She doesn't seem annoyed that we’re here so early and gets busy making breakfast and coffee. I keep insisting that I don't want anything, but she practically bullies me into eating her pancakes.
“It's so nice to have guests,” she says. “Especially, a longtime friend who I haven’t seen in a while.”
“So, you have known each other for a while?” I ask.
“Yeah, you could say that.”
“A few lifetimes at least,” Tyler adds.
The two of them reminisce a bit about the past. Tessa tells me about getting her PhD at the University of Pittsburgh.
“I majored in organic chemistry,” she says. “I got offered a job at a lab but I wanted to continue going to school so I ended up going to grad school. After that, I worked in a lab for many years. It was rewarding. I wish that I’d tried teaching, but I didn't.”
“Why not?” I ask.
“I like to keep to myself. I don't like a lot of interactions and interruptions throughout the day.”
“Really?” I ask, finding that hard to believe given how nice she’s being now.
“Well, it's not every day that you see a ghost,” she says, leaning back against the kitchen counter and looking Tyler up and down.
I open my mouth to ask her more about that, but Tyler beats me to it.
“It got pretty bleak in there,” he says quietly. “If it weren’t for the money that you sent…” His voice trails off and we all take a moment of silence.
“I'm glad that I could do anything to help you. That was really fucked up what happened.”
I nod, hoping that she will elaborate.
When Tyler excuses himself to use the restroom, she does.
“I'm glad that you believe in his innocence,” Tessa says.
“The thing is that the prosecution had such a tight case.”
“No, they didn't. They had no case. They railroaded him.”
“He didn't really have an alibi,” I say.
It's not that I'm arguing for his guilt, it's just that I want her to give me more proof that she has of his innocence.
“Oh, you don't know, do you?” Tessa asks, taking a sip of her black coffee with no sugar or cream.
“Know what?”
“Tyler doesn't have an alibi because he was with me when it happened, but he kept that information from the cops because that's the kind of person that he is.”
I feel all the blood drain away from my face.
“Wait, I don't understand,” I mutter.
“They convicted him largely because he didn't have an alibi for where he was the night of the murder. Well, he was with me.”
“Why didn't you…”
Tessa takes a step away from me and looks down at me through her reading glasses.
“Isabelle, you're not seriously asking me this question, are you?”
“Yes, I am. He got life in prison for two murders that he did not commit. He could've gotten the death penalty. He would be there now if he hadn’t escaped. Yet, he had an alibi this whole time.”
“You do realize what kind of business I’m in, right?” she asks, the expression on her face suddenly becoming grave and distant.
I give her a nod.
“We can't discuss the details, but I want to at least tell you that your boyfriend is a very honorable man. I asked him not to tell them where he was the night of the murders and he didn’t. Not when he was arrested, not when he was on trial, not when he was convicted.”
I have so much more to ask her, but Tyler returns.
“Oh, shit,” Tyler says, looking at me. “You didn't tell her, did you?” he asks Tessa.
“She wanted to make sure that you didn't actually kill your wife,” Tessa says, sitting down in her chair with a little smile at the corner of her lips. “She traveled all this way with you, committing who knows how many felonies, but she still wanted to double-check that everything was on the up and up.”
“That's not what happened,” I say sternly. “I just asked you if you happen to have any more proof about his innocence. Anything that he could use to prove that he didn't do it.”
“Well, I told you what I have, whether or not you use it is up to Tyler.”
Luckily, our conversation is cut short when Tessa excuses herself to take a phone call in another room. We sit in her bright kitchen overlooking a turquoise pool and hot tub.
The sun is bright and the weather is warm. The hedges out back provide what feels like infinite privacy.
“You had an alibi this whole time and you didn't say anything?” I ask Tyler, not wanting to waste a moment of our alone time.
“It's not that easy, Isabelle. This is the drug business. I can't just tell the cops that I was with her without implicating Tessa and everybody who works for her.”
“What were you doing?”
He shakes his head.
“Tell me,” I insist.
He thinks about it for a moment.
“It was just a meeting. She came to me because she needed some help with the drug cartel out of Mexico.”
The phrase drug cartel makes my mouth drop open. My throat gets parched and I swallow hard.
“I don't know the details of her operation and I don't want to, but I was with her that night and there were other people there. They showed up. They talked in private, but I couldn’t very well tell the police that I was with her. I had to keep my mouth shut in order to not get killed. The thing that they say about snitches on television is true. If anyone suspects that you will open your mouth about anything that happens, they take you out. They don't debate and they don't second-guess.”
“I don't understand,” I say, shaking my head. “Were you actually involved in the drug deal?”
“No. She was my silent partner, my investor, remember? We had a meeting about her money, she wanted to invest more. Essentially launder it. She needed to clean it in order to pay taxes and buy a house and a car and be a normal person. That's partly what the hedge fund was doing for her. When we had that meeting, I had no idea that those guys were going to show up. Luckily, nothing bad happened and I thought it would all work out. I had no idea that was the night that my wife and her lover would get killed.”
Before I get a chance to ask him to elaborate more, Tessa comes back.
“So, kid, why don't you tell me the tale about how you managed to escape from a maximum-security institution?”
While Tyler talks, I try to figure out what compelled him to not tell the authorities about his alibi. I realize that we’re talking about a cartel and drugs worth millions of dollars, but there’s also his life.
How could he not stand up for himself?
How could he go down for a crime that he didn’t commit all in an effort to not reveal who he was with that night?
After breakfast, we go outside on the patio to have a second round of coffee while the birds are chirping.
“You know, you don’t seem to be very surprised to see us,” I say, taking a sip.
“Well, I was expecting to hear from Tyler after I heard about his escape.”
“You were?” I ask.
“Of course. I’m sure that he told you that I am in quite a lot of debt to him and of course, I plan to pay him back every penny.”
“Uh-huh,” I mumble.
“I’m not avoiding talking to you about that, Tyler,” Tessa says. “Let me be perfectly clear with you. I don’t have the money.”
I see the expression on Tyler’s face change from friendly to aloof.
“What are you talking about?” he asks, furrowing his brows.
“Is business not going well?”
“It’s not that. It’s actually going quite well. That’s why I have very little to offer you. It’s all tied up in investments. I had no idea that you would be getting out of prison. I thought that I would be paying you in small bits here and there. I can do that.”
“You don’t have any money?” Tyler asks again, cocking his head.
I can tell that he
doesn’t quite believe her or maybe he’s just trying to assess the situation.
“It’s hard to explain, but the gist is that no, I don’t have any of it. The most I can offer you now is a couple thousand.”
Tyler shakes his head and the blood drains away from his face. “That’s not enough, Tessa. That’s not nearly enough.”
“I know,” she starts to say.
“You owe me $300,000,” he says. “In cash. You said that I could have it back at any time. We never had a payment plan. You’re not supposed to be investing that money in anything.”
“I know and I didn’t. I thought you would need it for your defense or your appeal or something like that. I held onto it for a while and then an emergency came up. Listen, I don’t have to explain myself to you.”
“Yes, you do. You owe me 300 grand and I expect it back.”
“You will have it back, just not today.”
26
Isabelle
When we leave…
The motel is less than a five minute drive away from her house, but it feels like a century passes before we get there.
When we leave, I wait for him to start talking but he doesn’t. When we get to the car and get onto Monterey, a large busy road that takes us down to the motel, my thoughts spin out of control.
The houses are getting nicer the more south we go. There is a huge mountain, the color of sand, rising from the ground. The sun is beating down hard, it’s harsh and unfiltered through lack of clouds. The air feels crisp, hovering at just over 8% humidity. I cough lightly to clear my throat and a loose droplet lands on the back of my hand and dries almost in an instant.
“Are we not going to talk about this?” I ask Tyler when he pulls into the empty parking lot of a double-decker hotel.
There are about ten rooms and each door looks straight outside, facing the highway.
As he tries to get out of the car, I put my hand on his knee.
“She owes you a lot of money,” I whisper.
“Yes, I know,” he says with a sigh.
“What are we going to do? Mac left us with $200. How much do we have left? $150?”
“I know,” he says.
“The whole point was to get here and to get the money.” I continue.
I feel my voice getting urgent and tense. It’s mirroring what’s happening on the inside.
“I’m going to figure something out.”
On the outside, he doesn’t seem fazed by any of this. Hardly even bothered.
It’s either that or I haven’t gotten a good sense of his moods. Perhaps, he’s just distant. Not entirely here.
“Is something wrong? Why don’t you think that this is a bigger deal than it is?”
Frustrated, he gets out of the car and slams the door in my face.
I’m losing control.
My heart is beating out of my chest.
My palms get sweaty. I try to calm myself by getting out of the car, closing my eyes and pointing my face toward the sun.
I take a few deep breaths with my diaphragm and feel a little better.
I’ve never tried to meditate, but I wonder if this is what it’s like, just standing here and shutting the world out and not letting it in, no matter what.
A few minutes later, I follow Tyler to the front desk. I’m supposed to be doing this. We’re supposed to be careful, but neither of us are thinking clearly right now.
Luckily, the clerk out front has her nose buried in her phone and barely bothers to look up once.
“Usually, the normal check-in is at two, but you’re in luck,” she says. “We actually have a room for you.”
“Thank you,” I say. “We really appreciate that.”
When we get to the room, it’s not even ten a.m.. I know that we’re lucky to get in so early, but I don’t feel lucky at all.
Two more nights and we will have to start sleeping in the car. Or we’ll have to take that couple of thousand dollars that Tessa offered and forget about the rest, at least for a while.
But how long will that last? And then what?
* * *
“I need to talk to you,” I say, turning to Tyler after we drop our bags on the floor.
“Not now,” he mumbles.
“No, yes, now,” I insist.
“What do you want me to say?” Tyler asks. “You heard everything that she said.”
“You have to insist. You have to make her. She’s lying.”
“No. Tessa is many things, but she’s not a liar. She’s going to pay us back. She just doesn’t have the money and that’s not an excuse.”
“Well, I don’t know, but we have to do something. We can’t just do nothing, right?”
“Yes, we do have to do something.”
I wait for him to continue, but Tyler just shuts down. He plops on the bed and turns on the TV. I hate the way that he is ignoring me but there isn’t much I can do.
I start to talk again, I try to push him to say something… Meaningful, but nothing comes out.
“I just don’t understand how you can let her treat you like that,” I blow up.
The rage that has been boiling up within me from the time that Mac showed up and then Maggie showed up, suddenly comes spilling out.
The frustration feels like impotence. And it’s difficult to describe.
“I’m not letting her do anything,” Tyler says calmly. “We’ll talk about this later.”
“No!” I yell.
“I’m not going to talk to you while you’re angry like this.”
“Don’t you get it? My anger isn’t going to get better with time. It’s not just going to disappear. It’s going to get worse. I need an answer.”
He says, “Stop,” and flashes his eyes at me.
He narrows them and a coldness that I haven’t seen before washes over them.
“This isn’t up to you, Isabelle. This has nothing to do with you. This is my money and this is my problem. If you don’t want to be a part of my life anymore, then you can just go home.”
“Well, I’d love to!” I yell. “But the problem is that I fucking can’t! I don’t have any fucking money!”
My body tenses from all the anger as it courses through my veins.
I grab my purse and keys and slam the door behind me.
Maybe Tyler is right, I do need some space. At least some time away from him to figure out how the fuck to get back home.
I take the car and drive around for a while, but the stoplights and the other cars just make me feel angrier and more out of control.
Luckily, when I pull onto a small road going toward the hills, I see a sign for a trail. I turn and it leads me to a parking lot in front of a trailhead.
I grab an old bottle of water that sits in the cupholder along with the keys to the car and my phone. I tuck my crossbody bag under the passenger seat so that it’s out of sight and lock the car on my way out.
The beginning of the trail is rocky but doesn’t have much of an incline until I make it past a big boulder and then the road feels like I’m scaling a mountain.
The rocks beneath my feet are different shades of beige and brown. Some are small like pebbles and others are jagged and uneven, waiting to trip me.
The trail is clearly marked and used, but it’s thin and narrow. About a quarter of a mile in, I glance back at the developments and the hedges below. The valley is spotted with palm tree heads, filling the horizon with spots of color.
The further away I get from the motel, the easier I breathe. My chest relaxes and the deeper I can inhale.
I try to focus my mind on the problem at hand by not thinking about it at all. In fact, I don’t even think about Tyler.
Despite the fact that I love him, there are parts of him that make my blood boil.
It’s the part that shuts down when I need him most.
It’s the part that pushes me away when we should be working on the problem together.
I know that he needs space, but I need the opposite of space.<
br />
I need him to take me in his arms and tell me that it’s going to be okay.
Even if it’s a lie.
There’s a large boulder that sits at the curve in the road and I decide to take a break. I open the bottle of water, take a sip, and then throw a few handfuls in my face.
Though I don’t have any answers to the questions rushing through my mind, the physical exercise and the gorgeous view of the valley below starts to put me at ease.
Then my phone rings.
I answer it without looking at the screen.
“I’m glad that I finally got you,” the voice on the other end says.
I suddenly realize the terrible mistake that I have made. It’s not Tyler at all.
“It’s okay, you don’t have to say anything. I just want you to know that you still owe us the debt.”
“I don’t owe you anything,” I mumble.
“Your mother does. She hasn’t paid a penny and you are the co-signer.”
The way he says it makes it sound as if she borrowed the money from the bank. Unfortunately, she didn’t.
“How is she?” I ask.
I haven’t asked this question in a very long time, partly because I didn’t want to know the answer.
“I don’t know. She’s missing. I thought maybe you would though.”
“I haven’t heard from her in a very long time.”
“When will you have the money for us?”
“I don’t know, but soon.”
“You’ve been saying that for a long time,” he says.
You would expect that his tone would be one of frustration, but it’s almost as if he’s used to making these calls.
“Listen, I don’t need to actually threaten you for you to know how serious the situation is, do I?”
“No.” I shake my head.
“Her debt is on your head. You don’t pay us one hundred grand, normally that means that little parts of you are going to start disappearing.”
A cold sweat runs down my back.
“I don’t really know what to say to this,” I mumble after a long pause.
“You don’t have to say anything. I’m glad that you’re not getting hysterical or overreacting by calling the police. Although, I get the sense that you can’t really do that, can you?”
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