The Billionaire's Allure (The Silver Cross Club Book 5) (24 page)

“I used to get so excited about the snow when I was a kid,” she said. “School was never canceled, but I always hoped it would be. Once in a while my grandmother would let me stay home anyway, and we would go to the park and build a snowman.”

My heart clenched. It was a palpable sensation, like a fist closing. I wanted to know all of her stories, every single one of her childhood memories, but it was too late now. Our time was up. “We could build a snowman today.”

She shrugged. “I’m too cold. It’s hard to have fun when you’re only warm when you’re asleep.”

Another clench. How could I leave her here, freezing through a northeast winter, and go home to central heating and hot water? I had to. I couldn’t take her with me.

She went directly to the shelter from the bodega, and I went back to the squat with Renzo’s coffee. He was still in his sleeping bag. There was no reason to get up. We didn’t have anything to do, no pressing engagements. I hadn’t expected the stark boredom of homelessness. We spent a lot of time sitting around waiting for something to happen.

But he sat up when I gave him his coffee, and took a careful sip. “Still hot,” he said.

“I wouldn’t bring you lukewarm coffee,” I said. “Bee went to the shelter, to see if they’ve got a bed for her.”

“We’re making her go, right?” he asked. “If she gets one.”

I nodded. “She won’t want to.”

He rolled his eyes. “Well, fuck that.”

My feelings exactly. I drained my coffee cup and climbed back into my sleeping bag. It was too cold to do anything else.

I dozed. Some time later, I heard footsteps coming down the hallway. It was Beth, back from the shelter. She came into the room and stood between Renzo and me, hands on her hips. “You’re both still in bed?”

Renzo had a mummy bag that I had stolen for him, and with the hood of it pulled over his head, the only part of him that was visible was his grumpy face. “It’s cold,” he said. “I don’t know why you’re
out
of bed.”

“Important business,” Beth said. “Max, I got a bed at the shelter, so you’re going.”

I sat up, still wrapped in my sleeping bag. “Absolutely not.”

“Why does he get to go?” Renzo protested. “Why not me?”

“Because he’s getting sick,” Beth said.

Renzo gave me a skeptical look. “He doesn’t look sick to me. Anyway, Bee, don’t be stupid. Max is going to stay here with me, and you’re going to spend the next month sleeping indoors where it’s warm. And if you try to argue, we’re just going to pretend that we don’t hear you.”

She frowned. “If you think I’m going to run off to the shelter and leave you two to freeze—”

“La la la,” Renzo said loudly, sticking his fingers in his ears. “I can’t hear you!”

“Renzo,” she said. “Come on. You’re acting like a child.”

“Is somebody talking?” Renzo hollered. “I can’t hear anything!”

I laughed, stupidly, and Beth turned her disapproving gaze on me. “Be serious,” she said. “Come on. This isn’t funny.”

“You’re right,” I said. “It isn’t funny at all. In fact, it’s deadly serious. You’re taking that bed.”

Her mouth hung open, a shocked circle. “What—”

“You heard me,” I said. “Sorry. I’m not trying to tell you what to do. Actually, I guess I am. You’re going to the shelter tonight.”

She looked back and forth between Renzo and me. “I don’t believe this.”

“Better believe it, sweetcheeks,” Renzo said, and I had to cover my mouth with my sleeping bag to muffle my laughter.

Beth’s mouth twitched with a reluctant smile. “Okay. Fine. You jerks win. But don’t get used to it!”

I exhaled silently. Good. Beth would be safe, and it would be easier for me to slip off into the night with her at the shelter.

God. That was really my plan, then. To vanish without a word.

Okay. I could do this.

I stole the notebook the next morning. Beth was still at the shelter, and Renzo was still asleep. I went out into the cold and walked for half an hour to get out of range of our usual haunts. Animals don’t shit where they eat, and I didn’t like stealing from anywhere too close to the places we went on a regular basis. It was bad manners, and also not very smart. So I walked until I found a drugstore I was pretty sure I hadn’t been in before, and then I went inside and slipped a notebook inside my backpack while nobody was looking.

The woman at the register eyed me suspiciously on my way out. I had the demeanor and self-assurance of a rich kid, but I looked a little grubby and unkempt. Storekeepers rarely knew what to make of me. But she didn’t say anything or try to stop me. Nobody ever did. I looked like I had a rich father who would kick up a fuss if someone tried to arrest me.

I
did
have a rich father, but he didn’t know where I was, and he would probably let me sit in jail for a few days anyway, to teach me a lesson.

I went into a nearby coffee shop and bought a coffee with the spare change rattling around at the bottom of my backpack. It was mid-morning by then, and the shop was largely deserted. I sat at a table in the back and took out my stolen notebook and a ballpoint pen I had found on the subway. And then I tried to figure out what I was going to write.

It took me hours. I wrote a draft, hated it, made some revisions, copied out a clean version, hated that one, too. There was just no good way to say,
I’ve been lying to you for months and I’m not who you think I am.

I had decided by then that I was going to tell Beth my real name, give her my home address, and ask her to come find me. At the very least, I could give her and Renzo my allowance money.

If she ever came. If she ever forgave me.

Dear Beth
, I wrote, and followed that with everything that was in my heart.

The sun was low in the sky by the time I left the coffee shop and walked back to the squat. The letter was folded up and tucked in my backpack. I would give it to Renzo that night, and be home with my sister by morning. I had it all worked out. I felt like the lowest scum of the earth.

Beth and Renzo were at the squat when I got back, sitting with the lower halves of their bodies inside their sleeping bags, and playing a card game. They both looked up when I came into the room.

“You’ve been gone for hours!” Beth exclaimed. “Were you panhandling?”

I shook my head. “Just walking around. What are you playing? Can you deal me in?”

She and Renzo exchanged a look, and I thought for a moment that they would start nagging me about walking around outside when I was “sick.” But Renzo shrugged and said, “Sure. Have a seat.”

I squirmed into the sleeping bag with Beth, and we played cards with her leaning against me, a warm weight against my side. I knew it might be the last time, and I savored every moment, the smell of her hair, the way she laughed. My heart was cracking open inside my chest.

It grew dark. Renzo turned on a flashlight and set it against a gallon jug of water we kept around to serve as our impromptu lantern. We finished our card game, and Beth yawned and stretched, and said, “I should get going. Curfew’s soon.”

She gathered her things and bent to give me a kiss, brief, casual. I longed to hold her against me, but she was suspicious enough already. I had to let her go.

“See you kids tomorrow,” she said, and she was gone.

Renzo rubbed his eyes. “Time for bed, I guess. Shit, I feel like we don’t do anything but sleep, and somehow I’m still tired all the time.”

“Winter,” I said. “It’s the cold.”

“Maybe so,” he said.

We brushed our teeth and spat the paste into a tin can. In the morning, I would take it downstairs and empty it into the non-functioning bathroom sink. Except I wouldn’t. I would be gone. That would be Renzo’s job, now.

Renzo fell asleep quickly. I could tell by the change in his breathing. I had been awake for more than thirty-six hours at that point, and sleep tugged at me. I fought it. I had to stay awake now. My plan was to wake Renzo after an hour or two, and hope he was disoriented enough that he wouldn’t question me. I was going to give him the letter, and tell him to give it to Beth. And then I was going to leave.

It would work perfectly. Nothing would go wrong. Renzo would let me leave without arguing or trying to stop me. I would walk out onto the street and go to the subway station. The train would be waiting for me at the platform. The doorman at my parents’ building would smile at me and open the door without a word. And my mother and father would still be awake, sitting in the living room, and they would cry and hug me and it would be like I had never left. And then in a few days, maybe a week, I would hear the doorbell ring, and I would go downstairs and Beth would be standing there in the lobby, shivering a little and looking around like she couldn’t quite believe what she was seeing, and I would go to her and take her in my arms and never, ever leave her side again.

An ambulance wailed down the street outside, and the ceiling flashed red. Renzo murmured something in his sleep.

I squirmed out of my sleeping bag.

It was time.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Beth

After my mother moved into the group home, life went back to normal. The director was taking over most of the administrative stuff I had been dealing with—paperwork, applications, parole—and the day after the move, I slept until my alarm woke me an hour before I needed to be at work. I felt well-rested for the first time in a week. It was glorious.

The letter arrived two days later.

There was no return address, but I recognized Renzo’s handwriting on the envelope, slanted and crabbed. I had given him my address and phone number when I was in California, but I hadn’t spoken to him since. I couldn’t imagine what he was sending me in the mail.

I sat at my kitchen table to open the envelope. Inside there was a second, smaller envelope. On the back, Renzo had written,
Max gave me this eight years ago. He thought you knew. I asked him not to tell you. It isn’t his fault. I’m sorry.

I frowned. What on earth was he talking about?

I opened the second envelope. There was a piece of lined notebook paper inside, folded up. It was yellow with age, and the creases were soft, like it had been opened and refolded many times. I unfolded it and read.

My darling Bee
, it began.

It was Max’s handwriting.

I should tell you all of this in person, but I’m too afraid. I know you’ll probably hate me after you read this.

I lied to you about who I really am. My last name is Langdon. My father owns Langdon Holdwell. I was never in foster care. My parents love me and have always treated me well. I ran away from home because I wanted an adventure. I know that sounds terrible. It
is
terrible, I guess. It seems pretty stupid in hindsight. I’ve changed a lot.

I’m going home because my little sister was hit by a car, and she’s in a coma. I hope you can understand. I don’t want to leave you and Renzo, but I need to be with my family.

I hope you’ll come find me.
He gave an address, and a telephone number.

I know that you might be angry with me for a while. If you don’t get in touch with me, I’ll assume that you don’t want to have anything to do with me, and I’ll leave you alone. But I hope that doesn’t happen.

I love you. I hope to see you soon.

Your Max

I went back to the beginning and read it again. None of this made any sense. If Max was—I knew about Langdon Holdwell. It was a big corporation, one of those businesses you always saw on the news. And if Max was—if that was his
father
—

Nothing made sense.

I set the letter on the table, and cradled my head in my hands. I was reeling. The universe as I knew it had been flipped inside out.

Was this a prank? Was Renzo trying to play a trick on me? He’d always had a weird sense of humor.

But he wasn’t cruel, and faking a letter like this would be beyond the pale. I didn’t think Renzo would do that.

So it was real. Max had written this letter to me before he disappeared, and he had given it to Renzo, and for some reason, Renzo never gave it to me.

I looked at Renzo’s note again.
He thought you knew. It isn’t his fault
. So Max had thought—this whole time, he had thought that I’d read the letter, that I knew who he was, and that I had chosen not to get in touch with him. Was that what he thought?

My head spun. This was too much to deal with before coffee.

So I made a pot of coffee, and when it had brewed, I sat at the table with the mug cupped between my hands and tried to think it through. Renzo and I, as far as I knew, had both assumed that Max was dead. But if Renzo knew all along that Max
wasn’t
dead, that he was alive and well and only a few miles away—