Chapter 4 You Can’t Go Home and You Can’t Stay Here
You Can’t Go Home and You Can’t Stay Here
I clutch the flash drive in my hand, turning quickly.
My staircase is visible from the windows by the front door, so there’s no going out that way. There’s no going out from any of the first-floor exits and not running into the man (whoever he is) pretending there’s a gas leak, pretending in that SoCalGas uniform.
Instead, I race back to my bedroom and grab the backpack from under the bed, putting the flash drive in my front pocket.
I take the ladder up to the attic and pop open the back window.
There is a trellis crawling down the back of the house, into the soft landing of my small backyard.
This is why I chose this house. This trellis.
I climb down it, the easy ladder-rungs, and drop to the grass.
I race to the back gate and let myself out into the small alleyway that separates me from the Blauners’ house. I close the gate behind myself, locking it—when a loud crack startles me. Is it coming from inside my house? A window breaking? My bay window? The front door being kicked in?
Is it unrelated?
I’m not waiting to find out.
I move quickly, unlocking the Blauners’ back door, heading into their small backyard. If they are sitting at the table in their sunroom and see me through their windows, they will be confused, but not too confused. They certainly won’t be scared.
I have a key, so I can get their mail when they are away. I give them their mail and they give me a way out.
I walk through the backyard, keeping my head down. I don’t look up as I pass by their kitchen window or their living room doors. I don’t look up until I am in their front yard and out their front gate, walking quickly down Fraser, toward the ocean, toward Barnard Way. My backpack tight on my back.
When I get to Barnard Way—the ocean just beyond it, the ocean and the beach—I start to run.
I run past Hart Avenue and Wadsworth, and circle down toward the beach, early morning joggers and dogwalkers and pedestrians dotting the way. Most don’t seem to care or notice that I’m running so fast—though a few do a double take. A few turn and watch as I pick up speed.
I ignore them. I ignore everything until I get to the small hotel by the water, Shutters on the Beach, a bevy of taxis always out front.
It’s a lovely hotel—plush and storied, but unobtrusive—that looks like it belongs in Martha’s Vineyard as opposed to so close to the Santa Monica Pier with its Ferris wheel, its gritty boardwalk.
I slow my gait and nod at the doormen as I hop into the first taxi in line and tell the driver where I’m going.
I ask him to take Appian Way, for as long as it will let him take it, to get to the closest ramp down to the PCH. I ask him to avoid Ocean Avenue and Main Street.
Then I text Bailey, Late drink?
And I turn around, look out the back window. No white pickup truck, SoCalGas logo or not.
I have a paper clip in my backpack. I pull it out and dislodge the SIM card, pull it free from my phone.
I open the window. And I throw the SIM card out onto the street. Some car, perhaps one of the taxis with their engines purring behind us, will soon run it over. I won’t be there to see it happen.
I shut the window and turn back to the driver.
“Please go,” I say. “We need to move now.”