Page 11 of Gemini

“I knew Trish wasn’t being careful. That fucking guy she was with was shady as hell.”

“Which guy?”

“Luke.”

I went quiet. I had yet to tell him Luke was dead and that I had worked on him earlier today.

“How do you know?” I asked.

“He was shooting up for sure. Not just steroids if you catch me. He just had a bad way about him.”

Still not exactly enough to go by. It sounded more like my brother was just being overprotective more than anything.

“Trish hung out with a lot of shady people,” I commented.

“True.”

“Will you go see Dad?” I asked.

“After work. Gonna be a long night. But I’ll stay with him.”

“He’s probably going to want to talk to the police himself.”

“Probably. You gonna come home too?”

I hesitated, biting my lip. “Eventually. I have…some business I gotta take care of here. And Trish’s roommate is keeping me in the loop.”

“I can come down to the city and help.”

“Maybe. Right now, just go to Dad.”

“Alright…you better stay safe. Don’t go looking around yourself, Lena. I mean it.”

“I’ll talk to you later.”

I called Jamie next, and our conversation must have lasted an hour. I told him everything that went down at my sister’s apartment, her clothes strewn around her room, her favorite bracelet broken. Then the police arriving after, the recordings of the men that took her and the voice message she left me.

“I’m coming down this weekend,” he said without hesitation.

“What about Ben?” I said, knowing he usually spent time with his partner.

“He’s working, don’t worry about it.”

“You don’t have to.” I started pacing my apartment again, my hip aching along with my knee.

“I am. And we are going to get this figured out. We’ll go to the station, see what they learned. We’ll go to her work and ask around. We’ll do whatever we have to.”

Jamie was always ready to get the job done. And I was grateful.

But I knew it wouldn’t solve anything. Running around hoping for answers when there were only two people who could give me any answers now.

After I hung up, I went into the bathroom and opened the mirror. I took out a bottle of painkiller with a funky name I couldn’t pronounce and popped one in my mouth before taking a sip of water from the faucet. Then I went back to my bedroom and sat on the bed, realizing the tears beginning to sting my eyes were angry tears more than anything.

As the sky darkened, I turned from the window, my gaze drifting over to the black jewelry box.

I stared at it for a long time before I got up and staggered toward the box like it was a snake on my dresser. I opened the top and took out a single piece of paper before staggering back to my bed and plopping down. Carefully, I unfolded the paper and set it flat on my lap.

I stared at the scrawled letters on the paper and that night came flooding back….