THIRTY-SIX The Worst Day
N OAH
Elliana Pinkerton isn’t the first woman to split up with me. When my parents were excommunicated, Ruthie shunned me along with everyone else. It hasn’t been that long ago that I was rejected not only by my fiancée but by the church I’d been brought up in. The only community I’d ever known.
So, I don’t know why this hurts so much worse now that it’s Elle.
Maybe it’s because I’ve been far more intimate with her than I was with anyone else back in Utah. Maybe it’s because I felt as if the congregants of my church and town were basically standing by to judge anything and everything I might do. That creates a distance I never comprehended before.
But here, with Elliana, Tristan, and Jackson, I feel like I’ve been able to widen my horizons with zero judgment. What they’ve always given me is acceptance. Pure acceptance and support. At least until I received that awful notification from Elegance.
Attention Noah Canter,
Please be advised that your current contract with be concluded on January 15 th per the request of your client. Be prepared to end your arrangement and remove yourself from the premises. If you wish, we will change your status from unavailable to available at that time.
Thank you,
Elegance Administrators
The message felt so clinical. Like something you might receive from the dentist reminding you of an upcoming cleaning appointment. Only it hadn’t been from someone innocuous like that. It’d been from Elle, the woman I’ve fallen in love with. Someone I’ve loved like no other.
When I look back on it, I think I’ve been in love with her from that first night onward.
I know that wasn’t supposed to be the deal. We, as hired contractors and escorts, are not supposed to allow romantic entanglements to get in the way of meeting our job qualifications.
This is about fulfilling services and completing the tasks necessary to receive payment in exchange for offering her the gratification my body can provide. But I’ve been foolish enough to let my feelings get involved anyway.
And now, I feel more loss than I’ve ever experienced.
I thought I’d felt heartbreak prior to now, but that has been only a dim shadow of this pain. For the past half hour since discovering that Tristan, Jackson, and I were summarily receiving the boot, I’ve been cuddled up with Three Socks in my room shutting myself away.
Until I hear raised voices.
“Elle?” hollers Jackson, and it’s his tenor that has me sitting up and vaulting off my bed. It rings with a note of alarmed urgency, enough that I scamper down those stairs with the hair on the back of my neck standing on end.
I can’t say why him speaking only her name has me feeling like there’s some emergency, but I’ve learned to follow my instincts. And my instincts shout at me to investigate whatever’s making Jackson sound like that.
Once I reach him, Tristan is right by his side, the chef’s dark eyebrows so furrowed that they look like a single straight line across his forehead. I can hear two women’s voices issuing from the cell phone Jackson’s holding, and while I can’t identify one of them, the other belongs to Elle.
The unknown woman threatens Elliana in a voice thick with menace, telling her if she doesn’t follow instructions, she’ll blow the clerk to smithereens. The clerk. Andre. This other woman is there at Blingblang.
I hear Elle call her Tanya and say that she’s the one who’s been sending her those sinister cards.
This Tanya woman is the stalker.
“Elliana,” Jackson yells again, and right after that Tristan is next to him shouting in as anxious a tone as I’ve ever heard from him.
“What the fuck is happening?”
“Elle?” I join the fray automatically, unable to stop myself. The three of us act as one as we scrutinize the screen of Tristan’s phone even if all we can make out is the unremarkable drop ceiling of Elle’s workshop.
But then, suddenly, the screen becomes a blur and there is what sounds like the pummeling of a hammer. Everything goes dark after that as the line cuts off leaving the three of us staring at each other in horror. Jackson tosses Tristan his phone back and uses his own to dial 911 as we scramble through the house.
Upon reaching the attached garage, all of us pile into my Tacoma. I’m still in my socks and some sweats emblazoned with DCFD & EMS from the department, but I don’t care. We have to reach Elle, and there’s no time to spare.
Jackson is rattling off Elle’s location along with the fact that her stalker is there with her.
“Yes, Blingblang,” he barks out at the dispatcher, his typical jocular nature replaced with exasperation as he recites Elliana’s business address.
Shouldn’t they already have that on file?
Tristan is meanwhile trying the main store number, but all I hear from his attempts is it ringing off the hook. No one is answering. After several rings, a prerecorded voicemail stating that the store is closed plays, even though it’s still technically over an hour before they should shut down.
About a block from the scene, the distinctive red and blue lights of police patrol units revolve over the fa?ades of the brick-and-mortar buildings nearby. As we approach, I also detect Detective Ruiz standing next to an unmarked slate gray Dodge Charger. Andre is out front gesticulating at him like a madman.
“Elle departed with another woman, saying something about going to high school with her, but that was likely bullshit. She took Elle against her wishes, I know it in my bones .”
“That woman is her goddamn stalker,” Tristan bellows before he’s even fully outside of my truck, and Ruiz lasers in on him.
“Elliana was on the phone with us when she—Tanya—came in,” I pick up the narrative.
“Elle spoke her name?” the detective clarifies.
“Yeah,” Jackson yanks his head at the member of law enforcement, his mouth and cheek jerking in a tic I’ve only ever seen during his freak-out at the National Mall. “Tanya Brewer.”
“No, it was Baker,” Tristan corrects him, but neither is accurate.
I plant a hand on each of their shoulders, hoping to calm them down. Or maybe I’m hoping to calm myself down.
“Brubaker,” I tell the detective with confidence. “Her name is Tanya Brubaker.”
Ruiz runs the name and comes back with a woman’s image that he shows to Andre. Andre confirms that’s her despite the difference in hair. “I notice facial features since much of our jewelry is designed for piercings. That’s her. I guarantee it.”
“All right,” the detective says, “I need the three of you to give me the exact wording of your phone call, as precisely as you can recall it.”
In tandem, we give the most exhaustive statement we can to Ruiz. Afterward, he pivots to provide orders to a pair of uniformed officers. Another woman in plain clothes but with the bearing of a cop hustles over to the detective, and though I wouldn’t normally eavesdrop on purpose, this time I make an exception.
“Tanya Brubaker fell off the map about a year and a half ago. Some sort of psychological break. Reports say she hasn’t held steady employment since and may have been living among the homeless near the Falls Church area,” she’s speaking in a low voice, but I can still make out what she’s saying.
Falls Church is a suburb of D.C., so the travel time from here to there would be relatively negligible if traffic behaves. It hits me that one of the firefighters I know has a wife who works as a front-end administrator at a hospital there. Since we’re a part of the same ladder company, I have Kane and all my other coworkers programmed into my phone.
I go off to the side of the building and call him, not wanting to cause a commotion. I’m sure Ruiz wouldn’t be fond of me taking it upon myself to do my own reconnaissance.
“Hey Kane, didn’t you say your wife works at a hospital in Fall’s Church?”