“He turned down the offer on the Claymore, you know.” I stop dead in my tracks. “He’s coming back. Today is his last race, and then he’s retiring.”

Slowly, I turn back. From her satisfied expression, I can tell my face reflects the shock she was hoping for. “Why? Why would he do that?”

Looking me over head to toe, she shrugs. “Good question.”

I’m halfway up the stairs before I realize my feet have started moving. I don’t know where the sudden urgency comes from, or what it’s directed toward. Only that I need to move fast. Get out of here. Get to the airport. I yank open the door to my room and fall to my knees, dragging my suitcase from under the bed. When I throw it onto the bed, intending to shovel clothes inside, something catches my eye. My camera is sitting on the bedside table, a glossy eight-by-ten picture trapped beneath it. My camera is always in my messenger bag. It shouldn’t be out of its case.

I rise to my feet, afraid to look, instinctively knowing Shane put it there for me to find. When I pick up the camera to fully reveal the shot, my breath traps inside my throat. It’s me. Taken the morning after we spent the night on Killiney Hill. I’ve just removed my shirt, and I’m walking toward Shane, the gray sky alive behind me. Oddly, he didn’t photograph me from the neck down, as I’d assumed he was doing. No. It’s a close-up of my face, as I look at him. He’d zoomed in to capture my expression, and I can see why.

It’s all over my face, in the damp welling of my eyes, the breathlessness he captured with the shot. It’s so obvious. I’m looking at the man I love.

He must have developed the roll of film last night, or stolen it days ago. I have no idea. I only know that I love him more for understanding me so perfectly. For knowing exactly how to show me what I couldn’t admit verbally, in the language I speak.

Slowly, I turn the photograph over in my hand. When I see the word LIAR scrawled in what has to be Shane’s handwriting, a watery laugh bubbles from my throat. I’m immediately flooded with relief that he knew I was full of shit. He didn’t believe me for even a second.

If he was downstairs right now, I would run toward him and jump into his arms. Just like I did the morning he arranged the call with Ginger. The fact that I can’t touch him and tell him out loud how I feel, causes me enough physical pain that I have to go back down onto my knees.

Because I love him so damn much. Oh God, it’s so powerful it’s a wonder I can contain it inside my body. This is that moment my sister warned me about. The moment I realize I’m not self-aware. Not even close. I know nothing about myself or what life is capable of throwing at me.

It hits me in a blinding rush. He’s not here because he’s in Italy, about to participate in a dangerous race after my disappearance kept him awake all night. And he’s going to quit afterward. If he’s quitting for me, I can’t let it happen. I have to get to him before the race. Can’t let him go out there with my parting words echoing in his head. If something happens to him…

I snatch up my messenger bag, double-checking to make sure I still have the emergency debit card Derek gave me, and run down the stairs at a breakneck pace. Faith is standing at the bottom of the stairs, arms crossed. “About time. There’s a cab waiting outside.”

“Where in Italy is the race?”

“Monza.” When I look at her blankly, she shakes her head. “Just get to Milan, then follow the crowd. They’ll take you to him.”

“Thanks,” I yell, already halfway out the door.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Holy shit. Faith wasn’t kidding. I get off the packed flight in Milan, and I can barely move through the airport. Racing fans are traveling in droves, some talking excitedly about the upcoming race in accented English. Others speaking in languages I don’t understand. Jogging through the terminal, I do a double take when I see Shane’s face on a television screen in the waiting area, above Italian words I can’t read. It gives me serious pause. This event is much larger, more important than I imagined. It makes me twice as determined to reach him before the race starts. It’s imperative that he goes into it with his head in the right place.

I pace impatiently as I wait in line for a taxi, bombarded by memories of the last three weeks, of me and Shane. Our first meeting at the airport, the rainy night in the alleyway, the morning in my bed. The way he’d gone still as death last night when I lied to him, about my feelings. I’m drowning in these memories, in the need to reach him. He can’t race without hearing me say the words that threaten to topple me. For the first time in my life, I’m not running away. I’m running toward. Am I scared? Hell yeah. But I’m twice as scared of never again feeling the way Shane makes me feel. Knowing I make him feel the same way only increases the feeling of desperation to find him. I won’t screw this up because he won’t let me. I’ve never been more confident of anything in my life.

The ride to the track takes a millennium, mostly because the town is overflowing with people, cars, vendors, and television news crews. People carrying flags from their native countries. Groups of people chanting and cheering. For a girl who spends most of her life hiding in a dark room or avoiding crowds, frankly it’s a little overwhelming. I’m in a strange country, I don’t speak the language, and I’m running after someone who has the ability to smash my irreparable heart to pieces if he so chooses. I’m running on faith, here, that he won’t. That I didn’t ruin my chance with him last night. That he still wants me. Please, please, let him still want me. I can’t go my whole life knowing I screwed this up. I need a chance to make this right.

With that thought ringing in my head, I toss a handful of Euro at the driver, throw open the door of the taxi, and start running. I can see the grandstands, hear the roar of the crowd, but when I reach the entrance, I realize I’ve come all this way without a ticket. Surely with this amount of people attending, this much fanfare, the race has been sold out for months. I stumble back from the crowded entrance, seriously contemplating taking a page from Patrick’s book by sneakily divesting some unsuspecting race fan of their ticket, but I can’t do it.

Frustrated, on the verge of screaming until my lungs give out, I search around wildly for another option. Can I sneak in? Probably not. Definitely not, I remedy, when I see the security guards holding assault rifles, blocking the gates. Then I remember the afternoon Derek took me and Ginger to a Cubs game. As we walked inside to get our seats, there had been men whispering to passersby. Need a ticket? Tickets? Scalpers. Do they have those in Italy?

I scan the teeming mass of people, looking for someone willing to sell me a ticket. When I see a man standing at the edge of the crowd in a ball cap pulled low over his eyes, I start walking toward him. He’s not moving with the excited race fans. He’s alone, but his mouth is moving as people pass. If he’s a scalper, he’s my only shot to get inside.

Closing my eyes and saying a quick prayer, I walk past him slowly.

“Il biglietto?”

I stop. “What?”

He sighs. “Ticket?”

I’m so overcome with relief that all I can do is nod. Then he tells me the price. “Are you a f**king crazy person?”

“People pay twice that. You don’t want it, someone else will.”