Chapter Fifty-One
Fifty-One
In some ways, I was back to square one. It wasn’t Natalie. I had no idea who Wesley was. It’s not like her journal had included a scan of his passport. She never even described any physical attributes I could use.
I threw the journal down on the passenger seat.
I grabbed my phone and searched some combinations of Wesley Reporter, Wesley Editor, et cetera, but I knew it was about as likely he was a proctologist as actually some kind of journalist.
I tried Wesley alias and Wesley criminal record, but nothing. I looked at a lot of local Wesleys on social media but didn’t find anything constructive.
I knew my best shot was probably the house. Can you rent anonymously? Or under an alias? Maybe not technically, but it wasn’t like this guy hadn’t gone to great lengths on everything else.
I should have been going full Nancy Drew, but I’d just lain in the blood of my only childhood friend and pulled an all-nighter and the sun was barely up.
I couldn’t have one of those montages where I combed through microfiche at the library or pulled liquor store security camera footage.
Nothing was open yet and I didn’t want to be alone.
I started my car.
- - - - -
I punched the entrance code into the panel—the code she hadn’t hesitated to give me. I pushed the square elevator button, 1-2-3-4-5, imploring it to turn green. It was too slow. I gave up, flinging open the door to the stairwell and running up to the third floor.
I banged on her door until it opened.
“Hi.” Elyse stood before me in tiny flannel shorts and a crewneck sweatshirt that hung off her shoulder.
I lunged past her into the apartment. “She’s dead,” I blurted out, no compassion for clearly having woken her up.
Elyse approached me, extending her arms, not to touch me but more like to wrangle in my chaotic energy. When I stopped moving she glanced below my neck, the triangle of my blood-splattered shirt showing above the jacket zipper. She reached slowly toward the zipper and I let her yank it down.
My shirt was undeniably bloody and she inhaled before speaking. “What hap—”
“I found her,” I said, “but she was dead.”
“Who?”
“Nat— Marin Haggerty is dead!” I shouted. “Did you have something to do with this?”
Elyse’s eyes grew and then she took a step back. “What? What happened? I didn’t have anything to do with it.” She was disgusted by the accusation, as if she hadn’t been saying it for weeks.
I explained what had happened as best I could.
It made sense to her that someone had killed Natalie, given Elyse thought she was Marin and someone was out doing kills for Abel’s attention.
There was so much I wanted to say, but I didn’t want to push my luck with Elyse.
I wasn’t confident that I was coherent enough to juggle all the secrets and lies, and if I let the wrong details slip, it could ruin everything.
Or at least the little bit I had left that wasn’t already ruined.
She brought the conversation to an end when she looked me square in the face and said, “I’m sorry I involved you, but I’m glad Marin Haggerty is dead.”
She gave me, Gwen, a fresh towel and a set of clothes to change into. I took a shower while she made me a breakfast cocktail that would help me relax. She took excellent care of Gwen, relieved Marin was dead.
Elyse’s all-white bedding was so clean and sterile it reminded me of my bed at the facility, only hers was much more comfortable—significantly higher thread count, pillow top, an actual box spring.
Crawling under the covers, fresh from the shower, swimming in an oversized sweatshirt of hers, it was almost like I could relax for a minute.
She climbed onto the other side of the bed, staying on top of the blankets, allowing me the privacy of being alone underneath. There were a million things we should talk about, but I wanted to enjoy this break as long as I could. I wanted to pretend I was Gwen Tanner.
“Why did you call me so many times last night?” I asked.
“Oh.” She sighed. “Jake and I were fighting.”
“Why?” I rolled onto my side, tucking part of the blanket under my cheek.
“We’ve just been fighting a lot. All the time, really.
We both pick stupid arguments over nothing.
We have very different ideas of the future and he struggles with how the past affects me.
” Her voice cut out, her breath shaky. I was reminded again what I had taken from her—how horrible her past was.
“Tell me about your family,” I said.
“It’s okay,” she said, trying to hide that she was upset.
“Really,” I insisted. “I’d rather listen than talk right now.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Whatever you want to tell me.”
She thought about it. “I don’t remember that much. I was so young. I guess I should be grateful for that.”
I didn’t respond. She was grasping for a way out of the conversation, but I wanted to hear more. I wanted to know what kind of family I had destroyed.
“My parents weren’t really the lovey-dovey type.
I think they were tired. The three of us were a lot, me and my brothers.
” She picked at her fingernails. “I miss Blake the most,” she continued.
“He was the nicest to me. He was nerdy; puberty was hitting him hard. He didn’t have a lot of friends, so he was one of the only people who enjoyed my company. ”
“What about your other brother?” I asked. I wanted to know what she thought of that little shit. Maybe there was room for forgiveness if she didn’t like him either.
“Cody was tougher. We were too close in age. He was big for ten, kind of a bully. Blake and I naturally got along better. But Cody could be sweet sometimes. If no one was looking.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. I was sorry her family was brutally murdered, and I was sorry I was the reason why.
- - - - -
At some point after that, I fell asleep. I don’t know how. I must have been so exhausted. I must have felt safe enough to close my eyes. Elyse might have put something more in that drink, but I wasn’t complaining.
When I woke up, I was disoriented and it took me a minute to remember where I was.
I was in Elyse’s bed and I was alone. It was much brighter outside than when I’d arrived.
There was no sign of her. I reached over to the nightstand where my phone was and saw a text from her saying she had to go to work but didn’t want to wake me.
No one else had texted. I shot off a round of messages that seemed routine by now.
A few to Porter.
Me: Where are you?
Me: Please text me back ASAP.
Me: Or call.
And then Dominic. I’d asked him to lay low, but given what had transpired since, this was too low.
Me: I really need to talk to you.
Me: I’m worried.
Me: Please
I slipped out of bed and went in search of something I could wear home.
I found yoga pants and kept the sweatshirt that I didn’t think she would mind me borrowing.
In her closet, I found a pair of flip-flops.
They were too small and my heels hung off the back, but at least they weren’t covered in blood.
I grabbed the trash bag of bloody clothes and left.
- - - - -
I added the hooded sweatshirt and knife to the trash bag and flung it into a fly-ridden restaurant dumpster, hoping there was no reason for anyone to go looking there.
I stopped to buy cleaning products with cash, two towns away from the secluded spot I found where I could park and scrub my car clean.
When I ran out of evidence to conceal, I headed home.
It didn’t feel right going back to my apartment, but I had nowhere else to go.
It was Gwen Tanner’s apartment and I wasn’t feeling very Gwen Tanner at the moment.
Mrs. Magnus’s cat sat sprawled across the landing outside my door, but when he saw me, he jumped to his feet and scurried back downstairs like even he found me unrecognizable.
I sat on my couch. I didn’t know what to do next.
I should want to do something. Something to find Wesley—whoever he really was.
That had to be an alias. It was all so personal.
It had to be someone connected to me or my father.
Someone I had met. I’d gained nothing from finding Natalie or from her death.
I was right back in the same place and all I wanted to do was lie down.
Where was the spiraling panic from having no control—the thing that had driven me to do so many stupid things? Instead, it felt like nothing I could do would matter. This was new. Was this worse?
I wasn’t a detective. I just thought I was smart because of a bunch of ardent slogans my psycho father had brainwashed me with.
I was happy to have been on the journey, realizing I could be something other than my father’s daughter, but I did miss thinking it gave me some kind of advantage over other people.
I still had the house lead, but it seemed like a lot of work to find out that he had rented it using the same dumb fake name. He would have needed ID though.
I sat up.
Despite being almost thirty, I knew someone who made fake IDs. The birthday boy—John.