It all began to piece together into a clear picture the police were certain to discover. “That means they’ll see Brad and Taylor together and then see me running toward them.” I felt like the contents of my insides might drop out of my body and onto the floor.
“Well, that’s what I was just looking at,” Xander said. “I looked at the camera angles, and neither of them is clear enough to make out any faces. Taylor has a sweatshirt on with the hood up, and you could be any male with light hair. It’s probably even difficult to make out your height and weight.” Xander spun the computer around so the rest of us could see what he was looking at. He clicked through the camera shots that had a view of us, and it made me feel slightly better. It was dark, and the shots were from pretty far away. Then once we hit Highland, there was no video at all.
“Are you sure that’s all they’d have?” I asked. “How did you even get into the footage?”
Xander looked up at me, his eyes wide and serious. “It’s probably best if you don’t ask questions you don’t want the answer to.”
“This is so much better than an unplanned pregnancy announcement,” Aamee said excitedly.
“Does anyone have a muzzle?” Sophia asked.
“Would both of you stop?” Brody said. “This isn’t the time for your immature jabs. Ransom and Taylor need our support. All of our support.” He let his stare drift over each one of our friends like a parent scolding their teenagers for getting caught drinking.
The fact that Brody was the current voice of reason spoke volumes about the rest of our mental states.
Aamee rolled her eyes before saying, “I already basically offered to help hide the body. I don’t know how much more supportive I can be.”
“Just continue, Xander,” Brody told him.
“As crazy as it is, I think Brad did you both a favor. I don’t think his choice of location was an accident. He approached you in a spot where it’s difficult to identify him on camera, and then he took you to a place that had no cameras at all. No doubt that was for his own benefit, but it also means it’s going to be difficult for detectives to figure out who Taylor and Ransom are. It’s probably even gonna be tough for them to tell that the person with Taylor is Brad. At least with any level of certainty.”
“Okay, that’s good,” I said.
“It is,” Carter agreed, “but I’m guessing over the next few days they’ll start asking around at nearby businesses. And Rafferty’s is one of them. Not many places are open at that hour, so I’m thinking they’ll wanna know if anyone saw anything unusual or if any customers or employees resembled anyone in the video footage.”
“So we’ll just make sure if the cops come in, it’s one of the three of us who talks to them,” Drew said, referring to himself, Xander, and Brody, who all worked at the Yard, the deck bar outside Rafferty’s.
“You can’t be sure they won’t ask other people,” Taylor pointed out. “I’m sure if they come by, they’ll talk to whoever’s working and maybe some of the customers.”
“No. We can’t be sure,” Brody agreed. “You guys should both stay away from that area—at least for the time being until some of this dies down. And we just have to hope if the cops do come around asking questions that no one remembers anything of value.”
“Okay,” I said. Though I couldn’t help but think that hope hadn’t gotten me very far in life. I wasn’t sure this time would be any different.
Chapter Two
R A N S O M
“If you could be any breakfast food, which would you choose?” Taylor asked me, her blond hair spilling over the puppy-shaped pillow she’d brought from her place and rehomed on my couch.
My nose crinkled. “Why?”
She lifted her head slightly so she could angle it to face me. “Why not?”
“Why would I want to be food?”
“Who wouldn’t want to be food? Food is delicious.”
“But it isn’t delicious to food. Food doesn’t get to eat itself.”
Her face contorted as she clearly pondered what I said before lying back down. “You’re thinking too deeply about it,” she finally said.
“The fact that you’re thinking about it at all is…concerning.”
“Just making conversation,” she muttered.
We’d been pseudo living together for two days. Two days of both of us trying to act natural and like we weren’t steeped with panic. It was more difficult to go on with my normal life after potentially murdering someone than I would’ve thought. Though I guess I hadn’t spent a ton of time thinking about it before. Other than in that sudden, road-ragey type way where I hoped for someone to get flattened by a tractor trailer before their car burst into flames for cutting me off in traffic.
But that was normal.
What wasn’t normal was running the events of an evening over and over in my head to see where I might have crossed the line and killed someone. Hypothetical murder was much easier on the conscience.
I knew Taylor was struggling with similar worries, and I didn’t want to make things more difficult on her. Which was why I found myself answering her asinine question. “I’d probably be some kind of cereal. Like Kix or Frosted Flakes.”
She turned her head toward me again. “Why?”
I shrugged. “Because most people can never eat them without leaving some behind in the bowl or dropping bits of it all over the place. So at least some of me wouldn’t be eaten.”
“First, I never leave any cereal behind. Second, what good would part of you be without the whole?”
“It’s better than nothing.”
The look on her face said she wasn’t so sure it was. I wasn’t sure how a simple question had become existential, but it was a rabbit hole I knew I didn’t want to travel down. “I spy with my little eye, something…”
“This game is the worst,” she said, though she quickly sat up so she could see the whole room.
“Lazy.”
She scrunched up her face. “That’s not how you play.”
“Says who?”
“Says the I Spy gods.”
I stood and walked over to her, bending down so I could press a kiss to her lips. “I’m the only god you need, baby.”
She groaned. “That was so bad.”
Smiling, I made my way toward the hallway that led to my bedroom. “The truth doesn’t have to be good. I’m going to get ready for class. Need anything before I go?”
“Other than for my boyfriend to get better pickup lines?”
Her words stopped me in my tracks. I slowly turned in her direction. She was back on her pillow, looking at something on her phone. She looked so unconcerned with what she’d said, but I couldn’t stop the thrill that shot through me.
We’d said we were dating, but neither of us had used the labels yet. I liked hearing it far more than I would’ve imagined.
“Say it again.”
Her brow wrinkled in confusion. “Say what again?”
“Call me your boyfriend again.”
A slow smile spread across her face. “Your pickup lines are shit, boyfriend.”
“Noted, girlfriend.”
We shared another smile before I turned and resumed my trek.
“Wait,” she yelled, and my heart stopped, worry lancing through my chest that she’d changed her mind that quickly. “What’s the lazy thing you saw?”
My brain took a moment to recover from the whiplash caused by talking to this woman—my girlfriend. She clearly took my hesitation for confusion because she went on. “For I Spy. You said you saw something lazy.”
I snorted and, figuring it was best not to reply, hurried to my room and closed the door.
“It was me, wasn’t it?” she yelled so loudly she was barely muffled through the door. “Ransom! Am I the lazy thing, you asshole?”
And leaning against the door as my girlfriend screeched at me from the living room, for the first time in two days, I laughed.
T A Y L O R
After Ran
som left for class with promises to swing by and pick me up for our shift at Safe Haven, I figured I should probably prove him wrong with his “lazy” comment and sign into my own classes. It had been difficult to get in the proper headspace to complete coursework when my current boyfriend had potentially murdered my ex-boyfriend while I looked on.
Though murdered wasn’t the right term, was it? It was totally accidental. I mean, Ransom had punched Brad on purpose, but the death had been an accident. So maybe he’d…manslaughtered him?
As a criminal justice major, I should’ve been able to be a little more precise with my terms, but it was all so hard to think about, let alone break it down and get to the facts surrounding it.
Ransom had been defending me. He’d left Brad bloodied but standing. Logically I knew that there was a strong case to be made in support of what Ransom had done.
I also knew that the justice system didn’t always operate in logical ways. He’d still caused someone’s death with his own hands, and though a jury would most likely see Brad’s death as self-defense had I been the one to cause it, Ransom was a different story. He was a former foster kid whose mother had spent time in jail for drugs. So even if I believed the law should operate in a specific way, I couldn’t trust it to. I couldn’t risk Ransom.
So the best thing to do was to wait and see what we heard about it. Our friends had promised to help, and I had to let myself trust them. Maybe if I’d trusted more of them with more of the Brad story to begin with, it wouldn’t have gotten this out of hand.
I logged into my laptop to resume my course and had just begun reading over the material when my phone rang with an incoming FaceTime call from Sophia.
“Hi,” I said as her olive complexion filled the screen. “What’s up?”
“Um…”
Well, that wasn’t a response that set me at ease. “What?”
“Don’t freak out.”
Rolling my eyes, I let loose a heavy sigh. “Seriously? When has saying that ever made someone not freak out?”
She had the good sense to look sheepish. “Since now?”
“Spill it.”
“The cops were at Rafferty’s.” Sophia released the words quickly, as if speed would take the alarm out of them.
I pushed the laptop off my lap and stood. Pacing seemed like a crucial step in my impending panic. “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.”
“I get why you’d be confused, but it’s me. Sophia.”
Stopping to glare at my friend, I said, “Why is everyone making stupid God jokes today?”
“Sorry, I was trying to lighten the mood. I’ll work on my timing. And who’s everyone?”
“You and Ransom.”
“Oh good, you two haven’t killed each other yet.” At my look of disbelief, she added, “Too soon for talk of killing. Will continue working on timing. Got it.”
“What did the cops want?”
“Drew said they asked if anyone had noticed an argument or someone acting strangely. They’re supposedly talking to everyone within a few blocks, which we already knew they would.”
My breath started coming in heavy pants. I dropped onto the couch and put my head in my hand.
“Taylor, calm down. It’s all going to be okay.”
“You can’t know that. What if the cops find out it was Ransom who beat up Brad, and then he goes to prison and we can only have conjugal visits once a year? He’ll get tired of me and decide to marry a pen pal who’s affiliated with the gang he’ll have to join in order to survive life on the inside.”
“Wow. That’s all…oddly well thought out.”
“I’ve been running through potential outcomes when I can’t sleep at night.”
“Does he maybe not go to jail in any of these outcomes?”
“No. My mind is a seriously fucked-up place.”
“Okay, well, we’ll come back to that later. Anyway, my super-smart fiancé asked them if they had any cameras in the area that showed what happened.”
I groaned. “Because that’s not suspicious at all.”
“No, no, he acted like he was asking out of concern. Like, ‘Didn’t any cameras capture the cold-blooded murderer who beat a man to death with his bare hands?’”
I gaped at her. “Are you for real right now?”
She waved me off. “That was, like, totally hypothetical.”
“Except it’s, like, totally what happened.” A thought popped into my head, causing me to gasp and widen my eyes. “Do you think they could be listening to our call? Oh my God. We shouldn’t be talking about this over the phone.”
“Dude, you’re not Manson. Chill out.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you’re not important enough for them to be tapping your phone.”
“Well, that’s rude.”
Sophia rubbed her forehead. “I’m going to need you to choose an emotion. Are you so panicked you need me to make you feel better, or are you so shallow you need to think you’re the center of the universe?”
“Don’t I have enough on my plate without you making me choose an identity on the fly?”
“Anyway, as I was saying before your multiple personalities started to all try to talk at once, the police didn’t come out and actually say they didn’t have footage, but Drew said it was heavily implied. Which blows my mind. Even your shitty apartment has a camera outside.”
“It’s not hooked to anything.”
“Oh, well, that makes more sense.”
“It also makes sense that there wouldn’t be any cameras near the alley.”
“Why?”
I sighed. “Brad wasn’t stupid. Like Xander said, he wouldn’t have grabbed me somewhere a camera would’ve caught him. He chose that spot intentionally.”
“But he didn’t even know you’d try to walk home like a reckless lunatic. So, could he have really planned it out that well in advance?”
“I don’t know. It just wouldn’t surprise me if he’d scoped out the places I frequented and where he’d take me if he managed to get me alone. It wasn’t like he dragged me into an alley that was on the way home. He nabbed me right at the corner of the street Rafferty’s is on and then walked me in a deliberate path to that alley.”
Sophia hesitated a second. “You didn’t make it seem like Brad had a destination in mind when you first told us about it.”
“It hadn’t occurred to me then. But it’s all I’ve been thinking about since, so…” I let my words die off, not wanting to verbalize how much I was struggling, especially since I knew it was obvious.
“That’s scary as hell.”
I let out a hollow chuckle. “Tell me about it.”
“This is still good though,” Sophia said. “They obviously don’t have any leads if they’re wandering around talking to businesses. And no camera means no proof you guys were anywhere near there.”
“Yeah, that’s good.”
“One more time with feeling.”
I groaned. “I just hate waiting for the shoe to drop. I feel like we’ll be looking over our shoulders, waiting for the cops to haul us away, for the rest of our lives.”
“Then maybe you should go to the police and tell them what happened,” Sophia suggested softly.
“And when they asked us why we waited days to come talk to them, what do we say? Sorry, officer, we were trying to get our story straight? That’s what they’re going to think. And Ransom is only in this mess because of me. I can’t—”
“Taylor Emory Peterson, don’t you dare finish that sentence. None of this is your fault.”
“Did you just middle-name me?”
“Yes. And I’ll do it again, young lady.” Sophia’s voice was hard and matronly as she spoke, which was a sharp contrast from the softer tone she continued with. “Tay, tell me you know this isn’t on you. That asshole tried to kidnap you after stalking and harassing you for months.”
I wanted to argue. Rail at her that I could’ve done more, been more honest, confronted B
rad instead of running away. There were so many things I would’ve done differently. But arguing with her about blame was a waste of time. Sophia would always see me as better than I was.
“I’m just saying, it won’t be me who gets into trouble. If they don’t believe our version of things, it’s Ransom who gets blamed for it. And I just… I can’t take that risk.”
Sophia was quiet for a long moment before she said, “I get it. If it were me and Drew in that situation, I’d probably do the same thing.”
The self-flagellating part of me wanted to say that she and Drew would never be in a situation like this. They’d been in their fair share of hardships, but they’d always faced them together. I’d attempted to face mine alone and look where it had gotten us.
But instead of saying any of that, I simply murmured a “thanks” and counted down the seconds until I could get off the call and break down in private.
Chapter Three
R A N S O M
Taylor kept saying she was fine, but she wasn’t fine. Her lips were tight and flat, her eyes downcast, and her clothes baggy. Even the kids at Safe Haven seemed to have picked up on her fragile mood. They kept checking in with her, asking if she wanted to play with them and giving her pictures they’d drawn. It was like watching a dozen little Florence Nightingales hover over a wounded soldier.
I wanted to support Taylor, but I wasn’t sure how. In our quest to act like everything was normal, we’d mostly avoided the topic of Brad and what had happened. But it was clear it was constantly on both of our minds, and I wasn’t so sure avoiding talking about it was helping either of us.
It also worried me because I wasn’t sure where the pretending stopped. How did we cement what was between us as real when we ignored some of the most important shit in our lives?
As I watched Taylor give a small smile as a little girl handed her a necklace made of dry macaroni, I vowed to do my damnedest to bring the bright, mischievous smile she normally wore back to her face. I’d gotten a glimpse of it earlier this morning, so I knew the capability was still there.
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