Read Online Oxblood by AnnaLisa Grant - Free Book Online

here?”
    â€œYou don’t know where your brother is?” the girl asked curiously.
    â€œHe’s on a little self-discovery journey. You know, backpacking around the Mediterranean.” She nodded and smiled. “His name is Gil Asher,” I added.
    â€œLet me see,” she answered, clacking away at the computer again. “I see here that Mr. Asher checked out two weeks ago. I remember him. He was very nice—and handsome. Hard to forget,” she said like it was a secret. “He seemed fine when he checked out, but he was quite insistent that I mail a package to America for him right away.”
    â€œ You mailed the package?”
    â€œ S ì .” She smiled.
    â€œDid he say anything else?”
    â€œNo. Just that it was extremely important that the package go out immediately.”
    â€œWell, thank you. I appreciate your help.” I couldn’t think of anything else to ask, but maybe if I rested for a bit and let the jet lag run its course, I would come up with something.
    I followed her directions to the elevator and made my way to the fourth floor. I found my room at the end of the hall and entered, letting the door close by itself behind me as I took in the room.
    â€œIt’s sad when a hotel room is nicer than your own apartment,” I mused aloud.
    The room had wood flooring and furniture in gray hues. It was sleek and modern, just like the lobby. Gray tile covered the walls of the bathroom, where I noticed a shower curtain was conspicuously missing. Well, showering is going to be an adventure , I thought.
    I rolled my suitcase into the separate bedroom and tossed it on the bed before I plopped myself down next to it. I had no idea what time my body thought it was. All I knew was I was weary from traveling and worrying. I heaved myself up and pulled my laptop from my bag. I followed the instructions and was on the hotel’s Wi-Fi within minutes. A quick Google search later and I learned that Italy was six hours ahead of the eastern seaboard. That meant that my body thought it was mid-morning. I would be okay for a little while, but if I didn’t rest, I wouldn’t be able to keep my eyes open come dinnertime.
    Before my eyelids betrayed me, I pulled up the bank account and saw that Gil had paid for his hotel rooms at each of his stops over the last three months. Genoa, Rome, Palermo, Venice, and Bologna. There had been a few cash withdrawals as well. Only a few hundred dollars here and there. The last transaction was at this hotel—two weeks ago.
    I checked my email but didn’t find anything new from Gil, the universities, or Tiffany. I sent her a quick email to let her know that I had arrived safely and gave her my room number in case of an emergency. I signed off with a string of X ’s and O ’s and shut both the laptop and my eyes, surrendering to whatever tomorrow would bring.
    I dreamed I found Gil shopping in Milan with a woman he met and married on the fly. He told me he wanted to start a new life in Italy. When I asked him about the journal he sent, he said it was his way of saying good-bye to me forever, that giving me a piece of his imagination was the best thing he could think to leave me with. When I asked about the woman he married, he told me it was none of my business and that I needed to go home to Miami, go to college, and start a new life, too.
    I cried and begged him to come home with me. I told him how alone I would be without him because he was my only family, but he just took me by the shoulders and told me it was my turn to live the better life we had always talked about. He said I had to stop being so afraid and be the badass girl he always knew I was.
    He kissed me on the forehead, turned, and walked away with his beautiful Italian wife on his arm. The crowd thickened and, before I knew it, he was gone.
    A loud knock on the door to my suite woke me from that terrible dream. I must have cried in my sleep, too,