Crave You (14 page)

Chapter Twenty-Four 
(Finn)

Tuesday and Wednesday were like the old Rachel and Finn. We didn’t see each other, didn’t talk on the phone, didn’t text. Instead, I sent her emails in the morning and she wrote back in the afternoon.

We didn’t exchange any messages on Thursday, which was good because I couldn’t afford any kind of distraction. I had closed the bookstore for the day, preparing for something that needed to be taken care of that night.

I spent all day testing the connection to the cameras. Some were mounted on the top of a van. Others on night-vision goggles.

And still more were hidden inside the house where all of this was going to go down. I had staked out the place early Wednesday morning and when I was sure no one was inside, I went in and hid a camera in every room.

I watched the video feed of the five guys starting their day on Thursday, coming and going from various places, sometimes in pairs or threes, but never all five together at once.

I got word that one of the trips was to a truck rental place. Another was to a farm supply company about thirty minutes outside of Baltimore. They were moving fast.

So was I.

I had all of the feeds displayed on three different computer screens in my basement. I only went upstairs to get food or use the restroom. Otherwise, I watched those feeds all day. Including the ones coming from the equipment that the team would be using that night.

I watched them prepare, took a few phone calls from them when they had questions about the floor-plan of the house, but it wasn’t until 10 p.m. that things started to get interesting.

My feeds gave me a view of their drive to the house, as though I were in the front seat. The driver parked the van with the front facing the house, so I could watch them go in and come out.

We waited until 1 a.m., when the mission was to start.

Once they got inside, the night-vision feed took over. All greens and blacks, the brightness adjusting to the darkened rooms.

The foyer, for starters. Then the den, where there was no one. All checking out nicely.

Then down the hallway toward the three bedrooms. One guy had a room to himself; the other two rooms contained homemade bunkbeds.

The three guys I had recruited for this job split up, one at each bedroom doorway. The leader put his hand up, three fingers spread out, lowering one after another, counting down.

And then it was a burst of light coming from all views. The muzzle-flashes of gunfire.

My eyes flicked between the three screens, trying to watch it all unfold live. I was recording it, and I could play it back later, but I wanted to see it in real-time.

First bedroom—the guy on the bottom bed sat up, then went down almost immediately. The guy on the top bunk lifted his head, but it quickly fell.

Second bedroom—the guy on the top bunk reacted to the door being opened, sitting up, then falling. The guy on the bottom bunk rolled to the floor, tried to reach under the bed for something, probably a gun, but he was face-down in a millisecond.

Third bedroom—the guy didn’t move at all, at least until he was hit, then there was a flinch and his body jerked twice as he remained in the same position he was sleeping in.

All of this happened in the span of ten seconds. Maybe fifteen rapid shots in all. My recruits had shown remarkable restraint in their firing, as I knew they would.

Then a blur, as the guys ran back down the hallway. Two of my guys exited the house, one stayed behind. When the third finally came out, they stayed in the van for a few moments, cameras still aimed at the house.

I watched as the first few flickers of flames licked at the front windows.

Mission accomplished.

Aside from a slight feeling of relief, I had no visceral reaction to what I’d just witnessed. It reminded me of something I’d done years ago, and could no longer do myself.

Now it was just like watching a movie.

Chapter Twenty-Five 
(Rachel)

To: Rachel

From: Finn

Subj: The effects of you

Growing up, I never liked Mondays. I didn’t much enjoy Sundays, either, because it meant the next day was Monday. One of my chief talents as a child was the ability to dread. Aside from English and History, I hated school. Sundays are terrible even for adults. It means work the next day. It means the end of a two-day break from the drudgery, a free playtime.

But after the other night, my view on Mondays has been altered. I can say without a second of hesitation or doubt that this past Monday was the best Monday in the history of recorded human history.

It doesn’t matter what happened on any other Monday. A medical breakthrough in a lab on a Monday. The discovery of a planet on a Monday. A final battle that saved an empire on a Monday.

Nothing will compare to the Monday I just spent with you.

Finn

P.S. I’m usually not so wordy when it comes to expressing my inner feelings. That was the long, complicated way of saying I can’t wait to bury my face between your legs again.

Finn

To: Finn

From: Rachel

Subj: Re: The effects of you

As I write this I’m sitting on the bench that you are now aware of, so you can imagine the view I have. It’s a nice day, and not too crowded on the Mall. I’m eating a turkey and avocado sandwich I picked up from the deli, and I’m drinking a very refreshing and tasty Sprite Zero. So all in all, a very enjoyable lunch.

That is, until I received your email.

You, sir, are very cruel. Here I was all worked up over your attempt at being romantic and you end it with something like that? I find it offensive and actually kind of demeaning. Not only to me, but to my entire gender.

Rachel

To: Rachel

From: Finn

Subj: Re: The effects of you

Nice try, but I’m not falling for that. In the very unlikely event that you were indeed serious, however, let me offer this heartfelt response: Get over it. You’re going to love it even more the next time.

Finn

To: Finn

From: Rachel

Subj: Re: The effects of you

Yeah, I know. Don’t make me wait too much longer.

Rachel

Those emails were the highlights of my week while Finn was doing whatever it was he was doing. It’s not as though an hour is a long drive, and I doubt very many people would classify ours as a “long-distance relationship.” But I still felt a million miles away from him, mostly because of the way he showed up and left, with me not knowing when I would see him again.

I was grounded enough to know that I was on the verge of becoming a needy whiner about all of this, so I tried to remain rational about it. Yet, no one could deny that there was something about the way all of this was playing out that was not quite…normal.

I sent him an email on Thursday morning and didn’t hear back. So I sent him a quick text. Still didn’t hear back. I called his cell three times. Voicemail each time. It was then that I began to worry. I’m not sure why. Just a feeling. So I called his store and that too went to voicemail, four different times over the course of three hours. Was he that busy? Was the store closed on a Thursday?

“It is weird,” Tara said, when I told her about it later that afternoon.

We were in the locker room, ending our workday, a day that to me had felt like it had dragged on for weeks.

“I saw this movie once,” she continued, “about a doctor…I think he was played by Beau Bridges. You know, the brother of Jeff Bridges? Anyway, he was a doctor and he had two families at the same time. This went on for like years and no one had figured it out. I mean, not for a long time, anyway.”

Great. Thanks, Tara. You really know how to make a girl feel better.
That’s what I was feeling, and that’s what I wanted to say, but I didn’t.

“That’s just a movie,” I said, closing the door and turning the combination on the lock.

“No, I’m pretty sure it was based on a true story. But, hey, I’m not saying that’s what’s going on. I’m just saying…you know, weird things like that do happen.”

. . . . .

I stopped at the grocery store on the way home to pick up a salad and soup, but when I got home I couldn’t eat. I kept thinking about the short conversation I’d had with Tara that afternoon. My stomach was in knots, my shoulders were tense, and more than once I found myself making a tight fist.

I alternated between cursing Tara for putting those thoughts in my head, and cursing Finn for putting me in this position to begin with.

What was true? What was false? What was he hiding? And why?

Slowly, my anger and frustration ceased being directed at Tara and Finn. It was solely aimed right back at me. Neither of them had hurt me. I had hurt myself by taking things this far with a man who held so much back from me.

At times that night I became nauseous, but I didn’t throw up. I experienced a common stress level that one shrink had told me was called “adrenal exhaustion,” where your body is pumping so much adrenaline that it eventually wears you out. And yet I couldn’t sleep.

All night long, this went on. Pure torture.

I wanted a resolution and I wanted it fast. I deserved that much—not so much from Finn as from myself. I owed it to the Rachel of today not to let the meek, troubled, easily harmed Rachel of the past make a comeback.

At 7 a.m. Friday morning I called into work, telling my supervisor that I had come down with food poisoning. I hadn’t missed a day of work in three years, so I wasn’t worried about any negative ramifications.

After hanging up from that call, I started typing a text to Finn, but quickly erased it. I decided I wanted to hear his voice instead of having to receive a written response, so I put my thumb on his name in my contacts list to dial…then stopped.

Hearing his voice would have been better than reading his answer, but I had already decided I was going to Baltimore to see him and I didn’t want to ask permission. I decided to just go.

I took a quick shower, threw on a pair of jeans, a t-shirt, fumbled around with my hair before giving up and pulling it into a ponytail, and I was on my way by 8 a.m.

Traffic was hell all the way. Construction work combined with a disabled tractor-trailer added an extra thirty minutes to what was already a nerve-wracking drive. To top it off, it started raining about ten minutes outside of Baltimore and only got heavier the closer I got to his store.

And the cherry on top of this agonizing drive—I had to park two blocks away and I had no raincoat or umbrella.

I ran along the sidewalks, splashing through puddles, and almost went past the door to his bookstore. I stopped, turned, and pulled the door open. The electronic chime sounded. I stood there dripping, absolutely soaked.

Finn poked his head around the corner at the end of one of aisles and saw me. He started walking toward me, saying, “Jesus, Rachel, what’s going on?”

I was starting to shiver from being so wet and from the air conditioning. He had it down so low that it was fogging up the glass storefront.

“We need to talk,” I said.

“Hang on, I’ll get you something to dry off with.”

I stayed where I was standing, not wanting to drip water all over the floor.

Finn came back with a roll of paper towels. “It’s all I have here. Sorry.”

“It’s fine.” I took them from him and unrolled a bunch and started wiping myself off, letting my feelings spill out. “I can’t take the secrecy anymore. We’ve gotten to know each other, we’ve slept together…it’s just too much. I can’t stand it.” Frustration and urgency were starting to take over the tone of my words. I didn’t care. I wanted him to be hit as hard as I was by what I was feeling. “I have to know something.”

His face had taken on that familiar expression I was starting to get used to. His eyes narrowed, his jaw muscles flexing as he clenched. “What do you want to know?”

“Your house,” I said, fighting back tears. It was such a relief to get this off my chest, and I was so glad I had come to say this face to face.

“What about it?”

“Why won’t you let me see it? Are you…” My voice trailed off.

Finn rolled off more paper towels and handed them to me. “Am I what?”

I took the towels and couldn’t look at him as I completed my thought. “Is there…someone else there?”

Without hesitating for one second he said, “You’re not asking me what you really want to ask me.”

I took a deep breath, straightened my back and looked up into his eyes. “Are you married? Or do you live with a woman?”

Finn looked down.

I immediately reacted by blurting it all out, starting with, “I can’t take it if you’re going to leave me. I’ve been cast aside too many times in my life…”

And right there in his store, it all came spilling out—my entire childhood history and everything I’d gone through. I told him all of it, being moved from foster home to foster home, the cruel things I’d heard adults saying about me, the bullying from other kids, and my debilitating headaches and loss of muscle energy.

It was something I’d been keeping from him, but something I wanted him to know, finally. Not only because it was a driving factor in my need to know more about him, but also because I wanted him to know more about me.

So he got the quick and dirty version of the story, with me standing there in damp clothing and tears streaming down my face.

Finn grabbed me, pulling me tightly against him, wrapping his arms around me. It was the warmth and comfort I needed. He held me like that for a moment, saying, “I had no idea…I didn’t know…”

My face was against his chest as I said, “I have no idea what my birth name was, but I grew up as Jocelyn Breel. I changed my name to Rachel Marie Holt when I turned eighteen.”

He was silent for a moment.

“There’s so much you don’t know,” I said. “So much. And I want you to know. But I have to know
you
. The real you.”

I closed my eyes, dreading the response. It could have been so bad, so devastating, so unalterably life-changing.

Instead, what I heard was this: “Let me lock up here. I’ll take you home with me.”

. . . . .

Finn turned the heat on low in his car as we made the ten minute drive to his house. We didn’t speak the whole way. It’s a good thing he didn’t want to talk in the car. I’m not sure I would have been able to utter a single intelligent thought. My heart was thumping against my ribs, my mouth was dry, my eyes darting back and forth as I took in everything through the car windows.

I was as nervous as I’d ever been in my life.

He pulled up in front of a row of townhouses, got out of the car, came around to open the door for me, and we ran up the sidewalk through the pouring rain. Unlocking the door, he looked at me but didn’t say anything. He swung the door open and motioned for me to step inside.

The first thing I noticed upon walking in was how much it was like my own place. The walls were all brick, but mostly covered by bookshelves that contained thousands of books, many more than I had, but we had the same love of displaying our books.

The tile floor was mostly covered with a large area rug with deep shades of brown and red. His sofa and chairs were all black, the coffee and end tables were made of alternating dark and light slats of wood.

The entire place had a very masculine look to it. I smelled rich leather and lemon-scented…something. His house was fresh and clean, but cold.

“Let me get you something dry and warm to put on,” he said, as if he’d read my mind. He took my hand and led me through the kitchen that was a very stark white, with stainless steel appliances.

We ended up in the laundry room, where Finn unfolded a long-sleeve t-shirt and a pair of cotton pajama bottoms with a drawstring. He lifted my shirt, removed my bra, and then my pants. I stood naked before him as he toweled me dry, then slipped the shirt over my head, and held the bottoms for me to step into. The shirt was so big it hung off one shoulder. The bottoms were too long, and Finn knelt before me and rolled them up.

“Socks?” he asked, standing.

“No, thanks. I’m okay.”

He led me back to the den, asking me if I was warm enough.

“I’m fine,” I said, taking a seat on the couch. The anticipation of what was about to happen next was getting to me. It seemed almost as if he was delaying it on purpose. “You’re scaring me.”

Finn sat beside me. “I’m going to tell you something that may make you regret ever having exchanged a single word with me. All I need from you is to hear me out until I’m finished. Then you can ask me anything you want, and I’ll tell you. But I have to warn you.”