Page 77 of Don't Cross the Blue Line
“I think I lost them,” he says.
Beckett’s mouth makes a grim line. Yep, I’m thinking the same thing.
“We need to get moving,” I say.
“Where?” Cole asks. And since he did a brave thing, I tell him the plan. Except then he asks the obvious. “How are you going to lure them down the hall?”
Silence, and I’m busted.
“Not on your life,” Beckett says. He turns to Cole. “You’ll be the bait.”
Cole swallows. Nods. And there goes my heroic moment.
But maybe, if I’m honest, I’m okay with that.
“This could work,” Beckett says, his mouth a grim slash.
“It has to work. Otherwise, we’re trapped in a furnace.”
Cole’s eyes widen. “What?”
“Later,” Beckett says. “Let’s get moving.”
We split up. Not emotionally—we’re already split emotionally, the canyon between us wide enough for its own zip code. Tactically. Beckett and Cole create a trap inside the Penalty Box, a web of fishing wire—nabbed from the camping store while I was grabbing the bear spray—attached to the rows and rows of racks behind the rental counter.
My role in all of this, of course, is to get to the office and grab the evidence, still hidden in the file cabinet where Cole left it. Easy peasy.
We reconvene in the Penalty Box. Dawn is approaching, gray light bleeding through the snowy skylights.
We make our way from the Penalty Box to the bookstore. Cole is pacing. He looks about ready to pass out.
I don’t blame him. Escaping once is luck. Twice…well, this might go south.
Beckett leans against a bookshelf, his gaze fixed on the door. It’s almost time.
I can’t let another seventeen years go by…
“Beckett. About the book?—”
He doesn’t look at me. “Not now.”
“But I need you to?—”
“I said not now, Everly.”
The words hit me like a spray of ice, sharp and cold. Fine, then. Later.
Except standing here, with morning barely a hint in the sky, I know there won’t be a later. What happened in the dark will stay in the dark.
And for the first time, I desperately want to tell him that I was wrong about him. I’ve been wrong about Beckett Benson at every major juncture of my life. Wrong at eleven. Wrong at thirteen. And I’m so hoping I’m wrong again now. I need the man who chose to stay and rescue his teammate to also be the man who can choose to stay and hear me instead of running.
But I’m not going to shout the words, I’m not going to twist his arm. If he doesn’t want to try, I won’t wait around wishing he’d want me. I’ve been there, done that.
I glance at my watch. “It’s time.”
BECKETT
This might be our worst idea yet.
