by Giulia Skye
“I’ve been worried sick,” Saskia was saying. “How could you? How—?”
“Cut the bullshit, Saskia.” He pushed past her. There were people everywhere. Barry the ranger was standing on the hotel’s veranda talking into a mic someone held under his chin as they faced a camera, its red light on, recording. Adam turned the other way. They’d found him, brought the show to him, to this sleepy remote area that was barely on the map. How did they get here so fast? How had they known he would here?
“There he is!” someone shouted.
He froze. He didn’t know where to go.
There was nowhere to go.
People poured out of the resort’s bar, gathering around him. He scanned the tops of heads, scanned the shadows and the bushes, hoping Evie had made it back to the truck in time.
His chest tightened, the panic rising. There was no escape. No way out. Sweat trickled down the side of his face. He couldn’t get enough air. Michael closed his eyes, willing the world to keep still. Just for a moment.
But he promised Evie he’d sort it out.
Eyes shut, he raised his hand and spoke loudly. “Enough!”
And when he opened his eyes again, the crowd had quieted. They were staring at him like he’d gone mad. Maybe he had. He caught sight of his father, standing on the top of the veranda steps. Michael met his gaze, horrified to feel the sting of tears at the back of his eyes. He took a moment to steady himself, slowly finding his voice.
“You all want a piece of the action? If you’d be so kind as to make your way back to the bar and give Saskia and me a few minutes alone, we’ll see you in there and answer any questions you might have.”
Michael stood rigid as the crowd did exactly what he’d asked. Perhaps they sensed the mad man wasn’t to be reckoned with. His father approached, walking against the crowd. Michael looked at him and then Saskia, who was dabbing her eyes as if she’d been crying.
“You can drop the act, Saskia,” Michael said, not keeping the disgust out of his voice. He then noticed Saskia’s annoying agent, Nadia, out the corner of his eye, half immersed in the bushes. The light from her smartphone glowing onto her heavily made-up face. He turned to Saskia. “Tell her to go or I’m outta here.”
Saskia shot Nadia a look and made her quickly disappear.
His father placed a hand on his shoulder. “You okay, Michael?”
The question and its tone surprised him. Anything his father had to say to him these days usually started with What the hell?
“I’m fine, Dad.” But he dipped his head, realizing he must look as broken as he felt. He shook this off unable to deal with his father’s pity and disappointment now. He was too desperate to know if Evie was okay, wished she was here, next to him. God, he needed her, and he needed—more than anything—to know she was all right. “How did you find me?”
“We found out the owner of your truck was Shane McDermit’s cousin. Then we discovered Shane moved to Darwin last year. We’ve been surveying his house and had someone follow your vehicle out this way. We heard it was the same vehicle the emergency crew were looking for. Christ, Mikey, I thought …”
The truck. If they found it parked up here, they’d find Evie and there’d be no escape for her. No possibility for him to spend some time alone with her to properly explain.
His father squeezed his shoulder. “You nearly got yourself killed saving that woman.”
Michael raised his gaze to meet his father’s. Was that concern? It made his head spin and the world as he knew it tipped over. Nothing was as it seemed anymore.
His father awkwardly withdrew his hand. “I’m not sure I can handle any more of these stunts you keep pulling.”
“Stunts you’re gonna start clearing up right now, Michael,” Saskia cut in. She let out an impatient breath. “And as much as I love these puke-making father-son moments, we’ve got a flight to catch in a few hours, so let’s get this over and done with and get the fuck out of this frickin’ oven.”
Michael gritted his teeth. He wasn’t going anywhere—not until he knew Evie was safe. “You’re on your own, Saskia.” He pulled away, looking quickly to his father. “Sorry, Dad.”
He broke out into a run.
Saskia screamed his name. “You fucking coward.”
“Let him go, Saskia.” He heard his father say. “He’ll be back.”
No. Not until he talked to Evie. He sprinted back to the truck, skimming through puddles on the path, the water splashing over his legs. When he saw the truck and its passenger door wide-open, he almost wept with relief.
“Thank God,” he said, fighting for breath. “I was so scared you wouldn’t be here.”
“Nice of you to say so, Mikey.”
The voice was gravelly and male, and certainly not Evie’s.
“Howie?” Michael scanned the truck. “Where is she? Where’s Evie?”
“She’s gone.” Howie stepped out, holding up a few sheets of paper. “But it’s okay, I got her to sign the nondisclosure. Your accountant Brandon emailed me to say you’d requested one.”
“What?” No! Adam snatched the papers out of Howie’s hand, his heart hammering in his chest. He’d never thought Evie would find out like this. Hadn’t thought to tell Brandon a payoff was no longer needed. He stared at the amount. “Two hundred thousand dollars?”
“I know! But don’t worry, she’d be a fool to ask for any more.”
No!
No, no, no, no.
He looked to the empty truck again.
Evie had left him? She was gone?
Her backpack was gone too, and her shoes. Even the toiletries she’d left on the back seat next to his. There was nothing left of her and he still had so much to tell her. He stared at the swirls of her signature on the contract and slumped against the truck.
He’d asked her to wait.
But she hadn’t.
She hadn’t waited to hear him out. She hadn’t even waited to say goodbye. After all they’d been through together. After all of her talk of love.
She’d just taken the money and ran.
CHAPTER 32
The Boeing A380 touched down at Vancouver Airport with a smooth automatic landing, a gray line of runway flashing past. Afterburners roared. Passengers in standard class cheered to be on terra firma, a round of applause for the pilot. Michael Adams sat in his first-class seat as others around him unclicked belts and collected their things. He was in no rush to move. In no hurry to face the wall of paparazzi that he knew would be awaiting him in arrivals.
His father and Howie were already on their feet. Howie straightening his tie, his father smoothing the creases out of his suit and slicking back his silvering hair. Their escorts, airport security staff who looked like they had better things to do with their time, waited for them at the door where the cabin crew stood, bidding passengers goodbye and a safe onward journey.
Michael grabbed his gym bag and followed his father and Howie off the plane and into customs.
“How does it feel to be home?” shouted the first reporter. Flash. “Are you feeling better now, Michael?”
“Michael!” shouted another. “How was rehab?”
Flash, flash, click.
“Have you saved any more lives today?”
“Let us through,” ordered one of the security guards.
“Got into any more fights recently?”
Click, click, flash.
“When was the last time you took pain meds?”
“Have you spoken to Saskia yet?”
Michael focused a few meters ahead, wading through the reporters and paparazzi as if they weren’t there. Saskia had boarded a different flight to avoid a crowd crush in arrivals.
“We’ll answer all your questions at the Vancouver, folks,” Howie told them, moving swiftly. “This afternoon at 2 p.m.”
A shiny black SUV awaited them.
Michael slipped into the back seat, shuffling to the other side to make room for his father and Howie. The door closed and they pulled away, painfully slow, as they parted waves of photographers. The journalists had already disbursed, running the race to file their articles before anyone else.
What would they say? Michael wondered. How would they describe the way he looked? How would they piece together his time in Australia?
Who had they spoken to?
Skinny Pete? Barry the ranger? Jeff and his wife?
Evie?
No, not Evie, he thought bitterly. Not when she’d accepted payment to keep quiet.
Michael sank back into his seat and zoned out. The sooner he forgot about Evie, the better. He’d known all along she’d never be able to forgive his lies.
Big fucking deal.
At least he would have stuck around to hear her side of the story if it had been the other way around.
Love, he scoffed. He knew love didn’t mean living a lie but neither did it mean running away.
Three days later, Evie stared out of the tour bus window, her eyes fixed on the rough line between tarmac and red sand. She saw past the nothingness, noticing only colors. Rusty earth, pale green leaves. The burned black of trees and the bleached white of animal bones, scattered in the terracotta dust.
And the litter. There seemed to be so much of it here, strewn along the Stuart Highway meters away from the tarmac. A flash of silver—a crushed can of fizz. Pale-blue plastic bottles, faded in the sun. Bright white rags of toilet paper blown and tangled among the bushes. A saggy orange plastic bag caught on the lower branches of a squat tree. The remnants of a blown-out tire, left never to wilt in the heat. It filled her with great shame and sadness, a huge acknowledgment of the modern-day human race. Civilized enough to build infrastructure. Savage enough to discard and destroy. To fuck it all up.
Evie turned her head. Across the aisle, the two Irish girls whose names she couldn’t remember, began to sing. Farther up, the German group joined in, the tour bus now filled with the chatter and excitement of being on this six-day Darwin to Alice Springs road trip, taking in Daly Waters, Tennant Creek, the Devil’s Marbles, Kings Canyon and Uluru. The singing became louder, more boisterous. She should really join in.
But instead she turned back to the window, colors flashing past.
I’m married.
Oh, he was married all right. His agent had told her Michael Adams and Saskia Williams were made for each other—and they wouldn’t want the public to know otherwise. He had then explained the terms of the nondisclosure agreement in an easy, simple way, as if she were an easy, simple woman. And that must have been exactly how she’d looked to him, a simple woman believing she was simply in love with a simple man. She’d signed the contract, took the check and grabbed her belongings. The agent had then offered to call her a cab. She’d looked at him as if he were mad.
“No cabs around here,” she’d told him. Then simply left.
Evie had kept to the edges of the resort, the straps of her heavy backpack cutting into her shoulders as she made her way to the back door of the resort’s kitchen. “I need a lift to Darwin,” she’d announced to the staff. She spun her own lies then, lies about her mother being taken ill. Lies about a flight she had to catch. She paid a waitress $200 to drive her to Darwin. She was an older woman who talked too much and asked too many questions. What happened to her mother? Where was she flying to? Had she heard about that famous swimming guy who’d rescued a drowning woman? Had she seen his gorgeous wife?
His gorgeous fucking wife.
Back in Darwin, Evie had googled all about Michael Adams and Saskia Williams, trying to fit the pieces where she thought they’d belonged, reliving every moment she’d spent with Adam.
Adam who was a lie. Adam who didn’t exist.
She thought about that morning’s love making. The flash flood. The man with the bleeding arm. Adam pulling a woman through the rapids. Evie thinking she’d lost him to the water. And the moment she’d accepted the check, realizing she really had lost him, forever.
The next day, dazed and fragile, Evie had been close to getting a cab to Shane and Krista’s house but felt too much like a fool. While they’d known the truth all along, she’d been the clueless idiot, sitting in their house, drinking their wine. Gooey-eyed in love at the man everyone but her knew was living a lie.
She had liked Shane and Krista, but what could they say? That Adam isn’t married? That he isn’t really called Michael? That he isn’t escaping a massive scandal in Canada?
And then there was his wife’s bounty. She’d read the tweets, the associated news reports. She had matched the photograph of his truck leaving Derby and recalled that lanky guy Pete who’d taken it when they’d driven out of town. Adam hadn’t taken her to that awesome place because he’d seen something amazing and had wanted to share it with her at all. He’d taken her there because he hadn’t wanted to be followed. He was on the run.
And stupid her had been so flattered. She’d been so naïve.
“Are you okay, Evie?” one of the Irish girls asked.
No, she wasn’t. She wasn’t okay at all. The truth was out and the truth bloody hurt, a gripping pain borne out of love and loss, grief and anger.
“I’m fine, thanks.” She took a sip of water. “Just a bit travel-sick.”
“You look so pale. We can ask the driver to stop.”
“No, I don’t want to stop.” She’d keep on going, that’s what she was programmed to do. Her bloody inbuilt turbo revved. So she’d been lied to. So she was in love with a man who didn’t exist. She turned back to the window. “I’ll get over it soon.”
CHAPTER 33
A week after his return, Michael pressed his forehead against the cool glazing of his bedroom window. He stared past his reflection to the lights of Vancouver Harbor, marking shipping lanes in and out of the Pacific. There were city lights, too. Lights that marked out other people’s homes, other people’s lives. Car tails flashing red in the streets below or beaming their way across dark mountain roads in the far, far distance.
He couldn’t sleep.
It was the same every night.
Pushing away from the window, Michael walked past the black gym bag he’d dumped at the foot of his bed when he’d finally been allowed to come home and lock the doors. He hadn’t touched it since.
He could barely remember the press conference. He’d answered questions just like he’d been briefed by Howie and his father, keeping the so-called facts of his “rehab” in Australia to a minimum.
“How do you feel now, Michael?” one reporter had asked. “You look well.” He’d looked up and recognized the journalist straight away, one of the few female sports writers he’d encountered in his career. “Any news of a comeback for the next Olympics?”
An actual question about his sport. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been asked one, and his answer had been the only truthful answer he’d uttered throughout the entire press conference. A simple, “It’s not very likely.”
He hadn’t trained seriously for nearly a year and a half, and as he pulled fresh workout clothes from a drawer, he knew a comeback at his age, with his shoulder, would be too grueling. He’d said goodbye to that part of his life for a reason, not that anyone believed him.
As Michael made his way to the residence-only gym and pool two floors below his apartment, he felt grateful that at this time, before daybreak, he’d have the place to himself for at least a couple of hours.
It was his new routine. Wake in the small hours, stare foolishly out of his bedroom window, then work out. He’d swim a couple hundred lengths, sometimes more, then hit the weights.
Afterward, he ate muesli at his kitchen counter, showered, dressed and walked around Stanley Park, trying to figure out what he wanted out of life other than
to be left alone.
Hair still damp from his shower, Michael zipped up his jacket against the fresh early morning air. Thankfully, the new concierge had given him the access code for the staff entrance to the back of the building, so now he had a way of avoiding the paparazzi who loitered out front. He knew what they were waiting for. The first pictures of Michael and Saskia back together again, holding hands on their way to grab an early morning coffee, preferably with tussled bed hair.
He knew Howie and Nadia were negotiating plans for the grand Michael and Saskia reunion. The executives at Strive Sportswear were also waiting for their key stars to announce they were back together, especially since Michael had saved a woman’s life. He’d become the real-life hero they’d been looking for.
But Michael wasn’t interested. He was still ignoring calls, and since the press conference, he’d only spoken to Howie a handful of times, usually when he turned up unannounced at the apartment.
“Okay, Mikey,” he’d said the last time he’d stood at his door. “We’ll give you a few more days to kick the jet lag and get your brain into gear.”
Michael strode through Stanley Park keeping to a brisk pace until he reached the water’s edge, his thick hoodie zipped up to his chin. He buried his nose in its warmth as a cool wind picked up through the bay. Those few more days would soon be up, but what would Howie do if Michael continued to ignore his calls and remain disengaged with the world?
The rumors of mental instability were still going strong. Perhaps Howie would begin to believe them? Perhaps his father would too.
“Michael Adams.”
Michael shifted his gaze from the water and wearily looked at the man who’d just spoken his name. He was dressed in jeans and a red puffer jacket, and wasn’t holding a notebook or a phone, not that that meant anything. It took Michael a few seconds to realize the man had extended a hand. Reluctantly, Michael got his out from his pocket and shook.
“Don’t worry, I’m not a reporter,” the man said, reading his wary look. “I saw you win gold in London.”