The 6th Target - James Patterson [71]
My heart lurched and my knees started to give. I had a flash of insight — Joe looked and sounded great because he’d fallen in love with someone else. He’d dropped by because he couldn’t tell me the news on the phone.
“I haven’t wanted to call you until it was final,” he said, his words dragging me back to the moment, “but I can’t move the damned request through the system fast enough.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I put in for a transfer to San Francisco, Lindsay.”
Relief overwhelmed me. Tears filled my eyes to the brim as I stared at Joe. Images flashed, nothing I could help or stop, snatches of our months of high-flying romance, but it wasn’t the romantic part that I remembered most. It was those homey moments, with Joe singing in the shower, me sneaking a peek in the mirror at his receding hairline when he didn’t know I was looking. And the way he crouched over his cereal bowl as if someone might take it from him because he’d grown up in a house with six brothers and sisters, and none of them had the exclusive rights to anything. I thought about how Joe was the only person in my life who would just let me talk myself out and didn’t expect me to be the strong one all the time. And okay, yeah, I flashed on the way he handled my body when we made love, making me seem small and weightless, and how safe I used to feel when I fell asleep in his arms.
“I’ve been given assurances but nothing definite . . .” His voice trailed off as he stared at me. “God, Lindsay,” he said, “you have no idea how much I’ve missed you.”
The wind coming off the bay blew the tears off my cheeks, and I was filled with gratitude for the unexpected gift of his visit and the night ahead. I still had an unopened bottle of Courvoisier in the liquor cabinet. And massage oil in the nightstand. . . . I thought about the delicious coolness of the air and how much heat Joe and I could turn up just lying together, before even reaching out our hands to touch.
“Why don’t you come upstairs?” I finally said. “We don’t have to talk on the street.”
Something dark crossed his features as he came toward me and gently, deliberately, encircled my shoulders with his large hands.
“I want to come in,” he said, “but I’ll miss my flight. I just had to tell you, don’t give up on me. Please.”
Joe put his arms around me and pulled me to him. Instinctively, I stiffened, folded my arms over my chest, dropped my chin.
I didn’t want to look up into his face. Didn’t want to be charmed or swayed, because inside of three minutes, I’d ridden the entire Joe Molinari roller coaster.
Just over a week ago I’d steeled myself to break away from him because of this damned magic trick of his — now he’s here, now he’s not.
Nothing had changed!
I was furious. And I couldn’t let Joe open me up only to let me down again. I looked at his face for the last time, and I pushed away from him.
“I’m sorry. Really. For a moment I thought you were someone else. You’d better go now,” I sputtered. “Have a safe flight.”
He was calling my name as I ran as fast as I could up the front steps of my building. I put my key in the lock and turned the knob in one movement. Then I slammed the door behind me and continued to run up the stairs. When I walked into my apartment, I had to go to the window, though.
I parted the curtain — just in time to see Joe’s car drive away.
Chapter 99
MY PHONE STARTED RINGING before I dropped the curtain back across the glass. I knew Joe was calling from the car, and I had nothing to say to him.
I showered for a good long time, fifteen or twenty minutes under the spray. When I got out of the shower, the phone was still ringing. I ignored this call, too. Ditto the furiously blinking light on my answering machine and the tinny chime of my cell phone paging me from my jacket pocket.
I tossed my dinner in the microwave. I opened the Courvoisier and had poured out a tumblerful when my cell phone started up its damned ringing again.
I grabbed it out of my jacket pocket, growled, “Boxer,” fully prepared to say, “Joe, leave me alone, okay?” I