Every Step She Takes

by Kelley Armstrong

  Justice had sent me that message of support all those years ago. And the texts from Isabella’s mystery lover very clearly suggested he supported me.

  So why am I doubting the connection? Because in my mind, Justice Kane is a boy that Isabella tried to set me up with. A young family friend she’d invited to her anniversary party for me.

  Except Justice hadn’t been a “boy.” He’d been twenty-one. He wrote this song ten years ago when he clearly wasn’t dating the woman in it. They must have gotten together later as the age difference grew less significant.

  Justice Kane and Isabella Morales.

  Holy shit.

  My phone vibrates. It’s PCTracy. I start to tell him what I’ve learned. Then I stop myself. This was Isabella’s secret. Hers and Justice’s, and neither of them deserves my betrayal.

  PCTracy: Got something for you. I’ve confirmed Colt’s destination that night. New Haven, Connecticut. He landed at 10:10 p.m., which would get him to NYC around midnight.

  LlamaGirl: Damn.

  PCTracy: I know you aren’t ready to meet in person, so I’m NOT pestering about that. But have we reached the point where I can ask for your full story? It will really help.

  LlamaGirl: You mean what happened to me 14 years ago?

  PCTracy: That is up to you. If it relates to this, then tell me whatever you’re comfortable with. I mean the night of Isabella’s death, though. What really happened.

  It takes a moment to realize I still haven’t shared that. Without knowing my side of the story, he’s blindfolded, feeling his way through the situation.

  LlamaGirl: It will help to understand the beach party incident because it launched everything. That’s awkward for me, though.

  PCTracy: No judgment here. To me, it’s data. You slept with a movie star when you were eighteen. That’s public record. What matters is that the affair led to you being in NYC to meet with Isabella, which led to her death.

  LlamaGirl: The public record is wrong. I didn’t have sex with Colt. I know that doesn’t matter in the larger scheme of things, but it matters to me.

  PCTracy: Did Isabella know the truth?

  LlamaGirl: I told her in a letter fourteen years ago. She never read it. So she first heard it Sunday.

  PCTracy: Then it IS significant. For now, just tell me whatever you’re comfortable with.

  I do. When I finish my story, there’s no answer for so long that I wonder whether he’s declared me delusional and signed off.

  PCTracy: So you’re saying nothing happened before that night, during which Colt Gordon got you drunk—possibly doped you—and spirited you off to a hot tub, where he planned to seduce you, whether you wanted it or not?

  LlamaGirl: I’m sorry I mentioned it. Rewind. We’ll go with “I slept with a movie star.”

  PCTracy: What?

  PCTracy: Damn it. I just reread what I wrote. Tone. That’s what we’re missing here, and why it would be better to meet. That wasn’t skepticism, L. It was outrage. You WERE assaulted in that hot tub.

  LlamaGirl: I don’t see it that way. I was an adult. I made choices. Bad ones.

  PCTracy: Okay. We’re stepping into a quagmire, one I have no right to enter. Short version is that Isabella discovered the truth of that night. Did she think Colt was at fault for what happened?

  LlamaGirl: Yes. She would agree with your interpretation. I told her I didn’t, and we agreed to disagree.

  PCTracy: And then?

  I tell him about Isabella’s plan to go public and my reaction.

  PCTracy: I hate to say this, because you liked Isabella, but it could have been a ploy to get back in the spotlight. Her career suffered because of the scandal, and I wouldn’t otherwise begrudge her the chance to get it back. Not at your expense, though.

  LlamaGirl: I don’t think she was actively planning that, but yes, it would have given her attention.

  PCTracy: It could also have been about revenge. Getting back at Colt.

  LlamaGirl: I don’t think so. She wanted to remove him from our story. But yes, Colt would have taken it personally. Everything revolves around him. It’s possible he flew in to talk her out of it. They argued. She died.

  PCTracy: Yep. So what happened after you agreed to lunch?

  I take him through the morning of Isabella’s death. I include everything, even the fact that I have her phone and why. He knew some of this already from what I’d been okay telling him. Now he gets it all.

  LlamaGirl: Taking the phone was stupid.

  PCTracy: But understandable in context.

  LlamaGirl: The police won’t see it that way.

  PCTracy: That’s not giving them enough credit. The problem is that the police aren’t actually the ones you need to worry about.

  LlamaGirl: It’s a jury, filled with people who won’t put themselves in my shoes, who will only think I made a stupid choice, and therefore it’s suspicious.

  PCTracy: We’ll deal with that. For now, are you set for food?

  LlamaGirl: LOL I am very set for food. I haven’t thanked you for that. It was incredibly considerate, and I appreciate it.

  PCTracy: I just don’t want you having any reason to leave your room tonight. You’re safe there.

  LlamaGirl: And here I will stay.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  I expect that after I tell PCTracy the story, I’ll be a seething cauldron of nervous regrets. Instead, I feel only relief—the kind that relaxes me better than any sedative. I’m in bed by ten, and thankfully, I set my alarm for seven thirty, because otherwise, I’d have just keep snoozing. At eight sharp, there’s a rap on the door. PCTracy had said he’d order my breakfast and ask them to leave the cart after a knock. I wait five minutes before wheeling the cart inside.

  I’d requested coffee and a granola parfait, which does not explain the steaming covered plate beside my parfait. Two steaming plates, actually. Under one is a waffle with berry compote and melting whipped cream. Under the other is eggs Benedict with a side of bacon. And while there is coffee, there’s also cappuccino.

  I survey the personal breakfast buffet. Then I smile and dig in.

  I eat and shower and relax, and then I settle in with my phone. I pop over to my new e-mail account, expecting nothing. Instead, there is a message from Tiana.

  Lucy,

  All right. Let’s hear what you have to say. Meet me at the address below for lunch at noon.

  Tiana

  I check the address on Google. It shows what looks like a three-story walk-up. An office, not a condo.

  I message her back.

  Tiana,

  I’d rather talk. Phone or text. Your choice. Meeting in person isn’t safe.

  Lucy

  It takes ten minutes to get a response. There’s no salutation or closing on this. Just the message body.

  You have the address. You show up, or you don’t.

  I consider my options. Then I message PCTracy, just a quick “I’m awake. Can we talk?”

  He doesn’t get back to me, and as the clock ticks past eleven, I know I need to make a decision.

  I’m lounging in a hotel room, being pampered by a guy that I’m pretty sure is the lawyer who wants to represent me. If it’s not Thompson, then it’s his investigator, and the lawyer is pulling the strings.

  Tuesday night, I was attacked in Central Park by what PCTracy thinks is some random guy. The next day, I get this lovely hotel suite with early check-in and all my favorite foods. It feels like a treat.

  It’s not a treat. It’s a cage.

  I couldn’t even survive a night in Central Park without PCTracy’s intervention, and so I’ve been put in a pretty cage to rest while he investigates. I’ve provided nothing useful otherwise, just bumbling around, getting spotted by deli managers and attacked by strangers.

  That’s how he sees it, and I’m not sure he’s wrong. In our first conversation, Thompson mocked the idea of me investigating even before I suggested doing so, and that’s left me hesitant. I’ve been tracking th
e online chatter, reading Isabella’s texts and trying to find clues, but I haven’t actually investigated anything.

  I asked PCTracy yesterday to throw me a research bone, and he brushed me off.

  Thompson made me feel silly for even thinking I could try some serious detective work, and so I’ve been muddling about, waiting for the police to realize they’re wrong or for PCTracy to solve the crime. The one real clue I’ve found—the existence of Isabella’s mystery lover—I haven’t shared. I’ve done nothing, really, except get myself attacked in an alley and a park.

  That must stop. I need to get off my ass and take action.

  Just as I think that, a message pops up.

  PCTracy: Good morning! Or nearly afternoon. I hope you got a good sleep.

  LlamaGirl: I did! Thank you! Please tell me I wasn’t supposed to check out at eleven.

  PCTracy: LOL No. You’re booked for another night if you want it.

  LlamaGirl: I want it. I really need the rest, and I’m just going to hole up for a bit longer if that’s okay.

  PCTracy: Absolutely okay.

  Of course it is. Just keep sending treats my way, and I’ll curl up on the king-sized bed with Netflix while you investigate.

  I had wanted to ask his advice about Tiana. That urge has evaporated. I know what he’d say: just stay inside. Rest in your cage. Let me handle this.

  I know what he’d say, and I know what I must do.

  Get off my ass and take action.

  I continue messaging with PCTracy as I get ready. Then I sign off as I slip out the door.

  I have a lunch engagement to keep.

  * * *

  As furious as I am about being stashed in that hotel room, I will admit that I needed the rest. I’m refreshed and clearheaded, and having not looked online today, nothing has happened to send me spiraling back into the memory quagmire. Thompson may have intended to only keep me safe while PCTracy investigated, but instead, he gave me what I needed to start moving forward with purpose.

  I arrive at Tiana’s building just before noon. It’s in Brooklyn, and while it might have been a three-story residential walk-up once, it’s been converted into a row of three-level units. All bear discreet business signs.

  I survey the building from across the road, which isn’t easy. In Manhattan, I’d grumbled about the crush of people and the endless skyscrapers. There’d been far fewer alleys and service lanes than a fugitive requires. At least, though, there’d been a sense of anonymity. Here I feel exposed.

  I still map out an escape route.

  Or you could just, you know, not walk into a potential trap.

  Tiana might very well be luring me into a trap, but I need to either move forward or turn myself in. This is moving forward.

  I march up and rap on the door. It opens, and there is Tiana, dressed in a white linen shirt and black jeans. Seeing her, my eyes prickle. Ridiculous phrases spring to mind.

  You’re all grown up.

  You look amazing.

  I’m so proud of you.

  Instead, I say only, “Tiana,” with an abrupt nod.

  She returns the nod, steps back into the room and shuts the door behind me. Without a word, she leads me upstairs. As we pass the second floor, I see a meeting room with whiteboards. The third level is another meeting room, this one with couches and a windowed view. In the middle, a catered lunch waits on a table.

  Tiana waves me to a seat.

  As I sit, I say, “If I don’t say that I’m sorry for your loss, it’s because it sounds like platitudes, and I’m the last person you want to hear those from. So I’ll only say that your mother was an incredible woman. She was the reason I took the job in the first place, and I never stopped admiring her.”

  I brace for an angry rejoinder, but Tiana only sits, her expression unreadable. One seemingly endless minute of silence, and then she says, “You were my first crush.”

  I must give a start at that because her lips twist in a smile.

  “Not what you expected to hear?” She reaches for the linen napkin and folds it over her lap. “I’d started feeling as if I liked girls. That’s why I bugged you so much about your dating. I was working through my own sexuality. Somewhere along the way, you answered my questions, not by anything you said, but because I fell for you. My first crush.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  She sputters a choked laugh, relaxing as she settles into her chair. “And that’s not what I expected to hear, but oddly appropriate, under the circumstances. It screwed me up for a while. The first girl I liked slept with my father. Freud would have a ball with that one. Took me a while to get over it. I even tried boys, which did not go well.”

  “I am sorry.”

  She eyes me and then nods. “Well, you mentioned having a complicated relationship with my mother. I have a complicated one with you. So we start on similar ground.” She takes a bite of salad and then says, casually, “Mom said you never had sex with Dad. That those photos caught the extent of it. She believed that, you know.”

  “Good, because it’s the truth, and I suspect she believed it because your father’s story matched. I can’t make you believe it, though, Tiana. It sounds like a convenient fiction—the camera caught our one and only encounter. But it did. I made a mistake. A horrible, drunken mistake that I will never live down. I hurt your mother. I hurt you and Jamie. I cannot undo that.”

  She flinches at her brother’s name.

  “How is Jamie?” I ask, my voice softening.

  “Fine,” she says brusquely. She meets my gaze. “My brother had problems before you came along. You didn’t help them, but you didn’t cause them, either, so don’t go taking credit for that.”

  She sips her water. “Mom said you had medical proof that you were a virgin after you left us.”

  I wince. “I stupidly thought that would resolve everything. I was, thankfully, convinced otherwise. If you want to hash out what happened fourteen years ago, we can do that. I’d rather not. Blame me for whatever you want—or need—to blame me for, Tiana. I’ll accept it. What I came here for today was the one thing I won’t accept blame for. Your mother’s death.”

  “Then turn yourself in. Let the police sort this out.”

  “Right, trust that the truth will set me free just like it did the last time. No one wanted to hear my story then, Tiana. Including your mother. I poured my heart into a letter for her, and she sent me a vitriolic response that I can recite from memory. I thought that meant she rejected my apology and my explanation, but she never even read it. She judged me without opening—”

  I stop abruptly. “I didn’t mean that. I’m sorry. I . . .” I take a deep breath and rise. “I think I should leave now. We aren’t going to get anywhere with this. We can’t. Too much anger and too much bad blood, and I’m going to say things I don’t want to say to you.”

  “If you killed my mother by accident—”

  “I was nowhere near your mother when she died, Tiana.”

  “Then there wouldn’t be a warrant for your arrest. You seem to want honesty here, Lucy, but you’re obviously lying. You were in her room.”

  “Yes, hours after her death. I was summoned by whoever is trying to frame me.”

  She shoves her chair back. “Frame you? Is that where you’re going with this? I thought you were smarter than that.”

  “I found her body. I lied about that because I panicked. I was summoned to breakfast by the killer, who was using your mom’s phone and pretending to be her. When I arrived, the door was ajar. I walked in and found her, and before I could report it, the hotel staff arrived. I hid in the closet because I was about to be discovered at a murder scene holding the victim’s phone.”

  “So you do have her phone. Which you just happened to be holding after finding her body . . . instead of calling the cops.”

  “I was confirming that she’d sent me those texts because I was freaking out. Yes, I should have called the police first, but at the time, all I could think was that I’
d been summoned to a murder scene.”

  “I’d like her phone back.”

  “And I would like to stay out of prison.” I take out my old cell phone, open my messages and pass it over. “This is our conversation thread. You can see her asking to switch to breakfast—and why—and me agreeing. Then you can see me texting from inside her room, saying the door was left open.”

  She reads the texts. Then she scrolls up, as if making sure this is part of the thread where I definitely had been speaking to Isabella earlier.

  “I’m telling you my story,” I say, “knowing that when I leave, you might contact the police and pass all this along, including the fact that I lied to them and fled the scene of a crime. I won’t ask you not to. There’s isn’t a nondisclosure agreement on this conversation, Tiana. I made a mistake, one that I couldn’t figure out how to undo. I still can’t.”

  “You’re digging yourself into a hole. You do realize that, don’t you?”

  “Of course I realize that. But from where I stand, I’m not digging a hole. I’m sliding down a slope into a fiery pit, and at any moment, I can decide to fling myself into that pit, and I’ll be exactly where I would have been if I let the hotel staff find me at your mother’s murder scene. I’m scrabbling up this slope, and I’m still slipping, but I’m not ready to jump to my doom.”

  She keeps looking at the phone. At those messages.

  “A lawyer could help—” she begins.

  “I tried that Monday morning. My mother found me one—and only one—lawyer who would agree to represent me, and I walked into his building to overhear him talking to the police with media there to televise my arrest.”

  Her head shoots up. “He can’t do that.”

  “Well, he did, and I’m past the point—long past it—of expecting anyone to act fairly. If you doubt the veracity of those texts, contact your mother’s phone company and get her records. I’d be surprised if the police haven’t done that already.”