He Found Me

by Whitney Barbetti

  I walked away from him, unable to conceal the smile on my face. I climbed into the passenger side of Six’s rental car and didn’t meet his eyes as I buckled in.

  “Are you ready?” Six asked. I nodded and tucked the loose tendrils behind my ear. We were halfway down the driveway before Six spoke again. “A friend, huh?”

  The smile tugged at my lips before I could help myself. “We might be dating. It’s not a big deal.”

  “Well Andra, that’s the first time you’ve told me a boldfaced lie to my face.”

  I looked over at him. “We are dating, believe it or not.”

  Six shook his head, before turning on the road at the end of the driveway. “I knew that wasn’t a lie. The part about it not being a big deal was a lie.”

  Six knew me well enough to see through anything I tried to pull past him, so it wasn’t unusual for him to call me out. But I didn’t think my budding feelings for Julian were that transparent. I didn’t say anything else until we were through security and heading to our gate at the airport.

  Six stopped me outside of the restroom and handed me the small bag he had carried through security. “I want you to put on everything in here. I’ll meet you at the gate.” With that he walked away and I sighed, heading into the bathroom and keeping my head down from the people washing their hands.

  When I was locked inside a stall, I took inventory of the contents of the bag. There was a red wig, a bob with blunt bangs on top of everything else, so I quickly separated my hair into two sections and wrapped the sections around my head, pinning my hair in place with the box of pins he’d supplied. Luckily, Six had included a wig cap as well as a travel sized bottle of hairspray. I grabbed my compact in my purse to look at my reflection while I pinned the remaining loose tendrils. I sprayed it all flat with the hairspray and slid the wig cap in place. My head was already itching.

  I put the wig on my head and left the stall, relying on the large mirror over the sinks to straighten the wig. I opened up the bag Six had given me and applied the heavy makeup he had included before sliding the square wire-rim eye glasses on. The lipstick he’d purchased was bright red, not my color at all, but possibly the color of this red headed mystery woman I was portraying.

  He didn’t leave instructions, but I’d guessed he would want me to remove my lip ring. I needed to remove all traces of what I looked like now. There was a scarf in the bag as well, which I knew was to hide my neck tattoo. I slid the lip ring into a pocket inside my purse and packed the makeup bag into the bag. I put that bag inside my purse and went back out to find Six.

  When we landed in Detroit, we picked up the one case of luggage Six had checked at the airport in Denver before we checked into the nearest hotel. I turned my phone on once we were in our room and Six stepped out onto the deck to make some phone calls.

  I whipped off the uncomfortable wig and glasses before glancing at my phone.

  I had one text.

  Julian: Your brother is a bit intimidating.

  I smiled, curled up onto my bed in the room, and relaxed against the fluffy pillows as I typed my reply.

  Me: He’s just protective. And hi.

  Julian: Hi. Miss me yet?

  I laughed.

  Me: Terribly. I haven’t stopped crying since I kissed you goodbye.

  Julian: Wow, that’s intense.

  Me: Yeah, I will probably need therapy after being apart from you this long.

  Julian: What can I say? I am like human cocaine.

  It was funny how accurate that statement was, at least for me.

  Julian: So listen. I know I’m supposed to wait three days or something stupid like that before asking you on another date, but I am asking you now. I know you’ve got a busy weekend ahead of you, so maybe Sunday?

  I figured he had talked to Rosa again.

  Me: You know, you can ask me what my schedule is like. You don’t have to charm that information out of Rosa.

  Julian: Yeah, but I like Rosa. She tells me stuff.

  Me: Hmm. Part of me wants to know what “stuff” she tells you and part of me thinks it’s best if I don’t know.

  Julian: The latter.

  I groaned.

  Me: Okay, Julian. What kind of date?

  Julian: I want to show you my house.

  I let that stew for a moment. I wish I wasn’t such a novice at this dating thing. Was showing me his house a big deal?

  Me: Only if there will be food.

  Julian: I would never deprive you nourishment. And I wouldn’t deprive myself the experience of watching you eat. There will be food.

  Me: Okay. Sunday it is.

  Just as I hit “Send,” Six walked back into the bedroom from the deck. He shrugged his leather jacket off and picked up the suitcase he had checked, plopping it on the bed. I watched the bed bounce while he grabbed his cell phone and touched buttons on the screen for a few moments before setting it down.

  “Ready to go over the game plan for tomorrow night?” he asked, one hand on the zippers of the suitcase.

  “Yes. Tell me.”

  “Alright.” He sat down next to the suitcase without unzipping it. “We are going to break into the apartment.”

  I sucked in air in disbelief. I remembered he’d said breaking and entering, but I refused to believe it involved the apartment. My personal hell. My heart picked up its pace, and I counted five beats before he continued.

  “Technically, you are going to be the one breaking into the apartment.”

  “What?!” I exclaimed, jumping up off of the bed. “No. No way in HELL. No. No.” I walked around the bed, shaking my head back and forth over and over again.

  “Andra.” I refused to look at him. “Andra. Look at me.” I reluctantly met his gaze. “It’s the only way to make this happen. You, unfortunately, know him better than I do. You know where he keeps paperwork, you know his passwords-”

  “Yeah, if they haven’t changed in the last six years!” I exclaimed. “Why? Why do we need to do this? Why do I need to do this?”

  Six sighed and ran a hand over the top of his bare head. “I have reason to believe he is looking for you.”

  I shook my head. “So? Hasn’t he always been looking for me?”

  Six motioned for me to sit down next to him on his bed. “Yes, but he never had a clue, or at least he didn’t seem to, until now.” I looked at him, confused. “He bought a plane ticket for Colorado. Requested leave from work.”

  I was thankful I was sitting down because this news would have brought me to my knees. “How could he possibly know?” I asked when I was able to breathe again.

  He shook his head. “I have no idea. That’s why we’re here. We need to monitor his online activity better. I need to track his movements. I have equipment in this suitcase. Surveillance. I need you to install a program onto his computer and to find some paperwork in his house. I will keep watch outside.” When I started to protest he interrupted me. “No. Think about it – if he were to show up and I was the one inside, how would you distract him from going inside? If he sees you, it’s game over. He doesn’t know what I look like, especially clean-shaven. If he comes home early, I’ll keep him from going inside.”

  I stared down at my hands, willing them to stop shaking.

  “It’s our only option. Tomorrow, I am going to follow him. You’re going to wait here. And tomorrow night we are going to break in.”

  “How do you know he won’t be home tomorrow night?”

  “He’s got a date.”

  I resisted the sudden urge to vomit. “Okay,” I said after sighing deeply. “What’s the plan?”

  We spent the rest of the night going over the plan, repacking the small backpack I would carry. We went over plans A, B, and C until I fell asleep on top of the hotel duvet.

  When Six returned the following evening, he didn’t say anything, but he seemed to have a lot on his mind. He tossed me a department store bag. “Here. Your cat burglar attire.”

  I rolled my eyes but went
to the bathroom to change. I’d texted him my clothing sizes earlier in the day, in between all the exciting hours I sat in the hotel room, doing nothing.

  He’d purchased opaque black leggings, a black long-sleeved tee, black beanie, black socks, and black running shoes. I tried not to think about the possibility of needing to run, but at least I was well trained. And he wasn’t joking about cat burglar attire. No normal person would wear all of this at the same time unless they were planning to break a law or two. Before putting the beanie on, I slid the wig over my head and put on the glasses.

  I walked out of the bathroom and Six handed me a pair of black leather gloves. “Don’t put these on yet. I don’t want anyone to be suspicious of you when we leave here.”

  I looked at him like he was joking and gestured my hand across my outfit. “And head to toe black doesn’t scream ‘suspicious’ to you?” Six’s mood lightened and the corner of his mouth lifted in a smile. His smiles were always brief, as if the muscles around his mouth were unaccustomed to such exuberance. The thought made me smile as I slid the gloves into the backpack – also black – that held all my gear I’d need.

  Six pulled the beanie off my head. “Here, now you look normal.” He tossed the beanie on the backpack. “Or as close to normal as you can get.”

  I resisted the urge to flip him off and instead glared at him, sliding the backpack over my shoulders.

  “Ready?” Six asked, the mood heavy again. I nodded and followed him out of the hotel room.

  Six was not driving a rental. This car had Michigan plates and racing stripes down the sides. But I knew it wasn't Six's car. “What’s with the car?” I asked when we were on the road.

  “Someone owes me a favor. So I borrowed it.” With Six, you never knew if “borrowing” was with or without permission. I didn’t bother asking, because he would never tell me one way or another.

  We were silent until we pulled onto the street I used to live on. I had managed to distract myself on the way here, with colors, or thoughts of my date with Julian. That felt like ages ago now. Six slowed the car and drove around the block a couple times, checking which buildings had lights on. Finally, he parked a few buildings down and turned off all the lights. “Are you okay?”

  I nodded, not trusting my voice, knowing it would betray me. My heart was flailing about in my chest, wild, terrified. I reached into the front pocket of the small backpack and grabbed the beanie. I pulled the wig off and slid my cap on my head before sliding the gloves on.

  Six handed me a small cell phone. “Put this in your sock. I am the only person with the number to this phone. If it vibrates once, that is your sign to get the fuck out. If it vibrates multiple times, that means to hide. Do you understand?” I nodded.

  “How do you control how many times it vibrates?”

  Six pulled out his own phone. “I have a draft text message ready to go. If I send it,” he clicked send on his phone and a moment later, the phone vibrated once in my hand. “Get the fuck out.”

  “Okay.”

  “And,” he said, switching to call mode, “if I call the number…” he dialed and pressed send. The phone vibrated in my hand over and over. “Hide.”

  I swallowed the lump of anxiety that settled in my throat.

  “Hey.” Six braced his hands on either side of my face. “I will not let anything bad happen to you. Hawthorne will not touch you.”

  Hawthorne. The Monster’s given name. I didn’t call him by his given name. That only humanized him. He was a Monster, plain and simple.

  “I’m ready,” I said. Six would wait in the car while I walked the perimeter of the building before breaking in. I slid the phone into my sock and then slid it under the legging so it was against my skin.

  Six nodded. “Good luck.”

  I exited the car and walked toward the tree line that ran behind the apartment buildings. I checked my watch. 11:42 PM. With any luck, all the neighbors in the Monster’s four-plex would be either asleep or have the television on full blast. When I had lived here, the neighborhood was overrun with elderly couples.

  When I reached the back of the apartment building, I looked around before creeping up next to the building, pressing my back against the vinyl siding. There was complete silence. Not even crickets chirping. I slowly made my way to the front of the building and looked up and down the street. I couldn’t see anyone outside and noticed no vehicles running apart from Six’s. His engine was practically silent, and all I could make out of him from this distance was his silhouette in the vehicle.

  The Monster’s vehicle, normally parked on the street, was nowhere in sight. I slowly climbed up the concrete steps leading to the second floor landing and quietly slid the backpack off my shoulders to grab my lock pick kit.

  I inserted the torque wrench in the bottom of the dead bolt lock and turned the lock slightly counterclockwise. Then I slid the rake pick through the top and slid it back and forth, in the hopes that it would release one of the pins for me. I stuck the rake pin in my back pocket while holding the torque wrench in place and put the pin pick into the lock, pushing the pins up. I had to ease up on the tension of the torque wrench for one of the pins, but this lock was pretty easy because it was cheap, apartment-grade. Six had set me up with his laptop the day before to watch YouTube video tutorials on everything I’d need to do.

  Once I pushed the final pin up, the wrench slid the lock open easily. I stuck the pin and wrench in my pocket and looked around before turning the handle and entering the apartment.

  I was immediately overcome with the smell first. It was like stepping back into time. Nothing had changed in the six years since I left. It still smelled like a mixture of his cologne and coffee. He ran the coffee maker all day, every day, so it made sense that the smell of coffee permeated the air.

  I closed the door behind me, locked the deadbolt, and slid the lock picking kit back into the backpack before making my way to the third bedroom, his office.

  As usual, his computer desk was littered with paperwork. I’d never bothered to linger in here before, so thankfully this room held no memories for me.

  I pulled his desk chair out and sat in it before booting up his computer. I pulled the USB drive Six had given me out of my backpack and unfolded the instructions that were wrapped around it.

  Luckily, his computer was not password protected, so I was able to access his desktop immediately. I inserted the USB drive and followed the instructions Six had typed, installing the remote monitoring software he had loaded onto the USB.

  While it installed, I stood back from the desk and took photos of his papers with the pocket camera in the backpack. The Monster was a creature of habit, almost OCD with his compulsions and how he kept things ordered. I had a feeling he’d know if papers were moved, so I first took photos a few feet away from the desk, to copy the positioning before I left this room. Then I got closer and took close up photos of some of the papers. I didn’t bother to read a lot of what they said, it looked like a lot of legal documents.

  The papers were littered with bright sticky notes, with scribbled questions on them. “Who requested inquiry?” “See Ralph.” And one sticky note named several places. “Boston, Denver, San Fran, Chicago.” Chicago and San Fran were crossed off. I shivered the fear off and moved on.

  My eyes caught on one red folder. I recognized the name on the label. Mayberry Law Group. That was the name of my mother’s attorney. It confused me, because my mother had been dead for years, and yet here was a folder on top of other folders which meant that it had recently been reviewed.

  I lifted the folder open, expecting to see a copy of her will. Instead, there were scores of printed emails, some highlighted. I skimmed over the emails, reading a handful of the highlighted words: “trustee,” “beneficiary,” “POI,” and “refusal to support allocation.” My former name stood out among these papers, a name I never said aloud until now. “Cora,” I whispered, running my fingers across the four letters. Over and over my name repeated, in
every page.

  I took photos of each page before moving on, hoping Six could make sense of it all. The program was still installing, so I shuffled the papers back into the position I found them in, according to the photos I’d taken.

  I checked my watch. 12:13 AM. The program was about halfway done installing. Six hadn’t given me any real rules for what I could do while I was in the apartment so I made a spontaneous decision to go to my old bedroom.

  The door was shut. I made a mental note to remember to shut it when I left. I turned the tarnished, chipped, brass knob.

  The first thing I registered was the creak that door made. It was the same creak I heard in my nightmares. Push it back, Andra, I told myself. I eased myself in the room and looked around. He hadn’t removed one thing from my bedroom. My curtains still hung, partially open, allowing moonlight to spill across the floor. My flowered comforter was spread, taut, across my mattress, my pillows placed in the same positioning I’d always placed them. My dresser was still the resting place for the small chest that I knew had held my mother’s jewelry. Beside it, my hairbrush sat, untouched. Like the rest of the apartment, my former bedroom remained unchanged.

  It was a museum of a dead girl. Home to the girl I was before, the girl who existed in the memories that haunted this room. My fingers grazed over the comforter as I walked around the room. Flashes of my nightmare returned in bits and pieces as I looked at the bed. No.

  I refused to be reminded of those memories as I strode to my dresser, anger driving me to pick up my jewelry box. I had left this behind before, intentionally, to help give weight that I was not a runaway. I eased open the lid and breathed a sigh of relief. It looked like everything was still there. I ran my fingers over my mother’s pearl earrings, her sapphire lariat, and her Claddagh ring. These were all I had left of my mother apart from my memories.

  I felt my ankle vibrate once. The phone. I froze. Then it vibrated again. And again. It didn’t stop vibrating.

  HIDE.

  I quickly closed the lid of the jewelry box and picked it up, whipping my head around in desperate search of a hiding place. I heard the pounding on the concrete steps outside. “Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck!” I exclaimed under my breath. I didn’t have time to panic. I reached the bedroom door and closed it quickly before dashing into the closet.