Chapter 13 – Janelle
Chapter Thirteen
Janelle
After our taco lunch – which wasn’t a date – Zebulon falls suspiciously quiet.
I shouldn’t read into it, but I can’t help wondering if I said something to offend him, or if he’s changing his mind about helping me out of this pickle.
He hasn’t put his hands on me or done anything remotely romantic in days, and I’m in two minds over it.
I’m about to go over the edge since I can’t read his mind, and he offers up no words that I can cling to for clarity.
He sets a time for us to leave for our next ride and has so far been watching TV the entire time until we have to leave without telling me a word – or regulating my phone usage. I text Rana.
Janelle: I’m on Route 66 with Trigger.
I figure using the club name he told me – not just the shortened version of his name on his jacket – is safer in case my phone gets picked up by the cops.
Honestly, I don’t even know if that line of thinking makes sense.
I’m not a natural born criminal and frankly, I never got into True Crime, so I don’t have any techniques or tactics to get away with murder stored in the back of my brain.
I do have a friend working as a defense attorney, but that doesn’t feel like the smartest person to confess a crime to.
Rana: OMG! Did you guys ?!
Is she asking if we bombed a bed together?! Wait… It’s probably not that.
Janelle: No.
Rana: Woah, he must really like you.
Is that how it works? Men will pretty much hop on the chance to sleep with anyone, and I’m pretty sure the condition only worsens when they have a real reason to like a woman.
If he liked me, he wouldn’t have been able to spend all these nights in a hotel room without even one second of inappropriate touching.
Am I totally wrong about relationships?
Janelle: Or he’s going to sell me to a drug lord in Mexico…
Rana: I hope not!
I feel like I should say something after this, but I don’t know what to text. Waiting appears to be a mistake. Rana calls and my phone isn't silent, so the ringing grabs Zeb’s attention immediately.
“Who is it?” he asks.
“Rana.”
He relaxes visibly, but still presses me. “Who’s that?”
“A friend of mine from Boston.”
“How much does she know?”
The phone stops ringing. For a millisecond, I wonder if I’m off the hook. Zeb clears his throat, reminding me that I am very much not off the hook. Zeb won’t take his eyes off of me.
“Just that I left town.”
My phone rings again, so I’m even less off the hook than before. Zeb purses his lips.
“You should take that call.”
“Won’t that put our location at risk?”
Zeb purses his lips and seems very annoyed with me.
“Take the call outside. I’ll give you ten minutes before I come out there.”
“You’re not scared I’m going to run?”
Rana calls for a third time and I worry that her next move will be calling the cops if I don’t pick up.
I can’t stand around arguing with Zeb any longer.
He hands me a key to the motel room and I slip outside, answering the phone call in the hallway and pointing the camera up towards the ceiling while I haul my buttcheeks outside.
“Hello? Hello?” Rana asks with a panic. “I can’t see you. I need visual confirmation that this biker didn’t slice you up like a cucumber.”
I tilt the camera so she can see my face and the plain brown wall behind me. Rana wrinkles her nose up. She’s at the desk in her home office, I recognize the background. I’m silently relieved that she’s not at a police station. Zeb’s right about how paranoid I am.
“Where are you?”
I hate being that person who keeps things from my friends, but considering Rana’s career, it’s not responsible to implicate her.
She knows that I’m the kind of person to keep my business to myself, so I keep my response short and try to let her know with my tone that I’m really not in any type of harm’s way.
“Far out West.”
My tone does very little to assuage Rana’s concern.
Zeb said that I had ten minutes, so I hope it doesn’t take any longer to calm her down.
I feel more scared than in love, and considering Rana’s job hinges on her ability to read people, my nerves are through the roof.
Her intuition crawls around the edges of my statement, searching for cracks.
“Janelle, do I need to worry about you? Is this guy a kidnapper or something? Are you being held against your will?”
“No,” I answer honestly. “We just… clicked. I know it’s out of character but after Rakeem, I just want to feel free.”
The words slip out of my mouth and they don’t even feel like some bullshit story I’m telling myself to make myself feel better. That urge to disappear from my life after Rakeem’s revelation and that stupidly embarrassing barbershop fight has grown with each passing day.
While I wouldn’t have chosen these circumstances specifically to practice some light escapism, I have to imagine there’s a reason I called Zeb. And it wasn’t just the bathroom kiss.
“He’s not holding you at gunpoint?” Rana confirms.
Now that I know she’s not at the police station, I pan my phone camera around to show her the empty highway behind me and the most boring parts of the hotel exterior.
I still try my best not to show her the motel name, more for her safety than mine.
I don’t want her caught up as an accomplice and while Zeb assures me that my crime won’t catch up to me…
I’m not so sure. If I’m not careful, Rana might be able to piece together exactly where I am, but judging by Zeb’s attitude, we won’t be around here for long.
“Fine. You seem to be safe,” Rana says, relaxing in her office chair and folding her arms over her chest with some lingering suspicions. “I was starting to worry.”
“I know I’m being weird but… Zeb and I are just… looking for the same things.”
“Will you call if you need anything?”
“Like what, a defense attorney?”
“Why? Did you do something?”
“No. Just joking.”
“Duh!” Rana says, laughing. “Janelle, what crime could you even commit? You are like… way more of a good girl than I am. Except for the hot biker you’re hooking up with.”
“We haven’t hooked up.”
“What?!” Rana’s high-pitched scream almost deafens me instantly. We probably only have five minutes left on this phone call before Zeb comes out to hunt me down. “I thought you were lying to me about that.”
“I’m not.”
“Well… don’t wait too long.”
“Or what?”
“I don’t know. You won’t get to”— VRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!
I can’t hear a word she says. I didn’t hear the engine noises getting closer, but now they’re close enough that I can’t ignore the background noise rapidly entering the foreground.
A loud motorcycle engine erupts to life seemingly out of nowhere as a large bike comes skidding down the highway exit followed by three more louder bikes that stop in front of the parking lot exit.
“What?” I ask Rana, hoping to get her to repeat her statement. My eyes can’t move away from the bikers though, and even Rana looks worried now.
“Are you good?” Rana asks, concern coloring her face. I’m shocked she hasn’t asked me to turn my location on, because I wouldn’t really have a good excuse.
“Yeah. Some guys just got here…” I mutter, trying to sound more cool than I feel. I guess these guys could be friends of Zeb’s. It’s a motorcycle club, right?
“Friends of your new boyfriend?” Rana asks, making me feel more comfortable in my intuitive guess. Still, I can’t focus on her face on my screen.
“Maybe…”
“Listen, call me later, okay? I’ll let you go.”
Rana blows me a kiss and hangs up. I get up to enter the motel again, shoving my phone in my back pocket. I press my hotel key card up against the closest side entrance, but stop dead when I feel fingers curling around my forearm, and gripping me in place.
“Hey, can I ask you something?”
I whip around, yanking my arm away from the man who grabbed me instantly, but when I turn to face him, I know that I’m totally screwed.