Over the Line: On the Run Novel

by Lisa Desrochers

  Chapter 12

  Oliver

  “You’ve changed,” I say to Grant as he paces the window.

  He turns and cuts me a smug smirk. “You haven’t.”

  I never paid him much attention back in Chicago. It was widely known he wasn’t part of his father’s machine. He was a worthless club rat. A womanizing drunk. Not anyone I had any use for. But now, as he holds his sister’s gun on me, I see a determination in his eyes. A sense of purpose that I never remember seeing there before.

  “I get that you want to protect your family. It’s admirable. But I’m not the enemy.”

  He barks out a sardonic laugh as he turns to the window and peers out. “Seriously? That’s what you’re going with?”

  “Do you miss Chicago?”

  At my question, he turns back to me. “What does it matter? We’re not going back.”

  I take the opportunity to study his face again. He’s definitely changed. Though he’s much rougher around the edges now, he’s grown up.

  “Why are you so sure?”

  He gives a loose shrug. “What’s there to go back to? It’s been six months.”

  “Would you go back if you could?”

  It doesn’t surprise me all that much when he just shrugs again. It’s the same indifferent reaction I got when I asked Lee if she was happy here. Neither of them seem too driven to get back home. They may not be happy, but they’re not miserable.

  I don’t think Lee was happy in Chicago either, truth be told. At least not that she ever showed me.

  There was only once I saw her truly happy.

  It seemed trite to celebrate the one-year anniversary of the first time we hooked up in the library, so I didn’t mention the date as our plane took off out of Chicago. I’d graduated from Kellogg in June, but it was her last day of finals before winter break. We couldn’t spend Christmas away from our families, so I knew it was the last time I’d see her for a few weeks. I wanted her to myself for whatever time I could have her.

  We stayed at my family’s vacation home in Aspen. I’d spent enough time there with my parents that people knew who I was, but they didn’t know Lee. For the first time in the year we’d been sleeping together, we had three days and two nights where we didn’t have to hide. Not even from my family. They knew I was in Aspen with a woman. Which meant they knew to leave me alone.

  But from the moment our flight touched down, Lee was different. She took my hand as the pilot was maneuvering us to the Jetway. “Look. It’s snowing.”

  “It was snowing in Chicago too,” I pointed out.

  She shook her head and turned to stare out her window onto the dark tarmac. “Not like this. We’re skiing tomorrow.”

  I stood from my first-class seat and retrieved her bag from the overhead compartment once the door was opened. “You ski?”

  “It’s my favorite thing,” she said with a grin that lit her entire face.

  I’d learned to ski when I was young. I was good, but she was fearless. Where I carved several tight turns down the middle of the steep moguls, enjoying the technical aspects of the sport, she found the deepest powder at the edge of the trail and pointed her skis downhill, flying just on the edge of control within a hairsbreadth of the trees. It generally took me ten times as many turns and twice as long to get down any given slope as her. Sometimes I’d stop midway and just watch her. I’d never seen her that free. We’d meet at the bottom and ride the chair back up, and she’d be grinning the entire way.

  And, Christ, she was beautiful: her cheeks and nose pink with cold, snow clinging to her hair, and her eyes clearer than I’d ever seen them.

  She beamed at me over dinner that night.

  “You’re a slowpoke,” she’d teased. “I should have known that caution would carry over to everything you do. Even the fun stuff.”

  “And you’re insane,” I’d countered. “I should have known that reckless abandon would carry over to everything you do.”

  She took a few bites before answering. “I love the speed. It makes me feel alive.”

  I lifted an eyebrow at her. “That’s not going to last long when you catch an edge and hit a tree going seventy miles an hour.”

  She shrugged. “What’s the point if there’s no risk?”

  “Exercise, fresh air, the view,” I said gesturing out the window next to us at the red-and-purple-streaked sky as the sun set over the cragged peaks of the Rockies.

  She took in the view as she chewed. “I can get all those things jogging the paths near Lake Michigan. What I only get on the slopes is the rush that comes with putting it all out there—risking everything.”

  “Who taught you to ski?” I asked.

  “Mama,” she said, looking down at her plate and pushing her food around with her fork. “She went to boarding school in Italy … skied the Alps every winter. She was amazing.”

  “Did she take you there? The Alps?”

  She nodded. “It was our girls’ trip. From the time Ulie was old enough to ski on her own, Mama would take me and Ulie to Italy for spring break. Mama had an aunt there who we stayed with.” Her eyes got far away. “I miss it.”

  What was painted all over her face was that she missed more than the trips. She missed her mother. The familiar thread of self-loathing twisted in my gut and I lost my appetite.

  “Have you been to Aspen before?” I asked to change the subject.

  She shook her head and glanced out the window again. “No.”

  “Do you like it here?”

  “I love it. It’s beautiful. And the powder …” She trailed off and rolled her eyes as if tasting something exquisite.

  “Could you live here?”

  Her eyes snapped to mine. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, would you ever consider leaving Chicago?” My heart hammered harder in my chest as I asked. I hadn’t planned for the conversation to take this turn, but since it had, I felt the compulsion to follow it through to the end.

  Her gaze drifted past me, out the window over the gold-and-purple-tinged snow as the sky began to darken. “Maybe.”

  “Have you thought about what you want out of life? In five years, what will you be doing?”

  She chewed slowly then looked at me as she swallowed. “The same thing I’m doing now.”

  “But you’ll be finished with school. Have you thought about marriage? Kids?”

  She shrugged, separating the asparagus stalks on her plate and rearranging them self-consciously. “I don’t know.”

  “But if you did know, what would it be?” I pushed.

  “I want out!” she finally hissed under her breath, cutting me a sharp look. “I want to have my own life that’s not measured by how well I shuffle money into off-shore accounts, or how creative my accounting is.” She looked away then, out the window, some of the light fading from her eyes. “But that’s not going to happen. For either of us. You are the Savoca organization now, just like Rob is the Delgado organization. We’re all too deep into the family business to get out.” She blows out a bitter laugh. “Maybe we’ve all been in too deep since the day we were born. I don’t think this is a life that anyone just leaves.”

  I reached for her hand across the table, gently drawing her eyes back to mine. “But you would … if the opportunity arose?”

  She held my gaze without even the hint of a response, as if afraid to even think that it might be possible.

  As we lay in bed that night, her hair strewn across my chest and my face buried against the crown of her head, I decided. And with the decision came a feeling I’ve never really experienced before or since. Reckless abandon. It felt the way Lee looked flying down the mountain. Exhilarating.

  We landed in Chicago and I dropped Lee at her apartment. The next day, I bought the engagement ring. We had agreed, no Christmas presents.

  But she was getting one.

  Voices drift with the crash of the surf up to us from outside, Lee and Rob arguing, from the sound of it. Their footsteps on the por
ch stairs pause when a car pulls up, and then feet are rushing up the stairs.

  “Holy shit,” Lee’s younger sister, Ulie, says from the door as she and Rob push through. “What are you going to do?” Her wide eyes are locked on Rob’s gun as she asks. “You can’t—”

  “You have exactly fifteen seconds to tell me who holds the contract,” Rob growls as he storms the bed, cutting off Ulie’s plea.

  “The hit man was Andre Yankov.”

  He presses the muzzle of the gun tighter to my forehead. “I know that. I broke his neck in the family room of my father’s house. That doesn’t prove anything. Both our families have used him.”

  I lift my head, forcing his hand back. “The last he was seen before that night was in Carino’s parking lot, talking to Jimmy D.”

  “Our cousin?” Ulie asks, her incredulous gaze lifting to my eyes.

  I give her a slow nod.

  “When?” Rob asks.

  “December twentieth. The night before the attempt.”

  He backs off half a step. “How do I know that’s true?”

  “There’s nothing I can give you to prove it, but the information came from a very reliable source.”

  “Oh, well, that clears it right up.” Sarcasm drips from his words and his scowl deepens. He grasps a fistful of my hair and yanks me up by it. “So I’m just supposed to take your word that my cousin wants all of us dead?”

  I struggle a little to get to a sitting position and hope I manage to keep the pain off my face. I follow Ulie’s horrified gaze to my bandages and find them soaked through with blood and dripping down my sides from Rob’s attempt to torture the info out of me. “He has a lot to gain.”

  “Just fucking shoot him,” Grant says from where he’s holding up the window frame with his back, his arms crossed over his chest and Lee’s Cheetah dangling from a finger. That seems to be his mantra.

  The momentary distraction means I’m not prepared when Rob’s fist smashes into my ribs again, knocking the wind out of me.

  “That your best answer?” he asks, low in my ear. “Because, I’ve got to tell you, it sucks.”

  For a long time, I can’t get my breath to answer.

  “If you won’t talk, you’re no use to me,” Rob says, stepping back and raising his gun.

  “No!” Ulie cries.

  The alarm in her voice seems to jar Rob from his myopic quest. He turns to look at her and a dark cloud passes over his features. “Step out of the room, Ulie.”

  “I’m not leaving,” she says, shaking her head harder than necessary to make her point.

  Rob looks wildly around the room at his siblings. “Go! Both of you!”

  “No!” Ulie shouts again at the same instant Lee’s voice comes from outside, frantically calling Sherm’s name.

  Rob’s eyes snap to Grant and he lowers his gun. “What’s going on out there?”

  Grant pulls the window open wider and yells, “What’s wrong?”

  “Sherm’s gone!” comes Lee’s panicked answer.

  Chapter 13

  Lee

  “Did you check the beach?” Rob asks as my three siblings spill into the yard. His gun is drawn and Ulie looks shell-shocked. In the back of my mind, I pray Oliver’s still alive.

  My heart is galloping in my chest and I’m out of breath, so it takes me a second to answer. “I ran the path down to the beach and shouted for him.”

  Ulie runs to the edge of the bluff and screams for him.

  Grant moves toward the run. “He’s got the dogs with him,” he says, looking at the sand at the opening of the gate. He walks slowly around the side of the house. “The tracks go this way.”

  “Fuck!” Rob hisses, tucking his gun into his waistband.

  Grant follows the tracks and we follow Grant. They weave down the hill on the opposite side of the house from the driveway and skirt along the side of the sandy road.

  “It looks like they started running when they got to the road,” Grant observes.

  We follow the tracks to where they end at the pavement of the main road.

  Grant looks toward town. “He went left.”

  “Where would he have gone?” Ulie asks, a thread of panic in her voice.

  I shake my head. “He just told me he didn’t want to leave.”

  Rob rubs his eyes. “I’m going out looking for him.”

  We jog en masse up the driveway. Grant shoves my Cheetah at Ulie. “Watch Savoca.”

  My heart gets a momentary reprieve. Oliver’s okay.

  Ulie tentatively takes the gun and moves toward the porch as Grant hops on his bike. He’s already gunning down the drive as Rob and I run inside to grab our car keys. Rob peels out, but just as I start my car, Wes’s silver sedan turns into the drive. Rob skirts past him, but I get out of the car as Wes rolls to a stop next to me.

  His passenger window lowers and I lean in. “Sherm is missing.”

  His eyes widen. “Are you thinking someone’s taken him?”

  I shake my head. “He was upset. He took the dogs and headed toward town as best as we can tell.”

  “Climb in,” he says with a nudge of his head toward the passenger seat.

  I drop into the seat and he’s rolling down the driveway before I’ve even buckled in.

  “What had him upset?” Wes asks, his brow creasing with concern.

  I breathe in and hold it for a second to settle my shaking. “He was afraid we might have to leave.”

  Wes’s eyes shoot to me for a second as he turns onto the main road back toward town. “Why would he think that?”

  Crap. Do I tell him now? Panic is running in rivers of adrenaline through my bloodstream, making it hard to think straight. “Rob thought he might have seen someone from Chicago. Turned out to be a false alarm.”

  “You’re sure?” he asks with another glance my direction.

  I open my mouth to say yes, but close it again. I look at him a long heartbeat. I should tell him. That’s why I called him. He’s a good man, and I know he’d be fair to Oliver. As I play out every other scenario I can think of in my head, this is the one Oliver is least likely to come out of dead.

  Ahead, Grant’s bike is pulled over on the side of the road, and a few hundred feet beyond, I see Rob’s car. When we reach it I see my two siblings even farther up the road.

  We pull over just behind them.

  “There are tracks here,” Grant says. “He was still running, the dogs just ahead of him.”

  Wes steps out of the car and looks where Grant is pointing. “Impressive. You ever think about a job in law enforcement?”

  Grant gives him a stone-cold stare, not appreciating Wes’s dry attempt at humor. He turns and jogs back to his bike. We wait for him to pass and we follow. He goes slowly, riding close to the shoulder and watching the tracks. A few minutes later, we’re in the center of town. The rumble of Grant’s bike dies when he cuts the engine and proceeds through the parking lot on foot. Here and there he picks something out of a sandy spot on the pavement. As we’re passing Murdock & Sons, Rob, Wes and I duck inside the open shop door. Grant keeps tracking Sherm and the dogs.

  The place smells like rust and exhaust and the surfaces are all cluttered with car parts and containers of various auto-related fluids. A pair of legs covered in greasy coveralls stick out from under an old Pontiac.

  “Chuck,” Rob calls.

  Chuck is Polly’s son, and since his parents and Adri’s are best friends, Adri and Chuck have been attached at the hip since they were born. Rob and he work together at Spencer Security and have formed a strained bond. I think Rob respects him, which is saying a lot.

  Chuck wheels himself out from under the car and sits up. He rakes his platinum curls out of his eyes and blinks when he sees the three of us before gaining his feet. “A visit from the Caped Crusader,” he says, offering a hand to Rob. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

  “Sherm ran off. Any chance you happened to see him?” Rob asks with a tip of his head at the open door.


  “Oh, man. No. I’ve been under old man McCreary’s Pontiac all afternoon. Just getting ready to throw in the towel.” He chucks his shop towel onto the workbench in a symbolic gesture.

  Rob backs toward the door and Wes and I follow. “If he turns up here, let me know, okay?”

  “You got it, man. Hope the little dude’s okay.”

  “Me too,” I say. “Thanks, Chuck.”

  Rob starts toward Grant, but I jog next door and step into Polly’s. There are several full tables, but no staff up front. I swing open the kitchen door just as Polly’s on her way out and hit her in the face with the door.

  “Sorry!” I say, realizing that’s what the little round window is for. I should have looked through it.

  “No problem, sweetie.” She smiles over my shoulder at Wes as he pushes through the door. “You and your man here for dinner?”

  I inwardly cringe. “My little brother ran off and we think he came through here with his dogs not too long ago. I just wondered if maybe anyone saw him?”

  “Well, let’s find out.” She moves to the center of the room. “Can I have your attention?” she says over the chatter and background music. It takes a second, but eventually the last few chatterboxes are nudged by their tablemates and the room goes quiet. “We’ve have a family here who need to know if any of you fine folks happened to see a boy pass by here with his dogs.”

  “I did,” a woman with blue hair near the window says. “A boy and two gray dogs on leashes. It was maybe fifteen minutes ago.”

  Wes moves to the table and I follow. “It was just him and the dogs?” he asks. “No one else with them, or possibly chasing them?”

  With that, her eyes fly wide. “Heavens, no! Is he in some kind of trouble?”

  “No,” I say. “He was just upset. Thank you so much for your help.”

  “Hope everything’s okay,” Polly says as we turn for the door.

  “I’m sure he’s fine,” I say, trying to reassure myself.