“You again?” Trinitee asked.
I spun around to face her. She stopped, her hands on her hips, and stared me in the eye, but if she was surprised to see me covered in mud, she didn’t let on. She didn’t even seem to notice. Her jaw was tense, her brow drawn low with a knot in the center. She dropped her hands and sauntered closer with slow, halting steps.
“I thought we settled everything. What could you possibly want now?” Trin demanded.
I raised both arms, but let them flop back to my sides when Trin closed her eyes and held up her hands.
“No, stop. Forget I asked,” she said with a curt shake of her head. She pulled a small ring of keys from the front pocket of her Army surplus jacket and pushed me aside before shoving a key into the lock of her front door. With a quick turn, she opened the door, but only enough to allow her lithe frame to squeeze through sideways. Once inside, she closed the door to a mere three-inch-wide crack, barely enough to see half her stunning face. With one steely, silver eye, she peered at me.
“I’m tired, Sean, and so not in the mood for more of your bullshit. I’m sorry,” she said then pushed against the door.
But I planted my foot over the threshold, barring it from closing. Trin pulled the door wide, one hand back on her hip. She glanced down at my muddy shoe then back up at me, her brow high.
“You mind?” she bit. “I just cleaned up there.”
I placed a hand on the door frame, leaned my forehead against it, and sighed. “Trin,” I said, then added, “Please,” with the look of a desperate man begging for mercy.
She huffed at me, but opened the door wide before turning her back on me and disappearing into her darkened apartment. I heard her keys clink in the heavy ceramic bowl she always kept them in just off the entry. A moment later, the kitchen light flashed on. Trin opened an upper cabinet door and pulled down a bottle of whiskey and two lowball glasses. Into one, she poured a single shot, after which she lifted to her lips and tossed down her throat. Setting it back down, she filled both glasses, this time with four generous fingers of the rich walnut-colored scotch. She capped and returned the bottle to the cabinet then grabbed both glasses, leaving one on the slab granite counter near the living room.
I closed the front door and slipped off my Nikes, but I was hesitant to come in any farther. “I don’t wanna track in any mud.”
She snickered and shook her head. “Should’ve thought of that earlier.” Irritated, she pressed her mouth in a crooked line. But then she sighed and waved an impatient hand at me. “Just… There’s a basket of clean laundry on the washer. Grab a towel and some sweats and go take a shower.” She snagged the drink she left on the counter and walked up to me, holding the glass up like a peace offering. “Don’t keep me waiting.”
After looking at her long and hard, right in the eyes, I bowed my head and accepted her olive branch. That done, Trin turned and walked away, peeling her jacket off and dumping it on the sofa. Without another word, she withdrew into her bedroom and gently closed the door.
I finished up in the bathroom and dressed in the grey UW sweats I’d retrieved from Trin’s laundry. When I opened the door, it was to total darkness. Not a light on anywhere. Not in the hall or the kitchen. Nor the living or dining. I turned toward Trinitee’s bedroom and saw only the barest glow coming from beneath her closed door. She was playing hardball, making me work for whatever she thought I was here for. I let out a heavy sigh, knowing I deserved as much, and that she’d earned the right to rub it in.
In my head, I knew this all, and I’d come to terms with it before I even arrived. But there was still a small part of me that rebelled. I knew I’d have to rein that in, restrain it somehow. Look at what it had done so far, how far off-track it’d led me. Why was it, whenever my heart ruled, when I let my emotions control my sense of reason, did I lose myself so completely?
It was no wonder Trin had reacted the way she had. Unlike me, she saw everything from the outside, from the detached perspective of an observer. She learned. She deducted. Then she came to understand. I’d watched her do it dozens of times. Yet, when it was me in her lens, I refused to acknowledge what she’d determined to be true. Trin was right, as always. And that’s when everything clicked into place.
Of course she knew. Trin always knew. She knew me. She knew my mind. And she knew the second I’d pointed Eden out to her in the bar that first night. From then on, I was putty in her hands—game on. But instead of it being our game and Eden my prize, it had been Trinitee’s game, and I was merely her token, the little piece she moved around the game board.
I should’ve seen it coming. Trin got bored easily and was constantly upping her game. I, no doubt, presented the perfect challenge, someone who knew her moves and understood her motives, someone with a reasonably comparable intellect who could comprehend her objective—to control her subject like a marionette. And yet, I never even detected her machinations.
Damn, she was good, a fucking master manipulator. I wondered what she’d learned from watching me, where I’d place on her shelf of case studies. Not that it mattered anymore. I was done. No longer a cooperative participant.
Buttressing my resolve, I took in a deep breath and knocked on her bedroom door.
“Yeah,” she said.
Opening the door, I stepped inside and glanced around at the half dozen burning candles. My eyes settled on the full wall of shelves and the books that filled them—a smattering of true crime novels among a myriad of texts on criminal law, psychology, psychiatry, pharmacology, and general medicine. Music played softly from the speakers in each corner, though the tunes themselves were anything but soft, some kind of death metal, in stark contrast to the subdued candlelit setting.
Trin sat on her bed, her back propped against a mountain of pillows leaning along her headboard. She stopped, mid text, tossed her phone into the open book in her lap, then closed and placed it on the bed beside her. Without one word, she stood and walked to her dresser, snagging the same two lowball glasses from earlier, now half-filled with fresh shots, but, instead of the full-bodied, single malt Glenfiddich whiskey, this time Trin had poured two fingers of Rey Sol Anejo tequila. Top-shelf alcohol was one of the few luxuries she didn’t mind splurging on. And so, it seemed, was the new gem sparkling a clear ruby-red from her right ring finger.
I closed the six feet between us when Trin held the glass out to me. “Nice rock ya got there,” I commented.
She glanced at her hand with a wry smile and the briefest of chuckles then raised her glass. “To friends and enemies.” she said, tipping the glass back and swallowing the liquor in one gulp.
After a moment to think that one over, I mimicked her action, without the cryptic toast, and placed my glass back down on her dresser. She grabbed the sculpted bottle with nubby sunrays and a smiling face and splashed two more shots into each of our glasses—shampoo, rinse, repeat—but I stopped her at a third round with a raised hand.
“No more for me, Trin, thanks. I should probably just go.”
She pulled her chin in close, her brow low. “Really?” she asked. “I figured a visit at four in the morning meant you had something important to say. Was I wrong, or did you change your mind?”
“You’re right, on both counts, but…I’ve reconsidered.”
Her brow shifted upwards. “And why is that? Because I kinda thought, or hoped anyway, that you were here to admit I was right, that you never should’ve allowed yourself to get so deeply involved with an older, married, ridiculously wealthy woman.”
“How would you know how wealthy Eden is?”
She quirked only one eyebrow at that question. “Does it really matter, Sean? I mean, I was right, wasn’t I?”
I hitched both hands on my hips and looked away as I shook my head. “What matters, Trinitee,” I began as I focused back on her, “…is not who’s right or wrong. It’s whether or not we support each other. As long as you’re happy, I don’t give a fuck that you see older, married, ridiculously wealthy me
n. I could’ve jumped all over your ass for that guy I saw you with at—”
“What guy?” she interrupted.
“That tool in the Mercedes I saw you with down the street from Starbucks. I didn’t like the way he treated you,” I explained, and Trin’s face paled noticeably. “But I stayed out of it, because you looked strangely content. And given that new trinket on your finger, I’d say you still are. So, even though I don’t understand what you see in him, I figure it’s none of my business. Just like Eden is none of yours.”
Trin took a step closer. “Except I felt responsible for you and that woman, for putting you in that position. I pushed and you played.”
I tightened the small gap until I hovered above her, mere inches from her stoic face. “And why was that, I wonder? Was I just another one of your subjects? Because I thought there was more between us, Trin. I trusted you, and you used that against me.” I shook my head in disgust. “You fucking women. You’re all the same. Deceitful, self-serving—”
“Don’t you lump me in with Hayley and that…that woman. I’m nothing like them.”
“No, you’re right. You’re worse, because what we had was so much more.”
She snorted. “Well, I’m not the one who threw everything away over a good fuck.”
“True. You threw it away for far less.” I shook my head and sighed. “Goodbye, Trinitee.” I offered a clumsy salute, turned, and walked away.
I made the ten-minute drive back to my building in downtown Bellevue, going over every word Trin and I had said to each other. Several things she’d brought up stuck out, particularly Eden’s wealth, like Trin knew exactly how much Eden and her husband were worth. And she seemed to already know that something had happened between me and Eden. But how could she? I’d never said a word about that. And lastly, it struck me odd how Trinitee looked, her face paling and her eyes wide when I’d admitted seeing her with that suit near Starbucks. But what could she possibly have been worried about? Maybe because I knew something about her she’d never seen fit to share.
I thought back on that day at Starbucks, on Trin’s reaction when she saw me walk in right after her. Her eyes were wide in shock, and her flesh blushed bright pink. But Trinitee never blushed, because she was never self-conscious or embarrassed. On the contrary, she was the epitome of cool and collected. Always confident. So why had she reacted that way? It didn’t make any sense…unless…she was hiding something. But what? Only thing I could think of was the asshole on the sidewalk. Maybe Trin was embarrassed after all if she thought I’d seen their exchange, the way he’d treated her and her reaction to that—or lack thereof. But that made little sense either, because she often acted out of character around people she studied. It was how she managed to get them to engage and drop their guard so she could coax the most out of them.
But even still, my intuition told me it was more than that. It was the man himself. So, as I pulled my car into the assigned parking space at my building and slipped it into park, I replayed, very methodically, the scene on the sidewalk, over and over, every detail from the moment he pulled curbside. Something about it resonated with me, a sense of familiarity. And then it hit me—the car, the man. I’d seen them before. Or rather, since. Last night, out front of Eden’s house. It was the same car model. And when I spied on Eden with her husband—same height, same build, same color hair—he could easily be the same man. Which meant…
Trin knew Declan Ross. She’d been seeing him.
I wondered if she knew who he was, how we were connected. But that was a stupid question. Of course she knew. Trin always knew. But what did it mean? How did everything fit together? Who was manipulating who? More importantly, who was using me? Trinitee? Eden? Her asshole husband? Perhaps all three? And what exactly was I being used for? What was the end game here?
Jesus Christ…so much for being best friends!
Paranoia began to close in on me, and I suddenly felt claustrophobic in my car, like I was being watched or monitored somehow. I turned the engine off and popped my door open, scanning the surrounding area before swinging it wide. Once I did and stood from the driver’s seat, I was hit with a wave of dizziness that drove me to my knees onto the concrete pavement. I cursed myself for drinking over at Trin’s, but, though it had been strong liquor, for me, it hadn’t been so much that I would be impaired.
With a shake of my head, I gathered myself up, closed the door, and secured my car. From there, I walked to the elevator. After a woozy ride up to the forty-first floor, I barely managed to make it into my apartment when another surge of vertigo engulfed me, this one much stronger than the last. I tumbled to the wood floor as the world tilted and spun. Intense heat began to creep from my gut to my face and the tips of my fingers and toes. I crawled to the living room, intent on climbing onto the cool leather sofa, but I only made it as far as the plush area rug, where I crumpled, face up.
I stared up at the ceiling, concentrating hard on my breathing, on the rapid beat of my heart that seemed to be accelerating at an alarming rate. That’s all I could hear, my breathing and my heart, hammering, thrashing, wheezing, until the very walls around me seemed to collapse inward, and all I could see was a single, far away light. But even that started to fade, growing smaller and dimmer, until it flickered out altogether, and I was left in silent darkness.
It was a good effort. Gave it everything I could, willing myself to lie still, remain relaxed, and not think too much. But, no matter how hard I tried, I could not ignore the pounding in my head as it grew louder and harder and ever more intense each and every second. Nothing worked, certainly not rolling over in bed with a pillow covering my face. I moaned as reality slammed into me with the force of a locomotive, and the drumming grew so insanely acute, it seemed to fill not just my head or even my bedroom, but the entire house.
I chucked the pillow aside, wanting only to retrieve the bottle of ibuprofen from my nightstand, until I realized the pounding was actually filling the entire house, because someone was hammering on my front door. Instead of the pain reliever, I fished my iPad out of my bedside table and pulled up the home security app. I’d had four DropCams installed on the property, one at each of the most frequently used exterior doors. I found the feed for the one at the front entry and clicked on it. In an instant, the image filled the screen.
“What the hell?” I whispered as I sat straight up in bed.
Two men stood at my front door, one a young uniformed policeman, the other older and wearing a cheap sport coat over a wilted button-down with a loosened tie at his neck. I pressed the audio button on the app and spoke into the microphone on my iPad.
“May I help you?” I asked, wincing at the pain exploding between my temples.
“Mrs. Declan Ross?” the grey-haired one asked as he looked up at the camera. His blue eyes were so intense. He reminded me of a rugged version of Anderson Cooper.
I pressed the audio button again and replied, “Yes?” as the ticking in my chest amped up to equalize the pummeling in my head.
“Mrs. Ross, would you come to the door, please? We need to speak with you,” he requested, his voice pleasant and silky smooth.
“Oh, um…sure, I guess…but…would you mind showing me your ID first?”
He reached into his inside pocket and pulled out a wallet. Opening it, he held the badge and ID up to the camera. “If you wouldn’t mind, Mrs. Ross, we have some urgent business to discuss.”
“Is everything okay?” I asked right before a terrifying thought hit me. “It’s not Ian, is it? My son? He’s not hurt or in trouble, is he?” I threw the covers off and swung my legs over the edge of the bed, but had to stop when the world simultaneously spun and threatened to explode. I wrapped my arm around my head to keep the pieces from flying free.
“No, ma’am. We’re not here about your son, but we’d like to talk with you in person, so if you wouldn’t mind…”
I paused in relief. “All right, um…just…give me a few minutes. I’m not dressed.”
The men glanced at each other before they each nodded and took a step back, almost in unison. I stood gingerly and waited for the worst of the pain to ebb before trudging to the bathroom. After taking care of my needs, I splashed cold water on my face, rinsed with mouthwash, and tried to pull a brush through my hair. I’d forgotten to pull it back into a ponytail before bed, so now it was a wild nest of mats on one side and frizz on the other.
Pretty foolish of me to drink the entire bottle of Palmer’s. The ’61 Bordeaux wasn’t even a favorite of mine, but it was Declan’s. I’d only settled on it because I knew how much it meant to him and wanted purely to spite him. It was a bottle he was saving for a special occasion, but that didn’t mean my birthday or our anniversary or any other family event, but rather to impress some other investor he fancied a competitor. Why he’d save a $7,000 bottle of wine for someone he loathed was beyond me. But then again, I’d taken great pleasure in dusting off the last drop after Declan had stormed off last night following our latest spat.
Granted, things had escalated way beyond the usual hurtful words we tended to hurl back and forth. I’d even drawn blood and had dented both his manhood and his considerable pride. But he deserved it. And, after everything I’d promised Sean, I’d felt a certain responsibility to make sure Declan knew precisely where I stood. He’d left quickly, and I assumed he wouldn’t be back for at least another day, maybe two.
“He’s probably with Aurelia,” I said to my reflection as I secured the last button on my plain, white cotton blouse.
I smoothed down each leg on my jeans and slipped on a pair of cozy UGG slippers. After a pinch to each pasty cheek and a bite along my pale lips, I made my way up the long south wing hall, wincing at the sharp morning light filtering in through the exterior wall of windows. With one last deep breath, I opened the front door.
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