Page 40

I expect that after I tell PCTracy the story, I’ll be a seething cauldron of nervous regrets.

Instead, I feel only relief – the kind that relaxes me better than any sedative.

I’m in bed by ten, and thankfully, I set my alarm for seven thirty, because otherwise, I’d have just keep snoozing.

At eight sharp, there’s a rap on the door.

PCTracy had said he’d order my breakfast and ask them to leave the cart after a knock.

I wait five minutes before wheeling the cart inside.

I’d requested coffee and a granola parfait, which does not explain the two steaming covered plates beside my parfait. Under one is a waffle with berry compote and melting whipped cream. Under the other is Eggs Benedict with a side of bacon. And while there is coffee, there’s also cappuccino.

I survey the personal breakfast buffet. Then I smile and dig in. I eat and shower and relax, and then I settle in with my phone.

I pop over to my new email account, expecting nothing. Instead, there is a message from Tiana.

Lucy,

All right. Let’s hear what you have to say. Meet me at the address below for lunch at noon.

Tiana

I check the address on Google. It shows what looks like a three-story walk-up. An office, not a condo.

I message her back.

Tiana,

I’d rather talk. Phone or text. Your choice. Meeting in person isn’t safe.

Lucy

It takes ten minutes to get a response. There’s no salutation or closing on this. Just the message body.

You have the address. You show up, or you don’t.

I consider my options. Then I message PCTracy, just a quick “I’m awake. Can we talk?”

He doesn’t get back to me, and as the clock ticks past eleven, I know I need to make a decision.

I’m lounging in a hotel room, being pampered by a guy that I’m pretty sure is the lawyer who wants to represent me. If it’s not Thompson, then it’s his investigator, and the lawyer is pulling the strings.

Tuesday night, I was attacked in Central Park by what PCTracy thinks is some random guy. The next day, I get this lovely hotel suite with early check-in and all my favorite foods. It feels like a treat.

It’s not a treat. It’s a cage.

I couldn’t even survive a night in Central Park without PCTracy’s intervention, and so I’ve been put in a pretty cage to rest while he investigates. I’ve provided nothing useful otherwise, just bumbling around, getting spotted by deli managers and attacked by strangers.

That’s how he sees it, and I’m not sure he’s wrong.

In our first conversation, Thompson mocked the idea of me investigating even before I suggested doing so, and that’s left me hesitant.

I’ve been tracking the online chatter, reading Isabella’s texts and trying to find clues, but I haven’t actually investigated anything.

I asked PCTracy yesterday to throw me a research bone, and he brushed me off.

Thompson made me feel silly for even thinking I could try some serious detective work, and so I’ve been muddling about, waiting for the police to realize they’re wrong or for PCTracy to solve the crime.

The one real clue I’ve found – the existence of Isabella’s mystery lover – I haven’t shared.

I’ve done nothing, really, except get myself attacked in an alley and a park.

That must stop. I need to get off my ass and take action.

Just as I think that, a message pops up.

PCTracy: Good morning! Or nearly afternoon. I hope you got a good sleep.

LlamaGirl: I did! Thank you! Please tell me I wasn’t supposed to check out at eleven.

PCTracy: LOL No. You’re booked for another night if you want it.

LlamaGirl: I want it. I really need the rest, and I’m just going to hole up for a bit longer if that’s okay.

PCTracy: Absolutely okay.

Of course it is. Just keep sending treats my way, and I’ll curl up on the king-sized bed with Netflix while you investigate.

I had wanted to ask his advice about Tiana. That urge has evaporated. I know what he’d say: just stay inside. Rest in your cage. Let me handle this.

I know what he’d say, and I know what I must do. Get off my ass and take action.

I continue messaging with PCTracy as I get ready. Then I sign off as I slip out the door.

I have a lunch engagement to keep.

As annoyed as I am about being stashed in that hotel room, I will admit that I needed the rest. I’m refreshed and clearheaded, and having not looked online today, nothing has happened to send me spiraling back into the memory quagmire.

Thompson may have intended to only keep me safe while PCTracy investigated, but instead, he gave me what I needed to start moving forward with purpose.

I arrive at Tiana’s building just before noon. It’s in Brooklyn, and while it might have been a three-story residential walk-up once, it’s been converted into a row of three-level units. All bear discreet business signs.

I survey the building from across the road, which isn’t easy. In Manhattan, I’d grumbled about the crush of people and the endless skyscrapers. There’d been far fewer alleys and service lanes than a fugitive requires. At least, though, there’d been a sense of anonymity. Here I feel exposed.

I still map out an escape route.

Or you could just, you know, not walk into a potential trap.

Tiana might very well be luring me into a trap, but I need to either move forward or turn myself in. This is moving forward.

I march up and rap on the door from the address she gave me. It opens, and there is Tiana, dressed in a white linen shirt and black jeans. Seeing her, my eyes prickle. Ridiculous phrases spring to mind.

You’re all grown up.

You look amazing.

I’m so proud of you.

Instead, I say only, “Tiana,” with an abrupt nod.

She returns the nod, steps back into the room and shuts the door behind me.

Without a word, she leads me upstairs. As we pass the second floor, I see a meeting room with whiteboards.

The third level is another meeting room, this one with couches and a windowed view.

In the middle, a catered lunch waits on a table.

Tiana waves me to a seat.

As I sit, I say, “If I don’t say that I’m sorry for your loss, it’s because it sounds like platitudes, and I’m the last person you want to hear those from.

So I’ll only say that your mother was an incredible woman.

She was the reason I took the job in the first place, and I never stopped admiring her. ”

I brace for an angry rejoinder, but Tiana only sits, her expression unreadable. One seemingly endless minute of silence, and then she says, “You were my first crush.”

I must give a start at that because her lips twist in a smile.

“Not what you expected to hear?” She reaches for the linen napkin and folds it over her lap.

“I’d started feeling as if I liked girls.

That’s why I bugged you so much about your dating.

I was working through my own sexuality. Somewhere along the way, you answered my questions, not by anything you said, but because I fell for you. My first crush.”

“I’m sorry.”

She sputters a choked laugh, relaxing as she settles into her chair.

“And that’s not what I expected to hear, but oddly appropriate, under the circumstances.

It screwed me up for a while. The first girl I liked slept with my father.

Freud would have a ball with that one. Took me a while to get over it.

I even tried boys, which did not go well. ”

“I am sorry.”

She eyes me and then nods. “Well, you mentioned having a complicated relationship with my mother. I have a complicated one with you. So we start on similar ground.” She takes a bite of salad and then says, casually, “Mom said you never had sex with Dad. That those photos caught the extent of it. She believed that, you know.”

“Good, because it’s the truth, and I suspect she believed it because your father’s story matched.

I can’t make you believe it, though, Tiana.

It sounds like a convenient fiction – the camera caught our one and only encounter.

But it did. I made a mistake. A horrible, drunken mistake that I will never live down.

I hurt your mother. I hurt you and Jamie. I cannot undo that.”

She flinches at her brother’s name.

“How is Jamie?” I ask, my voice softening.

“Fine,” she says brusquely. She meets my gaze. “My brother had problems before you came along. You didn’t help them, but you didn’t cause them, either, so don’t go taking credit for that.”

She sips her water. “Mom said you had medical proof that you were a virgin after you left us.”

I wince. “I stupidly thought that would resolve everything. I was, thankfully, convinced otherwise. If you want to hash out what happened fourteen years ago, we can do that. I’d rather not.

Blame me for whatever you want – or need – to blame me for, Tiana.

I’ll accept it. What I came here for today was the one thing I won’t accept blame for. Your mother’s death.”

“Then turn yourself in. Let the police sort this out.”

“Right, trust that the truth will set me free just like it did the last time. No one wanted to hear my story then, Tiana. I ncluding your mother. I poured my heart into a letter for her, and she sent me a vitriolic response that I can recite from memory. I thought that meant she rejected my apology and my explanation, but she never even read it. She judged me without opening–”

I stop abruptly. “I didn’t mean that. I’m sorry. I…” I take a deep breath and rise. “I think I should leave now. We aren’t going to get anywhere with this. We can’t. Too much anger and too much bad blood, and I’m going to say things I don’t want to say to you.”

“If you killed my mother by accident–”

“I was nowhere near your mother when she died, Tiana.”

“Then there wouldn’t be a warrant for your arrest. You seem to want honesty here, Lucy, but you’re obviously lying. You were in her room.”

“Yes, hours after her death. I was summoned by whoever is trying to frame me.”