His hand would look naked without it. He liked the sight of the ring, the symbol that he was intimately tied to Emily.

  He liked being married. He liked being a husband. And he loved Emily more than anything in the world.

  He had no idea why she would have run away from him.

  He imagined her finally getting tired of putting up with his tangled life and escaping somewhere she could find peace. He imagined her running away with another man, a man she genuinely loved. He imagined someone secretly blackmailing her over some dark secret and manipulating her into drastic action. He imagined her giving up on a life that was too short and a body that had betrayed her. He imagined every remote possibility that even flickered into his mind.

  They all made his chest ache, but none of them were right. None of them were convincing. He just couldn’t believe any of them was why she was gone now.

  He clenched his hand back over her rings. The large emerald poked him painfully in the palm, but he just squeezed over it more tightly.

  Why didn’t she want his rings anymore? Why didn’t she want him?

  It hurt too much. It scared him too much. His mind closes down in response to way too much. He just couldn’t feel anymore.

  He was jerked out of his numb stupor by someone clearing his throat in the doorway.

  “Talk,” Paul managed to force out, when he recognized Marks through the haze of his vision.

  Marks was a professional, competent man in his fifties. He’d had an exemplary Special Forces career before he’d retired and gone into the security business. He was surprisingly distinguished-looking with graying hair and tailored suits, despite the obvious strength and power in his large build. “We’ve found a number of witnesses and have been able to trace her to the subway. We found a woman who, we believe, saw her on the train.”

  “What was she doing?” Paul asked.

  “According to this woman, she looked pitifully sick and was crying.”

  Paul’s heart lurched viscerally at the image of Emily—his Emily—huddled up on the seat of some dirty subway car. Weak, feverish and heartbroken.

  If Marks noticed Paul’s response, he ignored it. “We know where she stopped. We’re working on following her route from that point.”

  Clearly, Paul’s mind was working much slower than usual because he just now thought of something. “Why can’t we track her through her phone?”

  “She turned it off, sir.”

  Of course, she had. Paul closed his eyes for a moment. She was sick. He’d seen she wasn’t feeling well this morning and should have paid closer attention, but evidently she’d looked sick to the woman on the subway. If she had a fever, she soon wouldn’t even be able to walk. She wouldn’t be able to take care of herself.

  He needed to be there to help her.

  “She would call someone for help,” Paul said at last, rubbing his forehead between his fingers and thumb.

  “Yes, sir. We’ve checked the records on her phone and the landlines here. We can’t find any suspicious activity in the last few days.”

  “A pay phone,” Paul said, opening his hands to look down at Emily’s rings again. “I’m not sure she planned this in advance. It feels…sudden. Check the payphones at the subway stations she used.”

  “Yes, sir. We’re working on getting the LUDs on all of those phones. We’ve got contacts in the phone company. It will take a little time for us to receive them, but we’re hoping that will give us a new lead.”

  Paul nodded blankly, faintly surprised that he was so slow right now that his security team was so far ahead of him in thinking things through.

  He
’d spent most of his life thinking more quickly than anyone else.

  Trying to feel more normal—and not like this numb, dazed buffoon he’d somehow morphed into—Paul said curtly, “She should not have been able to run away at all. Who is to blame for that negligence?”

  Marks didn’t even flinch. “I am, sir. I should have better directed the team who accompanied you and Mrs. Marino this morning.”

  Paul stared at the other man, but he couldn’t seem to conjure up an appropriate response. He felt befuddled, almost like a child. It was so unlike him he couldn’t begin to understand it.

  “If I can make a suggestion,” Marks began, his expression shifting very slightly. “It might help if you would search Mrs. Marino’s room. We’ve already done so, of course, but you knew her best. Perhaps there’s a clue to where she has gone that you can recognize but we wouldn’t.”

  Paul nodded, ludicrously relieved to have something to do other than sit and stew. He should have thought of searching her room himself. He had no idea why he hadn’t.

  “I’ll do that,” he said, standing up. His legs felt strangely sore and stiff.

  “I’ll report again as soon as I know something more,” Marks said, leaving the study with a nod.

  Paul was grateful to be left alone, since he didn’t feel very steady on his feet. He wasn’t usually like this—he usually excelled at handling crises. But Emily hadn’t been taken from him. There was no enemy to fight. There was no one to rescue her from. She had just left him.

  She hadn’t wanted to be married to him anymore.

  And there might not be anything he could do about it.

  He couldn’t think about that reality for long, though, since it hurt so much it might break him. So he took solace in the convenient numbness and walked down the hall toward her room, still holding her rings in one hand.

  Emily’s bed was neatly made, but she hadn’t slept in her bed last night anyway. She’d slept in his.

  He saw her laptop immediately and pangs of anxiety broke through his numbness. She wouldn’t have willingly left her laptop behind. Maybe she hadn’t left on purpose after all.

  He opened the lid to her laptop and frowned when the screen asked for a password. He pulled out his phone and dialed Marks.