My palm is clammy as I reach out and take the end of the weapon, lifting it so it’s not pointed anywhere near either of us. Tugging when she doesn’t show any resistance.
I put my arm around her shoulder, half hugging her while I take the offending item out of her possession. There’s a slight tremor in her but compared to the shakes of earlier, she’s solid.
“Why do you have a gun?”
“For protection.” The automatic answer trips off my lips but I can’t pretend the damage isn’t already done. I can see her mind working behind her eyes, calculating how much easier it would be to end things with a bang, rather than going to all the trouble of organising rope and a tree.
“Please don’t think about it,” I beg, not one hundred percent sure myself what I’m asking of her.
Don’t think about firing a bullet through the brain of the man who’s tormented her for years? I’m all for that. Think about it all you want. In fact, I’m so in favour that I’d happily be the one to pull the trigger.
But the other thoughts? I curse myself to letting them anywhere near her, for allowing them access inside her head.
I replace it in the bathroom cabinet, folded inside a towel, the short-term hiding place that I should have upgraded the moment I had the chance but which I forgot about, lost in anger at her revelations, lost in love at her touch, the movement of her body.
“Are there bullets?”
“Not loaded in it, no.”
She stares at me with such confusion that I almost divulge the hiding place for them, too. Then I shake my head and close the bathroom door.
I try to move past it, talking mindlessly about anything that occurs to me until she detaches from the subject but as the hours clock down until nighttime, I can see the shadow of the gun lingering in her mind. The blankness as she spirals inwards, the cautious glances toward the bathroom.
When she next goes in there, I clear my throat as she tries to close the door. “Maybe leave it open, yeah?”
She nods and there’s no trace of annoyance so maybe I was wrong, maybe she wasn’t going to poke around in the cabinet under the sink again.
Maybe she doesn’t care because she knows another opportunity will soon come along.
My libido has had enough of the ups and downs and goes into hiding until somebody tells him otherwise. Even when we’re tired enough to go to bed, something that is a slight worry considering how many naps Em has taken throughout the day, I fall asleep with her in my arms—not trying to start anything further.
I wake in the night and have a moment of downright panic when I can’t immediately locate her. Then I hear the pad of her feet in the kitchenette and soon she slides back between the sheets.
A glass of water. Nothing to worry about. No reason for my heart to thump at least a hundred and fifty beats a minute. For my breath to catch in my throat. For my palms to turn clammy.
In the morning, I decide I can’t leave her alone with the gun. Even unloaded.
I also can’t travel with it. The thought of being pulled over and getting busted for an illegal weapon after some bullshit traffic stop sends my mind racing.
My thoughts tangle in each other until I can’t get them clear. Static descends, whispers catching at the corners of my hearing that fall silent when I turn their way.
By midmorning, well past the time I thought I’d have left to collect all the things I need, I’m still lost in thought.
“What’s happening with the clothing situation?” Em asks, dragging me abruptly from my latest reverie. “If you drop me at my place, I’ll grab—”
“You’re not leaving here,” I assure her. By now, Wilbur must know she’s not where she’s meant to be. If he’s anything like me—and I’m uncomfortably aware of areas where we overlap—then he’ll have tabs on her car. He’ll know it’s sitting in a public carpark high above the city. He’ll know its owner isn’t where she should be.
He might even have found the traces I left behind when I was in a panic.
I can’t remember what they are—most of the event is wiped from my memory—but at a guess, there’ll be a cut rope, signs of a struggle. My car might have torn through the gravel in the lot when I took off well above the speed limit.
Ideally, I’d revisit the area today to get a firmer picture of what he might already have seen and what could be deducted from it.
But today is far from ideal. The less time I spend separated from Em, the better.
“Give me a list,” I tell her, handing her my phone and postponing my excursion by another few minutes. “If I can’t pick them up from your place—”
She frowns and holds up her hand. “Why wouldn’t you be able to?”
