Page 54 of Every Step She Takes

The pause stretches longer.

Thompson:I don’t think I understand your meaning.

Me:You set me up. I overheard everything.

My phone rings. It’s his number. I ignore it.

Me:Don’t bother explaining. And if you’re telling the police to track my phone, I’ll be trashing the SIM card in five minutes.

Thompson:Are you intending to become a fugitive, Ms. Callahan? Let me assure you, that’s a very bad idea. Professionals fail to pull that off. You are not a professional.

I bristle at that. He has judged me already and has decided he knows what I am – and am not – capable of.

I want to prove him wrong.

By what? Becoming a fugitive from justice?

No. His tone makes me grind my teeth, but he has a point. Running isn’t smart. It’s not what I have in mind, either. I’m only going to throw out my SIM card so I’m not picked up before I get to a police station.

Is that still my plan? To turn myself in?

Thompson:The more you run, the harder you make this on yourself.

Thompson:I am here to help you navigate this situation.

Thompson:At the very least, I would like the opportunity to discuss that with you.

The more you run, the harder you make this on yourself.

He’s right about that, too. With each mistake, it gets more difficult to turn myself in and expect to be treated as innocent until proven guilty. My actions will screamguilty.

Yet while I might kick myself for every so-called mistake, I’m not sure I could have done anything different.

Should I have let myself be found at the murder scene?

Let myself be arrested before I could warn anyone?

Let myself be arrested on the news, duped by my new lawyer?

No to all of those.

So now what?

That’s the question, isn’t it?

With each passing hour, it will be harder to walk into a station and say, “Hey, weird thing, but I just saw on Twitter that you guys are looking for me. Here I am.”

And is turning myself in the right move? This isn’t a misunderstanding. Isabella’skilleris actively trying to frame me for her murder. It’s not just the texts luring me to the hotel. It’s not just the fact I was on the scene that morning. It’s the other evidence the police claim to have found in Isabella’s suite. Also, someone broke into my hotel room and planted forensic evidence, and while it might just be on the clothing I took…

A niggle at the back of my brain whispers that there’s more, that I overlooked something in the room. I try to chase it, but it only hovers there, vague and formless.

Even if thisisthe easily dismissed case my mother expects it to be, my name is already online. Memories slam over me, and I have to take deep breaths against the panic attack hovering at the edge of my consciousness.

I will not allow this to happen again. Yet I must acknowledge that the accusation is out there, and I know better than anyone that insinuation and gossip and innuendo are a miasma one cannot escape, a stain that truth never fully erases. But truth must help. I didn’t get a chance to correct the story with Colt. I have that chance now. I don’t want this accusation quietly dismissed. I want my name cleared with proof.

And how do you intend to find that proof? You aren’t a private eye.

Thompson has texted me a few times since his last response. I don’t read them. I just write my own.