Eighteen
“How did your alarm go off before mine?” Tyler groans.
Because I turned off your phone and left it in between the couch cushions last night.
“Maybe your phone ran out of charge,” I say, reaching to turn it off.
“Why is your alarm a duck quacking?”
“Because the sound of nature is the only thing that’s annoying enough that I can’t sleep through it.”
“Ah, right, no nature,” he says with a chuckle into the back of my head. When he increases the pressure of his palm on my bare stomach, every muscle in my gut tightens and my eyes fling open.
I take a deep breath. No distractions. I need to do this fast. “Breakfast?” I ask.
“You cook? Did I fall asleep next to the right Khin? Are you her secret domestic twin?” Tyler mumbles. “Kidding!” he says through a thick, sleepy laugh when I elbow him in the ribs. “Breakfast sounds great. What’s on the menu, chef?”
It takes everything in me to maintain a smile as I look at him over my shoulder. I was already bracing myself for Disheveled Morning Tyler Tun, but my pulse jerks when I catch the actual sight of him, which is not so much disheveled as it is… rough, untouched, undone, naked (metaphorically, of course). His edges are round now and his curves, sharp. He looks, I suddenly realize, exactly like the kind of person who would talk to strangers on the plane.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Tyler asks with a tentative smile.
“No reason,” I say, allowing myself precisely three more seconds of staring before removing myself from his grasp and getting to my feet. I point across at my en suite. “And I’ll see what I have in my fridge. You can use my bathroom if you need.”
“I’m good,” he says. He sits up and stretches through a yawn, forearms flexing on either side of his jaw. When he catches me looking, a smirk cracks. “Enjoying the show?”
I roll my eyes. “You are so full of it. I’ll put on the kettle?”
“Yeah, thanks, I can’t function without coffee in the morning.”
“I know,” I can’t help but reply, although I ignore his questioning expression.
There’s no point in trying to be subtle about it. As soon as I’ve stepped out and shut the door behind me, the click of the lock is loud and distinct.
“Khin?” Tyler calls out. I hear him scramble out of bed and walk over to the door, where he tries the handle before repeating, “Khin? What’s going on?”
“Come on, Yale boy, what does it look like?” My sarcasm is swirled with tears. “I’m locking you in.”
“What?” I can see him frowning despite the three inches of wood between us. “What?” he says again. “What do you mean you’re locking me in?”
“I have to make things right,” I say. I take a step forward, wishing that the door was at least made of glass so I could see his face.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“You would’ve known something was up if I didn’t come to work. And I know you would’ve locked me in a room if I told you what I was doing.”
The handle jiggles again. “Khin, open the door.”
“Sorry.”
“You cannot be serious. You’re going to leave me locked inside your bedroom?”
“Not forever!” I explain. “I’ll text May in a couple of hours. Right before I—” The word won’t come out, but even without saying it, the mere thought of it flips my gut upside down.
Tyler speaks slowly, softly, like he’s approaching a person standing on a bridge’s railing. “Right before you what?” I open my mouth, but my vocal cords are out of order. “Khin,” he says in that goddamn way he says my name. “What are you doing?”
“Before I confess—” I get out in one breath.
“No, no way—”
“I heard you guys talking in your trailer. This isn’t going away.”
“But this isn’t the solution!” The thud of his fist on the door makes me jump back. “It was both of us. If you’re going to do this, I need to be there, too!”
“There’s no point in both of us taking the fall for this. I’m the one who shoved that pen in his ear, who threw him over the bridge. All you did was stop me from falling over,” I say, my voice stretched taut and thin. “I made a mistake. I have to own up to it. This person, the kind of person who recklessly jeopardizes the livelihoods of everyone around her because she refuses to own up to what she did—that’s not who I am. That’s not who I want to be.”
I’m not expecting to hear the tears in his voice when he speaks. “Khin, please don’t do this. We’ll figure something else out.”
“There’s nothing else to figure out,” I say calmly. “May was right. There’s no way we could’ve kept this going—”
“No, you don’t—”
“This is the only logical conclusion.”
“What am I supposed to drink? You’re going to let me starve to death in here?” It’s a half-joke, half-desperate last-ditch attempt that, for a brief moment, cuts through the tension.
“My cup of water is still on my nightstand,” I say with a miserable, unwanted laugh. “And I think I stashed a pack of Oreos in the drawer. They’re vegan,” I remember to add.
“What?”
“Oreos. Most people don’t know it, but they’re vegan.”
“What if I’m allergic to Oreos?” he immediately counters.
That gets another laugh out of me. “You’re not.”
“How do you know?”
“Because.” I start to back away. “I know you, Tyler.”
I brush my teeth in the hallway guest bathroom with the spare toothbrush and paste I always keep in the cabinet, change into the set of clothes I left in my tumble dryer, and, as a last-minute and unconventionally sentimental gesture, I get one of my yellow mugs from the cabinet and place it in the middle of the otherwise empty dining table. Then, on the first piece of paper I can scrounge up—which just so happens to be a receipt at the bottom of my purse, because nothing screams “grand romantic gesture” like a scribbled note on the back of a receipt for one box of mints and a pack of bobby pins—I write: I’m sorry I couldn’t stay and have coffee together every morning.
I’m not one for emotional goodbyes, but I can’t help but stop at the door to survey the place one last time. I smile and nod to say, Thanks for the memories.
After coming at this from all angles, I’ve decided that I need to forget the police station and head for the Australian embassy. The detectives have made it clear that they have an agenda, but at least with Kira, I can be sure I’ll get some semblance of a fair trial. And after doing a lot of research, I’m praying that I have this right, even if it is a technicality: if I confess in her office, it’ll be on Australian soil, meaning she’ll get primary jurisdiction over the case. One of the reasons Kira and I have always gotten along so well is because we’re similar: hardworking, no-nonsense, blunt but fair. We might not be besties, but we are good friends, and I trust her as much as I can trust anyone in this situation.
The streets are still desolate at this hour, which cuts my travel time in half. I’m aware of my heart rate accelerating as the embassy gates come into view. You’re not allowed to park in front of the building unless you’re staff, so I find a place down the street.
“You got this,” I whisper to myself as I take one last look in the rearview mirror.
Two bleary-eyed security guards are nursing tepid mugs of coffee when I walk up to the front shack. “Hi, do you have an appointment?” one of them leans down and asks through the small rectangular opening in the glass.
“I’m here to see Kira—” It takes me a second to recall her last name. “—Davis. Kira Davis.”
The guard rubs the sleep out of his eyes, checks the time, and surveys me. “Do you have an appointment?” he asks. Beside him, the other guard swivels in his chair and grabs a clipboard—presumably a list of people who do have appointments.
“Not exactly. But we’re good friends. Is she in? Can you please tell her Khin’s here? Please, can you just call her?”
“I—”
I yank out my media accreditation card from my bag and place it against the glass. “I’m a journalist,” I explain. “Kira knows me. Can you please call her and tell her Khin wants to speak to her?”
The guard leans in closer to study the card, and, deciding it’s legit, holds up a finger as he picks up the phone. “Hi, Ms. Davis? There’s a—” He peers back over at my badge. “Ma Khin Haymar here to see you. She says she’s a journalist and… yes, will do.”
I go through the usual proceedings: hand over my NRC card so they can take down my details, let them inspect my bag, go through the metal detector, and then one of them escorts me to Kira’s office.
“Come in!” she yells out after the guard knocks on the door. She’s behind a large wooden desk, mounds of paperwork outlining the edges. “Khin!” she says, face brightening when I close the door behind me; that should be a good sign. “Take a seat! It’s been forever !”
“Busy morning?” I ask, nodding at the papers as I sit down opposite her.
She quickly types something on her laptop then pushes it to the side. “Do not get me started,” she says, rolling her eyes.
I clock three separate empty mugs. She follows my gaze and gives a loud sigh. “Charlie says even my hair smells of caffeine these days and that it’s like he’s cuddling a coffeemaker in bed at night. But hey, it’s either this or a concoction of highly illegal drugs, so—” She widens her eyes.
I snort out a laugh. “Things still good with Charlie?” I ask, aware that I’m stalling.
“I mean, it’s been three years and I’m still not bored of him so I suppose that’s a good sign. Anyway—” She steeples her fingers on the desk and shoots me a big smile. “What’s up? What’s brought you here at this godforsaken hour?”
Maintaining my own smile, I take in the deepest breath my lungs can contain. In a way, it feels freeing in this moment to know that whatever happens next is beyond my control. After weeks of always running, always trying to figure things out, to stay ahead, now I can let go. “It’s… about that Australian man. The one that they found in the park.” Kira lifts her head in an ah gesture. “Kira, I need to—”
“You sneaky little weasel, ambushing me without an appointment, asking about Charlie,” she says. For a moment, my heart drops, thinking that somehow she already knows. Except, her mouth is still quirked upward. “Okay, okay, fine. Look, I can’t give you an exclusive quote or interview, and I don’t know who told you that we were releasing this today but—” she says, shoulders dropping in a surrendering sigh. “Since you got up this early and came all this way, I suppose you’ve earned the right to read the press release first.”
I blink. “Wh—”
“But can you please tell whoever your editor is to not publish the story until we’ve officially released it to the public?” She’s talking at her usual pace, which is approximately 150 miles a minute. “You can break it first, that’s fine, but if a site publishes it before we’ve sent it out, then my boss and their bosses will be asking me what happened and I am already three coffees in at eight A.M. and I really do think I will explode if I drink more than five cups today, so just hold off on pressing the publish or submit button or whatever it is that you need to press to make a story live, yeah? I’ve just finished drafting it, hence the coffee, and Big Boss is going to look at it when she gets in in a few hours and then we’ll send it out so you should be good to go by end of day.”
“Good to—”
Before I can finish the question, Kira logs back into her laptop and hands it over to me. The first thing I catch is the official Australian embassy logo at the top center. Willing my brain to focus, I speed-read the whole statement. When I’m done, I read it another time, to make sure. Afterward, the only sentence I can form is “It was… a heart attack.”
I lean back in my chair, fingers gripping the table’s edge, but Kira doesn’t notice because she’s busy retrieving the laptop and putting it back to sleep.
“It was a heart attack?” I’m asking the question more for myself than her. “He wasn’t… that’s it? He died of a heart attack? There was no foul play?” I recall the exact phrasing in the letter. “I thought… the police were involved?”
“Don’t you ever say I never do anything for you.” Kira crosses her arms and gives me a devilish smile. “Basically, at first, the coroner said cause of death was blunt force trauma. But when the victim is a foreigner, it’s usually protocol for the relevant embassy to hire their own separate coroner and perform another autopsy.” I vaguely nod, feeling like I understand what she’s saying, and also like I don’t. “And our coroner determined that the cause of death was actually a heart attack. I mean, the dude’s liver was absolutely wrecked from alcohol consumption and it’s not like he was even close to being in the best physical condition, so it makes sense.”
“But… the police,” I point out.
“ That, ” she says, widening her eyes, “is because at first, we were like, Okay, well, that’s too bad, but what can you do? Guess we’ll start preparing the paperwork to fly him back home. But then the authorities here were insulted that we’d said their coroner had fucked up. So then—” Her eyes look to the heavens for strength. “We had to get in a third coroner to determine who was correct. Because who cares about how much paperwork that requires, right? And who cares that I have to read through every single sheet of paper? But anyway, yesterday, we finally got that sorted and that coroner agreed that while there was blunt force trauma to his head due to the fall, which in turn was tragic but ultimately ruled an accident, especially given his post-mortem blood alcohol tests—but anyway, despite that, it was the heart attack that killed him. There was a small kerfuffle I think with some trauma in his ear as well, but they cleared that as having occurred in a separate incident. Honestly, it sounds like this guy was either always chasing down trouble, or trouble was chasing him. But now that’s it. Case closed. The local police signed off on the closing paperwork last night. Praise Jesus or Buddha or Zeus or whatever entity you worship. I’m telling you, Khin, I am going to go to bed at eight tonight.”
“That’s… it?” I ask, my whole body trembling on this side of her massive table. “That’s… the end?”
“Yep,” Kira says, and reaches over to gulp down the last of the coffee in the mug closest to her. “I know it’s not nearly as juicy as murder, but that’s it. The. End.”