Page 90 of Ruthless Creatures

Even when you’re in way over your head.

TWENTY-ONE

NAT

For the next few weeks, I exist in a weird state of breathless anticipation. I’m keyed up and jumpy, as if at any moment a shrieking snake-headed monster is about to pop out from under my bed.

I barely sleep. I pace grooves into the floor. I can’t even look at my drawer of sex toys, much less use one of them. It’s not so much Kage’s command that keeps me from it, but that I’m honestly too anxiety ridden.

The anxiety that is due, in part, to the sheriff’s cruiser that slinks by my house at all hours of the day and night.

Chris keeps his word to keep an eye on me like I keep grudges: religiously.

I don’t know what he’s hoping to achieve. There’s nothing to discover by such commitment.

Kage doesn’t return.

We talk on the phone almost every day, but the conversations are short. He’s always getting pulled away by business, interruptedby the many duties and obligations of his position. I get the sense he rarely has time to himself, even to sleep.

True to his word, though, I get a call from Mr. Santiago at MoraBanc. When he informs me the balance in my new trust account is ten million dollars and asks which currency I’d like to start receiving funds in, I laugh and laugh until he gets uncomfortable and tells me he’ll call me back at a better time.

Sloane gets someone to take over her classes at the yoga studio, and she and Stavros sail the Mediterranean. The news coverage of the shooting dies down. I’m dying to discover what the police know about that night at the restaurant, but the only information I can get is from the local paper. It isn’t much.

One thing that’s odd is that none of the four men who were shot were able to be identified. They didn’t carry any ID, and their fingerprints and faces weren’t found in any police database, in the US or abroad. The guns they carried were unregistered. Forensic dental examinations didn’t turn up a match.

Even before they died, all four were ghosts.

I wonder if Kage is a ghost, too, existing only by reputation. The dreaded Kazimir Portnov, able to strike fear in the hearts of hardened killers merely by the mention of his name.

I try not to think of all the terrible things he must’ve done to earn his reputation.

I try not to wonder what a man like him would see in a girl like me. What he thinks a small-town schoolteacher can give him that he can’t get anywhere else.

I also try not to consider the possibility that he could have an entire family I know nothing about. A gorgeous gangster wife and several gorgeous gangster children, tucked away safely wherever he comes and goes from.

Hidden from me, just like I’m hidden from them.

Maybe if I’d had more sexual partners, I wouldn’t be so dazzled by his dick that I don’t even care if he does.

And despite all my worry, by the time Christmas Eve arrives, Detective Brown hasn’t knocked on my door again.

I’m not sure if that’s a good sign or a bad one.

Feeling a little sorry for myself that I’m alone on Christmas Eve, I make a nice dinner. Roast chicken with red potatoes, a salad with champagne vinaigrette. The chicken is my mom’s recipe—the one Kage somehow knew is my favorite—and it tastes delicious.

It also makes me feel worse, sitting there at my kitchen table with only Mojo for company.

Picturing myself five years in the future doing exactly this same thing as Kage traipses all over the globe—who knows where, doing who knows what—I get so depressed I open a bottle of wine and finish it.

I call my parents in Arizona, but their voicemail picks up. They’re probably over at a friend’s house, toasting with eggnog, eyes bright with holiday cheer.

Even retirees have a better social life than me.

I’d call Sloane, but I can’t figure out the time difference between Tahoe and Rome without looking it up. Plus, she could be in Norway by now. Africa. Brazil. The last time we spoke, several days ago, she and Stavros were mulling over maps.

It sounded like she was having so much fun she might never come back.

Wondering why Kage hasn’t called yet, I mope around the house until it’s time to let Mojo out for one last pee before bed. As I’m standing shivering on the front porch in my fuzzy slippers and winter coat, watching the dog sniff around in the bushes, a car drives slowly by the house.