how careful I am, how guarded, I will always be one mistake away from discovery.
I dry my hands and slip back to the party, picking up a new tray on my way. I give Kelly a nod and plaster a smile on my face. Around me, conversation swirls, and I’m back to being invisible again. But my ears catch on the name Claire several times over the evening, and even though I know they’re not talking to me, I still flinch. By the end of the evening, I’m battered and jittery, ready to leap into Eva’s car and go.
* * *
On the ride back to Eva’s, I give in to the exhaustion, the flush of adrenaline still seeping out of me. The wad of bills Tom gave me pokes a sharp corner through my pocket. Two hundred dollars, which brings my savings up to nearly eight hundred dollars. With the help of Eva’s car and her debit card, that can carry me a long way from here.
“You ready to go?” Kelly says, breaking the silence. We’re only a few blocks from Eva’s, one light and a couple stop signs between now and goodbye.
“Yeah,” I say.
She passes me a scrap of paper. “My number. Call me if you need anything. If you’re comfortable doing so, let me know where you land.”
“I will,” I say as she pulls up to the house and stops.
She gives me a sad smile. “You won’t. But that’s okay.”
I hesitate before reaching across to give her a tight hug. “Thank you for being my friend. For helping me.”
She looks into my eyes and holds my gaze, her brown ones steady on mine. “You’re welcome.”
* * *
Inside, I go upstairs, needing a shower to wake me up for the long drive ahead. I let the steam fill me up, remembering the last time I prepared to leave a place, gearing myself up for a very different kind of departure. I emerge and dress quickly, tidying up the bedroom as best I can, making sure whatever or whoever Eva was running from won’t find a trace of me when they finally show up. I hesitate in front of Eva’s dresser, the note I’d found still tucked into the mirror. Everything you ever wanted is on the other side of fear. I have no way of knowing what this meant to Eva, or why she might have thrown it away. But I feel the need to take something of her with me. Not the legal paperwork that outlines the space she filled in the world, not the clothes she wore, but something from her heart. I slip it out of the mirror and tuck it into my pocket.
I enter her office, picking up the stack of papers I’d collected and sliding them into my purse. I check the Doc, the time stamp at the top showing no activity since that morning’s exchange. What a waste of time this has been, a useless distraction. Rory and Bruce are almost never apart. Anything they have to say to each other can be whispered across a quiet room. Whatever Charlie Flanagan knows about the weekend Maggie died…it doesn’t have anything to do with me.
I want to let go. Disconnect. But a tiny voice inside my head warns me that this isn’t over. That with the video out there and the search and recovery still active, I need to use every resource available until I’m certain the danger has passed.
“And when will that be?” I say into the empty room. I wait, as if I might get an answer. With a sigh, I close my computer and slide it into my bag, then click the light off, plunging the room into darkness, trying not to think about how flimsy my plan feels. Paper-thin and already ripping along the edges.
Downstairs, I set my bag by the couch and go into the kitchen to put away the last of the dishes I’d washed that afternoon. Inside the refrigerator, a lone can of Diet Coke sits on the top shelf, and I grab it, popping it open, eager to get as much caffeine into me as I can.
The window over the sink is a black square, reflecting the room back at me, so I tug the curtains closed and take a long swallow, the bubbles reigniting my energy. Behind me, Eva’s phone buzzes with a call.
I pick it up, the screen flashing Private Number. That woman again. Still worried. Still hoping Eva will call her. I wonder