“Not the Plaza, but it’ll be good enough, I think.”
Brody struggles a little to climb over the bucket seats, but he manages to crawl to the makeshift mattress.
I ball up one of the extra shirts from his bag. “Here. An emergency pillow.”
“Thanks.” He lies on his back, stretching his left leg out with a soft grunt, and folds his hands over his chest.
I settle down beside him.
We’re quiet, but thanks to the constant thrum of the rain, the air feels less awkward than earlier.
Once a few minutes of peaceful silence slip by, I point to the van’s ceiling. “Look. The Big Dipper.”
Brody’s deep, hearty laugh pools low in my belly and stays there. “What the hell are you talking about? Did you steal a stash of the good stuff from the hospital?”
I can’t stop the smile on my face. “I’ve just got a big imagination. You know me.”
A pause. “I’m not so sure I do.”
I guess that’s fair.
The space grows quiet again, leaving room for the thunder and lightning show to take center stage. After another round of their antics, with our arms grazing each other and our eyes safely and firmly planted on the ceiling of the stolen minivan, the urge to spill everything weighs on my tongue.
Maybe it’s the storm, or maybe it’s the thread from last night connecting my soul to his. Whatever the reason, when I open my mouth, my confession tumbles out.
“In seventh grade, I was walking home from school with my best friend, Angelica. A van pulled up in front of us, and the two men who jumped out…they snatched her. Middle of the afternoon. They tossed her into the back of their vehicle and took off. Then they killed her.”
The tension raises the hair on my arms, tingling across my skin like an electric eel.
Brody shifts in the shadows beside me, his arm pressing into mine. “Holy hell, Trinity.”
“Ange had red curls too.” I tug on a wave, pulling the strands taut before I let go. “Her hair was darker than mine, but close enough. Similar eye color too. We used to pretend we were sisters.”
“They meant to take you,” Brody growls.
I nod and trust that he can sense the gesture in his periphery, despite the darkness blanketing us. “Yes.”
“Compiling a list of your family’s dirty deeds was the starting point to finding who took your friend.”
His quick understanding releases years of pain and guilt from my chest.
“The police came up empty, and it felt like my family moved on so quickly. I, however, couldn’t let it go. I thought maybe if I tracked everything down, connected all the dots, that would lead me to Ange’s killers.” My chest starts to ache. “But I haven’t found anything yet.”
“I’m guessing everything you did find only circled back to your family. Or mine.”
I swallow the thick lump in my throat. “That hard drive is essentially a Jenga tower. Tug on any one of the pieces in there the wrong way, and you could collapse the whole organization.”
Brody angles his head toward me. “It wasn’t your fault. What happened to Angelica. It wasn’t your fault.”
His conviction carves the breath straight from my lungs.
I’ve always known, logically, that I couldn’t have prevented Angelica’s kidnapping or death. That I was just a kid.
No one’s ever said so or reassured me as much, though. No one’s ever thought to let me off the hook for what happened to my best friend.
No one except for Brody, immediately after hearing the story.
I’m not sure why or how, but this man who I’ve known for such a short period of time reached into my psyche, grabbed onto the knife buried in my chest for a decade, and ripped the blade out like it was only a splinter.
