Page 147 of Finding Denver

Harriett is on the couch when I get home, her feet on the coffee table. I lean over the couch and kiss her. “What are you looking at?”

She flaps squares of small, white material at me. “Napkins. Ivory or white?”

“Ivory. White feels too clinical.”

She examines the squares. “This is why I love you. Decisive and sexy.” I smile as I drop into the place beside her and check my phone again. Denver still hasn’t called me back. “You okay?”

“Yep,” I say, and she gives me a smile before placing the samples aside and scribbling in the wedding book.

I should tell her. Not just that Denver is coming, but that Denver exists. She knows I have family back home, but other than that, Harriett doesn’t know a thing about me. My new name is Aaron James, and I sort of hate it, so I settled on her calling me AJ, just so I can pretend that maybe it’s a nickname for Axel.

I’ve almost told her a hundred times. Not the specifics of why I left, never that, but maybe who my family are. What they’re capable of. She should know the truth before she marries me, shouldn’t she? Because if Dad ever finds me, her life will change, too.

But how do you tell the woman you love that at any point, she might have to leave her life behind? That her name would change, and she’d have to run in the middle of the night?

I’d lose her.

“You’re so serious,” Harriett says, taking my hand. “You sure you’re okay?”

“Tired.” I kiss her cheek. “Pizza?”

We eat, watch a movie, and go to bed. But I can’t sleep.

I call Denver a few more times, but she doesn’t pick up. It isn’t like her to let her phone die, and there’s no reason that she wouldn’t call me back, but it isn’t like I can call Dad or Cal.

Giving up on sleep, I go back into the living room. I flick on the TV, scanning through channels, the room dark as I skip through movies, television shows, infomercials, and?—

Denver’s face is on the screen, and I stop.

“—at the scene.”

The report cuts to a building in shambles, smoke rising from a hole in a townhouse. A woman is walking across the scene, a microphone in hand, the camera slowly tracking her. “Thanks, Julia. Only hours ago, two family homes exploded in this quiet neighborhood, taking the lives of at least two people. The source of the explosion is unknown, but what we do know is that the home behind me belongs to Finn McEwan, head of the Irish organized crime in the city.”

The screen splits between the woman on the scene and Julia in the studio, and I hold my breath.

“Where are these rumors about Denver Luxe coming from, Denise?”

The woman on scene says, “Well, I have to stress they are just rumors, but an inside source tells us that Denver Luxe has been staying at the property behind me. She was last seen?—”

My hand shakes as I open my phone and type Denver’s name into a search bar. A photograph of the building has already been posted on a news site, endless comments beneath it.

“—my sister lives on this street, and she saw Denver being carried out?—”

“—sleeping with Ronan McEwan behind Ranger’s back!!!! This is karma.”

“—Deluxe was in SF LAST NIGHT there’s no way she was in there?—”

I can’t move. Can’t think.

What the fuck do I do?

I type in the number I know by heart, and my finger hovers over the call button.

A year. It’s been a year since I killed a man to save Denver. She sacrificed so much to get me out, to keep me safe.

Am I going to undo it all with one phone call?

“Why are you awake?” Harriett rubs her face, squinting at the light of the television. “Is something wrong?”