Purple Knot

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Purple Knot Page 7

by Raquel Byrnes


  “I was afraid for my life,” I repeated, quoting my shooting instructor. “I was trying to stop the attack.”

  “Yah,” Detective Wicket intoned. “I made sure to write that down.”

  “I just want to make sure you understand what happened.” I tried to look innocent.

  “I understand you fired four times at someone you didn’t actually see,” Detective Wicket said evenly. “Mr. Corbeau didn’t see him, either.”

  I hadn’t, in fact, told him that the fourth bullet was just a trigger finger twitch, and not actually aimed at anyone. Jimmy looked at me from the window. He turned back around before he answered Detective Wicket. “I was busy ducking.”

  “Should I have let him hit me a couple of times with the crowbar before I started shooting?” I regretted saying it when Jimmy winced.

  Detective Wicket rolled his eyes, handed me the report to sign, and then stood to leave. “You can keep your firearm for now, but I need to copy down some information from your gun permit, and take the video tape from the security camera in the hall. I’ll send a guy out on Monday to take pictures of the bullet holes in your wall.”

  “Monday?”

  “You didn’t hit anyone. So I wouldn’t be justified calling a guy in on the weekend.”

  “I’ll aim better next time.”

  Wicket raised an eyebrow. He snapped his leather notepad shut. I guess the justice portion of the evening was over.

  After Wicket left, I stared at Jimmy’s back for a couple of seconds, and then went to find the vacuum. I rooted around in the supply closet and was amazed at the amount of pens Salem felt the need to keep on hand. I finally gave up on the vacuum and grabbed the broom. The dustpan was wedged, impossibly, underneath a box of printer paper and I yanked at it angrily. It wouldn’t budge, and I just got more and more angry until finally I was yelling, and kicking at it, and crying.

  “Why didn’t you tell me about the phone call and the flowers?” Jimmy appeared in the doorway with concern and utter exasperation on his face.

  I froze.

  He reached out and tucked hair behind my ear.

  “I…should have. I just didn’t want you to worry.”

  “You didn’t want me to worry?”

  I heard the change in his voice. I looked up at his gray eyes and saw the anger flare behind them.

  “Then why, after that kind of warning, did you come here alone, Rain? What were you thinking?”

  He was angry at me?

  “What was I thinking? I was thinking that maybe it should be safe for me to come to my own place of business! What were you thinking? Why were you creeping around outside this time of night? You could have been shot!”

  “I nearly was, thanks to you, Annie Oakley!”

  “How do you even know about the phone call and flowers, anyway?”

  “Salem called me this morning. He thinks you’re being reckless. I tend to agree. What are you doing, Rain? This isn’t a game!”

  “Oh, so this is my fault? I should have what? Run over to Salem’s for protection?” I waved my arms in the air, growing furious with Jimmy.

  “No, that’s not what I’m saying, and you know it. But maybe, when someone threatens you, you go to a hotel for the night.” He stepped toward me, his voice almost a growl.

  “I’m not going to turn tail and run at the first sign of a threat,” I shot back. “I’m not going to cower in the corner, Jimmy. I’m not—” I stopped when my brain caught up to my mouth.

  “What, Rain?” Jimmy shouted. “You’re not Summer?”

  He stalked away from the doorway, walked to my desk, and grabbed his coat.

  “That’s not what I was going to say,” I lied, following him.

  He headed for the door, muttering to himself like he always did when we fought. “Why is everything so one way or the other with you?” He asked suddenly. He turned to face me, and I could tell he was exasperated.

  “What?”

  “You’re in danger, so you either ignore it and go about your business, or run headlong toward someone trying to kill you?”

  My face burned, as did my stomach. Why was he reacting this way? Suddenly defending myself was a character flaw? “This is my place, Jimmy,” I shouted, pointing to the floor. “I have every right to be here!”

  “You’re so stubborn! You could have been killed.”

  “What would you have me do, then Jimmy? What?”

  “Stop and think!” he shouted angrily. “Stop acting like you’re alone in this world, and start behaving like some of us love you! I wouldn’t survive losing you, Rain. I couldn’t take it!”

  I looked at him stunned, and then he strode out of the office.

  “Jimmy!”

  He didn’t come back. I paced the floor for a few minutes, trying to stop what felt like an impending aneurism from blowing, before I called for a cab. I grabbed the Bower files and my suitcase and went downstairs. A lone sedan idled in the parking lot; the interior light illuminated Jimmy’s disheveled hair. I didn’t want to fight again, and tried to slip around the side, but he looked up and saw me. He got out of the car, walked around to the passenger side, and opened the door for me.

  “I already called a cab,” I said without moving toward him.

  “You can cancel on our way,” he said. Back to his slow, laid back drawl, he walked over and took my suitcase.

  “It’s not really nice to call a cab and then not use them.”

  Jimmy put the suitcase in the trunk and looked at me quietly.

  I walked toward him and slid into the passenger seat.

  Jimmy closed the door, walked around the front, scanned the street up and down. He got in and sat there, staring out the windshield. When he looked at me, his eyes were red, worried, and exhausted. When he spoke his voice was quiet, controlled. “Rain, when I heard those gunshots I nearly lost my mind. I just kept thinking about all the time we’ve lost, dancing around each other. I don’t want to do this anymore, Rain. I don’t want to give you anymore space. I don’t want to be patient anymore. You said you miss us. Well here I am. All in, Rain. I’m here in this all the way.” He looked at me then and I started to tremble. His gray eyes were dark, full of pain. When he spoke again it was barely above a whisper. “What about you, Rain. What do you want?”

  My heart jumped in my chest. I reached out and ran my fingers along his jaw. My lip was trembling again. The words caught in my throat. “I’m all in, Jimmy,” I said finally.

  “You’re sure?” He reached up, took my hand, and kissed my palm. Relief and wariness mingled in his gaze and he looked at me intently.

  I nodded, smiling and crying at the same time.

  Jimmy slid his hand along my neck and his lips pressed against mine. Every muscle burned for him. My hands went to his jaw, drew him closer. My breath escaped in a moan. I kissed him with a million years of missing him.

  He pulled back, finally. “That’s pretty sure,” he murmured.

  I looked into those deep gray eyes and knew I’d just leapt off the edge again.

  Purple Knot

  14

  Westbrook Academy offered one academic scholarship a year for incoming ninth graders, and I wanted it. My guidance counselor did most of the application work, and I had managed to pull high enough grades and test scores to qualify for the position. My dad moved us from Bainbridge to Seattle so I could go. I think my dad used up all of his strength to make the move because it was the last time he seemed to be holding on to life.

  The day I walked onto the campus with my second-hand uniform and used books was the day Jimmy and Summer started as well. They’d just moved up from Louisiana and their big black sedan pulled to a stop in front of the school. The beautiful Corbeau twins were all anyone cared about. I was free to fade into the background, for a while, anyway. Turns out my hand-me-down life didn’t go unnoticed for long.

  I didn’t feel comfortable at Westbrook, I knew I wouldn’t, but the exposure to college scholarships was too great to pass up. I
took the city bus to and from the academy. I used to race out of my last class because the bus home left exactly five minutes after school got out. If I missed it, there wasn’t another one for almost an hour. With no overhang, if I missed the bus I had to stand in the rain. I never lingered after school.

  I had acquaintances, lab partners who smiled at me in class, but ignored me in the lunch room. I was flying under the radar. Until Eric Roxan decided to pay attention.

  Eric Roxan was a golden boy. All state basketball and football, he acted like he owned the school. It was apparently just the library his family donated. Eric liked to make fun of me when I walked down the hall. It was easy to ignore, so I did. This only encouraged him to try harder. Soon Eric started making fun of my answers in class, and mime my hand motions as I spoke. The teachers knew to ignore the behavior of their benefactor’s children, so I tried to as well, though the snickering from others unnerved me. I stopped volunteering answers. By the end of my first month, Eric went out of his way to walk across the grass field during lunch just to kick over my soda. Then he started kicking soda on me. Then he just poured his drink into my backpack. I skipped lunch and stayed in the library.

  The day before winter break someone broke into my locker and dumped urine all over my books and folders. A photography project I’d spent weeks working on was ruined. I stood at the locker fighting back tears because I didn’t know how to replace all the books. The books smelled, my homework stank, and I couldn’t do anything about it. Eric stood down the hall and stared with an evil grin plastered on his face.

  By January, Eric had tired of pranks. Ramming me into the lockers during class changes was more fun. I was an inch over five feet tall, he was six-foot-two. I didn’t get support from the staff because, well, I was just a freeloader. I felt helpless and scared. My stomach churned on the ride to school every day. Emotionally I was a wreck. Eventually I started to hide out in the girls’ bathroom, and make a run for my class seconds before the tardy bell would ring. Then one day, Summer walked into the restroom where I was hiding.

  She took one look at my frantic, tear streaked face and her cheeks burned red. She stomped out and yelled for Jimmy. Already in his class, he poked his head out, saw his sister’s face, and strode right into the girls’ bathroom without batting an eye. He was a tall kid, already filling out in the shoulders and arms, and he made me nervous just standing next to him.

  Summer had been listening to the talk. She’d noticed the teasing. And the day before, she saw Eric ram me into the lockers. I watched Jimmy’s expression go from confusion, to shock, to anger as he listened. His eyes grazed over me. I adjusted my torn sweater self consciously, hating the feel of pathetic that Eric had smeared on me. Jimmy nodded once and was gone. Summer smiled at me.

  “You know,” she’d said. “Sometimes help comes from places you don’t expect.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that.

  Later that day, Jimmy caught Eric pouring something in the grill of my locker. He yelled about picking on girls and when Eric tried to push Jimmy, he grabbed Eric and rammed him into the lockers on the left and then on the right. Eric squealed like a piglet. Jimmy yanked him by the uniform tie to where I was standing and made Eric apologize, and then Jimmy took the soda out of my hand and dumped it over Eric’s head. I was shocked speechless. I never saw Jimmy that mad again in all the years I’ve known him. Jimmy was suspended for a week. Eric never bothered me again, no one did.

  The next day I took the bus to Summer and Jimmy’s house to thank him. I sat on the bus with home made cookies on my lap and butterflies in my stomach. I couldn’t walk up their driveway. It was gated. I stared up at the magnificent wood and glass home at the top of the hill. I left the cookies on the keypad post and walked home.

  Halfway there, a kid rode up behind me on a golf cart. I cringed, thinking Eric was going to run me down. But it was Jimmy. He’d seen me from his window. I tried to tell him in my own stammering, strangled-emotions way, that I was floored and honored and humbled because no one had ever looked out for me before. But he didn’t give me a chance. He just smiled that crooked grin of his, and said he thought pie was in order.

  ****

  We often ended up in diners. Something about the bustle and aromas made Jimmy feel better. I liked to sit by the big windows and see that life continued despite what often seemed like insurmountable odds.

  So it didn’t surprise me that after the attack, Jimmy drove to an all night diner and bought coffee and cherry pie. I pulled the crust off the pie and nibbled at the corners waiting for Jimmy to say what he was going to say. After a few minutes, he looked at me, brows knitted, serious.

  “You’re coming back to Seattle with me tonight.” It wasn’t a question.

  “How did you get here?”

  His body language told me the answer before he said it. “I needed to get out here quickly.”

  “I’m not going to bug you about the jet, Jimmy. I’m actually glad you did this time. It’ll help not to have to be at the airport at a certain time.”

  “What are you talking about, Rain? We’re going straight to the airport after you eat.”

  I took a bite of pie for his benefit.

  He watched me with a stubborn look on his face.

  “I’ll go to Seattle with you tonight, I promise. I won’t give you any hassle about that. I’m already packed, in fact.”

  “But…”

  “But I want to go to my condo first.”

  “You know whoever broke into your office probably knows where you live. I can’t let you go back there. I’ll buy you whatever you need when we get back home.” Jimmy leaned forward and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. He looked up at me and sighed.

  “I need my notes. They have information we could use.”

  “Can’t you ask Salem to email them to you?”

  “These notes are hand written. They’re in a spiral bound notebook. Information I’ve been compiling on Parker, so they aren’t in the business computers. I need them.”

  Jimmy looked out the window. He tapped a spoon on his empty cup while he thought.

  I watched him while I finished off my pie. I was going back to my condo whether he liked it or not.

  “Did you bring your gun?” He looked at me with a stern expression.

  I smiled and patted the bag on the chair.

  “Any chance you’ll stay in the car while I go get the files?”

  It was my turn to raise an eyebrow.

  “Didn’t think so.”

  Jimmy drove past my building twice before he was satisfied no one lurked in the shadows. When he parked along the street, he looked like he was about to argue, so I opened the door and climbed out as soon as he turned off the car.

  “Rain, you have five minutes, then I’ll carry you out myself if it comes to that.”

  “Five minutes. I promise.”

  We took the elevator. I could hear the cellist tuning up for tonight’s insomnia concert. I passed his door and stopped cold a few feet from mine.

  Jimmy stepped in front of me, he’d already noticed the door ajar. He held his arm back, forcing me against the wall. “Stay here,” he whispered.

  “No way.”

  Jimmy shot an exasperated look in my direction.

  I slipped my hand in my purse and came out with the .45. My heart thudded so frantically I was afraid he could hear it.

  His gaze went to the gun and then back to my face, but he didn’t say anything more. Instead, he pushed the door open with his knuckles and peeked inside. He slipped inside, his whispered words were very clear. “Don’t move.”

  I waited in the hall with sweaty hands wrapped around the gun, straining to hear anything, I held my breath. Five seconds passed, then fifteen. And still, no noise. I heard the elevator start back down to the lobby and I wondered what the neighbors might think if they looked out peepholes and saw me pointing a gun into my own doorway. Tension strummed along my spine, and finally I couldn’t stand it a
nymore. I stepped inside.

  “They’re already gone.” Jimmy walked from my bedroom with an angry look.

  I nodded dumbly. I had no words to describe the anger and hurt that pulsed through my body as I took in my ruined home. Shelves and drawers hung open, their contents scattered and broken on the wood floor. I looked through the door to my office. My computer was gone and paper from my personal files littered the carpet.

  “I’m sorry, Rain.”

  “I’m not really surprised.” I bit my lip against fury. I wouldn’t give whoever had done this the satisfaction of rattling me. I’d known this might happen. As soon as I was attacked in my office, I’d known my home was next.

  “Rain, we need to call the police. This is two attacks on you in one day.” Jimmy pulled his cell phone from his pocket.

  “If we call the police, after my gun show at my office building, I’ll be tied up in paperwork for weeks. I just want to…” I noticed the gun still in my hand, and shoved it back into my purse. Blood pounded in my ears and I blew a slow breath out, counting my internal pressure down to manageable.

  Something crunched underfoot when I took a step and I looked down. Photographs were underfoot. Frames bent, glass broken, and memories marred. A sob bubbled in my chest and I fought to keep it there. I looked up at Jimmy through blurry, stinging eyes. “I just want to leave,” I said quietly.

  Jimmy pulled me into a hug and stroked my hair.

  “OK, Rain, let’s get this done. Remember, five minutes and we’re out.”

  “I only need a few seconds.” I strode past the other rooms, into the kitchen, and grabbed my file from a stack of cook books near the fridge.

  Jimmy looked at my curiously but didn’t say anything.

  My dishwasher was not opened, and I said a silent prayer as I reached into the soap dispenser on the inside of the door. My pen drive was still there. Relief flooded over me.

  “I take it you never use that thing.” Jimmy shot me an amused look.

 

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