If You Believe in Me Read Online Free Page B

promised—”
    “I know what you were promised.”
    Kale frowned at DiPaolo’s tone. Was he going to block him?
    He chose his words carefully. “I hope there’s no problem with that promise, sir.”
    “The problem isn’t with your termination, Riker, but with your condition. There’s no way they’re letting you out of here in the next two days.”
     

 
    Chapter Three
    “Bingo!”
    The activities room of the Holly Glen Home for Active Living buzzed with the disappointment of a few dozen senior citizens and their guests. Amber stared in mock dismay at her nearly full card. “No way, Rose! I only needed two more!”
    Rose cackled and accepted her prize, a super-soft plush rabbit, from the teenager who carried it over. Her gnarled hands shook as she turned the bunny to face her, and a deep sigh ended the cackle. “This is just like the one Caitlyn sleeps with every night.”
    Amber doubted Rose’s granddaughter still slept with stuffed animals. The girl was nineteen, a freshman in college. But her family had moved to Colorado years ago and rarely came home to visit. It broke Rose’s heart that her only grandchild had chosen a college even farther away, in Oregon.
    The runner bent and kissed Rose on the cheek. “I brought that one ’specially for you, Ms. Rose. Congratulations on winning.”
    Rose smiled and patted her hand. The girl went back to the snack table, and Rose caught Amber watching the interaction with, she was sure, way too much sympathy on her face. The old woman’s expression went soft and shrewd at the same time.
    “Sometimes we just need to let them go, don’t we?” She tucked the rabbit next to her in her wheelchair and ran a magnetic wand over her metal-ringed playing pieces to collect them.
    Amber, who didn’t have fancy bingo gear, crumpled her marked-up paper and tore a new one off the pad in the center of the table. “Let what go? Teenagers? In some ways, yes.”
    “Not just teenagers,” Rose scoffed. “Everyone who’s no longer in our lives. At some point, we have to just accept that they’re gone.” She wheezed a little and paused to catch her breath.
    Amber tried to keep her expression clear and reached for a pitcher to pour Rose some water. “I suppose, when it’s impossible for someone to come back, it’s healthier to move on. For our own well-being. But Rose,” she continued before the woman could make her point more bluntly. “Caitlyn isn’t gone. She’s just far away. You’ll see her soon.”
    “Everybody ready for the next round?” Chad, the Holly’s activities director, vigorously rotated the drum of bingo balls. A few shouts of “ready!” rose above the clatter.
    Rose scooped up a pile of chips in one hand. “Maybe. I’ll ship her presents anyway. Better than leaving them lying around forever.”
    Amber snorted at the not-so-subtle jab. Apparently, it was common knowledge that she had a stockpile of presents for Kale from birthdays, holidays, and anniversaries he hadn’t been home for. This afternoon, Amber had taken Rose for some last-minute shopping downtown. While Rose debated between pairs of gloves for her beau, Amber had come across a leather excursion messenger bag. Kale used to talk about the business he intended to start when he got out. The bag was expensive, and Rose hadn’t withheld her opinion of “wasteful spending on things no one would ever get to use.”
    “O-62,” Chad called. “That’s O. Sixty. Two.”
    Amber X-ed through the space with a pencil and studied her game cards. Between them, she had the numbers relating to her birthday, Kale’s birthday, the day he said he loved her, and the day he was deployed. If all of those numbers get called…
    “B-1. B. One.”
    None of the cards on Amber’s strip had that one. Rose snapped two markers down.
    “The point is,” she said, scouring the half-dozen cards in front of her, “sometimes people won’t be back. Sometimes they can’t be. And the way of the world is that not