David actually came in two days later, brought a thin folder with a protocol, in which invented details of her abduction were reported in dry phrases. A lie from start to finish, which now had to be believed not only by her friends, colleagues and all of America, who was worried about the unfortunate surgeon kidnapped by a murderer and maniac. First of all, she herself had to believe in this lie, so that no one would even have a tiny suspicion that she could be dangerous.
And David, embarrassed, put a plain white envelope on the bedside table. Laura glanced at him, and her heart shook, beating so fast that it was hard to breathe. But she firmly promised herself that first she would get acquainted with everything that should now be said to the press and the investigator, and then - at home, in the hospital. And only when David was convinced that she had learned everything, and left, taking the folder with him, Laura took the envelope in her hands and for several minutes just looked at it, not daring to open it.
Chris's handwriting turned out to be smooth, clear, at a perfect angle - nothing more. Laura never thought about how someone else's handwriting could be associated with a person, and now she was looking at the lines and blinking, chasing away her tears - it seemed that Chris was now sitting next to her and looking with his calm, impenetrable gaze of dark, almost black eyes. A lump grew in my chest, voluminous, extensive, it filled everything with itself, and Laura involuntarily pressed her hand to her throat, trying to push it through, take a short breath.
Hello. I think there is no point in explaining the reason why I could not come - David must have told you everything. I am sure you also understand that it will be better for everyone, and above all - for you. For your safety. You deserve a calm, safe life, I am sure that now you will have it. The time that I spent next to you will forever remain in my memory. You are the most amazing and incredible woman I have ever met. For every day spent nearby, I will forever thank fate. Please do not try to look for me, remember - they will follow you, and follow closely. Thank you for everything. Chris.
Laura ran her eyes over and over the lines, trying to find words between them that he could say when he met and did not want to trust the paper. Words that I would like to say. I searched and did not find. And then resentment replaced the melancholy. Now that Laura finally realized how much she loved him, when she so needed at least the slightest manifestation of tenderness on his part, in the hope that would help to endure the forced separation, Chris said goodbye to her. Dry and almost formal. All her fears and doubts have found
confirmation in these lines: she never meant as much to him as he meant to her. And now it will never be ... Hands clenched into fists, the letter rustled pitifully and flew away, thrown by a trembling hand somewhere to my feet. Laura hid her face in her hands and burst into tears.
Returning home has never been more difficult than it is now. Probably because Chris understood that this visit to Seattle was most likely the last in his life. He loved his hometown, loved for the slowness of the cozy suburb, for the sea breeze and numerous ferries, for the noise of the business center and the bright shine of the night lights. He could spend hours talking about the fact that his city is the best on earth. And now I had to leave him. Things from a rented apartment have long been left in a container for a new life. Well, he shouldn't have appeared here at all, but Chris made a firm promise to David that he would not go near Laura's house or her hospital. Only a month had passed, files for several ministers, a dozen assistants, and, finally, for the elusive Kelly were gradually growing, but it was still very far to blame them. All, what Chris could bargain for himself - the opportunity to say goodbye to friends and leave them his new address. David assured that no one was watching Denise and her family - most likely, she was not considered an important figure to spend their time on her. Unlike Laura ...
Chris sighed and looked in the side mirror, unwittingly rubbing the short beard he had to grow. When David said he'd have to disappear, Chris didn't mind. He even admitted that he himself would suggest it, if only to deflect all suspicions from Laura. At his request, Denise received a call the same day Mike was arrested. She was warned not to believe anything she saw on the news. That's all - Chris spent the entire next month in the apartment that David was talking about, without going outside and following what was happening from the news.
Every time, seeing on the screen Laura, haggard, thinner, incredibly fragile and tired, my heart began to pound. And in the chest there was a dull, persistent pain. He was supposed to be near now. Hold your hand and say that everything will be fine. Maintain and protect. Instead, he was forced to watch, going mad with helplessness and guilt. Every "terrifying" detail of the abduction, every question asked by the journalists, eager for sensations, caused uncontrollable anger. Laura responded with a voice trembling with tears that matched so beautifully with her image of a terrified victim, but Chris physically felt her pain and loneliness. I felt it because I felt the same way myself. For a couple of weeks, she became a heroine who never left the TV screens, but by the end of the first month, a new sensation captured the attention of the public.
Chris knew from David that she had returned to Seattle and had gone on vacation at the urging of the head physician. At the moment, Laura was vacationing in one of her houses in California, David also said this, assuring that she was completely safe, although several of Kelly's people were seen nearby. Now they were hiding, waiting for some steps from her side, or maybe something that would confirm their guesses that Laura knew everything.
But she only lay in a sun lounger by the pool, sipping cocktails, or spent time locked in her room. In general, she behaved as any person who found herself in her place would behave. It was the fact that Laura was in California now that allowed Chris to return to Seattle.
He drove up to Denise's house when it was completely dark. Lights were on on the porch and in the windows. He was not expected, and Chris looked forward to meeting in advance. Recently, he has been desperately lacking positive emotions. He parked at the garage and, without waiting for an angry Mark to jump out of the house, to remind him of the ban on parking on private territory, got out of the car. Denise's hasty footsteps outside the door made her heart beat faster, and as she gaped at him in disbelief, her mouth open, Chris quietly put a finger to his lips and stepped inside. Only after closing the door, Denise died and, with a short squeal, hung on him, wrapping her arms and legs around him.
— Mark! She screamed, laughing and crying at the same time. - Mark, look who brought to us!
— Don't tell me it's your sister Rose! Seeing her for the second time in a month is too much even for my angelic patience!
Mark came out of the kitchen with a bottle of beer, frowned slightly, but immediately beamed and, going up to Chris, hugged him tightly.
— I didn't expect to see you so soon, ”he said, stepping back. - But I'm very glad to see. Alive and healthy. - He looked pointedly at Denise, and she immediately rolled her eyes.
— I was afraid that they were torturing you there and did not want to release you. Nonsense, I know.
— Now I will remind you of this nonsense for several years, ”Mark assured, smiling rather. “And my wasted nerve cells, too. Okay. ”He patted Chris on the shoulder. - Let's go to the yard, what to stand here. The bed in the basement is still yours.
— I do not for a long time. - Chris smiled, looking at them, feeling how the shadows in which he lived for the last month receded a little, and it even became easier to breathe. - Tomorrow the plane.
— Then all the more so, - exaggeratedly cheerfully exclaimed Mark, - why waste time?
No one interrupted Chris as he recounted the true story of their crazy journey across the country. The only thing he did not mention was the contents of the flash drive, but Mark and Denise did not ask, realizing that since Chris had to die for this information, it was better not to know it. They generally listened without interrupting, only Mark went to the kitchen a couple of times and brought more beer. When Chris stopped talking, Ma
rk asked first:
— And what, where to look for you now?
— In Louisiana, ”Chris chuckled. - The FBI dropped a small amount of gratitude from the bounty for helping solve the crime. And the money I earned from Laura will come in handy. I will buy a boat, I will carry tourists around the Mississippi.
— By the way, what about Laura? Denise asked. - I understand that on the trip you finally became close, and now what?
— Now she's under the protection of the feds, and I'm dead, ”Chris replied sharper than planned. - What else could be?
— Do you think she won't want to be with you when this is over?
— I think this is not what she needs. She has a career and a whole life ahead.
— Are you already going to go to the coffin? - Denise was indignant. - You yourself decided everything for her and now, like a noble knight, you go into the shadows?
— Do you think this is a joke? Laura is still under threat if someone realizes that I am alive, with
easily fold two and two and understand that we also delivered the USB flash drive to the address. According to the official version, she was destroyed during the rescue of Laura. And then what? Make her run and hide again, given that now no one will rush to save us?
— And it seems to me that you are exaggerating, ”Mark, who had been silent before, suddenly intervened in the conversation. - Someday those who hunted you will be imprisoned. It's only a matter of time, you said yourself.
— By the time this happens, I'm sure Laura will have arranged her life, - bitterness broke through involuntarily, but too clearly. Chris grimaced and thumped the bottle aside, getting up and running his hands through his hair.
— Are you just afraid that she can't wait? Denise asked quietly, getting up and throwing her head back to catch his eye.
— I don't want to force her to sacrifice her life for an incomprehensible future. It's betterleave everything as it is, than live vague dreams.
— This is her life too. - Denise looked at him seriously and sadly. - This is unfair. You are acting unfairly. I can see that you care about her.
— It's not about feelings! - Chris exclaimed with annoyance. And then there was a verse, lowering his shoulders. - Or maybe just in them. I dont know.
— You are completely confused. - Sighing heavily, Denise hugged him and mumbled: - Understand everything and give her a chance. If you really want her to be there. Only if you really want it.
Never since had Laura remembered being so desperately hurt, empty and lonely as in the first months after returning home. Endless interviews were so exhausting that, once in the room in which she was settled, she could only curl up in a huge bathroom and cry quietly from fatigue. No support, only sympathetic, hypocritical sympathy, from which the cheekbones drooped. But all this was done for safety - including Chris. Laura imagined that he was watching every interview of her, and mentally turned to him, hoping that he would see, feel how bad it was without him.
Nightmares began to come at night. Having never complained about them before, now Laura gasped with the horror she had experienced, waking up in a cold sweat. In her sleep, she lost Chris, over and over again, each time in a different way: Mike shot him in the head, and hot spray flew on Laura's face. He tortured him in front of her, and she could not move until Chris's eyes froze forever. Sometimes Kelly or Bradford appeared in nightmares, they came to her and said with a grin that everything was in vain. That the information they brought across the country wouldn't change anything. Never. And that they would find Chris and kill him, and then come after her.
Laura had a hard time getting home to see her therapist, and now antidepressants and sedatives have taken their place on the bedside table. It was not possible to return to work immediately: Lockwood was adamant - rest, gain strength, I had to endure so much! Laura didn't argue, she just turned off her phone and left for California. Warm sun, palm trees, sun loungers and cold cocktails - wasn't that what she dreamed about? Only in her dreams was Chris next to her, and whenever Laura thought of him, when she imagined him lying next to her, her body responded with physical pain.
Before, Laura had no idea how you can suffer without a person. Of course, everything happened in life: parting, betrayal, resentment. But such an all-consuming despair that captured whole, before test not succeeded. Yearning by he became a tangible, constant companion, without which the morning did not begin, and the evening did not end. She saw him everywhere: she looked for a familiar turn of the shoulders in the crowd, listened to the voices around her, shuddered at the rare calls. When I returned to work, I thought that I could distract myself, but in reality it only turned out worse. It was simply impossible to bear so many tears, hugs from relatives, other people's feelings for a loved one and happiness.
When the nightmares stopped tormenting, dreams came much worse - in which Chris loved her. His hands slid over his body, his lips outlined every curve, his breath stirred the hair on the back of his head. And each of these dreams was so real that she woke up with a desperately pounding heart, trying in vain to catch the elusive fantasy and delay it even for a little while. Laura didn’t know which was harder - to see him die or to melt in his arms, knowing that it would never happen again.
A year passed, and there was still no news from him, which, however, was not surprising. The "power engineering case", as the press dubbed the FBI's crusade against senators and the mafia, was only gaining momentum. Loud investigation details that are dosed
“Seeped” into the press, did not leave the front pages of newspapers and the leading news, and
David, with whom Laura kept in touch, said that everything was going according to plan. It took another six months to finally cut the political knot, to jail all the guilty, but the resonance was so powerful that a wave of rallies even swept across the country. People demanded transparency and reporting from the authorities, the authorities, realizing that it would be better to hush up the matter, dismissing officials earlier, snapped sluggishly.
At first, Laura was fascinated by the process, she even tried to follow it, but quickly lost interest, dissolving in the usual wheel: home-work-home. The worries gradually receded into the background, the nightmares disappeared, and Chris had less and less dreams. Laura began to forget his voice, his laughter, his features smoothed out, gradually overwritten by a pitiless memory. She didn't even have a photograph of him left, as if he was a ghost - he entered her life, saved and disappeared. Sometimes she called him a guardian angel, and sometimes she hated and cursed, swallowing tears and dry martini with vodka. Probably, a year or two would have passed, and the obsession named Christopher Labert would have let go completely, if not for an accidental meeting on the waterfront in June evening. Emma threatened to stop talking to her if Laura didn't accompany her on Friday night. Laura did not resist much, she herself was tired of sitting in four walls and groaning over her lost love, so at seven she got out of the taxi, adjusting the strap on a light summer dress in dark green. Just have a drink, look at people who are not sick with anything and are not going to die on your table, and listen to Emma talking about her new dizzying romance.
A small restaurant right by the water was half empty: there was no loud music, no dance floor, and snow-white tablecloths with bouquets of hydrangeas on the table made most of the walkers bored. Laura took a seat in the corner and ordered an aperitif, staring at the Big Wheel, watching the merry-go-round lights reflect in the dark water. For the first time in a long time, my soul was calm.
— And I told you that Nancy is the best! - I heard a painfully familiar voice. Laura froze and slowly turned towards the aisle along which Denise floated through the restaurant like a proud three-deck cruiser. Holding the phone to her ear, she waved her hand in indignation, and her deeply pregnant belly rose and fell in time. - Darling, don't argue! No, she will put the children to bed. What do you need me for? You know, I broke out of my house for the first time in six months, and if you ruin me ...
Denise saw Lau
ra, lost her step and froze. Then she muttered quickly into the phone:
— I hope you can handle it - and passed out.
Laura looked at her attentively, looking at everything at once, from a long white sundress for pregnant women to her hair carelessly scattered over her shoulders, and felt that she could not take even a tiny sigh. My heart sank, weakness spread in my legs, and a nervous smile brushed my lips.
— Hello. “She couldn't ignore her as much as she wanted to. Although she wanted, and very much. How many times, when she thought of Chris, had she imagined him leaving with Denise? How many times did I remember each of his words about her, how light his face lit up when he looked at her? Denise could have contacted her, could have talked, but she didn't. And now resentment burned in my chest, resentment and anger.
— I didn’t think you were in town, ”Denise said quietly, walking over to the table. She nodded to the chair: - Allow me? - And, without waiting for permission, she sank down opposite, sighing heavily.
— Where else can I be, ”Laura shrugged. She tried to speak
unconstrained, but the trembling voice betrayed the head. I had to talk about something, but what? A quick glance at the clock - half an hour was left before Emma's arrival, this is at best, because her friend was always late.
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