I’m not waiting to find out.
I move quickly, unlocking the Blauners’ back door, heading into their small backyard. If they are sitting at the table in their sunroom and see me through their windows, they will be confused, but not too confused. They certainly won’t be scared.
I have a key, so I can get their mail when they are away. I give them their mail and they give me a way out.
I walk through the backyard, keeping my head down. I don’t look up as I pass by their kitchen window or their living room doors. I don’t look up until I am in their front yard and out their front gate, walking quickly down Fraser, toward the ocean, toward Barnard Way. My backpack tight on my back.
When I get to Barnard Way—the ocean just beyond it, the ocean and the beach—I start to run.
I run past Hart Avenue and Wadsworth, and circle down toward the beach, early morning joggers and dogwalkers and pedestrians dotting the way. Most don’t seem to care or notice that I’m running so fast—though a few do a double take. A few turn and watch as I pick up speed.
I ignore them. I ignore everything until I get to the small hotel by the water, Shutters on the Beach, a bevy of taxis always out front. It’s a lovely hotel—plush and storied, but unobtrusive—that looks like it belongs in Martha’s Vineyard as opposed to so close to the Santa Monica Pier with its Ferris wheel, its gritty boardwalk.
I slow my gait and nod at the doormen as I hop into the first taxi in line and tell the driver where I’m going.
I ask him to take Appian Way, for as long as it will let him take it, to get to the closest ramp down to the PCH. I ask him to avoid Ocean Avenue and Main Street.
Then I text Bailey,Late drink?
And I turn around, look out the back window. No white pickup truck, SoCalGas logo or not.
I have a paper clip in my backpack. I pull it out and dislodge the SIM card, pull it free from my phone.
I open the window. And I throw the SIM card out onto the street. Some car, perhaps one of the taxis with their engines purring behind us, will soon run it over. I won’t be there to see it happen.
I shut the window and turn back to the driver.
“Please go,” I say. “We need to move now.”
Bailey’s Gonna Get There
You always have a moment to take three breaths.
This was the first thing that Hannah told her. When she started preparing Bailey for this moment, this moment they hoped wouldn’t be happening, Hannah said to make sure that Bailey stopped and took three breaths.You have time, she said. Inhale for four, hold it, exhale for eight.
If you do this first, Hannah said,everything you have to do next will be easier.
They had, in fact, done run-throughs to get ready for this. Bailey didn’t even fight Hannah on the run-throughs because there was no fighting Hannah on this. On being prepared, on doing things that would keep Bailey safe.
Something happens when you have a mother who never asks you what to do. Who instead has the answers for you. You believe her that she knows.
This is probably why it’s almost as if Hannah is standing in front of Bailey now, reminding her why she’s ready for this, reminding her exactly how to get herself where she needs to go: Bailey lives in a secure building. And Justin is somewhere outside, even if Bailey doesn’t know where exactly outside.
Justin is good at staying close while keeping his distance. If Bailey is going somewhere at night—a restaurant with friends, or a bar—he stays in his car outside. In case, quickly, she needs him.
That is the first thing she is supposed to do, call Justin. The second is to not wait when he doesn’t answer.
Bailey looks down at Hannah’s text.Late drink?
This is what they’d arranged for Hannah to text, at any time of day or night, so Bailey knows the status quo has changed.
Bailey is already moving when the text comes in. She’s been moving since Charlie’s phone call. She has been trying not to ask herself: What changed? Her first thought, her biggest fear: Does it involve her father? And what did Charlie not want to say about Nicholas? What was Charlie not willing to say about him over the phone?
Nothing’s okay.
Bailey fills the kitchen sink with soapy water, drops her cell phone inside. Then she heads to her front door, leaving the apartment empty-handed. She is empty-handed except for what she grabs from the stack of keys on the wall by the front door. Two keys, each one on its own key chain: one blue and one red, both of which she pops in her back pocket, heading into the hallway.
She walks past the elevator and moves quickly to the fire exit and the staircase beyond the door. She hurries down the two flights to the super’s apartment. Her building’s super.
