by J. Conrad
“Yes, I did. I told the Chief of Police I was sorry, but I had to go because my truck alarm was going off. I put the phone in my pocket and ran out. But Aria, why did you go outside alone? You knew that wasn’t a good idea,” Trent says.
I can hear what he doesn’t say, which is that my going outside alone was damn stupid. But why should I be scared in the illuminated parking lot of a nice hotel? Being on the defensive all the time gets old. So does being afraid. And hiding.
“I took my gun. There was plenty of lighting, and the receptionist saw me go out. Wait—the Chief of Police called you at three in the morning?” I ask.
“Yeah. Well, no, technically, the phone was handed to him, I think.” He sniffs and squirms in his seat.
I gaze down at the blue and white blankets while I think. I recall a fuzzy memory of Trent talking on the phone with someone before I left the hotel room. What was he saying—“It’s not her fault?” I assumed he was talking about me.
“Who were you talking to last night? I thought it was Kyle,” I say.
Trent shakes his head. “No, it was someone from the academy. It was about our training.”
I pull my head back. “Okay. So, who was it?”
Trent sighs. He pinches the upper bridge of his nose.
“Why won’t you tell me?” As I wait for his reply, a plunging dread races to the pit of my stomach. “Oh. Were you talking to a woman? And you think I’ll freak out?”
A slim blonde comes to mind, and within seconds, I’m very awake and crystal clear. Anxious jealousy races through my veins as I glare at Trent with new scrutiny.
“Was it Naomi?” I ask.
Silence.
23
I see. So, you were talking to Naomi, and that was more important than coming out to see if I was okay?” I ask.
Trent stiffens and puts his hands out for emphasis. “No. I mean, yes—yes, she called me, but no, that wasn’t more important. Damn it, Aria, that’s not how it happened.” His cheeks catch fire, and he almost comes off the seat. “Damn it! Why the hell did you go outside alone? That was so stupid!”
For a second, I say nothing and glare at him with my eyes burning. Then my punched-in-the-gut feeling takes on another aspect. “What’s really going on? What aren’t you telling me?”
“Nothing,” Trent says. He huffs. “At least nothing bad that I know of.”
“There’s something you’re not telling me. Something big,” I say.
“Aria, I’m not withholding anything bad from you. I promise,” Trent says. His brown eyes are stricken with bruised purple circles underneath. He put in a full day at school on zero hours of sleep.
Not answering, I look away and suck in my bottom lip. Trent left a note for me on the mailbox. He and I have two different versions of what it said. He blamed me for our unauthorized investigation of the Lamar property even though it was his idea. He asked me if I was having an affair with Nick Pearlman, and now I find out he was talking with his cute friend at three in the morning while I was getting attacked. I’ve been so grateful to Trent it’s usually hard to see his faults. But either Trent is a wolf in sheep’s clothing, or I’m really as nuts as I feared.
“Trent, I appreciate everything you’ve done to help me, but I think I need to go home for a while to rest—and collect my thoughts,” I say. I swing my legs over the side of the bed.
Trent’s face goes wooden, and it takes him a full five seconds to speak. “Oh. Well, sure. If that’s what you want—if you think you’ll be more comfortable there. But you know you’re always welcome here.”
Of course, it’s not what I want. I don’t want to go. I don’t want to be alone. I want everything just to make sense. I want Trent to be the person I thought he was instead of the person he seems right now.
“I wish you would tell me where you got the idea I had an affair with Nick. Who told you that?” I ask. The dizziness comes back. Arguing is exhausting.
“I can’t say. I’m sorry,” Trent says. I hear the wounded note in his voice, but I can’t figure out what he’s hurt about.
I slide my feet to the floor and stand up, trying to recall where I set my suitcase. “Why? Why can’t you tell me?”
“Because,” he says as he rises from the chair. He pauses like he’s not sure what his explanation’s going to be. “It’s not for me to say. And I know it’s not really any of my business. I just happened to find out. But knowing what I know now, I want to help.”
My ears flush, and though I haven’t been straining my voice, anger alone makes my throat hurt more. “Well, if you can’t tell me who told you, and it’s not for you to say, then maybe you shouldn’t have said anything at all. Especially since it’s not true.”
“Aria, please. I just wanted to make sure we did the right thing—that you told the police everything, including your history with Nick.”
As I scowl at him, it finally hits me. No matter what I say, it won’t make a difference. He has this odd idea in his head because of a bigger thing—the bigger thing he’s not telling me about. And I know he won’t ‘fess up about that either.
“I already did that. I told the police everything I know, so my conscience is clean. I’m going to pack up and get going.” Now I remember putting my suitcase in the closet. I grab it, set it on the bed, and unzip it. Since the Sig Sauer’s case and the cleaning kit are still inside, that new gun smell wafts out. So much happened that besides handing it to me in the dark, Trent didn’t get to look at my pistol. We didn’t even talk about it. A sadness settles over me.
Trent’s voice is soft, almost brittle when he speaks. “All right. Of course, you can go if you like. But you should know I don’t want you to.”
Tight-lipped, I turn and give a single nod. I have no response. Within twenty minutes I’ve packed my suitcase full and sit inside my Camry. I turn the key in the ignition.
And just like that, I’m alone again.
Since I’m only bruised and sore for the most part, I only miss one day of work. However, I’m forced to wear a turtleneck to conceal the redness on my neck. I tell Kyle that despite the summer heat, I’ve been getting chilly from the air conditioning in the office. Concealer does a decent job of covering the mark on my cheek. And at home in Round Rock, to explain my hoarse voice, I tell my housemates I have a cold. Naturally, Margarita is interested in why I’m back from Trent’s already when it looked like I was moving in. I tread carefully. One wrong answer, and she’ll think he beat me. I field her questions the best I can while unloading a small bag of groceries in the kitchen.
“It was just something we were trying out,” I say. “We didn’t intend it to be a permanent thing. More of an experiment.” I shrug before leaning down to open the bottom vegetable drawer. I stick a package of romaine lettuce inside.
“Aria, you need to be more careful with him. A couple of weeks ago, I was in your room thinking you might have left the corkscrew up there. Anyway, while I was looking for it, I saw a letter he wrote to you—I wasn’t snooping. Well, not at first. I just happened to see it on your nightstand. Then I guess I got nosy.” She sits at the table, manicure implements before her, and shakes a bottle of devil red nail polish.
As I stand up, my stomach sinks and the same confusion I grappled with at Trent’s revisits me. Unpacking the next paper bag from HEB, I set a case of yogurt on the table. “So, you saw it? Can you remember what it said? I tried to find the paper again, but I couldn’t.”
Her forehead wrinkles and she aims shifty, dark brown eyes at me. “I don’t remember it word for word. I just remember a ‘you’re a nice girl, but we don’t have a future together’ type of thing.”
An orange rolls off the table. My hands drop to my sides. “I knew it! When I asked him about it, he said he didn’t write that. He told me he wrote a letter asking me to move in with him. Did it also include anything like that?” I squat to retrieve the fruit.
Margarita pushes out her bottom lip. “No, it definitely didn’t say that. The guy is a jerk. I know you like him
because you feel like he saved you. And I know I’m always butting into your life and trying to give you advice. At least I feel like I am. But he didn’t really save you. He just kind of found you. It was more like his boss who rescued you. Don’t forget, Trent’s boss asked him to check up on the house. So, Trent discovering you was an accident. You view him as a hero, Aria, but I really don’t see that he deserves that status.”
I lean on the table to steady myself as the gravity of her words sinks in. I sigh. Staring at the floor, I kick at a tuft of black fur left by Rebecca’s cat. “Maybe you’re right. I don’t suppose you set the letter somewhere else after reading it? I’d like to have another look at it. Just because he told me something different than what I remembered.”
Margarita shakes her head. “No, Aria. You remembered correctly. And I didn’t move it. I’m pretty sure I put it back on the nightstand.”
“I haven’t been able to find it again. You’re sure you didn’t throw it away?” I ask. I remove the canned vegetables from the bag one by one, and they thump against the wooden tabletop.
“No, but I wanted to. It made me angry, and I don’t like you being treated that way. You don’t deserve it,” Margarita says. The smell of nail polish reaches me as she drags the brush across her left thumbnail.
I restrain a look. She doesn’t have the right to mess with my things, even if it was a hurtful letter from my cop-in-training non-boyfriend. But maybe she really didn’t misplace it. “All right. Well, maybe it will turn up.”
After finishing with the groceries, I pop a green grape into my mouth and head back to my room for a final look. There’s one place I haven’t checked. I squat beside the nightstand and peer behind it.
There’s a single piece of paper suspended between the small dresser and the wall. Well, well. My pulse increases as I draw it out and hold it under the lamp. Yes, this is it—the letter from Trent. My gaze races across the watery, left-slanted script, hoping the words will prove Margarita and me wrong.
Aria,
I want to let you know that I’ve decided to move on. You’re a great girl, and I care about you a lot. But I have to pursue my career, and I can’t give you the safe life you need. I hope you can forgive me and come to find your own happiness.
Trent
It’s exactly as I remember. I shake my head and shove the note in the drawer.
The next morning as I drive to work, I try to piece together everything that doesn’t make sense. It seems to me I’m living out a sick adaptation of a choose-your-own-adventure story. Like, I can pick the good version of Trent, and he’ll willingly play that part. Or, I can select the bad version, and I could cast him as the villain with no trouble. And apparently, so can everyone else. But even after finding the letter, I still don’t know what I don’t know. That’s the problem. I’m missing the big something. It remains hidden from me.
This week there’s some kind of film festival going on. The organization must have chosen a nearby venue because cars are parked in every conceivable spot near the office. As I drive past Median Realty’s dark gray building, our lot is full. I turn the corner but find no available spaces. Finally, I get a spot, but I have to park nearly four blocks away. I lock up the Camry and set the alarm. Since I bought more pepper spray after my fight with Nick, I grip it in my right hand. Under the waist of my slacks rests my pistol in its hidden holster. And the next time I use it, I doubt I’ll play nice. Already feeling sticky in my turtleneck, I head out on foot toward Bluebonnet Lane.
I’m not the only pedestrian on this fine morning. The air is a little more humid than usual for Austin, with a pleasant temperature somewhere around seventy-two degrees. The blazing heat hasn’t struck yet. A young couple walks about twenty feet in front of me. Across the street on the sidewalk, a group of eventgoers laugh and talk as they make their way to the venue. People are on the move behind me as well, but they’re some way back.
I follow the sidewalk of the South Austin neighborhood in my high heels. Caramel-stained wooden privacy fences make clean backdrops to the shrubbery at the curb, shielding some of the houses from view. A black and tan, modern-style McMansion was recently built in one yard without such a fence, leaving only about ten feet of lawn in front. After tugging my gaze from the house’s obtrusive boxiness, the group of about eight people on the other side of the street crosses over and gets in front of me. They’re still a good distance ahead, but I walk faster than they do, even in these shoes. I have to get to work after all, and they’re just going out for a good time. Pretty soon, I’m almost on them. I try to go around to the right, which puts me closer to the street. Someone spilled a smoothie by the curb, and it dribbles over the asphalt in a sticky, red ribbon with chunks of strawberries. The sweet smell lets me know the drink was freshly dropped. I walk in the road to avoid getting it on my shoes and wait behind a parked car as more people pass.
Another troop of attendees comes into view on the opposite sidewalk. Between them and me, a few cars drive by slowly. I remain where I am and wait for an opening. A blue pickup truck rolls along past me. Next comes a dark green convertible, an older model. It looks like a Mazda Miata. After that is a silver Honda Accord. It pulls up to me and stops.
What the hell? My heart pounds at the idea of any vehicle stopping like that, and I start to back up. The driver’s side window descends, and a middle-aged woman with brown hair calls out to me.
“Miss? I’m sorry, but could you help me with directions real quick? I’m not from around here, and my GPS has me turned around,” she says.
I frown. I can’t see the vehicle’s plate from here, and I didn’t bother to look when the car approached.
Without caring if I hurt her feelings or not, I take a few steps forward and crane my neck to get a look at the license plate. It depicts a blue lake with an orange sun rising behind it—Michigan. She wasn’t kidding when she said she’s not from around here. I return to the curb so that I can face her again. But I don’t approach the car.
I say, “I can try. What are you trying to find?”
“Thanks.” The woman smiles, and I glimpse the smartphone in her hand. She scrolls with her thumb. “I’m looking for—”
Sounds of whirling bicycle pedals and a gyrating chain grate my ears.
“Look out!” the cyclist yells, but he’s already colliding with me.
He shoves me out of the way with his hand—probably so the tires won’t hit my legs. I pitch forward and stumble toward the woman in the car. My hand releases the pepper spray, and it rolls out of sight to my left. At the same moment, the back door of the sedan swings open. A man steps out. It’s Nick Pearlman as clearly as the day is long. No ski mask this time. No long trench coat. He’s wearing a navy-blue dress shirt, black slacks, and dark sunglasses.
As I catch myself on the asphalt with my hands, Nick surges toward me. He wraps an arm around my middle and clamps his hand over my mouth. I thrash wildly at his face, pull forward, and try to dig my heels into his legs. I kick at his shins. I get a few jabs in—especially when I stab the top of his foot with my high heel, and he yells. But he crushes my body against his so hard I can’t break free. My stifled screams die against Nick’s palm as he scoops me up and tosses me into the back seat. He slams the door and locks us in. Three seconds. That’s how long the abduction took from the time I fell.
Confusion overtakes my senses with nearly as much force as fear. Nick seems so much stronger than the night he attacked me in the field. He’s the same man, the same height and build, yet it’s like fighting against a completely different person. The scent of his thyme and leather aftershave lingers, and I want to spit away the salty taste where he touched my mouth.
“Drive,” Nick commands the woman behind the wheel.
The car lurches forward, and I reach for my pistol. It starts a wrestling match—one that Nick wins. Disarmed, I scoot away from him on the back seat and try the door lock on the other side. It won’t budge. I scream and pound on the window. Maybe I can break it. Th
e dizziness and terror consume me, and my head throbs. Like the day inside the burned Lamar building, I’m about to pass out. The small car interior presses from all sides like a trap and crushes my will. I need to stay strong. I need to focus like when we fought in the field. I won that time, and maybe I can win again. But Nick’s strength has doubled since then, and I don’t understand.
The woman turns onto a quieter street. “You didn’t tell me you were going to hurt her.”
“I’m not hurting her,” says Nick. “I just want to show her something.”
“Well, it better not be your penis or the wrong end of a gun, or this deal is off,” the woman says. Her gaze finds me in the rearview. “Are you okay, honey?”
“Hell no, I’m not okay! Let me out. Pull over and let me out.” I beat against the window, trying to get the attention of a group of teenagers on the sidewalk.
“Help! Call the police! Get the plate number and call 991!” I yell at the glass.
The kids smile and wave at me like it’s a joke.
24
Honey, please don’t break the glass,” the woman says. “This is my car. I’m just doing a favor. No one’s going to get hurt. If he does anything stupid, I’ll let you out. I promise. Just sit tight.”
He’s going to kill me. This I know. Once someone gets you in their car, it’s over. I might have got in some good licks and escaped in the field, but it’s easier in the open. But now I realize that although I dropped my pepper spray and he took my Sig, I have my knife. I can use it on him, as long as he doesn’t take it from me. Like the gun, he probably expects me to have it, so I need to prepare. My stomach whirls. I swallow.
My panic attack kicking in full force, I start hyperventilating. I alternate between clutching the car door for its solidity and pounding on the window she told me not to break. Beside me, Nick sits with one hand slightly extended, palm in my direction, as though warding off my stray slaps as I scream for help. He leans away from me toward the other door. He angles a sidelong glance in my direction.