“I understand …” But I could hear the disappointment in his voice.
A half hour later, we were still waiting. The door to the garage stayed closed, tools clanking loudly behind it, the only sound that reassured me it was getting done.
Lincoln offered to go pick up some sandwiches for us, and I was relieved to catch a break from him. I liked him—maybe I liked him a little too much, honestly—but I could tell he sensed my unease, that he knew something was wrong … and if he asked me a few more times, I’d probably wind up telling him the whole truth about Valerie.
Confusion lingered, my emotions over Valerie playing tug-of-war inside me.
Nothing about this made sense or jived with Valerie’s character. Could she be involved in her aunt’s murder? No freaking way.
But what do I really know about Valerie? I only see what she wants me to see … what she allows all of us to see on social media. And a public persona is often different than reality …
I took my phone out, staring so hard at my empty contact list that my eyes watered from exhaustion. I needed sleep.
Everything is getting that hazy look around the edges to it … and I’m officially out of my medication, and the withdrawals will get worse before they get better …
I needed to unblock my sister and give her a call. Before I went home, I had to assess the situation and Hannah could be my gauge. But instead of unblocking her, I looked up Bonnie Brown on Facebook.
We weren’t friends—never had been—which made sense considering we were never friends in real life. If I can say one good thing about Bonnie: at least she’s honest. Besides that first day we met, she’s never bothered pretending that she likes me. It’s been blatantly obvious all along that she doesn’t.
Some of Bonnie’s profile pics and posts were public, and occasionally, I liked to see what she was up to—at least I used to, when Chris was still alive.
I hadn’t checked her page in a while, and honestly, I was scared to.
Her profile pic looked as it had for a while—a snapshot of her and Chris, their warm brown eyes and jet-black hair made them almost look like twins.
I sighed, staring at Chris’s face and neck … and his shoulders and chest. I wanted my husband back, and in one piece … he was so handsome in this photo, so solid and so alive …
I scrolled down to look at Bonnie’s page, my eyes instantly locking in on a public post at the very top of her profile. I stared at the words, my mouth falling open in horror.
My ex-daughter-in-law not only stole my dear son’s ashes (THE SON SHE KILLED!) but she also took my great-grandad’s water pot and stole a 9mm handgun from my room (a present from my DEAD SON!). Please keep an eye out for that crazy bitch. She is a danger to society! Call the police if you see her. CALL THE POLICE, PLEASE.
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***
“Thanks,” I said, accepting a sandwich and an extra-large Polar Pop from Lincoln.
“Turkey and cheese okay?”
“It’s fine,” I said, already stuffing a bite of it into my mouth. The gas-station sandwich was part soggy, part stale, but I was ravenous, eating so fast I could barely finish swallowing the final bite. I guzzled down the soda, feeling a jolt as the caffeine hit my bloodstream. My hands were shaking badly … caffeine wasn’t going to cut it. I need my pills. I need a drink.
Lincoln was watching me, his eyes creased with concern.
“Everything okay?”
If he asks me that one more time, I might snap his neck.
I nodded, taking another big gulp of soda. I set the pop on the floor by my feet. “Just eager to get home, I guess.” I imagined what my homecoming would be like—the local Oshkosh police, all two of them, snapping cuffs around my wrists.
I can’t go back there again.
Lincoln smiled that sorrowful half-smile, making me wonder why he cared so much that I was leaving …
The door to the garage swung open and a rough-looking man barreled through it, fingers tucked into thick loops on his stained-up carpenter jeans. He had a long white beard and too many tattoos to count. He introduced himself as Jimmy.
Maybe he has a local connection and can get me some Lortabs and Xanax, I considered, eyeing his biker tattoos.
“You’re ready to go,” he smiled, dangling out the keys to my truck like a gift. They were a gift; I never thought I’d be so grateful to have that rusty old truck back again, but I was.
I paid the painful price of 2700 dollars, wincing as I accepted the receipt. At this rate, I’d be broke in a couple weeks … but maybe I won’t need any money, considering I might be in jail soon.
I imagined the look of sheer satisfaction on Bonnie’s face as the doors to my jail cell slammed shut. I’d finally get what was coming to me—after all, that’s what they all want, right?
Maybe the weight of my mistakes is strapped to me, like a bowling ball to my chest, and they’re pulling me down down down all on their own, no choice left in the matter …
“Thanks again for being such a huge help,” I said to Lincoln as we stood next to my truck in the parking lot. “It’s been nice getting to know you. And … thank you for your service to our country. I never told you that, even though you told me you were army …”
I stuck out my hand, but Lincoln pushed it away and reached in for a hug.
There was static electricity between us, heat emanating from his chest and warming up mine. As I gripped him in a hug, I held on tight for a second, hands grazing over the bulging muscles in his shoulders and back. How long has it been since I touched a man?
“Will you call me sometime?” Lincoln asked, his expression adorably hopeful as we pulled apart.
“Definitely,” I promised, climbing into the truck and slamming the door. As much as I liked him, my thoughts were on my next move … and right now, that involved a trip to the liquor store on my way out of town.
I waved at Lincoln as I backed up, a feeling of guilt blooming from my chest and filling me up completely.
Lincoln represented a different option, a different route that I could have taken … but, at this point, there was no reason to drag him down with my ship of horrors.
Chapter 15
The drive back to The Rest EZ was sluggish and gray. My eyes were clouded with sleep, my mouth watering from withdrawal. My legs were achy, temples throbbing … pulsating strikes that vibrated the syllables of her name: Val-er-ie. Val-er-ie.
No matter how hard I try, I can’t shake her.
It was nearly evening, so I’d have to pay for another day at the motel. I still had to pack up my few meager belongings and figure out where to go next.
Inside the motel room, I stripped off my clothes and stepped into the cramped shower stall. It was barely big enough to bend over to shave in, but luckily, I’d left my razor at home. I’d gotten lazy when it came to showers—what is the point, after all? I’m not sleeping with anyone. No one touches my legs, or the rest of my body for that matter.
There was no one to gross out with my poor hygiene practices.
Well, there was Lincoln … but I’d probably never see him again.
I washed with the dry, generic motel soap, letting the hot water wash over my head in sudsy waves. There were tangles of slimy blonde hair pooling around the drain … Valerie’s? They must be. I tried to nudge them down the drain with my big toe, but as soon as one disappeared, I’d find another one, tickling the pads of my feet.
Oh, Valerie. Why won’t you get out of my head? And why do I care so much?
I closed my eyes, rubbing my hands over my breasts and stomach, trying to imagine what it must feel like to be her in the shower.
But my hands quickly found the grooves of scar tissue; nope, I’ll never know what it feels like to have smooth skin again, I thought, bitterly.
I tried to focus on scrubbing, the acrid bar of soap burning my eyes and skin as I rubbed too hard.
Like the hair in the drain, my mind kept circling back to Valerie.
The tiny bathroom was filling up with steam, and I found that I was too hot … and thirsty, even though I’d drunk a liter of soda with Lincoln at the garage.
I slipped as I climbed out of the shower, skinning my knee on the door. I opened my mouth to scream, but nothing came out, then I eased myself down onto the floor, clutching my red, raw wound.
That’s when I saw the blood. It was light, almost pink, swirling around the drain … dripping down the side of the tub. It took a moment for my brain to catch up … No way I’d bled that much; it was just a small abrasion …
I looked up—the blood was coming from overhead … drip drip drip. The black T-shirt Valerie had left behind, the one that was damp, hanging over the towel bar the first day … it had gotten wet again from my shower.
Creepy-crawlies tickled my scalp as I stepped onto the toilet lid and, cringing, lifted the shirt from the bar. I got back down and knelt beside the shower, holding the heavy wet shirt over the drain. I squeezed the thick cotton fabric, staring in horror as blood trickled down my wrists and spilled between my fingers …
Chapter 16
I’d calculated the distance between Paducah and Gatlinburg—it was less than four hundred miles away. Technically, I could make it to Tennessee faster than I could get back home.
Home. What a stupid word.
Oshkosh is not my home.
Besides my sister, I had no family there. My old “family”, the one I married into, wanted nothing to do with me. Now they were accusing me of not only stealing my husband’s ashes, but a priceless heirloom and a deadly weapon to boot.
Fuck Oshkosh.
It was one thing for the Browns to hate me—but the entire town?
I don’t want to go back to that tomb of an apartment. I thought about the shit-brown walls and the hypnotic hum of my refrigerator. The swishing sound of those fan blades above my bed … the loneliness that threatened to eat me alive, whether I was home or elsewhere …
I was wasting away in that dump. I can’t stay here, but I can’t go there either.
Something stirred in the pit of my stomach, and it wasn’t the scream this time. What was it … excitement, fear, determination?
Valerie Hutchens was perfect. But her life certainly wasn’t. She’d been hurt before she left town … by the same person who’d hurt her aunt? Did he kidnap her and take her to Tennessee?
I took my cell phone out and unblocked my sister’s number. Then I punched in the letters to spell the words, then entered in the number I’d known for half my life.
Me: I love you, Hannah. But I can’t come back. There’s nothing left for me there.
Taking a deep breath, I clicked send, then re-blocked her. Goodbye, Hannah.
My clothes were spread out around the room, lumpy landmines of sweat-stained tops and two-day-old underwear. I needed some new ones, or at the very least, a place to wash them clean.
“This time I won’t forget to pack you,” I said, scooping up the box of ashes. I buried the box deep in my bag, then turned around to look at the bed. Chris was under the covers, the sheets tucked all the way up to his chin. His mouth didn’t move, but his eyes followed me around the room as I finished packing.
I blinked once, twice, willing him to go away. I was tired and foggy from the lack of sleep and withdrawals, so much so that it was hard to tell if I were asleep or dreaming …
“I have to go,” I told him, zipping my bag shut tight. Chris’s pupils were large black pools, murky reservoirs of pain. He blinked but didn’t respond.
I was standing at the door, staring at his ghost, when my phone started ringing. After texting Hannah, I half-expected it to be her. But then I remembered: I’d blocked her.
I stared at the number on my screen. It was one I didn’t recognize—an 865-area code.
“Hello?” I answered, my own voice unfamiliar and strange.
My eyes were still on Chris, unmoving beneath the covers. He seemed to be listening.
“Camilla Brown?”
“Speaking …” I said, holding my breath.
“Listen, I only have a second … it’s me,” the woman said. “It’s Valerie.”
I would have recognized her voice anywhere.
“Are you okay?”
Valerie made a noise—a cross between a cry and a giggle.
“No, I’m not … he killed my aunt and now he’s going to kill me, too.”
“Who? Tell me where you are and I’ll call the police,” I said, gripping the phone so tightly my knuckles went white.
“You can’t. For some reason, they think I’m involved. Just come. I don’t know where I am exactly, but I’m in Gatlinburg. He’s working at a bar across from the Black Bear Inn, but he only leaves me for short periods of time … please come. I’ll call you again if I can.”
“Valerie! Describe to me where you are … I need to know more—”
But just like that, she was gone.
Chapter 17
I was stuffing my bag in the backseat of the truck when the door to room 12 swung open. After the weird Chris hallucination, I half-expected it to be him … chasing me like a phantom, trying to stop the inevitable.
But it was a lanky brunette with multi-colored eye shadow. She slunk out the door of room 12 and closed it behind her. She waltzed over to me, arms swinging carelessly at her sides. She was young, barely eighteen. The crooks of her arms were marked by her curse—deep track marks that looked as though they’d healed a few times, then been reopened.
“Bum a smoke?” she asked, smiling tightly back at me.
“Sure.” I tossed her the pack. “I’m kind of in a hurry here. Sorry.” I watched her light the cigarette, noting how skinny and pale she was.
“You been staying here long?” I asked, shoving the bag in the cramped backseat.
“Couple weeks, I guess.” She was pretty, in a haunted, Courtney Love sort of way.
She took a long drag, then blew a cloud of smoke in my face. She studied my scars, starting at the ones on my nose and following the hideous trail to my chin. “Why? Who wants to know?”
“Just me, I guess. I’m looking for a friend of mine. She was staying in room 14 several days ago. She left with a man … did you see her? I wondered if she mentioned where she might have been going next? Or if you noticed what she was driving …?”
Two long curls of smoke seeped from each of her nostrils, like a mad bull. She glanced over at the closed door to my room. I thought about Chris’s ghost on the other side, then shuddered.
The girl’s eyes lingered on the door for several seconds, thoughtful. She knows something, I realized with a start.
“What’s her name? I bet I do know who you’re talking ’bout.”
“Valerie,” I said, flatly. I checked my phone for more messages from Valerie. There were none. That terrified tremor in her voice raced through my mind. I need to get going.
“Blonde hair, real pretty?”
“Yep. That’s her.”
“Yeah. I borrowed some lipstick from her, actually. She seemed nice. Great clothes.”
“Did you see a guy hanging around outside her room? She said she thought someone was following her. Peeking in the windows, too.”
The young girl’s eyes never changed. If she was surprised by this, she didn’t show it. “It was probably Bruce, the manager. He’s a real perv. He’ll fuck anyone, and he’s always slinking around here at night. But yeah, there was a guy … I saw him once or twice.”
“Is this him?” I flipped my phone towards her and showed her the picture of the guy at the concert, holding my breath as she looked.
She nodded. “Yep. Sure is.”
Fear knocked around in my chest. What had caused the blood on Valerie’s T-shirt? Did he beat her up before taking her …?
“Do you know what kind of car she was driving? And him—what was he driving?”
“Uhhh … I never saw any other vehicles besides hers. She’s got a cute two-door Miata. I guess they left together wh
en they checked out, but I’m not real sure. Don’t you know what she drives? You said she was your friend …”
“I haven’t seen her in a while,” I said. “And I think that car is new,” I added the lie. “Did you hear anything over there … screaming or fighting?”
She shook her head and stamped the cig out with her Reebok shoe. For someone with a drug problem, she had some really nice shoes, I noticed.
***
The drive to Gatlinburg, Tennessee was better than the initial drive to Paducah. I was so tired I could barely see straight, having gone nearly forty-eight hours on less than two hours of sleep.
But the rise and fall of the rocky terrain and the beautiful mountain scenery, made it all worth it. I switched lanes to get around a sluggish VW beetle. I was going as fast as I possibly could, but somehow, it didn’t feel fast enough …
I approached a knot of cars idling in stand-still traffic. We inched forward, entering what looked like a cloud of smoke that clung to the ridges of the Smoky Mountains.
I could barely see the gray van in front of me, inching along and quickly slamming on my brakes as the taillights appeared by surprise like two round cat eyes. My pulse was quickening, memories of the bone-crunching smash of the backend of that semi’s trailer with the Buick invading my thoughts …
I wiped sleep from my eyes, fighting to keep them open as I chugged a Polar Pop mixed with soda and vodka. Drinking was a bad idea, but it was having a calming effect, which I so badly needed right now.
The broad white sign for Gatlinburg emerged from overhead and I scrunched up my neck, looking up to make sure it was real and not a mirage. Even though it was October, there were neon Christmas lights and what looked like Christmas trees on either side of the sign. I was seeing double; the tree lights were a smudgy smear in the distance.
Traffic was still thick, everyone trying to make it into the narrow strip of shops and restaurants that lined the main touristy center of town. A ski lift carrying couples, feet dangling wildly, clanked loudly overhead. I was mesmerized by all the walking bodies, on both sides of the strip and crossing the road … How will I ever find Valerie in this mess?
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