by Trisha Wolfe
Fine and deep-set lines feather the outer edge of his dark eyes as he regards me with a squinted gaze. “I haven’t seen you in so long…” he says, as if we’re old pals. “Are you and—” he snaps his fingers “—what’s-her-name still friends?”
“Cameron,” I supply. I attempt to bend my lips into a smile. Not too bright; that appears odd, off-putting in these circumstances. Just enough of a smile to seem genuine. Interested. Not at all disturbed about this strange encounter. “And yes,” I lie. “We still talk.”
Torrance nods.
Rhys has coached me when it comes to dealing with suspects. How to be aware of your facial features—what resonates with people versus what alienates them. If only I could apply that to my writing, my editor would probably adore Rhys just as much as the rest of the female population.
I’m trying to focus on Torrance’s reaction to me rather than my internal thoughts on him. If he’s at all uncomfortable by my presence, he’s good at hiding it. He appears as laid back as the night Cam left with him from the Dock House.
“That’s good,” Torrance says. His gaze distractedly sweeps the Tiki Hive as patrons filter in from the beach. “What can I get you to drink? Water?” He gives me a quick wink.
I squint, trying to decipher if this is some kind of bartender humor. “Nothing. Thanks.” I brace my elbows on the bar top. “We won’t keep you long.”
Before I contact the boyfriend again, Rhys and I are fact checking. Getting both sides of the story from Kohen and the brothers.
“We just have a couple more questions to follow up on,” Rhys jumps in. “After speaking with Kohen, we learned that there were some issues taken with his schedule. Particularly his tardiness and missed days due to caring for his ill mother.”
Torrance pulls a face, looking befuddled. I wonder what Rhys reads there. “You’d have to ask Mike. It’s tricky, you know? You can’t just fire people these days. You have to have cause, or else they file unemployment.” He shrugs.
I try to imagine Torrance as the author of the notes. What motive could he have? Again, he wasn’t a suspect in my case. So if he didn’t write the first letter back then, it doesn’t make sense that he’d be the one sending them now.
But Mike... Maybe there’s something more to him—some sinister element that derives pleasure from the taunt. People get a rush out of true crime and inserting themselves into investigations. The notes could be just that; a false report. Like the prank calls to helplines.
Even as I think this, it feels wrong. The notes feel personal. Aimed at me and not the cases.
Rhys checks the time on his phone. “When does your brother come in today?”
Torrance leans against the bar top. “He has the day off, but he’ll be in first thing tomorrow.”
Officially done here, Rhys thanks Torrance for his time and we leave the Tiki Hive. “I think that’s as much as the brothers are going to offer up,” I say. “Time to question the boyfriend again.” I’m anxious to get an answer on Joanna’s feelings about her job.
“You make the call on that,” Rhys says, as we navigate the boardwalk. “Take good notes. I need to check in at Quantico.”
“You’re flying out?”
His lips thin. “Unfortunately, I have to. Although I really don’t like the idea of leaving you here even for a day.”
“Are you worried about the note?” I ask.
He drops the shades he bought at the hotel gift shop over his eyes, shielding himself from the sun and me. “Why don’t you go with me? Meet the team officially, in person. I can get you a visitor pass.”
I’ve come to learn that with Rhys, it’s more about what he leaves unsaid. “Have I ever done that?”
He smiles. The answer: no. He knows I’m not a people person.
“I could visit my parents,” I blurt. It just comes out. I try to school my features into a mask that doesn’t betray how uncomfortable that statement makes me feel.
I’m sure he can see right through me—but even so, most visits home make people uncomfortable. Me, for a number of reasons. I had always believed that once I left home for college—my brand-new start—I could escape Amber’s haunting memory that still hangs over our family like a storm cloud.
My parents visit me in Missouri, occasionally bringing my aunt along. Otherwise, I’ve barely seen her over the past fifteen years. We effectively evade each other. It’s best this way, because the pain I still register in her eyes when she looks at me, as if she’s searching for Amber somewhere within and coming up short… Well, some things are better left untouched.
I don’t see how Rhys will believe me. Even when he convinced me to return to the Dock House pier to try to unearth my buried memories, I didn’t visit my home.
“All right,” Rhys concedes. “You want me to drop you off there before I catch a flight?”
We reach the rental car and I wait at the passenger side for him to unlock the door. “It’s fine. I can take an Uber. I’ll stay at the hotel until then. Work on the case.”
That uncertain expression crosses his face again. My mention of the hotel, where the author of the note knows I’m staying. But he nods and gets into the car. “Stay in my room,” he says.
I agree without argument. Which should tip him off more than anything that I have no plans to see my parents while he’s away.
Three and a half years feels like a lifetime. Theoretically, time is relevant—all based on perception. And since I’m no longer the same person I was back then, I can only imagine how much Cam has changed.
It’s not like two friends from the past greeting each other; hugs and smiles and happy tears. We’re two strangers.
The social media posts I glance at every once in awhile don’t reveal the true person, so I have no idea who she really is now, and I have no idea why I even tracked her down, other than a compulsion to see this to an end.
All I know for sure is that I can’t stop looking at her belly as she sits across from me. She’s healthy and carrying a healthy baby. And she beams—that pregnancy glow everyone talks about. It’s becoming on her.
“Glow,” Cam says, dismissively waving her hand through the air. “Please. More like humidity sheen. Sweltering heat glisten.” She laughs, but I can hear a thread of unease beneath the throaty cadence.
I shouldn’t have come. But as the boyfriend is still out of town on business and was unable to take my call, I told myself I had time—that this needed to happen.
I shouldn’t have interrupted her happy life. I’m a painful memory to her—one she’s tried hard to forget. Yet this is one thing I can’t ignore, that I can’t leave unfinished.
I have to know if what I wrote yesterday was an extension of the fiction I’ve been building all these years, or a recovered memory.
“So did you finish your degree?” she asks, reaching for more small talk.
We’re seated on her patio. Large fans are mounted above on the pergola. Sheer white linen is draped between the beams. When I made the call for us to meet, I could barely hear her forced, enthusiastic “yes”, my heart thundering in my ears.
I’ve had her number for over a year.
“I didn’t finish college,” I admit with a tight smile. “I’m writing now.”
“Oh.” She nods. “What do you write?”
A dull throb pulses at my temples, like I’m dehydrated. I don’t do well with small talk. The meeting with her is already causing too much distress. “Cam, I came here to ask you something.”
The atmosphere around us shifts, charged. I can feel her alarm, the way her flip-flop-clad feet point toward the glass-sliding door, already marking her escape. She places her hands on her belly, as if sheltering her baby from my presence, my horrid past, or maybe giving herself some form of comfort.
I wouldn’t know.
When she doesn’t speak, but doesn’t leave either, I push forward. “I need to know about that night, Cam. What actually happened?”
Lowering her gaze, she adjusts the pitc
her of tea on the wicker table. “I’ve already told you everything. There’s nothing left to say about it, Cynthia. I’m sorry.”
That name feels so foreign to me; my mother and father the only ones who now address me by my given name.
“I had a flashback yesterday,” I say, forcing the subject. “Of us in my hospital room. Of that night…” I trail off. “It’s the first time that I’ve been able to remember a little more from the night of my attack.”
She stands. “Is that good?”
I furrow my brow. “It’s better than never remembering, isn’t it?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t know, Cynthia. I don’t know. Honestly. With what you endured…” She braces her hands on the table.
“Are you all right?” I go to stand.
“I’m fine. Just Braxton Hicks.” As she rights herself, she forces a smile. “I think this is a conversation you should be having with your therapist or whomever. Not me.”
I fold my napkin and lay it over the dessert she set out for us. I haven’t touched the lemon pie. The whipped cream melted into a puddle on top. “Who was there that night?”
I’m not letting this go. I was angry with her. I remember this. Whether the memory was altered in some way, I didn’t imagine her behavior in the hospital. She knows more than she told the police—more than she told me.
She releases a lengthy breath. “Just us…and some random people we didn’t know. And Torrance, the bartender. Which I’ve told you and Dutton a million times.” She turns to head into her house. “Now, please go.”
“I saw Torrance, Cam. He’s part of an investigation into a cold case that involves the murder of a woman a year ago. Circumstances much like mine.” I pause to let this information sink in. “So is his brother. Did you know he has a brother?”
She looks tired, defeated already. “How the hell would I? I was only with him that one time. Which is a complete blur from being drunk. Oh, and also, from my best friend nearly being murdered. That does tend to make everything else pale. What is it that you want, Cynthia? Why are you here, now? After all this time?”
The burning question.
I’ll make him pay…
“Did you see Drew that night?”
Dumbfounded, she sits back down. Pushes her long blond hair behind her ears. “I made him leave,” she finally admits.
Nearly four years and so many lies later…
But I realized the only reason why she’d have been so angry with Drew at the hospital was if he had shown up that night. If something else had happened between them.
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
She shakes her head absently. “I don’t know. The police were already singling him out and—”
“And you knew that it couldn’t have been him,” I say.
Her eyes find mine. Years of buried guilt rises in the sheen. “I told Drew that I’d meet him later,” she says. “I didn’t sleep with the bartender that night. I left with him, but I didn’t follow him to his place.”
I nod slowly, the puzzle pieces coming together to finally fill in the gaps. Cam knew that Drew wasn’t my attacker because she was with him. “That’s why you didn’t try to make me leave with you at the Dock House. You said you did, but you left me there. So you could be with Drew.” Her statement to me at the hospital felt false then, I just didn’t know why. “Was there anyone not sleeping with Drew while we were dating?”
She flinches at my incensed accusation. “It wasn’t like that, Cynth.”
“Don’t call me that. It’s not my name.” Not anymore.
She swallows hard. “I mean, how could you not know? He was a hot college professor. The epitome of a cliché. I didn’t realize how serious you were about him at first…and then, it was only a couple of times after that. I loved you, Cy—” She cuts herself off. “I wasn’t with Drew that night. Not like that. I really was angry over the Chelsea situation on your behalf, and I didn’t want Drew at the bar hurting you further. So I met him at his house and told him what a douche I thought he was for doing what he did.”
Still, the damage is done. She pitied me back then. The introverted, clueless loner who fell for her college professor. I wonder how much of our friendship was based on pity.
“What time was that?” I ask, slipping into my professional persona, suiting up like armor.
“I’m not sure… Maybe around eleven-thirty?”
I make a mental note. “And what time did you see Drew at the Dock House?”
“Cynth—”
“This is not about me,” I say, steeling my resolve. “Another woman was killed, possibly more. I need the truth from you now to help her.”
She nods. “It must’ve been about nine or so. It was about an hour before I left with Torrance. I saw Drew lurking around the dock, and I intercepted him before he could approach you and sent him away.”
“You told Detective Dutton that you and Torrance left the Dock House at approximately ten p.m.” It’s comfortable here, in this safe persona. I dig in with my heels. “That’s roughly an hour where you don’t know where Drew was.”
Her eyebrows draw together. “That can’t be right. I must have my times wrong. It was so long ago. I swear, Cynthia. I blew Torrance off and headed straight to Drew’s. I saw him. I talked to him. There’s no way he could’ve—”
“No, maybe not. But there’s a window where I need information and answers.” I stand and grab my bag from the back of the chair and shoulder it. “Drew had Chelsea cover for him as his alibi for that night. Why?” I look into her eyes, searching. “Why didn’t you both just tell the truth? Why try to hide it after everything?”
“You had been hurt so deeply. Were in so much pain. Physically and emotionally. I just couldn’t…” Tears actually brim her eyes. “I couldn’t live with myself if I added to that.”
I believe her. I’m not sure whether or not I can forgive her, at least not this instant, but I believe her reasoning. Because in the end, it’s selfish. Selfish reasons are usually the most honest.
I was pulled from the water, from death, and I assumed for these past few years that the filth and the grime of my soiled life—Drew; Chelsea; everything—was rinsed clean. I was a lotus plucked from the muddy water.
A new life. A fresh start.
Forgotten memories often make it easy to start over.
But Cam has lived with the knowledge of her betrayal all this time.
Maybe that’s punishment enough.
“I’m sorry,” Cam says again as I leave the patio.
“Me too.” I’m sorry for the friendship that I thought we once had, that will now be forever tarnished.
I walk a good distance before I pull up the Uber app and request a ride to the hotel. I need the time to decompress, to think. I was naive in my love for Drew; I know this. After Chelsea… I thought that was where my naivety ended.
Back then, blinded by love, I thought Drew and I were the only two people in the world who were experiencing what we were. I suppose that’s what first-time love makes you believe. Reality is a crushing low. How desperate was I to be loved? Genuinely loved? That I trusted him?
But Cam’s duplicity stings more than any betrayal on Drew’s part.
I snap the rubber band five times, counting aloud to drown out the obsessive thoughts raging inside my head.
Disgusted with myself, I trek across the street toward the sidewalk to wait for my ride, and that’s when I get that feeling. The sun is beating down on me, yet the cool prickle touches my skin, leaving cold sweat in its wake across the back of my neck.
I stop at the corner and peer around, heart thudding painfully in my chest. I touch the scars through the flimsy shirt, the one slashed scar that pangs with haunted accuracy any time I sense danger.
All in your mind.
I’m upset. Wounded. Phantom pain can be triggered by extreme emotion, even for those suffering limited emotional range. We bleed just the same.
But the push of fear grows strong
er, urging me farther back on the trail…and I whip my head around to see a figure lurch into a clutch of pine trees.
Animal, my mind pleads.
But it’s too large. Too human shaped.
Someone out for a walk.
Only I can feel their gaze on me, watching.
A blue Honda comes around the bend in the road and honks the horn. I jog to the car, fleeing Cam and the past and the truth that I now know.
Someone is following me.
19
Perfect Storm
Lakin: Now
I’m not a good liar. Let me rephrase: I’m not a good liar to other people. The lies we tell ourselves so that we can cope with our insignificant existence, to make us feel more meaningful in this life, aren’t the same as a tailored lie meant to deceive another person.
Rhys is a walking lie detector. Which means the lie I’ve prepared about visiting my parents sits sour on my tongue. I’m not sure if this is because I know I’ll most likely be caught, or whether the thought of lying to Rhys just feels…wrong.
Either way, by the time I hear him enter the keycard into his hotel room door, I’ve rehearsed the fib too many times in my head for it to come out naturally. So when he asks, “How are your parents?”
I blurt: “I went to see Cameron.”
It’s midnight and he doesn’t look jetlagged in the least. His slate-gray eyes are clear and alert, and they’re assessing me coolly, calmly.
He sets his duffle bag down in the corner, then peels off his suit jacket. “Did she know Mike Rixon?”
The breath I’ve been holding eases out. Rhys doesn’t do confrontation. If he had been upset, felt deceived, he’d have simply left the room without a word. I’d rather he admonish me for being reckless than suffer his stone-cold silent treatment. It’s hard to bring him back from that.
I tug my long T-shirt down my thighs and cross my ankles on the bed. “She seemed like she had no idea that Torrance had a brother.”