A Billion Little Clues

by Westlake, Samantha

  As we made our way back out of the mess of tables, however, there seemed to be a commotion from the front of the restaurant. I was behind Roman, so I couldn't see much past his broad shoulders, but I realized that something was wrong when the man began to slow down, no longer pulling me forward.

  As we came to a stop, I stepped around the man, looking past him. "Roman, what are you-" I began, but the words died in my mouth.

  A stern-looking woman in a long coat over a business suit, flanked by two uniformed police officers, had entered the restaurant. The three police officers were slowly but purposefully making their way in towards us! Their eyes were locked on us.

  No, not on us, I realized.

  On Roman.

  "Roman Wayland?" called out the woman in the suit. One of her hands sat lightly inside her open coat as she approached. It was with a shock that I realized that her hand was resting lightly on the butt of her weapon at her side; she didn't have the gun out, perhaps out of deference to Roman's status, but she was ready to act if he tried to run.

  Roman wasn't running. "Yes?" he replied.

  The woman stepped up to him, nearly a foot shorter than him but not looking intimidated in the slightest. "Put your hands behind your back, please," she ordered. "You're under arrest for the murder of Geoffrey Silvers."

  And right there in the middle of the restaurant, she cuffed my date and led him away!

  ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼

  This was literally my worst date ever.

  Worse than the time that the guy stood me up... two hours away from my hometown, after I'd driven out to see him. Worse than the guy who greeted me at the restaurant by telling me "Don't worry, I've got plenty of condoms tonight"... on the first date. Even worse than the time when, after we'd made out for a good ten minutes in his car, he told me how I smelled just like his mom.

  All of those had been terrible, sure. But this time, it was absolutely the worst - because it had been going so well, up until it all fell apart.

  At least, that was how I explained it to Rachel, sitting at home and trying to hold back my tears by attempting to finish an entire bottle of wine on my own.

  "And now he's gonna be arrested and go to jail forever, and he'll never get to carry me off to a fancy hotel room!" I wailed, as my roommate hurried to grab the bottle of wine and top off my empty glass.

  Reaching out, Rachel rubbed one hand along my back. When I got home, I hadn't bothered to change out of the dress. The fabric was probably ruined and wrinkled by now, marred by tears and a couple drops of wine. But somehow, getting into different clothes was the furthest thing from my mind.

  "Didn't you even say something about how you had everything finally all figured out?" Rachel asked, perhaps hoping to distract me from my crying.

  I nodded, but the tears just kept on coming. "We did, but they still arrested him!" I sobbed, punctuating this sentence with an especially big gulp of wine. "But we don't know for certain, and they probably have tons of evidence against Roman by now! And he's going to go to jail forever!"

  This was about the flow of conversation for the next hour or so. Rachel did her best to tug me up and out of my quickly worsening depression, but there was little that she could do to stem the onslaught of tears. Eventually, when she ran out of things to suggest, she resorted to using the refuge of the television. Along with a big bowl of popcorn and some hastily whipped up chocolate pudding, we watched chick flick movies and I wept along with the characters on screen.

  Fortunately, by the end of the credits on the second movie, my little crying fit was beginning to subside - and I could also see that Rachel was having trouble even feigning consciousness. She was lying on the couch opposite me, her legs tangled up in mine, and she kept on shifting back and forth as she attempted to burrow deeper into the cushions.

  As the TV began to advertise whatever late night programming was coming up next, I lifted one foot and gave her a prod. "Hey, wake up," I whispered to her.

  My poke only provoked a soft moan in response, so I gave it to her again - this time a bit harder. "Hey!" I hissed down the length of the couch. "Wake up! You have to go to bed!" Even as I said this, it sounded a little ridiculous to me, but it was true nonetheless.

  Groggily, Rachel struggled back to semi-wakefulness. I noted with a hint of sourness that, even as she stretched her arms up over her head and yawned, she managed to look irresistibly cute. How in the world did the woman make everything seem sexy? Next to her, I felt like a frumpy mess.

  But that was the wine talking. Mostly.

  "Off to bed with you," I told her when she finally opened her eyes and looked at me. "If you fall asleep out here, you're going to have all sorts of lines and marks from the couch on your face when you wake up."

  My roommate nodded, but she wasn't going anywhere. Eventually resigning myself to my fate as her caretaker, I struggled up to my feet and reached down, hauling her up - and nearly taking a tumble myself in the process. But after a couple wobbles, I got her up, and slid her down the hallway into her room.

  As soon as we were inside Rachel's room, she immediately pitched face-first down into the comforter of her bed. I considered trying to help her out of her clothes, but decided against it. I was drunk too! I was supposed to be the one getting comforted and cared for! She could handle getting undressed on her own.

  I, on the other hand, was now stuck in that frustrating limbo between feeling awake and feeling ready for bed. I was tired, sure, but not quite ready to climb between my own sheets yet to pass out.

  So instead, I returned to the couch, staring blankly at the muted television. Even despite the wine, I couldn't help but think about Roman getting arrested. It was totally unfair! And not to mention, it was wrong - I knew that he was innocent, that he couldn't have been the one to kill Silvers.

  But our other suspect, Carrie... it just felt too flimsy to me. Sure, she had reason to be angry at Silvers, but a budget crisis wasn't enough for her to want to commit murder, surely! And wouldn't she want to try every single other option before resorting to bludgeoning the man in the head? She could have at least gone to Roman himself about this issue. They had apparently known each other for a long time. And if this missing money was a problem ever since almost a year ago, her anger should have cooled, not suddenly flared up after all this time.

  A year ago. Wait a minute. Something about that felt familiar.

  Wasn't someone else saying something about a year ago? I tried to think back, to remember, but the wine was blocking my thoughts. I reached up and rubbed a hand along my head, not caring about how it totally messed up any remaining sense of smoothness in my hair. I knew that it was something!

  My eyes were heavy from the effort of trying to think. Maybe I was more tired than I felt. I let my eyelids droop down, letting them close for just a moment...

  #

  I sat bolt upright. Wait a minute. I had it.

  For a moment, I felt totally disoriented. The room around me was pitch black, and I had no idea where I was. My memory was currently focused on one specific thought, a little wiggling snake attempting to escape. I knew that, if I let go of this thought for even a single second, it would get away and I'd have lost it.

  So instead, I held on and tried to struggle up to my feet. It took several tries, most of them ending with me falling back onto the couch. Yes, I was still out on the couch in the living room. I must have passed out here.

  The television was still on, but it must have even run out of late-night programming. There was just static on the screen, softly shifting snowflakes with a faint buzz of static filling my ears. It wasn't much light, but it was enough to show me the way between end tables, lamps, and ottomans, over to the little writing desk pushed against one wall of our apartments.

  I scrabbled across the desk, finding a pen and pad of note paper by touch. I clicked the pen open and began to scribble as fast as I could think. Already, I could feel that all-important thought beginning to squirm free. I had to grab it befo
re that.

  Party. Killer. Missing money. A year of no solutions. Frustration growing from Carrie. Reduced budgets. Fraud - at the highest levels. Maybe even blackmail.

  And then, murder. And the pinning of the crime on the best fall guy that the killer could find.

  I stood, bent over the desk, for several minutes as the pen flew furiously across the paper. I eventually filled up the note's available area, and ripped it off, my pen barely pausing as it jumped to the next sheet.

  Finally, thankfully, I had it all down. I could already feel my hand aching from all of my scrawling, and the notes were barely readable by the end of the third page. But that didn't matter. I had captured that elusive thought, had figured it out.

  I knew who the real killer was.

  And I was going right to the police with this! There would be no more dancing around, no more digging into things on my own. Roman was in jail, and I couldn't even bear to think of what was happening to him right now in the cells amid all those convicts and criminals. I had to save him, to let him out!

  The glowing red numerals on the clock on top of the writing desk caught my eye, and I sighed. It was nearly five in the morning. No one would be at the police station - at least, no one willing to listen to my story, much less able to set the billionaire free.

  I was going to have to wait, after all.

  But now that I was up, I could feel energy buzzing through me, like liquid caffeine in my veins. There was no way I'd be able to fall asleep once again now, wine or no wine. And I didn't even feel drunk at all anymore. I felt ready to go out and tackle the world, to go fight in a boxing match, even ready to go out and exercise. I had to do something with this energy!

  My eyes dropped back down to the notes that I'd scribbled out. They were a good start, but that wasn't going to be enough evidence to prove the identity of the real killer. Not on their own.

  Fortunately, I knew where to find more evidence. Evidence that was more than just hearsay. Enough to get the police to truly take me seriously.

  The keys to my trusty little Chevy were sitting on the writing desk next to my elbow. I glanced down at them. I did have a 24-hour access pass to the building, after all - Keith had often forced me to stay late. Why wait? Why not go get that evidence now?

  I was still dressed in my breakup/big Visa bill/other assorted rough news sweatpants, and my shirt wasn't exactly flattering either, but no one would be at the building. It only took a minute or two to make up my mind.

  I swiped my keys off of the desk with one hand, gathered up my sheets of notes in the other, and headed for the front door of my apartment.

  ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼

  It was just after nine in the morning, and I couldn't wait any longer.

  I had been awake since just before five in the morning, and I hadn't even had a single cup of coffee. By all sane accounts, I ought to be passing out face-first into the papers at my desk. But that wasn't the case.

  Somehow, I could feel myself full of energy, more awake than I remembered feeling in days. This buzz wasn't like caffeine. If anything, I would say that it was a lot like when Roman had first put his arms around me, out on the balcony. There was a thrill of anticipation, of knowing that I was onto something important that would soon have a big impact for both me and for those around me.

  And just like that moment with Roman, I desperately wanted it to progress. WIth Roman, that had been when he swept me up and finally brushed his lips against mine for the first time, emptying my thoughts of "Will he do it? Is he actually going to kiss me?" and replacing them with very X-rated thoughts of our naked bodies grinding together. Really the only next progressing step, you have to admit.

  And now, I wanted more than anything to go down to the police station. To go marching in, find that cold female detective who had dared to come in and arrest Roman in the middle of my date, and slam my papers down on the desk in front of her. "Look here!" I'd say imperiously, tossing my hair back over one shoulder with a shake of my head. "I have evidence that Roman Wayland is innocent - and I can prove who the real killer is!"

  Oh, screw waiting. I was going to do it.

  I was nearly out of the building, my purse nearly exploding with all of the papers and evidence that I had crammed inside of it, before that damn common sense finally spoke up. Hold on a moment, it said to me. Look down at yourself. You're a mess. Hair is sticking out in all different directions, you're totally unorganized, and for goodness sake, you're still wearing sweatpants! You are most definitely not ready to go marching into some police station and attempt to prove that one of their detectives is wrong on a murder case.

  The voice of common sense had a point. I really ought to go home and change, to clean myself up.

  And yet, I couldn't do it.

  I just couldn't wait that long. It might only take twenty or thirty minutes (forty if I couldn't decide on my outfit), but I couldn't wait. I didn't know what was wrong with me. For once, something was even more important than making sure that I looked presentable!

  So instead, I found myself heading straight to the police station. I had to look up the directions on my phone, as I'm proud to admit that I have never been arrested before. At least, not here, and that's enough for me to tell people. But even though I made a couple of wrong turns, I eventually pulled into the parking lot next to the building.

  Up close, the police station was a very forbidding looking sort of place. It was squat and low, built almost entirely out of stone and with bars across the narrow windows. It certainly looked exactly like the kind of place where criminals get locked up. And that just further strengthened my resolve to get Roman out of there.

  Inside the front doors, a young and inexperienced-looking man in a patrolman's uniform blinked at me. I probably looked like quite a sight, I had to admit. "Er, can I help you?" he stammered as I stomped up to the front desk.

  I opened my mouth - and paused. There were a couple of problems here.

  For one thing, I didn't actually know the name of the female detective who had arrested Roman. And even though she was the one to arrest the billionaire, she might not be here at the moment. So that might not be the best avenue.

  Also, I was fairly certain that I looked terrifying. I could literally feel my hair frizzing and spreading out into a cloud around my head.

  So instead, I bit back the imperious demand I had been about to issue to this young man, and instead did my best to smile. "Do you have a bathroom I could use?" I asked sweetly.

  I wasn't sure that my smile did me any favors, but the man pointed over to a door on one side of the lobby, and I turned and walked smartly inside.

  Inside the bathroom, one glance in the mirror confirmed that the man was probably doing the right thing when he gave me those askance looks. I looked a bit like I ought to be wearing a black pointy hat and long black robe, and possibly carrying a broom around with me. From my smudged mascara to my frizzy hair, I was a total nightmare.

  I spent a few minutes attempting to remedy the worst of the many issues with my appearance. Some water and a few strokes of the hairbrush from my purse managed to at least control the worst of my hair, although it still didn't look anywhere near how I wanted it. A bit more water managed to help out the makeup situation on my face, although I had to admit that a police station bathroom was far from the ideal place to be making these changes to my appearance.

  You could have just gone home, the little voice of common sense inside my head whispered. And then, you could have done something about the clothes issue as well.

  Shut up, I replied testily to that voice. I'm here, and I'm not leaving now. Not when I'm so close.

  With my appearance as improved as I could manage to achieve, I went storming back out of the bathroom, once again making a beeline for the front desk. There was an older lady now talking to the police officer, and I noticed that she appeared to have dragged a full shopping cart into the station with her. I paused for a moment, and then decided that I couldn't wait for su
ch mundane things as this.

  "Excuse me," I announced, butting in past the lady. She glared at me, which I hotly returned. Didn't she understand that I was here on a matter of life or death, to prove an innocent man free and to bring a murderer to justice? In any case, she would have to hold her query about pigeons attacking her or something for a few minutes longer.

  So instead of rising to this lady's bait, I kept my eyes locked on the officer behind the desk. I hoped that he would be intimidated, and not because of pigeon impressions. "I'm here to see Roman Wayland," I demanded. "Where is he?"

  The man blinked back at me. "Um, I'm sorry," he began. "But who are you, exactly?"

  Who was I? Well, I probably shouldn't say that I was the billionaire's lover. Even inside my head, that didn't feel as though it would go over well. Someone from the press? Also probably not allowed inside the police station, especially since I hadn't been called. I mean, I couldn't just say that I was his newest personal assistant-

  Wait, maybe I could! "I'm Mister Wayland's personal assistant!" I replied with as much haughtiness as I could muster. "And I have very important information that will have a huge bearing on his case!"

  God, I hoped that last part would turn out to be true.

  Even though I wasn't quite sure, inside my head, whether this would work, the young man appeared to take me at face value. He turned and glanced behind him over one shoulder, looking conflicted. "Well, the man is in the interrogation room right now," he began, sounding unsure. "He's being questioned, but if this has as much impact on the case as you say-"

  "Oh, it does," I insisted, already pushing past the man's desk. "Interrogation room, you say? I will just, um, bring it to him there."

  "Wait!" the young policeman called out, already starting to rise up from his chair, but he was far too slow. I was already past him, moving deeper into the station and cursing the fact that, just like in nightclubs and exercise gyms, there didn't appear to be a single helpful sign with directions anywhere.