What Elise wanted to do was slip into her parents’ house and get some clothes. And there was cash hidden in her room. If she was to make her escape to Maine, she needed to buy a plane ticket.
It wasn’t until after lunch that she saw her chance. When she told Diego that she’d work on the bed by the back fence, he nodded. The second the men went around the corner, she made her move.
There was a wide service lane separating the houses. It was where the landscapers, cleaners, and delivery people parked their vehicles. Garbage was picked up here. No big green bins were ever put in front of the houses.
Elise knew that her parents’ house would probably be empty. Even if they had people looking for their missing daughter, she doubted if her parents would interrupt their routine. Her mother’s beauty and massage appointments took up a great deal of her time. Then there was clothes shopping and what Elise called “gossip meals,” where the women told all the salacious things they’d heard about each other. Her mother would certainly go to those to try to prevent the truth from being told about Elise and Kent.
She went out the back, crossed the lane, then slipped through the gate that was behind the house she’d lived in with Kent. As she ran past it, she paused for a moment. She’d never been happy in that house and it had never seemed like hers.
It was when she turned back that she saw Alejandro. He was standing there watching her.
Even when she rasped, “Go back!” he didn’t move. She didn’t dare speak any louder in case someone was in the house and heard her. “I need some clothes.” She was wondering when he was going to stop this lunacy of pretending that he didn’t understand her.
He made a gesture for her to go ahead, letting her know that he wasn’t leaving.
Turning away, she ran across the garden to the side door of the house. She knew where a key was hidden and she knew the alarm code. Please, she thought, don’t let them have changed it.
Alejandro stood beside her as she punched in her father’s birth date, then held her breath. No alarm sounded. When she looked around again, Alejandro was nowhere to be seen, but when she reached the big, two-story foyer, he was standing at the foot of the stairs.
How does he know his way around the house? she wondered.
When she reached her bedroom, he was already there to open the door, and she frowned. “As soon as we see Diego, you’re going to explain how you know where my bedroom is.”
With a smile, he shrugged that he had no idea what she was saying.
Frowning, as she was growing tired of the game, Elise went to her big walk-in closet. She needed to pack some things, but she didn’t want to take so much that her parents would report a burglary.
Alejandro leaned against the closet doorway. “I wish I could talk to you,” he said in Spanish. “I wish I hadn’t listened to my sister and started all this about the language. But then, I’m afraid of what I might say if I did talk to you.”
When he stopped, Elise looked at him. “Go on. Talk,” she said. “I’m nervous and your voice calms me.” She made gestures to show what she meant.
“Right now I’m very glad you can’t understand me,” he said. “Because I remember things. About us. But that’s not possible.”
For a moment, he watched her going through her clothes, her back to him. “If you could understand what I’m saying, you’d think I’m crazy. Sometimes I feel like I can see the future. But no! It’s like I can see things that have already happened—but I know they haven’t.”
He took a few breaths. “Yesterday I saw you pick a damask rose, and I also saw you cutting a dozen of them while I held a long basket. You said it was from England and it had a funny name.”
A trug, Elise thought but didn’t say. She was moving the hangers of clothes but not really looking at them. She was listening to every word he said.
“I know what you look like when you cry. I know that I wanted to hold you, but that I couldn’t. It was forbidden to get too near you, but I don’t know why. You looked like someone should hold you.”
Alejandro ran his hand through his hair. “I don’t know why I’m telling you all this. Are these dreams? Are they the imagination of a sick man? It’s just that they’re so real that I can’t get them out of my mind.”
She wanted to tell him that what he remembered hadn’t yet happened—and now never would—but then he’d think she was the insane one. She pointed to a suitcase on a top shelf. “Go on talking,” she urged.
As he pulled the suitcase down, he said, “You always did like my voice. You said so. But no, you didn’t say that because we’ve never spoken.”
When Elise put a dress with blue-and-white flowers in the case, he said, “I know that dress! It has a blue jacket to match it.”
He sat down on the hassock in the corner. “How did I know where your room is? How do I remember your wallpaper? I said it was pink and you said it was peach.”
She looked at him. It was exactly what had actually happened. He had been sprawled on the hassock, his long legs stuck out across the floor.
Just as before, she had a thought of kneeling between his legs and... Quickly, she looked away.
Alejandro put his head back and closed his eyes. “How many times have I seen that look?” he said softly. “Never, but yet I’ve seen it a thousand times.” He opened his eyes. “Want to hear something funny? In every one of these...visions, dreams, whatever they are, I’m half-naked. Maybe they’re my wishes coming alive.”
He paused, watching her put things in the suitcase. “But yet, as clear as these dreams are, I never feel your skin on mine. I’ve tried to. This morning...” He let out his breath. “This morning I wanted you. Like I wanted to live, I wanted you. When you ran away, I felt that my heart might break. I wanted to feel your flesh on mine, my lips on your skin. Me inside you.”
He took a moment to breathe. “But that vision isn’t there. It’s as though I’m condemned to wanting you but to never having you—not even in my mind.”
He gave a scoffing laugh. “Diego says that when it comes to women, I’m an idiot. He says I should marry a girl from home and have a bunch of kids, and that will calm me down. His wife has a pretty sister and...” He trailed off.
Elise turned away so he couldn’t see her. She didn’t know how it could be that he remembered what hadn’t yet happened, but then, she certainly did. But her memories were different. When she’d been near Alejandro, she’d also been married to Kent—and endlessly trying to please her husband.
But now she didn’t have that conflict. Kent didn’t rule her life—and never would. She looked back at Alejandro. His eyes, so dark, so full of desire, were pulling her to him.
Not yet, she thought. I need more. More of what, she didn’t know.
Abruptly, she left the closet and went into her bedroom. She needed to get the cash she’d saved and hidden under the top drawer. Beside the money was her passport. Since she and Kent were only going a short distance away for their honeymoon, she’d left it at home. She was glad to see that it was in her maiden name, not her married one.
As Alejandro put her suitcase on the bed, he continued speaking in Spanish. “Ah, good. You have money. Now you can get away from us. I could drive you to JFK or LaGuardia. Your dad can’t cover those airports. You can go anywhere you want to. Somewhere far away from my family who has caused you so much pain.” He smiled. “You know something? I’m glad Carmen ran off with that cowardly—and very stupid—man you were going to marry.”
Elise didn’t know when she’d heard such honesty—and if anything was missing in her life it was truthfulness. Smiling, she removed a little art case from a drawer and put it in the outside zipper compartment. Maybe she’d help Diego figure out the plans for the Bellmont job.
As she dropped a handful of necklaces in the pouch that contained the cash, they heard voices downstairs.