AMELIA
I wake up to the sound of something downstairs. I take a minute to work out what it is. It’s dark outside and there’s still no sign of Leo. I sit up
and listen.
I relax, laughing at myself. It’s my cellphone. I left it down there on the sofa when he appeared.
It hits me in a second. Everything that we did together. At once I know it was a mistake. There’s no way anything good can come from what we did together. I guess I should be grateful for my birth control.
If I wasn’t sure about my feelings before, I’ve been hit with a sledgehammer of emotions since he was inside me. I want him so badly; it causes me physical pain.
I climb out of bed and wrap a dressing gown around me. For a moment I look for the cord and then I remember. It’s on the floor like a dead snake.
I pick it up and tie a knot, heading downstairs to find my phone. As I walk into the living room, I get a flash of memory. Me waking up and him standing there over me.
I can put my life into two distinct parts. Before I slept with him and afterward. I feel like a different person. I know why, but I don’t want to think about it.
I don’t want to think about getting attached to him, about falling for him. I want to forget him. He’s going in less than a day. I don’t even know if he’ll ever be back again. He’s only here to find his snitch.
I pick up the cellphone, wondering who’s going to be calling me at ten past three in the morning. The only person I can think of is Molly. It’s not her. It’s Leo.
“Amelia,” he says when I answer. His voice is warm honey and I want to drown in it. “Come to the lighthouse. Make sure you’re not followed.”
“Leo? What’s happening? What’s going on?”
He’s already hung up. This is what it would be like living with him. All the questions and none of the answers. He’s not an average person.
He’s not going to the office each day and then coming home again. He’s in the mafia. He’s a criminal. His life is like this. Out in the dark, up to God alone knows what.
I have to decide whether to go. I’m still deciding when there’s a knock on the door that makes me jump. I head into the hallway and call out. “Who is it?”
“Louie,” the voice on the other side calls back. “Open up, Amelia. I need to speak to you.”
I look through the spyhole and it is him, the sheriff’s patrol car parked on the edge of the street behind him. I unlock the door and he glances straight past me. “Is Leo here?”
“No, why?”
“I need to speak to him. Where is he?”
I almost don’t tell him. A little voice in the back of my mind says I
should keep things to myself. But it’s only the sheriff. I’ve known him since I was a little child. “Please,” he adds. “It’s important. If you know where he is, you need to tell me.”
“He’s at the lighthouse,” I say. “I’m on my way to meet him.”
“I’ll drive you.”
“Give me a minute. I need to get dressed.”
“All right but don’t be long.”
“What’s going on?” I call back as I run upstairs and grab a pair of jeans.
“Someone’s looking for him,” Louie shouts up after me. “I need to warn him.”
“Who is it?”
“I don’t know. It came across the radio. I spotted a car outside town, two armed men inside, heading this way. Belucci family by the sounds of it.”
I pull a top over my head. “How do you know they’re coming for Leo?” “Because armed men from the Belucci family don’t come to Gordon’s Cove. Not since they lost the casino. He’s back less than a day and two men show up in the middle of the night. Not to mention the one we-” He stops talking as I appear at the top of the stairs.
“The one we what?” I ask as I descend to the hall.
“Never mind. Doesn’t matter. You ready?”
“Shoes.” I slip on a pair of sneakers and grab my jacket. The air’s cold and I’m glad of the heater in the patrol car. I sit up front with Louie as he drives out of town, up the steep road to the lighthouse. “How well do you know Leo?” he asks. “Why?”
“He’s more dangerous than you realize, Amelia. He’s killed men before. Lots of men. I heard one time he ripped a guy’s eyes out with a spoon.” I look at him, thinking it’s a joke in poor taste, but he looks deadly serious.
“You should get away from him as soon as you can.”
“He’s going tomorrow night.”
“How do you know that?”
“I just do.”
“You know he’s in the mafia, right?”
“So why aren’t you arresting him?”
“Because so far he has committed no crimes. He’s dangerous, Amelia.
You should stay away from him.” “Uh-huh.” I say nothing else.
“Don’t you feel scared with him around? I sure do.”
“I don’t.” I think of how safe I felt when he was in my house with me, how protected I felt. Then I think of how I’m going to feel when he leaves tomorrow night.
The road curves into the open fields above the town, and then the old lighthouse looms in front of us. There’s a barrier blocking the track to it, so Louie stops the car and we climb out. “Leo,” Louie calls out. “You up here?”
There’s no answer. We walk around the barrier, the only sound the waves crashing into the rocky shore far below. The stars are out and the moon is bright enough to cast shadows around us. Leo’s nowhere to be seen.
“I don’t like it,” Louie says, pulling a gun out. He moves forward slowly and I follow, not sure what to do.
“Hold it there,” a voice says. I look to my right and Leo emerges from the bushes. He’s got a gun pointed straight at Louie’s head. “What you doing here, Sheriff?”
“Two men,” Louie says. “Coming for you.”
“I know,” Leo says, waving us toward the lighthouse. “I got the call about it. Left breadcrumbs to bring them up here. You should get out of here, take her home.”
“Too late,” Louie says, looking back down the road. Twin pinpricks of light are moving up the long slope toward the lighthouse.
“Inside,” Leo says. “Now.”
We run up to the door and Louie shoves it open. Once we’re through, Leo takes a glance at me and pauses for long enough to say, “Keep quiet.”
Then he’s closing the door and darting up the stairs, taking them two at a time. I follow him up while Louie brings up the rear. We get to the living space and Leo stops. “Louie,” he says. “You watch out this window. You see any sign of life you whistle up to me, got it?”
Louie nods, going over to the window and peering out through the broken glass. “How’d they know to come here?” he asks.
“You’re the breadcrumb. They know you’re looking for me.”
“Why’s that?”
“I know you need to take me in for the murder.”
“Murder?” I say, my ears pricking up. What murder?”
“Cam’s murder,” Leo says, turning to look at me. His eyes are cold, unemotional.
“But you promised me you didn’t kill Cam.”
“We’ll talk about it later. Keep quiet and keep out of sight. I’ll deal with the two of them.”
He heads up the next flight of stairs, leaving me behind. I follow him up. He waves me back down but I ignore him. “I’m sticking with you,” I tell him as he emerges out on the balcony around the top of the lighthouse. “If there’s shooting, I want to be near you.”
“Then get down for Christ’s sake,” he says, pulling me off my feet. “You need to stay low. Your silhouette will be visible for miles.”
He’s reaching past me and I see what he’s picking up a second later. It’s a rifle with some kind of scope on the top. “Where did you get that?” I ask.
“Found it. Meant to be used on me. Those men were supposed to get me here, but my man tapped the call. The lighthouse was a setup to reel me in. I got here first and I’m ready for them. You should have stayed at home.”
“And you should have told me what was going on.”
He lowers himself onto his front, his eyes peering out over the edge of the balcony. The only sound is the waves far below us. “What about Cam’s murder?” I ask. “Did you kill him?”
“No, but the sheriff’s office got evidence I did,” Leo whispers, shifting to look the other side of the lighthouse. “Bet I know who gave it to them too.”
“The snitch?”
“Yeah. Son of a bitch is persistent, I’ll give him that.”
“Why does he want you arrested?”
“Dead is better but arrested I end up in county and he’ll have me shanked for two packs of cigarettes before I can make bail.”
He puts a hand over my mouth and hisses the words. “Silence.” He points down to the road near the barrier. A car has stopped next to the sheriff’s patrol car.
Two men are getting out of it and looking up at the lighthouse. In the moonlight, I can see the glint of guns in their hands.
“Reggie and Crazy Len,” Leo whispers as they stand there talking. “Out in the open like that. No one else would be that dumb. You need to get back inside right now.”
“But-”
“Go!” He shoves me toward the door. I crawl over to it and slip inside, but I refuse to go down the stairs. I look back at him and all I see is a coldhearted killer. Where was the man who was so gentle when he kissed me just a couple of hours ago?
He raises the rifle and twists something on the scope. He takes a deep breath and then squeezes the trigger.
The noise is deafeningly loud this close to me. My ears are already ringing when he takes a second shot and then a third. I’m backing away from him as he stands up, his face utterly cold. “You can get up now,” he says. “It’s dealt with.”
I get to my feet, but they don’t work properly. He’s just killed two people. I’ve just watched him murder two men right in front of my eyes.
He’s a killer. What the hell was I thinking? I want nothing to do with him.
I turn and try to run down the stairs, but I trip and I’m falling. I wince as I’m about to slam into the metal treads, but a strong arm grabs me and pulls me upright. “Take it easy,” he says, still holding onto me. “Don’t hurt yourself.”
“Let go of me!”
He does as I ask, and I run rather than walk down the stairs to the living space. Louie is standing there, gun at the ready. “You know what I’m going to say,” Louie tells Leo.
“You got to take me in. You got no choice.”
“We’ll sort it out before you end up in County, I promise. Just got to do things by the book for now, stop anyone suspecting anything.” “I could kill you instead,” Leo says, not moving.
“Or I could shoot you.”
They stare at each other. “You sure you want to threaten a made man?” Leo asks.
“Come on in, Leo. Don’t make me do this.” Leo goes for his gun.
“Don’t,” I tell him before he can get to it, putting myself between the two of them. “The sheriff has done nothing.”
Leo looks at me and then seems to make his mind up. “All right,” he says. “You got me for one hour, sheriff. That enough time to write whatever bullshit statement you need?”
“Should be more than enough for what I need to do.”
We head down the stairs. Outside, the two bodies look like they’re sleeping. Sleeping in pools of blood. “I’ll call them in tomorrow morning,”
Louie says. “Give you time to get out of town.”
“I’m not going anywhere until I find the snitch,” Leo says, getting between me and the bodies, shielding them from my view as we walk past.
“You can’t stay here,” Louie says. “Corpses keep turning up and the house didn’t burn fast enough. Fire department’s asking questions already. There’s only so much evidence I can keep hidden. You need to vanish, Leo.
Just disappear for a while.”
“I’ll be gone by tomorrow night. That good enough?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Not unless you want the Don to call you to work this out.”
“Christ, no.”
“Good.”
Louie gets in the front of the patrol car and we climb in the back. It squeezes past the car belonging to the other two men, and then we head down the hill back into town.
“Drop her at her place,” Leo says, like I mean nothing to him at all. He turns to look at me. “You never left home tonight.”
“I wouldn’t have done if you’d told me where you were going. Maybe you should think about sharing some time.”
“Do as you’re told.”
“Fuck you, Leo.”
“Good girl,” he says, and I want to punch him for being so patronizing. Want to punch him but also want to kiss him. How fucked up does that make me?