Love Me With Lies 03 Thief by Tarryn Fisher Read Free Book Online

is.
    “Olivia?”
    I glance at the clock and see it’s 4:49. I swing my legs over the side of the bed, holding the phone between my shoulder and ear. Before she says another word, I have my pants on and am reaching for my shoes.
    “Caleb, I’m sorry … I didn’t know who to call.”
    “Don’t say sorry, just tell me what’s up.”
    “It’s Dobson,” she says. Her words are jumbled and rushed. “He’s been sending me letters for a year. He broke out of Selbet last night. The police think he’s coming here.”
    I break away from my phone to pull a shirt over my head.
    “Where’s Noah?”
    There is silence on the other end of the line and I think she’s hung up.
    “Olivia?”
    “Not here.”
    “All right,” I say. “All right. I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”
    I wake Jessica up and tell her where I’m going.
    “Do you want me to come with you?” she asks, barely opening her eyes.
    “No, it’s fine.”
    I kiss her temple and she collapses back against her pillow in relief. I can smell salt in the air when I step out of the elevator and into the garage. You can always smell the ocean the strongest earlier in the day when the car exhausts and general human pollution hasn’t woken up for the workday yet.
    It takes me thirty minutes to reach Sunny Isles Beach where her condo rises above all of the others, one side overlooking the city, and the other overlooking the ocean. It’s the only residential building with reflective glass on the outside. When I walk into the lobby, the night manager looks me over like he’s deciding if my name is Dobson and I’ve just escaped from crazy town.
    “Mrs. Kaspen has given us strict orders that no one is to be let up,” he says.
    “Call her,” I say, pointing at the phone.
    Just then I hear her voice behind me. “It’s all right, Nick.”
    I turn, and she’s walking toward me. She’s dressed in white yoga pants and a matching hoodie. She has the hood pulled over her hair, but some of her waves are peeking through, framing her anxious face. I do what comes naturally. I cross to where she is in two strides and pull her against me. She buries her face in my chest so that she can barely breathe and hooks her arms up instead of around. This is how we’ve always hugged. She called it the Upper Cut. In college she would always say, ’ Upper cut me, Caleb .’ People would look at us like I was getting ready to hit her.
    “Are you afraid?” I say to the top of her head.
    She nods into my chest. “Dis is wot I ucking get.” She’s muffled, so I lift her chin. Her mouth is a few inches away from mine. I remember how soft her lips are and have to fight back the urge to taste her. Which brings me to the most important question.
    “Where is your husband, Olivia?”
    She looks so sad, I almost regret asking.
    “Don’t ask me that tonight, okay?”
    “Okay,” I say, staring into her eyes. “You wanna go get some breakfrast?” She cracks a smile at my mispronunciation of the word. We used to say it like that.
    We.
    Used to.
    She looks nervously toward the entrance of the building.
    “Duchess,” I say, squeezing her arms. “I got you.” I give her a small smile.
    “That’s good,” she nods, “because if he gets me, I’m in a lot of fucking trouble.”
    I laugh at her dry humor and steer her toward the door.
    We are met head-on by Cammie.
    “WTF!” she says, throwing her hands in the air. “I didn’t know this was a fucked-up relationship reunion.”
    Olivia covers her eyes. “Don’t judge me.”
    Cammie smacks me on the butt and hugs Olivia. “I told you I’d come right away, you didn’t have to call him.”
    “I called him first,” she says. “He makes me feel safer than you do.”
    “It’s his massive penis, isn’t it? He could just smack Dobson with it and he’d-”
    “Let’s take my car,” I say, opening the door. Cammie climbs past me and stretches out on the backseat. “Hi, Cammie.”
    She gives me a smile and I shake my