Chapter 49
Monica
A s we rode in silence down the elevator, I kept looking at Veronica, who stood in the corner, staring at the black, shiny floor. She was biting her cuticles until they were ragged. She must have been just as worried as me because she looked a mess. Her coat tried its best to cover her wrinkled white, baggy t-shirt that hung over her faded pair of jeans. I had so many questions to ask her about Troy. What happened? What was his condition? Where was he?
I was about to open my mouth to ask the questions that were pounding in my head, but the elevators dinged and the doors opened to the lobby. She quickly stepped out and gestured for me to follow her. The click-clack of her heels, the only thing put together about her, echoed as we walked. I could hardly keep up.
“Miss Mews,” called the receptionist from behind the large slab of marble that was her desk, looking at us with a trace of concern.
Veronica either didn’t hear her or ignored her and kept walking. I noticed the security guard at the door shifting his feet unsurely as he eyed us approaching.
“Miss Mews,” called the receptionist again, more urgently.
I gently grabbed Veronica’s arm and turned her toward me. She whipped around so quickly that it took me off guard, and the look in her eyes was off-putting. I stumbled backward slightly.
“What?” she snapped at me impatiently.
I nodded toward the receptionist, who was rounding her desk and walking toward us with caution behind each step.
“You know you’re not supposed to be here,” said the receptionist warily.
“Like hell I’m not!” shouted Veronica.
“Mr. Gunner made it explicitly clear that you were no longer allowed in the building.” The receptionist put her hands up in defense, as if to say she was only the messenger.
I looked from the receptionist to Veronica, chewing the inside of my cheek nervously. I knew that Troy had banned Veronica from his apartment building after everything she had pulled, but I didn’t realize he had put the same orders in here. It made sense, but right now, I couldn’t afford for Veronica to be carried away by security when I had no answers about Troy.
Veronica’s face construed into something vicious, but before she could speak the nasty words that were surely on the tip of her tongue, I stepped between the two women.
“It won’t happen again,” I assured the receptionist.
She looked from me to Veronica, her face unsure, and eventually nodded. She looked at the doors in a silent plea for us to leave. I led Veronica toward the large glass doors and pushed our way through to the fresh air outside. If I didn’t feel like I was suffocating, the fresh air might have felt good on my lungs, but they still felt like they were being squeezed tightly by a fist.
Veronica looked up and down the street, running her hand through her hair that looked like it hadn’t been brushed in days. I gently placed my hand on her forearm.
“Veronica…” I started.
She seemed to be mumbling something to herself, something I couldn’t understand. I strained to make anything out, but failed as her voice carried away with the late morning traffic of the city.
“Veronica,” I said more urgently, more loudly, finally getting her attention.
She turned to me as if in a daze.
“What happened? Where is Troy?” I asked.
Her eyes widened slightly before she gripped my arms tightly.
“Oh, it’s just horrible. Horrible. We have to get to him now.”
She still wasn’t answering my questions, but I assumed she was in some state of shock. I knew she cared about Troy, probably more than he or I would prefer, but I couldn’t blame her. He was Troy. She loved him once, enough to marry him. Though they weren’t together anymore, I could see the hurt that still subsided in her. It didn’t justify what she had done to him or me, but in this moment, I wasn’t going to make her feel worse than she already did.
“I’ll try calling him,” I offered, pulling my purse in front of me.
“No!” shouted Veronica frantically.
I looked at her questioningly, as my hand froze in my purse.
“It won’t matter. It was destroyed in the crash,” she said, her voice breaking.
Crash. I suddenly felt sick. I thought I was going to throw up right there on the sidewalk. The crunching of metal filled my ears as I tried to block out the images threatening to ruin me. A car. A plane. I didn’t know, but I knew a crash wasn’t good.
“Come on,” she said, grabbing my hand and leading me down the sidewalk. She looked from left to right as we passed a few blocks and several parking meters. I wondered if she even knew where she was going, and then she stopped at a red sports car. She rummaged through her small clutch and pulled out the keys, clicking the button and unlocking the doors. She rounded to the driver’s side and slid into the car.
“Get in!” she said, looking at the door.
Something told me not to, but my worry for Troy trumped any other feeling and I slid in from the passenger side.
As soon as I was inside, Veronica locked the doors and quickly turned the ignition. I saw her hands shake as she placed them on the wheel. I anxiously put my seatbelt on and gripped the handle of the car door, bracing myself for whatever was coming. Without looking for oncoming traffic, she peeled off the curb with a squeal of tires sounding in my ears.
“Are you okay to drive?” I asked unsurely.
“I’m fine,” she snapped.
I watched as she expertly weaved her way through traffic, going much faster than the speed limit. I wondered if Troy was in the hospital or if he was still at the scene of the crash. Internally, I begged for him to be at the hospital being tended to, begged that he was still alive. I hated that Veronica wasn’t giving me any answers and letting my mind run with terrifying thoughts.
“Can you please tell me where he is?” I asked softly.
Veronica stared straight ahead, barely blinking. I might have thought she was frozen if her hands weren’t turning the wheel.
“Veronica…” I tried again.
Nothing.
“I just want to know if he’s okay,” I said, in barely a whisper. “I need to know if he’s okay.”
Still nothing.
I started to feel unease creep in and chill the blood coursing through my veins. Something wasn’t right. I looked from Veronica to out the window at the blur of trees now passing by. She was pulling onto the interstate. It didn’t make sense. If Troy were still in New Jersey, we would take a flight to him. If he were somehow here in Manhattan, we wouldn’t be leaving the city, we would be heading to a hospital. None of this made sense.
As the reality of my situation sank in, a large part of me was relieved at the possibility that Troy was actually okay, and that Veronica’s sick mind had come up with an extravagant lie to get me to leave with her. Another part of me felt foolish for believing her, for getting in a car with her. As I looked out the window at the city fading away in the distance of the wing mirror, I wondered where the hell was she taking me.
“Troy is fine, isn’t he?” I asked, trying to keep my voice calm, but it was betrayed by the shakiness of my nerves.
Veronica ignored me.
“Please, at least just tell me that he’s fine. That’s all that matters to me.”
She shot me a look and shook her head. “You don’t love him like I do,” she whispered, turning her face back to the road. “You will never love him like I do.”
Veronica pressed her foot down on the gas, making the car go even faster down the interstate. I looked at the speedometer and she was nearing 90 MPH. The cars we passed honked at us, but the sound faded quickly as the distance grew between us.
“Slow down!” I shouted, gripping the handle of the door, making my knuckles white.
I could have sworn she smiled as her hands gripped tightly around the steering wheel.
“Veronica! Pull over!” I reached over and grabbed her arm, but she yanked it away. The car swerved to the left and I closed my eyes, bracing myself to hit another car. But we didn’t. Veronica righted the car and continued straight, barely fazed by the crash we had almost found ourselves in.
I started sucking in deep breaths, trying to calm the flurry of panic in my head. I had to think of something. Had to get out of here. But as the car continued to gain speed and distance from the city, any way out of this started to seem impossible.
I clutched my purse tightly against my stomach, and then I remembered I had my phone. I looked at Veronica warily as I pried my hand from the car door and slowly reached into my purse. I felt around the large bag, a gift from Troy, my fingers desperate to feel the sleekness of my phone. Finally, they wrapped around it and I tried to unlock it in the darkness of my purse.
I tried several times and failed, locking me out of my phone. I let out a quiet sob. Veronica looked at me suddenly and down at my hand in my purse. She yanked it from my hands, my phone with it, and threw it in the backseat.
“Nice try,” she sneered.
I leaned my head against the seat and closed my eyes. I was helpless. I had just lost my one way of getting help. Or did I? I looked at the door and the button for the window. I quickly reached over and pressed it, throwing my hand out the window and frantically waving it, hoping someone would see, but the cars we passed were just blurs of color. We were moving too fast.
I felt the window close tightly against my wrist and I let out a yelp of pain. I looked at Veronica, who was smiling as she held down the button on her side of the car.
“Stop! Please stop!” I yelled in pain, trying to pull my arm from the bite of the window.
After several seconds of her enjoying my torture, she rolled down the window, releasing my arm. I held it against me, rubbing the red impression the edge of the window had left on my skin. I felt my eyes start to water, not from the pain, but from being trapped in here with her. I tried blinking them back, refusing to let her see me break me. Trying to keep my wits about me.
I heard the trill of a phone. I looked to the backseat where my purse was thrown, but realized it wasn’t my phone ringing. Veronica pulled her phone up to her ear, keeping one hand on the wheel. I strained my ears to listen as the car wobblily strayed between lanes.
“If I can’t have you, then no one can…” were the only words I could make out through the pounding in my head.
I realized it was Troy on the other line. My heart slammed to my throat as I burst into tears, knowing he was alive, knowing he was okay. I sucked in a quivering breath before letting out a shrill scream. But Veronica had already hung up and my cry for help had landed on deaf ears. Veronica threw her head back and laughed at my desperation. It was a laugh that vibrated through my body, raising goosebumps on my skin.