by J. Saman
I don’t move. I still have my lab slip clenched in my hand. It’s my turn and I have no idea how long I’ve been sitting here, but Hotel California is over and that’s a long fucking song.
“I can’t do this,” I whisper.
“Claire Sullivan?”
I stand up slowly, look at the woman calling my name, and walk in the other direction.
Chapter 27
Claire
“Wanna get out of here?” the cute guy I met in the bar tonight asks me. Alan, I think he said his name was. I saw him when I walked in a couple of hours ago, but he didn’t come up to me until about forty minutes ago. But every time I looked in his direction, he was staring at me.
“We can go to my place. I’ll make you another mojito.”
I smile at him, because he’s cute and I had a miserable day. A miserable week, really. Who am I kidding? It’s been a miserable month. Five weeks to be exact, since that’s the last time Kyle looked at me or said more than five words to me.
“That’s a very tempting offer, but not tonight.”
“Okay, wanna go get some dinner at a very public place?”
“Now?” I laugh. “It’s almost eleven.”
“So what?” He laughs back, resting his elbow on the top of the bar. Leaning into me, his dark eyes scan my face with interest. “We live in the city. I’m sure we can find something open.”
I shake my head, even though part of me is tempted to say yes. I’ve had a lot of false starts. I meet a guy. Go on a date. And then I’m done. They’re never funny enough, or cute enough, or they don’t get my sense of humor, or me, or any other bullshit excuse I come up with. I don’t want any of them. None.
“I can’t tonight. It’s late and I need my beauty rest. Maybe another night.”
“How about tomorrow?”
“Sure. I can do tomorrow.”
“Text me your address and I’ll pick you up for dinner.”
He gives me his number and I text him the building address that I want him to go to and the time. Then I leave him with a quick, awkward hug. Honestly, I don’t know why I bother.
“Let me drive you home,” he says, lifting my chin up with his fingers until our eyes meet.
I shake my head, trying to maintain a smile I don’t feel. “I’m good. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“See you soon, Claire.” A chill runs up my spine as I walk away from Alan Gregory into the cold Seattle night. I hop in my car, and in no time, I’m parking at my building and walking through the door of my apartment.
I’m exhausted. I spent the entire day in a meeting with Kyle as we tried to negotiate a contract with a company from Taiwan. I can’t wait until Ryan gets back from his paternity leave and Luke comes home from his business trip, because spending a whole day cooped up in a conference room with Kyle is wrecking me.
I miss him.
And because of that, I even went back to the stupid hospital lab after work, and when I chickened out, again, I hit up the bar. It’s becoming a vicious cycle. Today makes my third attempt. It’s pathetic and it makes me hate myself for being so freaking weak.
I need a shower and to play my cello, since I don’t have my piano and I can’t bring myself to play my keyboard anymore. Music has become the only thing that brings me peace. And the twins. I can’t get enough of those nuggets.
Just as I take off my shoes, there’s a knock on my door. This can only be one of my neighbors. I wonder what transgression I’ve committed tonight.
I fling open the door and the moment I do, I regret it. Because it’s not any of my stupid nosy neighbors. It’s Alan Gregory, the man from the bar. I open my mouth to speak, but he plants his fist in my right eye before I can even get a word out or slam the door in face. I stagger back, falling to the floor as white-hot heat lights up my cheek. My eye feels like it’s exploding out of my head.
“You should have agreed to come to my place tonight, Claire,” he says, cool as ever. He walks into my apartment, shutting and locking the door behind him. “I don’t usually follow women home, but there was just something about you. It made me . . . impatient. I knew there was no way I could postpone this moment.”
What. The. Fuck?
“I’ll scream,” I threaten. “I’ll scream really fucking loud.”
He smiles and it’s without a doubt the most chilling thing I’ve ever seen in my life. That scream I was about to bellow out, lodges in my throat.
“Oh Claire,” he shakes his head slowly as I scoot back toward my couch, “you won’t be breathing long enough to scream.”
He’s getting off on my fear. Savoring it. This cannot be the first time he’s done something like this. And judging by the awe in his expression, he’s going to kill me if I let him. Inside that small dark place in the recesses of my mind, I want to laugh at this predicament. Wondering if this is some perverse form of karma and that the man attacking me, threatening my life, is actually doing me a favor.
I push that down, knowing the second those thoughts formed that they were ridiculous. Harmful. Counterproductive even. He slams the toe of his boots into my ribs and I cry out, rolling over onto my back. He moves quickly, his large heavy body pushing me down and straddling me, his thighs over my chest, pinning me to the floor. His fingers find purchase around my neck, compressing my windpipe and carotid artery at the same time.
This is the moment. The one where if I let him win, he’ll suffocate the life from me.
And I’ll be dead.
The adrenaline coursing through me finds a new life, a second wind. My fingers grasp onto his hands, desperately trying to pry him away from my neck. In less than a second, I realized that is a stupid thing to do. He’s far too strong for me to have any impact on his grip.
My body is convulsing, gasping, choking, unable to suck in the air I so fiercely need in order to keep a clear head. My lungs burn from the lack of oxygen. I can’t scream. Can’t speak. Black spots and stars dance in and out of my vision as my world becomes hazy. My legs flail, kicking and thrashing futilely.
Mercifully, the stupid sick fuck is too far into the zone to be cautious. His face casts a shadow over my own as he watches me die. Moving my chin down just enough, I secure the smallest of breaths, which is just enough to prevent me from blacking out completely. Reaching up in one quick motion, my thumbs find his eyes, pressing in with the full extent of my remaining strength.
He yells out like a cat whose tail was stepped on, and flies off me, grasping at his face. Rolling onto my side, I gasp for air, coughing and spitting, unable to suck it into my lungs fast enough. I’m so close to blacking out. My limbs are weak, heavy, nearly lifeless. My movements jerky and uncoordinated.
I need to get control.
I hear him moving on the floor, about to attack with renewed vengeance.
It’s now or never.
I manage to stand on shaky legs, before I lift my right foot and slam it into his stomach with a direct blow. He growls out, trying to grab me and throw me down to the ground. I manage to sidestep him and plant my other foot directly into his nuts.
He howls loud and long.
“You fucking cunt! I’m going to kill you,” he barks, spitting all over my floor. He reaches for me, his hand catching the toes of my left foot and knocking me off balance just enough that I fall flat on my back, the occiput of my head smacking into the hardwood and rushing all of that newly acquired air back out of my lungs.
The bastard begins to laugh as he rises slowly, prowling towards me, luxuriating in his moment of victory. I manage to scoot back, unable to stand. My vision sways and dances, the edges fuzzy. My stomach rolls as a wave of nausea hits me. He laughs harder and my anger reaches a new peak.
“I have to say, Claire,” he grins at the sound of my name leaving his lips, “you’ve made this easier than I’d hoped. It’s why I picked you from all the other women in the bar tonight. You looked like a fighter,” he taunts, stalking toward me at an eerily slow pace as I continue to slide on my back towar
ds my kitchen.
I have nowhere to go.
As I get to the edge of my couch, something on the bottom shelf of my end table catches my eye. It’s the hand-blown, glass snakelike rod my mother got me for graduation. It’s thick. At least two inches of solid glass. Heavy. Deadly if used appropriately.
“The last girl I took hardly even fought,” he continues, my eyes still on his dark, bloodshot ones, as I think about how I can get to that glass rod without alerting him to my intentions. “She was too afraid. She whimpered and begged for her life, thinking that would save her. It didn’t, of course. It only made me kill her slower, just to get her to fight and beg more.”
Sick fuck.
He takes another step forward as I scoot toward that table, only another couple of feet from my goal. “You haven’t begged once. But I’m going to make you beg for your life as I take it from you and watch your beautiful eyes die at my hand.”
“Oh, honey,” I drawl, his eyes narrowing at the endearment. “I don’t beg any man. They beg me.”
He lunges for me, and at the same moment, I roll to my left and grab that wand, clutching the cold heavy glass firmly in my hand. My arm flies across my chest as his body covers mine. The glass collides with the side of his face with a sickening crunch.
My stomach rolls again and my head turns as I vomit all over the floor.
He doesn’t howl this time. And he’s out of promises. Instead, his body collapses lifelessly against my own, his warm blood trickling down the side of my face. I push him off me, panting and gasping for air. He’s not dead. Despite the head wound, I can see the rise and fall of his chest and I can’t help but take relief in that.
He may be a killer, but I am not.
Crawling on all fours, I reach my front door, climbing up it until I can grasp the handle. It takes me another moment before I’m able to turn it open and then I fall back to the ground. I pull open the door and am instantly assaulted with police officers who have their guns drawn, shouting out too many things for me to comprehend even one of them.
Thank God, my neighbors hate noise.
The guy passed out on my floor begins to come around with a pained groan and immediately I’m forgotten.
“Call an ambulance,” one of the officers yells.
“Already en route,” another returns.
“Are you hurt miss?” a third says, standing over me, looking over my supine form.
“No,” I tell him in my strongest voice that really sounds a lot weaker and more garbled than I want to think about. “I’m okay.” I think.
“We should get you to the hospital,” he says crouching down next to me and holstering his weapon.
I shake my head, the back of it sore from the impact it made with the floor. “No hospitals. Please. I don’t want to go anywhere he’s going.”
The officer scowls at me, but nods. He gives me a quick exam, flashing a light in my eyes and asking me some questions. The paramedics show up shortly after and do the same. They clear me. Mostly because by this point I’m standing and talking and I refuse to go to the hospital as many times as they try to get me to go.
“Do you think you’re able to come to the station and answer some questions?”
“Yes,” I tell him because the last place I want to be right now is my apartment. The floor is covered in that asshole’s blood and my vomit. The place reeks of a struggle. Every time I close my eyes, I see his dark, foreboding ones. I hear his words echo through my mind over and over. An incessant cycle that I can’t seem to shut off. I’m going to make you beg for your life as I take it from you and watch your beautiful eyes die at my hand.
Jesus Christ, I have no idea how I’m still alive right now. That dicklicker was determined. Shudders course through me. My body hurts everywhere. My ribs are screaming at me. My head is pounding. My stomach is tumbling around like a dryer and the sudden overwhelming urge to vomit again makes me think I have a concussion.
“Is there anyone you’d like us to call?” the officer who helped me in my apartment says, his brown eyes roaming my face.
I don’t know who I’d have him call. It’s not like I’m going to drag Kate down here. She just had the twins like six weeks ago. That knocks Ryan out of the mix too. Luke is away on one of his business trips and Ivy is not only pregnant, but in California visiting Sophia. I could call Maren, she—
“Would you like to have a lawyer present while we question you?” That brings me back to the moment.
My lawyer? I almost want to laugh at that. I doubt he’d come out late at night—or any time of day for that matter—for me. I don’t even know what time it is. They brought me here in the back of their squad car and then unceremoniously deposited me in this room and into this unbelievably uncomfortable chair.
Then they left me.
I have to say, the police station is not living up to my every expectation. I’m sitting in a small ass room with no windows. Not even one of those two-way mirror things you see on television. I vomited. Again. I think I even fell asleep for a bit. That’s how long I’ve been here. When I asked what was taking so long, they told me they were waiting on someone. Great.
“Do I need one?” I ask instead.
“Well,” the officer starts and then another one enters, this guy dressed like something out of Miami Vice. I didn’t even know men still wore pastels and the contrast to the other guy, who is wearing a navy shirt and dark pants, is staggering. The new guy is large with a big round belly hanging over his lemon-colored pants, and doesn’t have so much as a stray hair on his bald head.
“I’m Detective Marks,” the new guy says as he sits in the chair next the other guy and across from me. “We’d like to ask you a few questions.”
“Okay,” I say slowly, my eyebrows wrinkling because something about this feels off to me. “What’s going on?” I ask barely able to contain my fury, my hands folded on the wood table in front of me so I don’t reach across the table and throttle them. I’m pissed. And I feel awful. I want to cry for hours, which I really don’t want to do in front of these assholes, so I go back to being pissed because it’s an easier emotion to handle. “You guys left me in here like a criminal,” I snap and regret it, my head feels like it’s going to explode and the pressure behind my right eye is intense. Not to mention the fact that I can barely see out of it.
“Did you waive your right to an attorney being present?” the officer says instead of answering my question or commenting on my outburst.
“Did I waive my right?” I stagger. “No,” I shake my head, narrowing my eyes at him. “I didn’t waive anything. You’re making it sound like I did something wrong.”
“Mr. Arizona is claiming that you lured him back to your apartment and then when he tried to leave, you attacked him. He claims he was defending himself.”
“Who the fuck is Mr. Arizona?” That has to be the most ridiculous fake name I’ve ever heard.
“He’s the man you nearly killed,” the new guy says calmly.
I lean back in my seat, folding my arms across my chest, trying to ignore my smarting ribs. “He told me his name was Alan Gregory.”
They both look at each other.
“Frankly, Gregory is a much better last name. If I was him, I would have stuck with that one.” I’m not amusing them, but this is just too surreal for me to take it seriously. “He attacked me first. I was defending myself. Do I look like I attacked him first?” I point at my face.
“Can you tell us what happened?” Detective Marks asks a bit softer, leaning forward, his lips forming a thin line.
I lean forward just as he did. “Not until my lawyer gets here. Then I’ll tell you every last detail.”
Chapter 28
Kyle
My cell phone rings, startling me out of a sound sleep. As I reach for it on my nightstand, I notice the time shining at me from my alarm clock. 12:13. What the fuck?
“Hello?”
“Kyle?”
“Claire?” I sit up, rubbing my fac
e and trying to make sense of this, sleep’s heavy disorientation still fogging my brain.
“Um,” she hesitates. “Yeah. It’s me. I need your help.”
Something isn’t right. Her voice is off. I can’t even place what about it sounds that way, but it does. I scoot up even higher in my bed, leaning over and flipping on the lamp. My eyes squint and blink against the intrusive light, my sheets pooling at my waist. “What’s going on? Where are you?”
“I’m at Seattle Police Headquarters. The one on 5th Avenue,” she adds like I need directions, which I guess I do because I’ve never been there before. I take it she needs a ride. I want to groan at that. What sort of mess has she gotten herself into now? And why is she calling me? We’ve barely spoken in the last five weeks.
“What the hell is going on? Are you okay?”
“I don’t know.” She lets out a heavy sigh. “God, Kyle, I was so stupid,” her voice catches on the last word and then I hear her sniffle. That has me flying out of bed. “I’ll explain everything, but these detectives are asking if I want a lawyer and I don’t know . . .” More sniffles. “Can you come?”
“I’m on my way,” I tell her, already walking into my bathroom. “Don’t say anything to them until I get there. Do you understand me? Nothing.”
“Got it,” she sighs in relief. “Thanks.” She hangs up and a flicker of curiosity, followed by a flicker of dread, fills me. What the hell could Claire have done to land her ass at the police station about to be questioned in the middle of the night?
I brush my teeth, wash my face, and run some of the excess water from my hands through my hair before I brush it into some semblance of order. Moving quickly through my closet, I grab the first suit I can find, pair it with a white button-down shirt and my solid navy tie. There is no way I’m showing up at the police station dressed in anything but a suit.
I may be young, but these assholes have no idea what they’re in for with me.
Traffic is light, and in no time, I’m parked and walking into the police station with the confidence and swagger that I haven’t had the privilege to exude since I moved here. I love it. I’m not gonna lie. Despite the inauspicious circumstances.