My Fiancé Wants Me Back Too Bad The Only Thing Coming Back Is Your Regret novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Alley

Susie walks out front to cover for him while Declan drags Hallie out the back; Susie is stabbed in the alley, and Declan says Hallie will pay for it every day.

"Who is with him?" Declan said. "Count them."

"I don't know. Tommy. Maybe two more in the car." My arm hurt where he held it. "Declan, he's been Dad's driver since I was seven."

"I know exactly who he is."

The bar door opened again behind us.

Susie came out with her coat over her arm and walked straight past me to Declan.

She looked at the grey sedan, and then she looked at his face.

"That's them," she said.

"Susie, get in the truck. Right now."

"Don't tell me what to do in my own parking lot." Her voice was steady, and her hands were not. "They saw her walk in. They saw you. In ten minutes they'll be through my front door."

"Then we go together."

"And they follow us up the coast road, and I'm the one who knows where the keys are." She put her coat on. "I'll tell them Dean left at noon on the Portland bus. They'll believe a woman who owns the place."

"No."

"Dean."

She had never once used his other name, I realized, to his face. She said it now, once, and handed it back to him.

"Take your girl out the back way and don't stop," she said. "You've only been waiting four years to be told to."

Then she turned to me.

"I'm sorry I wasn't kinder. Drive fast, hon."

She walked across the gravel toward the grey sedan with her hands open at her sides.

Declan pulled me around the corner of the building.

We ran down the narrow alley between the bar and the net shed.

It smelled of fish crates and cold water.

My car was parked on the side street, and my hands shook so badly that the keys rattled before I could find the lock.

"Get in," he said. "Drive. I'll tell you where."

"What about her?"

"Hallie, get in the car."

Out in the lot, a man's voice said something low.

Susie's voice answered, bright and loud and cheerful. "Bus to Portland, honey, left at noon, you can ask anyone."

Then a second voice, a different one, laughing.

I stood with my hand on the door.

"She's going to be fine," Declan said. He wasn't looking at me. "She's going to be fine, she's talked her way out of worse."

I heard her say something sharp.

Then I heard nothing at all.

Declan was already running.

I ran after him, back down the alley, and I did not decide to.

The lot was empty.

The grey sedan's taillights were turning out onto the coast road.

Susie was sitting against the wall of the net shed with one hand pressed to her side.

She looked surprised, and not at all frightened.

"Well, that wasn't the plan," she said.

Declan went down on his knees in front of her.

Her flannel shirt was black from the ribs to the hem.

The handle of a knife stood out under her hand.

"Don't pull it," he said. "Don't touch it. Susie. Look at me."

"I'm looking."

"Hallie, call an ambulance."

I had my phone out before he finished.

I dialed, and I said the address, and the dispatcher said eight minutes.

Eight minutes.

I got down on the cold gravel and put both my hands over his on her side, because he was pressing too gently, and she made a sound.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

"Stop that," Susie said. "You're making it worse."

It was almost a joke.

Declan's face had gone completely still.

"They believed me," she said to him. "Mostly. The tall one didn't."

"Don't talk."

"Chowder's in the walk-in. For her. Somebody has to eat it."

"Susie."

"Go, Dean." Her eyes shut and opened. "Take her and go. Don't be stupid twice."

Her hand, the one that was not on the knife, found his sleeve and held it.

Then it let go.

The ambulance came in seven minutes.

By then the paramedic didn't hurry.

I knelt in the gravel with a stranger's blood drying to my wrists while the lights turned over the harbor, red and then white and then red.

Declan stood up slowly.

He looked at the dark window of the bar, at the chairs still upended on the tables, at the apron folded on the counter.

Then he turned and looked at me.

I had waited four years to see that face again.

I had imagined it a thousand ways, and in none of them was it empty.

"Declan," I said.

"Don't say my name."

"I didn't know. I didn't know they were here, I swear to you."

"You walked in and you said it out loud," he said. "To a room with a phone in it."

"You told me you were somebody else!"

"I was keeping her alive."

He bent down, picked up the keys Susie had dropped, and held them in his fist.

"Four years, and I kept her alive," he said. "You came into her bar for one evening."

My mouth opened and nothing came.

"You'll pay for this," Declan said. "Every day, Hallie. Every day, for the rest of your life."

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