Page 25

I stare at the TV reporter coming out of the bathroom. She looks like Maureen Wilcox, could be her if time had stood still, and I’m thrown back into that memory, the horror and humiliation and hurt.

Before the woman can look up, I stride past, and her heels click in the other direction. I zip out the back door, duck into an alley and jog behind a dumpster. An elderly woman peers down the lane, as if she saw me, but she doesn’t slow for a better look.

I keep seeing that article, feeling as if I’m back there again, reading it for the first time, and I start shaking so badly I need to lean against the wall.

It’s happening again. I’m going to see articles like that again.

I can’t do it. I just can’t.

I wrap my arms around myself, and squeeze my eyes tight and pull back into the present. I envision the article again through the eyes of Genevieve, older and at least slightly wiser.

I’d been so angry with myself for giving that interview. How could I be so stupid? Karla warned me. I knew better. Such a fool.

Looking back now, I don’t see a fool. I see a desperate and confused girl taken advantage of by a predator.

I’m sure Maureen Wilcox doesn’t see herself as a predator.

Probably gazes back on that younger version of herself and applauds her chutzpah.

A few years ago, I looked her up. Her article about me didn’t launch a career.

She’d quit journalism school to work for the Gazette and was fired two years later for fabricating a story.

Maybe that should make me feel vindicated. It doesn’t. She isn’t the one who will come across the word feral or homely fourteen years later and feel physically ill. I trusted a young reporter who claimed sisterhood, and she publicly pilloried me for a byline.

I’ll never be that naive again. Articles will come, and they will say horrible things that I’ll feel fourteen years from now. That thought might make my stomach clench, but at least I know I will never be an active participant in my own humiliation again.

I’ve just fled a reporter. I made a clean escape, but I need to be more careful. More alert and aware in a way I haven’t been for fourteen years. In a way I wasn’t, even then.

I stand in that alley and take deep breaths, ignoring the stink of New York garbage bins in June. Then I send a text to Thompson.

Me: Your news crew has arrived.

Silence. I think he’s going to leave it at that, which is fine. I just couldn’t resist comment. Then my phone pings with an incoming text.

Thompson: I just spotted them myself. I am appalled by their audacity, and I apologize for not understanding how quickly they’d jump on this case.

Thompson: I know you’ve had regrettable experiences with their ilk in the past, and I don’t blame you for being upset. Please allow me to send a car to retrieve you, and we will meet at another location.

I laugh, a burbling laugh that edges a little too close to hysteria.

Me: A location where you can absolutely guarantee me that I won’t encounter either media or police? Because if I do, I’ll fire you in a heartbeat.

A long pause.

Thompson: I can’t guarantee anything, naturally, but I assure you, I will choose a place with as much discretion as humanly possible.

Me: That officer was right. Screwing your client over like this should be a hanging offense. Or at least grounds for disbarment.

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 scream guilty .

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 s tation 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’s killer is 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 this is the 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.

Me: I’m being accused of murder. I’m not going to hire someone I don’t trust.

Me: However, I do need legal advice, and I think you owe me.

Me: You might disagree, so don’t consider this a request. It’s a threat. I have a question. I demand an honest answer.

Me: Lie to me or refuse to answer, and I’ll let everyone know what you did. Try getting clients after that.

It takes thirty seconds for him to respond, and I feel the chill in his words.

Thompson: What is your question, Ms. Callahan?

Me: If no one has attempted to arrest me or serve me a warrant, am I committing an offense by not turning myself in?

Thompson: No.

It takes a moment before he expands on that.

Thompson: If you resist arrest or flee an officer, that is an offense. If an officer knocks at your hotel door, identifies himself and you jump out the window, that is an offense. What you are currently doing is not. However, I wouldn’t recommend it.

Me: Thank you.

Thompson: You will be arrested. The longer it takes, the guiltier you look.

Me: I know that.

Thompson: So what is your plan? Please don’t tell me you intend to investigate and prove your innocence. No matter how many times you’ve seen that in the movies, I assure you, it never works in real life.

Me: I’m being framed.

Thompson: Perhaps. But that’s something for me to investigate, as a lawyer with trained investigators.

Me: Goodbye, Mr. Thompson.

I open my phone, take out the SIM card and snap it in half.

Then I toss it into the dumpster and stride away.

I find the nearest ATM and withdraw the limit from my bank card and my credit card.

That almost empties both. For years, I kept every spare penny in my checking account in case I needed to flee at a moment’s notice.

But I got comfortable in Italy and started investing extra income and keeping my credit limit low.

Excellent financial planning… unless you’re a fugitive from justice, needing every penny before your bank records are tracked.

Am I a fugitive from justice?

No. I’m a conscientious objector to the misapplication of justice.

Right…

I am on the run. Even thinking about that, I want to flee and hide in a dark spot… and I want to come out swinging at the person who murdered Isabella. Murdered her and framed me.

I cannot afford to tear myself apart like that, lost in a maelstrom of terror and rage. So I focus on what I can do, starting with dyeing my distinctive hair.

I’m about to walk into a Duane Reade when I spot an advertisement for a museum exhibit on Marco Polo.

Oh, God. Marco . I haven’t responded to his text, and it’s been hours.

I grab my phone. No SIM card.

Damn it!

I look around for a pay phone and then remember it’s 2019. What I see instead are Wi-Fi hotspot booths. I can connect to Wi-Fi without a SIM card. However, that will not help me make a phone call.

I head into the drugstore and purchase hair dye and a cheap prepaid cell. Then I find a quiet spot, turn on my new phone and punch in…

I don’t know Marco’s number. I always just hit his contact info on my phone.

I pull out my cell, my heart pounding.

There, he’s still in my contacts. I exhale and dial. It rings. Rings. Rings again. It’s a strange number, and he’ll think it’s spam.

His voice message comes on in rapid-fire Italian, followed by English.

“Hey, it’s Marco. As you probably know, I’m terrible at checking voice mail. Text me, and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.”

There’s no beep. Marco isn’t going to warn people against leaving messages and then let them do exactly that. I knew this – I just forgot because, well, we always text.

I start a text… and then pause. A voicemail message can be erased, but if the police connect me to Marco and subpoena his phone records, they’ll get his texts. If I’m on the run, I’m sure as hell not making him an accessory.

I try calling his number again in case his curiosity is piqued and he answers. He does not.

What I’ve done is an unforgivable breach of trust. I screwed up the moment that parcel arrived and I pretended not to know who Lucy Callahan was. I could have fixed it then. Could have fixed it at any point thereafter. Now, though, it’s too late.

I send up a silent apology to Marco with the promise of a full explanation, and I pray it’s not too late for that.