She must have paid him handsomely to deliver this to my door in the middle of the night. I suppose I’m thankful he didn’t tell her my room number. I should have reported her at the train station. What if she’s not working alone? I do have Hardwin’s serviceable restraining order, which has remained untouched.
My breath sticks in my throat. I’m playing right into her hands by living in fear.
Striding to the door, I snatch the envelope from the carpet and then bang once on the still-locked door. “You can go now. No more deliveries.”
I don’t consider my options. I pinch the clasp of the envelope and glare into the yawning opening. Inside is a single item that looks like another picture. I slide it out.
This one leaves no doubt.
Lucas and I sit at the booth in the Rotterdam Room. His arm drapes the back of the corner booth. My hand grasps the stem of my wineglass while my face tilts toward him. My cheeks are flushed, and my mouth is slightly open as if I’ve been caught midlaugh. Lucas is looking toward the ceiling, a huge grin on his handsome face.
A sticky heat crawls up my back. I remember this moment. As my hand trembles, the picture begins to blur. This had to be our third time together. He’d been letting me understand him and had just finished telling me a story about a time when his little brotherpunched him in the face. When Lucas was in middle school, his mom would blow a whistle on summer nights when it was time to come home. His younger brother was still in grade school, so his whistle came much earlier.
One night, the neighborhood kids planned to play manhunt. He explained the game was like hide and seek in reverse: each person who is found joins the seekers. This had been Lucas’s favorite game. But the previous week, he’d gotten in trouble for moving some boards under a neighbor’s shed to find the perfect hiding spot. So, before they started the game, they’d reassessed the boundaries based on who was playing and whose mom would kill them if they traipsed through a flower bed or woke a baby. Just as they chose the seeker, the first whistle blew.
Lucas hadn’t noticed his little brother was even in the group of kids waiting to play until his head recoiled and he heard the slam of skin against skin. Pain exploded under his eye. Through wet eyes, he saw someone hopping and howling like their spaniel after the trash truck. Lucas was ready to punch back until laughter overtook him. His scrawny little brother had injured his knuckles on Lucas’s face.
All the little guy had wanted to do was play the game, and his older brother, his rock star, had taken too long organizing it.
At first it seemed a bitter story to me, and I told Lucas so. But Lucas chuckled and said, “I love the memory because I saw the kind of man my brother would be.”
“Violent?” I asked.
“No. No. Passionate and brave. He’d learn to control the impulse, but he’d been a tagalong before then. That night, I saw him as someone I wanted to stay out with me until the second whistle.” Lucas was almost snorting with laughter at this point.
“Because he punched you in the face?” I started to laugh because I couldn’t help it.
“Yeah, because he stood up to the absurd. We were a bunch of ninnies wagging on about rules and not playing.” Lucas threw back his head, and it must have been at this point that the picture was taken.
I flick the snapshot over. Scrawled in blue ink are the wordsYou have until Friday.
Shaking my head, I speak to the silent room, “Oh, Betsey, you don’t even know who you’re threatening with these pictures.”
26
WEDNESDAY
I can’t move my arms. My panting resembles early labor. Like I did then, I focus on the filling and emptying of my lungs. My left bicep roars as I try to unpin it from my side. I’ve overdone both arms, but an old tendon tear really punishes me. The hotel gym has some of the best cable and rowing machines in Midtown, at least according to me, someone who hasn’t done anything athletic in ages but used to know my way around a gym. I started working out in high school when what was known about coping with anxiety was limited to peer-reviewed articles in medical journals. I worked out my emotions on the weight machines. The more I hurt, the less I felt.
Based on my crazy schedule and believing in the importance of strength and flexibility, I turned to early morning Pilates a couple of years ago. I haven’t darkened the doors of any gym in ages. Last night, moving my body against the stacks and pulleys helped work off thestress of Betsey’s latest communication. But right now, my desperate need for sanity has created a liability against clean hair.
I tuck my chin into my neck and round my back. While whimpering, I slap shampoo through my sopping strands. The cleansing of my hair and body takes all my concentration and for that, I’m grateful.
Minutes later, I step out of the shower and into the foggy bathroom. I stand in front of the opaque mirror, unwilling to wipe it. I imagine the dark circles under my eyes, more like bruises than simply lack of sleep.
Keeping my elbows bent, I tuck the corner of the towel under my arm as I stand dripping on the white tiled floor. My right arm is not nearly as bad as my left, but I loathe the idea of holding a hair dryer. Instead, I bend at the waist, haphazardly wrap and shove another towel around my head, and then shuffle into the bedroom. I settle into the smattering of pillows against the cream upholstered headboard. The other side of the king-size bed is strewn with papers, my laptop, and notebook. After the gym, I probably got an hour of sleep in between the research and the worry. My mother always taught me that worry was for those who lacked the discipline to see the problem through. It wasn’t until Clint that I gave voice to my fears and was offered the grace to sometimes worry. Last night I let the confusion and anxiety win. I have to start fighting back.
I fight with information.
When I slide my laptop onto my crossed knees, the battery icon shines red. I should get up and plug in the beast, but the thought of moving is too painful. My computer has been without power all night, and I likely have another forty-five minutes before it shuts off. I ought not wager my typing speed against the battery’s draining life, but the urgency is motivating. It’s time to bring in some reinforcements, or better yet, go on offense.
This tangled mess with the legitimacy of the data, Betsey’s Friday deadline, and the pictures with Lucas demand I know who can be trusted.
Desperation claws at me as I open a blank email message, compose my thoughts, and begin to write.
[DRAFT]
From: Meredith Hansel (Meredith.Hansel@?garmanstraub.com)
