Page 17 of Code Word (The Atrous #3)

She kept sweeping, kept ignoring me, so I took that as my cue to leave her be.

Fine. Whatever.

I headed back down the beach to the next place. There was a man with his kids near the water, and I stopped him, showing him my phone screen. “Excuse me, por favor. Have you seen this man?”

He shook his head and pulled his kid closer like I was a bad guy. “No, lo siento,” he said.

I gave him a smile so I didn’t seem threatening. “Gracias, thank you. Sorry.” I backed away and kept walking, trying not to feel disheartened.

What I wanted to do was scream or sit down on the sand and cry.

The next place up was dark and it looked empty, and from the background in the photo, it definitely wasn’t the right place, so I parked my ass on the sand and tried to get a fucking grip.

I didn’t know what I’d expected.

To find him? Maybe.

But god, I’d hoped .

And hope was a godawful thing.

I had a text from Bec.

LMK when you arrive. Keep me updated. Be safe.

It just made my heart hurt even more because she’d been nothing but kind.

Have arrived. Found the beach he was on but haven’t found him. Will keep looking

Then I sat there and watched the waves come in, one after the other, as the sky and sand got pinker and the air got colder.

I kept looking at the photo of Luke, then looking at the places behind me, and I’d be damned if that house with the veranda wasn’t the one in the pic.

He might have just been walking by for all I knew. Though the photo looked like he was right by the veranda, near where I’d stood. But fuck, he could have been passing by and was now on the other side of the country. Or in a different country by now. Maybe I’d missed him by minutes at the airport.

Maybe he saw me and pretended he hadn’t...

Fuck.

Then I was mad at myself for thinking like that. There was also no point in sitting there till dark, and I wasn’t sleeping on the beach. I knew I had to find a place to stay or call that kind taxi driver to come back and get me, maybe.

I felt so useless.

Helpless.

And fucking lost.

Come back tomorrow. Come back every day after that if you need to .

And that’s exactly what I’d do. No matter how long it took.

Determined again, I stood up, dusted the sand off my ass, and turned back the way I’d come. The beach was prettier now, hues of purple and pink, fairy lights twinkling, people walking, people laughing in the distance.

And with a heavy heart, I headed toward them.

Maybe I’d show them Luke’s photo and ask them if they’d seen him. Or maybe they knew of a place I could stay...

I glanced back at the place where the woman had been sweeping, and seeing it in the fading sunlight, I stopped.

I was sure it was the place.

I looked at the photo again and looked back at the place, holding the photo to catch the corner of the veranda the way the photo had.

I was certain.

I headed up toward it. The woman wasn’t there, but there were lights on inside and the doors were open. “Hello,” I called out. “Hola. Anyone home?”

The woman came out, and seeing it was me, her expression became annoyed. “You need to leave.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to do,” I said. “I’m looking for my friend.” I held out my wrist, pulling up my sleeve so she could see the Atrous tattoo. “He has a tattoo just like this one.”

Her eyes went to my wrist, then to my face, and she opened her mouth to say something just as someone came up onto the veranda from the side of the house.

“Alma, all I could get was . . .”

It was Luke.

He was wearing shorts and a long-sleeve T-shirt, holding a white plastic bag. He stopped dead when he saw me. His eyes went wide, he rocked back on his heels as if hit by an invisible force, the bag in his hand forgotten as it fell to the floor, his eyes filled with tears .

“Luke,” I breathed, trying not to cry. Seeing him made it all so real.

Nothing in my life had been clearer to me than it was in that moment. Like I was seeing him for the first time.

Like I was seeing what he meant to me for the very first time.

He shook his head, his mouth opened and closed, his expression shock and heartbreak, and I just couldn’t stand it.

I collected him in a hug, wrapping my arms around him, holding him tight. His body, his warmth, familiar yet new. But he kept his arms by his side, rigid.

Alma came over and picked up the plastic bag. “You okay, Mister Luke?”

He sucked back a breath and let out a sob. “I was doing so well,” he mumbled into my neck.

I cradled the back of his head. “Doing so well at what? Luke...”

He pulled back, eyes full of tears, and he thumped my chest. “At not thinking about you. I was doing so well.” He sobbed out a cry. “Why are you here?”

What the . . . ?

“Why am I here?” I put my hands to his face, cupping his jaw. “For you. I came here for you. Because you left me. Because you fucking left me.”

Luke’s face crumpled and he sagged. “I couldn’t . . . I tried . . .”

I pulled out my wallet and took out the folded piece of paper. The song with my name on it. “I found this.”

His eyes went wide with fear, and he shook his head as another tear fell down his cheek. He looked about to protest, to deny, but then he sagged, so utterly defeated.

I pulled him into my arms again, and he was heavy this time, leaning against me, his arms going around me. I held him tight as he cried, and I’d held him a hundred times in my life, but this was different .

I was different.

“I came here for you, Luke,” I murmured. “And this time, I’m not letting you go.”