Ten Months Ago #2
“You got a problem with that?” The guy cocked his head and glared at Van. Van was a good ten inches taller, but seemed to shrink under this man’s gaze.
“Go ahead.” The man nodded at Tori. She fumbled in her bag until she found the key and let herself in. As she was closing the door behind her, she heard the guy say to Van, “Now get the fuck outta here.”
Inside, she leaned against the door, heart pounding, until she had steadied herself. She felt like she had just barely missed something terrible. Something that she had allowed to grow bigger. This was a wake-up call. She needed to get her life in order.
She took one look at the polyester bedspread and decided she couldn’t stay the night.
Even if they charged her, she wanted to sleep in her own bed tonight.
She packed her things and, after cracking the door to make sure that Van was nowhere in sight, wheeled her case to her car.
She checked out, nodding along as the hotel clerk informed her there would be no refunds, willing him to hurry up.
Van might change his mind and come back for her.
She had just turned off Route 1 onto Route 16, outside Milton, when she spotted him in the rearview mirror.
She recognized his Jeep and the first few letters of his license plate.
Her heart sped up. He had followed her. He must have been waiting near the motel and seen her pull out.
Did that mean he had been willing to wait all night in the parking lot, in case she came out of her room? The thought freaked her out.
She switched into the right lane and slowed.
The Jeep did the same. There was little traffic on the road, and she knew she would be driving through the cornfields of the Delmarva Peninsula soon, long flat stretches dotted by occasional tiny towns.
What would she do if he rammed her car in the middle of nowhere, where cell reception was spotty?
She pulled back into the left lane and gunned it, but he kept up with her easily.
The green eye of a traffic light glowed in the distance. As she drew close, it turned to yellow and Tori slammed her foot on the gas as hard as she possibly could, pressing down with all her might.
The light turned red before she got there and she flew through it, going at least seventy miles an hour.
Behind her came the squeal of tires and the long angry screech of car horns.
She kept the car’s speed up as she eyed the rearview.
Van’s Jeep was nowhere in sight. At US-13, she turned a hard right onto another road, parallel to the one she had been on.
It was a back way to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, and it meant tacking on another forty minutes to the drive, but she was hopeful it would not occur to Van that she had taken the back roads.
Maybe when the light turned green and he couldn’t find her, he’d give up and go back to his friends in Bethany Beach.
It was just before midnight when she exited the Beltway onto Connecticut Avenue, fifteen minutes from home.
The usually busy street was empty, and she was tempted to gun it, a straight shot down to Chevy Chase Circle, so desperate was she to take a hot shower and climb into her own bed.
But she took it slow. She had more than one speeding ticket from the cameras stationed along this street.
She thought of texting Autumn to let her know she was on her way back but stopped herself.
She didn’t want to wake her if she was asleep. She would just slip upstairs quietly.
As she rounded the Chevy Chase traffic circle, veering right onto Western Avenue, her thoughts turned to what she could do about Van.
Tomorrow, she would reset Cyrus from a hot-tempered, loyal friend to a wise, older family one.
She needed someone who would give her solid advice.
Maybe she should take Leo and go out of town until Van left for college. She couldn’t live this way.
Eastbrook was quiet at this hour. The only person she spotted was a lone dog walker with a small terrier pulling at its leash.
But as soon as she turned onto her street, the peace was shattered.
Two marked police cars sat parked outside her house, their red and blue lights pulsing against the facades of neighboring homes, and an ambulance was in the middle of the street, its back doors wide open.
She parked as close as she could get and ran.
A crowd was gathered by the curb in front of her house, blocking her view, murmuring voices creating a low hum of dread. She recognized one of the onlookers as an older woman from down the block, Bonnie something. “Excuse me? What’s going on?”
The woman turned, and her face seemed to blossom in astonishment, eyes widening. “Don’t you live here?”
Frustrated, Tori pushed past her and was almost to the house when a strong grip on her forearm yanked her back.
“Sorry, ma’am, this is a crime scene,” said the uniformed officer, his face pink in the glow of the police lights. “You’ll have to step back.”
“I live here!” she said, her voice rising. “Tori Price. What happened?”
His face softened a little. “Detective Aziz is looking for you. There’s been a shooting. Stay here and I’ll get him.” He released her arm.
Not Leo. Leo’s with his dad.
She needed someone to tell her, No, it’s not your son.
She watched impatiently as the officer pushed his way through the crowd of official-looking people at the front door.
As they moved to make way for him, she caught a glimpse of what they had been hovering over.
It took a moment to process the jarring scene in front of her.
It was Autumn, lying in a red pool of blood, her young face waxy and still, eyes staring up at nothing.
From this distance, Tori was possessed by the surreal thought that she was staring at herself lying on the floor, wrapped in her pink silk kimono.
And from the way the skin crawled on the back of her neck, she knew that someone else could easily have made that same mistake.