“We weren’t people to him. We were demons or zombies, evil creatures he needed to rid from the world.” This is the narrative that comes together now that I have found Wade Austin, the tall man. Now that I have my answer. Clay Lucas did come to that store to kill. And he would have killed Wade had I not stopped him. I am set free, lost in the euphoria.
We talk about who’s to blame. And who should be punished. Clay Lucas was dead, but he wasn’t the only one responsible. The dealers under the bridge. The medical system that failed him. The conversation weaves and spins around crime and criminals. He tells me he found my course materials online when he was trying to learn more about me. He tells me how clever it was, thinking about evidence like a criminal planning a crime. “Why did you stop teaching?” He asks questions that dig deeper into my life, but they feel natural as the conversation progresses. Or maybe I’m just high as a fucking kite from what he’s given me.
I talk about my children, and he asks how old they are, and then about my husband and is he a cop, and then how long have we been married, and he almost got married but had his heart broken, and I tell him I’m sorry, and we talk about how hard life can be. Relationships. Marriage. And then the alarm bells return, and I start to sober up. He senses this the second it begins and returns to the reason I’m standing here with him in the first place.
“I can’t believe you doubted yourself,” he says as we wind our way back to the shooting. “I feel terrible. My God, what you’ve been living with.” He shakes his head with sincerity.
“You couldn’t have known.”
Silence creeps in. It’s subtle, the shift, and I sense he has more places to lead us, but this has been enough for one day. I am spent. This degree of emotional outpouring can’t be sustained for long.
“Well,” I say, moving away from the side of his truck. “Thank you for this. All of it. I would have carried this with me forever. It will help close the case if you could come in tomorrow—give a formal statement.”
He mirrors my actions, standing now, taking a step closer. “No—thank you. For saving my life.” He leans toward me and kisses my cheek. And then he says, “With gratitude to a true hero.”
I gasp in a breath and freeze.
I know these words. They are the exact words from the first bouquet of flowers that appeared on my doorstep. Then came more flowers and gifts, every day since the shooting. I didn’t read the other notes. I didn’t open the gifts. I wonder, but then he tells me.
“They were from me. I didn’t sign my name because you wouldn’t know who Wade Austin was. But I knew you would understand, you would know who’d sent them.”
I can’t speak now. I try to hold a steady expression—one that won’t alarm him. My head spins. I don’t know what this is, but it’s not what I thought. Suddenly, I’m that girl who went home with a guy she met at a party. That kid who took a ride from a stranger.
I have to get out of here.
“I should go,” I tell him. “I have to be home for my girls.”
I turn and walk back toward my car. Wade follows. He stops me just as I get to the driver’s side. “When can I see you again, Elise?” he asks. He grabs me by both arms, his strong hands closing around them, holding me against the car.
The fear isfull-onnow. I try to think, to focus through the panic that surges. “Come to the station tomorrow. I’ll be there.”
He looks surprised, then disappointed, then something else—angry, perhaps. “So you are working the case. You lied before...”
“No—I didn’t lie. Tomorrow is my first day. I’ve been on leave...”
His eyes narrow, and his mouth gapes open, like he’s just made a disturbing discovery. “You know what happened—don’t you?” he asks. “You’ve been pretending this whole time.”
I try to relax my face, my body. “Wade,” I say with a smile. “I don’t know anything except what you’ve told me just now. I haven’t been working the case.”
He takes a moment to study me, and he knows I’m scared. He’s good at this. Reading people.
“What have they said about me?” he asks.
Now I study him, but I have no idea what’s happening. “Who?”
“The others.”
“No one’s told me anything about you. I’ve been on leave. No one even knows who you are.”
“You’re a liar.” His hands dig into my flesh. He waits for an answer to a question I don’t understand.
My heart is in my throat as I pull out more words. “I promise—no one has said anything... Let’s talk more tomorrow. I really need to meet the school bus.”
He’s turned on a dime. Some delusion he had about me has left him. He can sense my apprehension, my fear, and he doesn’t like it.
Fuck.What have I done?
This is how people get themselves killed.
